I am forgetful.

You know how, when you get some cash out, you stick some of it aside so you don't spend it all at once, and then a week or two later you go back for it, and you're not sure if the problem is that you can't remember where you put it, or if it's that you did remember where you put it and have already retrieved and spent it, and so you're just not sure if you'll eventually stumble on a bonus $40 someday or if you already have $40 worth of stuff (groceries, usually) floating around that you've forgotten, but either way, you don't have the $40 dollars you expected to use to go buy dog food?


Yeah. Me too.

I am a laundromat.

Not really, actually.

I do laundry maybe once a month (a bonus of not having kids yet). The DDH does small loads more frequently because he has a limited number of work appropriate shirts and a lower tolerance for re-wearing clothing than I do (this is, admittedly, the man who was raised to use a bath towel only once before washing it. He gave up this habit when he realized that I, unlike his mother, was not going to wash a giant load of towels twice a week), but I usually do a big laundry party weekend for my clothes and the towels/rags/napkins/sheets roughly once a month.

The beagle likes to keep the laundry warm for me while I fold it.

This weekend, I suspect, has been nominated as The Laundry Weekend, and I noticed that my laundry detergent supply was running low. It's time to make more, and, while I'm at it, thought I'd share the recipe.

Because as it turns out, laundry detergent is so ridiculously simple, fast, and cheap to make that I do not understand why people buy commmercial detergents. Srsly guyz. Have you seen the price for a box of Tide these days? That is not in my budget. Plus, even the not-particularly-keen-on-green DDH has sensitivities to the chemicals in that stuff. So! Without further ado:

You need:

*Borax

*Washing soda (this is not baking soda; it can be found on the laundry aisle of your grocery store and occasionally Walmart)

*Bar soap, such as Fels Naptha (laundry aisle) or Ivory (something plain, basically, is what you want, and white so it won't discolor your clothes)

*A food processor

*Something to store it in (I use the empty detergent bucket from the detergent I bought at Sam's Club before discovering this magical recipe)

Cut a bar or two of soap into chunks and process in the food processor until it is finely grated (I used to do this by hand until a friend told me she used her food processor--it's much safer for the fingers, heh).

Mix the grated soap with the Borax and washing soda in your container using a ratio of 2:1:1 soap: Borax: washing soda.

Use one Tablespoon for a full load of laundry. Less for smaller loads and, now that we have one of those energy-efficient washer things, I use a little less than a tablespoon for large loads, too.

THAT'S IT.

Seriously, the first time I made it and had to buy everything at once I think it came to less than $15 for a big thing of Borax, a big box of washing soda, and ten bars of Ivory soap. That lasted me a year and a half before I had to get more Borax and washing soda (I think I had to get more soap sooner). Admittedly, I already told you I don't do that much laundry. But call it twenty bucks for a year of two people's laundry is cheaper than commercial detergent any way you slice it, and with the food processor it takes less than ten minutes.

It works better than the cheapo stuff I was buying at Sam's before, and seems to work just as well as Tide or anything like that. In the winter when everything is colder, I use a little less and make sure the soap is really, really finely ground if I'm doing a cold-water load (which is most of them), because sometimes the soap wouldn't dissolve all the way and would leave little flakes on the clothes.

And! While we're on the topic, there's no need to use fabric softener, either. White vinegar does the job perfectly well. I pour some into the little fabric softener ball that came with my washing machine. This keeps all my clothes from being painfully stiff when I air dry them.

This site has some other detergent recipes, including liquid ones, if you're a die-hard liquid detergenter.

Try it! Let me know how it works.

Linked with Your Green Resource at SortaCrunchy.

I am fighting off a chest cold.

But I'm losing.

This came out of the blue. I was hit by a nice juicy cough last night while watching Castle and thought, uh-oh. And sure enough, I almost slept right through my alarm this morning, completely glued to the bed, with that weird heavy wet ball in the middle of my chest that means I'm sick.

Ugh, my lungs hurt. And I can feel that exhausted achiness creeping into my bones.

And you know when you can just taste the mucus hovering at the back of your mouth, overflowing from your bronchial tubes?

Yup.

Good times.

At least my nose isn't running (though now that I say that, it will be), and since the boss is out of town it's actually warmer than 55 degrees in my office, so that should help.

Gallons and gallons of immunity-boosting tea, a fuzzy scarf 'round my neck, and either soup or a nap for lunch.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

I am.

They say that time heals all wounds.

I'm not sure I believe them.

In this moment, it seems this wound is too big to heal. Every tentatively formed scab rips off, exposing the pus-filled pain beneath. Anger. Envy. Sorrow. Bitterness. Doubt.

Drowning in tears and drowning again. Hurricanes and steady rains but always always tears and sadness and pain and questions.

How long, O Lord?

Too long. Too much.

The sun comes out.

The pain numbs, subsides. Dull throbbing always there. Slow leak of salt from eyes.

But a smile to the world, always a smile. Hiding a hurt that no one knows. Smile, wipe eyes. Blame allergies--it's fall, after all.

They say the physical act of smiling can make you feel happy, can release endorphins. Drugs from the brain for the wounds of the heart.

I'm not sure I believe them.

Find the rainbow in the rain.



Linked up with Heather of The EO's Just Write, a weekly exercise in free writing ordinary and extra-ordinary moments.

What I am into this month.

The trees are still green, but not for long!

On My Nightstand: September, really, has been a month of YA novels. Whatever. Don't judge.

I began September with a three-day race through the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I saw the movie when it came out (not knowing it was based on a book series) and left thinking, "That was a terrible movie, but I bet it would make a good book." I was right. It's no Harry Potter, rich with allusion and Story and clever bits that drive you to read them over and over and always find something new. But they are fun.

Next came Alice I Have Been, an exceptional piece of historical fiction. It's good, poignant and delightful. But depressing. Too much a reminder that real life too often doesn't have happy endings, even if it does have graceful ones.

I am intermittently working my way through Zeno's Paradox: Unraveling the Ancient Mystery Behind the Science of Space and Time. It's not quite as coherent or readable as I'd hoped it would be, but the subject matter is of course fascinating.

And I am ending the month with another series of YA fantasy novels, The Sisters Grimm. They're aimed at a younger set than the Percy Jackson books, and are, well, again, no Harry Potter, although Buckley, like Rowling, gets better as he goes on. I would be lying if I said I was not completely devouring them. The target audience is definitely Nine- To Eleven-Year-Old Girls, though. I was reading one at the ballet with a nine-year-old friend, and she said, "Is that The Sisters Grimm? I haven't read them but my friend LOVES them!" So I guess they're hitting the mark.

Want to Read: That list never ends, does it? I have a couple of books I've borrowed from work, one on Bernie Madoff and one on, I don't remember, something else financial. I might read those. We'll see.

Grautitous Jayne picture.

TV Show Worth Watching: The DDH and I, we are followers of the Hulu. Because if it's not free and available whenever we want to watch it, we just can't be bothered. So there's the usual: This season of Hell's Kitchen is down to the final four (I mean, I guess it's actually over, but we're down to the final four). I sporadically join the DDH for Royal Pains and White Collar and some British comedy about superhero delinquents that I can't remember the name of, and other things. He watches way more TV than I do, and has a whole list of shows he follows. I mostly join him for an episode here and another there. Castle has started back up and oh. my. GOODNESS. I had forgotten on what a cliff the series left us hanging last season, and it just charged right back in. Love.

BUT. We have a date every Wednesday night for the latest episode of Blue Exorcist. Yes, it's an anime. I don't care. If you like drama and adventure and moral dilemmas and slapstick comedy and cute animals and Story you. will. love. this show and should go watch it right now. All of it forever. It's an alternate universe-type setting where the church exists to fight literal demons. Priests are exorcists with nifty powers (though I guess you can also be an exorcist without being a priest; I'm a little unclear on that) and the Vatican controls this whole hierarchy of exorcists and the main characters are the twin sons of Satan reared by the most powerful exorcist in the world and OMGSOGOOD. The only criticism I have of it is it's only half-hour episodes, so about twenty minutes of actual content, and then I have to wait a whole! week! for more. It's amazing. Why are you reading this blog and not catching up on back episodes right now?

Movies I've Seen (in or out of a theater): The DDH and I went to see a special advance screening of Courageous for law enforcement personnel. It was...fine, I guess. It was not terrible. It was relatively interesting. It has a great message that really does need to be heard. I'm just not sure that an in-your-face, hit-you-over-the-head-with-our-message movie is the way to do it. I assume that sort of approach must work for someone or they wouldn't keep producing these sorts of movies and music and books and all the other trappings of a certain stream of American Christianity, but...it wouldn't reach anyone I know.

I will say that it was weird to watch it in a police station in a room full of cops. That definitely gave it a different atmosphere.

Anyway. I recommend seeing it unless you have a very low tolerance for being preached at, basically.

In My Ears: The DDH, cutting edge geek that he is, has had Spotify for awhile, and I am beginning to steal it from him. Mumford and Sons has really been singing my tune lately (I think "Little Lion Man" is my current favorite song). Also been enjoying some Florence + the Machine, a dash of Adele, a liberal sprinkling of some good old-school The Killers. I'm coming down off a loudrockingpartydancemusic phase (the CD in my car right now is still Ke$ha, don't hate). Raspy melancholy grooves seem more appropriate for fall, somehow.

Newest Blog Reads/Internet Interest: All of the blog-reading is new for me at the moment. Faithfully following Megan at SortaCrunchy; been enjoying Sarah Koller at Yoga For Breakfast. I know everyone else is raving about Pinterest, but eh. I have no interest in checking it out; I am not really a spatially visual person (as opposed to a verbally visual one, which I am). Oh, yeah, what happened to Google+? That lasted all of a month. Though with Facebook's changes, maybe it will make a comeback.

Lanterns on the back porch table.

What I'm looking forward to next month: October has always been my favorite month (or possibly tied with my birth month, the winningest July). So much goodness abounds in October, plus absolutely perfect weather almost no matter where you live (usually. Now I've probably jinxed it). Halloween! I vaguely recall going on a Halloween-decoration-clearance buying binge last fall, and am excited to find out what it is I bought. Also, the Fair! The Tulsa State Fair is a pale shadow of the glory that is the New Mexico State Fair, but it is better than nothing. I love Fairs. Also, Oktoberfest! Yusssss. Also, my mom's birthday! Which I will miss, being here, but, yay Mom! Yes, Oktober should be good times.

I am proud.

I may have mentioned that the DDH passed the bar exam.

Five years of law school, going part time while working full time at a variety of usually miserable jobs.

Two months of hardcore, nothing-but-studying studying.

Forty-four days of nail-biting waiting, wondering, praying.

And finally:

One ceremony for each of the Oklahoma law schools (OU, OCU, and TU).

We road-tripped out to OKC with his mom and stepdad, took a million billion pictures of the DDH in a suit in the fancy Capitol building (vastly inferior to the one in Santa Fe, IMHO), sat through yet another succession of speeches, and, yay! his name was read, he took the oath, he signed the rolls (with his work address, because apparently the bar rolls are public records and disgruntled criminals or clients or whomever can use them to look up your address, break into your home, and threaten you and your children, not that we know anyone this happened to or anything), and he's officially a shiny new lawyer with a shiny new job working for the state not making shiny lawyer dollars at ALL, but he loves it and it's work and he got to go to trial today so yay.

We followed the ceremony and picture-taking with a wander 'round Bricktown, with a stop at Bricktown Brewery for beer and food.

Our selections.

Always a good time.

A grilled spinach mushroom salad with bacon dressing. Noms.

Also, that salad? It was amazingly delicious. Fo' realz.

Yay!

I am really confused by the new Facebook.

I don't really care about the little sidebar that pops up with irrelevant about your friends. Whatever. It's off in a corner and I pay zero attention to it.

I don't really care about the various cosmetic changes to the page. Whatever. Everyone will get used to a new design.

But I do not like being able to tell if I'm seeing all the updates I want to see. I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING, GUYS. WHY AREN'T YOU SHOWING ME EVERYTHING.

I mean, I clicked to subscribe to all of my mom's posts...but some of them show up at the top of the page and some show up at a random lower part of the page and some, I suspect, don't show up at all.

So for the moment I've given up on using the thing. My Farm stands abandoned because I can't see if I'm getting all the watering cans or whatever my mom and her friends are posting. I haven't read a political blog post linked by dad in days, because I can't freaking find them. I have no idea what is going on in anyone's life.  SIGH.

Facebook was a nice orderly way for this introvert to feel like she knew people and was interacting with them. Until I figure out the new system and make sure I'm getting all the knowledge I want, I am completely cut off from the world.

Yeah. I know.