Soap Nuts: A Natural Laundry Detergent

I know what you're thinking. Soap nuts??

I'll explain. One of my favorite blogs is Passionate Homemaking. She is a big fan of these soap nuts for use as laundry soap! Yes, laundry soap that grows on trees. It is (obviously) a 100% natural product and chemical free. It is great for people with allergies and they work great with cloth diapers.

Had I come across these on any other website I'd probably be a little sceptical but I have been reading this blog for quite some time and I trust her judgement so I checked out the NaturOli website and read a little about the soap nuts.

From the website: "Soap Nuts are a 100% natural alternative to harsh chemical detergents & household cleaners. Eco-friendly, biodegradable, hypoallergenic, unscented, highly effective, yet very gentle. No more softeners & dryer sheets! "

They have a sample you can buy for $2.95! I decided that if nothing else came out of this it would at least be a fun thing to try. So I bought it and within a couple days my little bag filled with 5 soap nuts arrived.

To my absolute surprise, they worked! Our clothes are fresh, soft, and clean! I didn't even have to use any fabric softener or dryer sheets. I have done 2 loads with them so far and I can probably do about 2-3 more loads with these 5 nuts. The only "problems" I have:

1) Since I didn't use a dryer sheet my clothes were staticy, which really has nothing to do with the soap nuts. I think I'll continue to use dryer sheets until I find a new solution.

2) I LOVE the smell of regular laundry soaps. Especially the one I regularly buy. I know, I'm weird. I have always adored the smell of laundry rooms. The NaturOli company suggests adding a few drops of an essential oil to a cloth in the dryer if we want a frangrance but I'm doubting there is an essential oil out there that will resemble that of laundry soap, haha.

In addition to the raw soap nuts you can also purchase a liquid version, and an all-purpose cleaner. When you order the raw soap nuts you are also given instructions on how to make your own liquid soap and other household cleaners.

How to use the raw Soap Nuts:

It is very simple. Just throw 4-5 soap nuts into the little bag they send you. Close the bag, place in the wash before you put in your clothes. They work best in warm water. They send detailed instructions when you buy them, but that is basically it! Super simple!

Click here to find out about the Sampler!

For more information:

Soap Nuts FAQ's

Soap Nuts Pro

Bake Night!

For the past few Wednesdays my friend Rachel has come over and we've been baking! We made the Peanut Butter Surprise cookies to begin with then the night before Thanksgiving we made 6 pies (the plan was originally for 4 pies but we ended up with enough to make 6 so we did).

We've decided to make it a weekly thing! I love to bake but I don't do it very often so it'll be fun to try baking new things each week. We haven't exactly worked out a schedule but I think from now on we're going to make dinner one time a month and a non-sweet snack or bread (so we don't overload on sweets). Tonight Rachel is not feeling well so we're not going to bake tonight. Next week we are going to make dinner or try making bagels, we haven't decided yet.

Christmas Eve we are going to bake cookies! Anyone have any suggestions for some good Christmas cookies?


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Google Calendars

I'm big on Calendars because I'm at home every day and I lose track of what day it is all the time. I'm also a big planner and its hard to plan if I don't have a calendar right in front of me. I'm a huge fan of daily agendas! I am a very forgetful person and having lists and plans is something I must have.

In addition to hanging 3 calendars in our home (one in our bedroom, one in our living room, and one in the kitchen), I use my Microsoft Outlook calendar as my main calendar because I see it when I open my e-mail and I can type everything in rather than having to hand write it all out, I can use different colors, repeat items automatically, etc.

Last week I discovered the Google Calendars. At first I was not sure of it because I'm so used to my Outlook calendar, but I've come to love these calendars for a few reasons. You can:

• View multiple calendars at one time (even calendars that belong to your friends & family!)
• Turn on and off specific calendars.
• Have your daily agenda e-mailed to you.
• Share your calendars with friends with friends and family! This way Gage and I always knows what the plan is for the day and we can access it from the internet, we don't need to be at home on our own computer to view it.
• Post your weekly menu plans for your family to see!
  

The image on the right is an example of the Dinner Calendar turned off. I currently have the following calendars (and Gage and I share all of them): Gage's Calendar, Shaina's Calendar, Special Days Calendar (for birthdays & anniversaries, holidays, etc) , Dinner calendar (since we have a 6 week menu plan it only took me about 5 minutes to put this together), and our Family Calendar that is specifically for everything our family does together (church, family get-togethers, vacations, etc). Each calendar has its own color so that when you see "Bible Study" on Thursday morning in purple, you can know it is my study and not Gage's.

There are also special calendars you can add to your google calendar such as: a to-do list, weather forecasts, national holidays, and more.

I am so grateful for this! Gage has two jobs and he goes to school full time so his schedule is all over the place, this has helped me keep track of what he is doing each day so I can plan my days around his schedule. It's wonderful!! If you are like me and need to plan everything to get anything done, this is definitely something to check out. :)

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A Simple Home

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
- William Morris (British craftsman, designer and poet, 1834-1896)

I've been trying to simplify lately. I've been organizing just about everything in sight, re-arranging things, finding new ways to do things, ways to use what I already have rather than buying new stuff, ridding my home of the items that serve no purpose like old magazines and items that were given to us that I saved just because...they were given to us. It always amazes me how much stuff we Americans have. Do we really need all of those kitchen appliances? 500 channels on TV? 5 radios in the household? Do I really need 25 plastic containers to store leftovers in?

That's my thought for today. I've been thinking a lot about my home lately. I was unable to go to church this morning because my daughter is sick. So I have been home all day taking care of her. Now I'm working on a project for a friend, which led me to come across that quote :)

I Love Evernote!

In our world today we are constantly bombarded with information. So much information that we often forget things we really didn't want to forget. Personally, I forget just about everything that I want to remember and this is why I need schedules, plans, notes, pictures, lists, agendas..etc.

Do you ever wish you could save just a quote from a website that you come across (and not have to go through the trouble of giving it it's own notepad or word document, taking up space on your computer)? Or maybe just part of an e-mail you received yesterday? How about a recipe, along with its pictures that you saw on this great recipe website? An item that you plan to buy on ebay in a week? Driving directions to an airport?

Check out Evernote.

Rather than having to bookmark every single site I come across, I can save just the parts that I want to save and place them in specific notebooks that coincide with their topics. It's like having virtual hands to pull out pages in a virtual magazine (that is the internet), or like having virtual scissors to cut out the parts of the pages that you want to keep for future reference.

I just discovered it a couple weeks ago and it is *awesome*. I don't have to deal with Microsoft Word's crazy formatting when I try to save a recipe (and its pictures) from a website because it saves everything as is. There is no copy, paste, fix, save, file... just highlight whatever it is you want to save, click the green elephant button that is in your browser and poof! It's saved.

With Evernote you can:

• Create, clip, and share notes on the web and see them everywhere.
• Search through all your notes, even find text within images, whether online or off (on your desktop)
• Also - depending on what kind of phone you have you can: Take snapshots, read to-do lists, record audio whenever and wherever you like. Evernote also has special software for your iPhone.
  

This program can save you a lot of time and a lot of hassle, it also helps you to stay organized. I absolutely recommend it!

Bloggin' Plans and 6 Week Menu Plan!

I have all these plans for my blog but I haven't been doing a good job of keeping up with them! I have many recipes that I'd like to share, thoughts on Biblical womanhood and marriage, organizing tips and other ideas to make the home a place that you want to be. I've decided I need a set plan. I work well with set plans and schedules. Without a schedule, I have such a hard time getting everything done. Monday came and went and I still haven't figured out our menu plan. How do you keep up with your daily tasks, and how do you keep up with your blogs?

As far as our menu planning goes - I came across a woman who plans her menus in 12 week time periods and I love the idea! So, to start, I've decided to do a 6 week plan and only go shopping every 3 weeks, and maybe I can even stretch it out to a month. This will help with grocery shopping planning and will be less stressful because I won't be trying to figure out our menu on a weekly basis and examining what we have and what we don't have and what meals I can make with what we do have. Of course we'll have to go one other time in there for fruits, veggies, bread, and milk but that's it. The goal is $250 a month on all groceries and $50 a month on non-food items. I'm finding that by going grocery shopping every 2 weeks I end up spending more than I want to because I forget what I have at home and I re-buy items. I think if I change it to 3 or 4 weeks then we'll literally be out of food and then I won't end up buying items that I have at home because there will be no food left at home ;o)

I'm way too easily amused. Just the thought of stretching our food until we have no more is exciting to me! hehehe

What a Hassle!

If you haven't already discovered this website, it is awesome and I totally recommend it! haha.

The site is called HassleMe and what they do is they send you reminders in your email to do whatever it is that you need to do! They hassle you for as long as you want them to. It's free and there is no signing up for anything.

You have to confirm that you want each hassle so it's not really to be used as a to-do list but if there are certain things that you always forget that must be done, it's a great tool! I am a nursing mother and I need to drink water during the day, but I always forget to drink enough...so I have them e-mail me roughly every 2 days to remind me to drink at least 6 glasses of water a day. I have another one that reminds me to do my laundry.

I may use this to help me with my plan to exercise! I currently don't have anyone nagging me to exercise so maybe a daily email would help me get the picture.

-Shaina
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Tackling Procrastination

Lately I've noticed that a lot of things get put off for "later" that really don't need to be. It's not just ordinary things like dishes and laundry, it's stuff like framing & hanging pictures, buying things that you need but don't want to spend the money on, and little things like cleaning out the crazy junk drawer.

This week I accomplished four big things that I had been putting off.

1) I bought plane tickets for our trip to CA next month. Usually I buy them 3 months in advance but I put it off because I hated the idea of spending that much money... even though my friends said they'd help us pay for it! It's my best friend's Wedding and I'm IN it so it's not really much of an option. Just the thought of paying $400-600 on plane tickets was not something I wanted to deal with. Thankfully, the Lord provided (as always) and we bought 2 round trip plane tickets for a total of $402.00 :oD

2) We finally bought a kennel for our dog Penny. We managed to avoid this for a year and a half! It's a good thing though because during the winter, we won't have to worry about her peeing all over the carpet again.

3) I cleaned the downstairs couch (in the basement) that was covered in photos and photo boxes for MONTHS. We never go down there (except to do laundry) so for months I've put off cleaning off that couch. What an enormous relief it is to have it done!

4) I finally got caught up on my Photography homework!! I have been in this home study program for over a year and if I really sat down and did it on a regular basis, I would have finished it a year ago hah.

I'm trying to come up with a list of things that I have been putting off and plan time to tackle them in the coming weeks. So far this is what I have, and what I hope to accomplish within the next month:

1. Clean out the cupboard in the bathroom. It is a disaster.
   
2. Clean out our junk drawer (which has an organizer tray in it, btw hahaha)
   
3. Buy a toy box for Zoe's room and a toy box for the livingroom. (Our dog has managed to destroy tons of Zoe's toys because they are out on the floor all the time and we have nowhere to put them.)
4. Complete first graded project for the Photography Diploma Program.
5. Create a Recipe binder. I am up to my ears in new recipes to try but can never find the ones I wanted when the time comes... they are scattered all over and they must be put into one location.
6. Write to Babicka (my great-grandmother). I always say I'm going to write and I never do.
7. Write to our sponsor child, Fabiola.
8. Figure out our Budget. Since Zoe has been born I have done a terrible job at keeping up with our budget.
   
9. Get rid of all our junk. Find a plastic tub, label it "Stuff To Donate" and throw stuff in there.
10. Tackle all of our 100,000 photos. Print, frame & put up photos, organize them, find proper storage (whether it be photo albums or a new hard drive for digital photos), and mail photos out to people who have asked.
11. Find a cute costume for Zoe's first Halloween. Even though we don't really do much to celebrate Halloween... I still want to let her dress up each year and I'm very big on "firsts" and since it is her first Halloween, I'd love for her to have a costume :)

I plan to print out this list and post it on my fridge (something I look at every day). My goal is to have accomplished all of these things by November 18th. One month from today!

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New Title!

I spent hours trying to come up with a real name for my blog. Herrmann Family Homemaker was a temporary name because, after days of trying to think of the perfect name, I couldn't find one so I chose the temporary name.

Rather than thinking up a very unique and memorable name, I chose a very simple, to-the-point title. I realize there are many other blogs out there with titles very similar to mine (however I could not find a blog with the same exact name, which was good!) The reason I have chosen this title is because above everything else in life, I want God to be first in everything. He gave me life, He gave me this family, He gave me this home, and I deserve none of it. The Lord has BLESSED me in more ways that I can count. I believe everything I do, everything I say, everything I even think should follow in the teachings of His Word. I try to look at everything from a Biblical perspective and I am the keeper of my home, thus the title Biblical Homekeeping. I feel it suits this blog very well.

AND just in case you are wondering (which I doubt you are) That beautiful precious girl at the top of the page is my lovely 6 month old daughter Zoe Kimberly.

Only 99 days left...

...until CHRISTMAS!

Yes. Just 99 days left. ;o)

For the past few years I have started my Christmas plans in October, start buying and packaging things in November, and then I try to leave the month of December for enjoying the season stress-free (at least that is the goal haha). In December I love to decorate the house, put up and decorate the tree, attend special church services and those adorable children's Nativity plays (I very vividly remember being a sheep for two years and an angel for one year when I was a kid). I love to at least make an attempt to bake something, I love to watch Christmas movies, drink hot chocolate, spend quality time with family. Beginning my plans 3 months in advance has been a good system for me.

However this year I came across a couple of websites that have got me super excited for the Christmas season! I think I just may begin my planning a little early this year, hehe.

Organized Christmas

Christmas Organizing

Buy Nothing Christmas

My goals for this year's Christmas are:

1) Create a Budget and stick to it. Spend as little money as possible.
2) Buy a Nativity Set (I've wanted one for a long time but always end up not having the money.)
3) Have a Christmas Party, a small one with friends and family, in our home.
4) Find ways to keep the focus on the birth of Jesus rather than Santa Claus.
5) Create a "My First Christmas" ornament for Zoe with her hand print on it.

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