Create in me a clean refrigerator.

Isnt it funny how a song or a bible verse from your childhood comes into mind sometimes? I was cleaning out the fridge the other day and Psalms 51:10 popped in "Create in me a clean heart. O God; and renew a right spirit with in me" KJV I really doubt the Psalmist was talking about cleaning out their fridge since they didnt actually have them at the time. But this could go with any messy areas in ones life.

What made me think about it was my fridge was a mess. There were a few things that I couldnt even identify. Condiments that were past their expiration and a sticky substance that had a jar stuck to it. Like I pulled the shelf out of the fridge and held it upside down and it stayed stuck. Maybe I created a new super glue? How does this happen? Its not that hard actually. We get distracted and just keep opening and putting more stuff in there and not get rid of things we dont need and then it gets a little out of hand and we know its going to be a chore so we ignore it until ones day that leftover meatloaf smacks you in the face when you open the door and say " seriously woman put me in the trash and let me rest". Well at least thats how it happens with me. Then you start rewriting the Bible with verses like "Create in me a clean refrigerator O God and renew a fresh batch of leftovers in me".

As you can  probably tell this isnt just about my dirty fridge. It applies to many avenues in my life. I can only tackle one thing at a time these days and luckily as you can see by my picture the only thing wrong with my fridge these days is that one shelf I got crooked. I even looked at the shelf a million times trying to convince myself it was fine. Seriously why would I not just take the 1 second it took to fix it?

Once I got the fridge sparkling the other day I set a cup of green tea to chill for lunch time. At lunch I got in there to get it out and knocked it over and it ran down on every single shelf and in one of the drawers. Are you kidding me? I really just wanted to close the door and walk away but I didnt. I immediately wiped it down which actually didnt take that long since it was so empty and was done in a few minutes.

I think every once in a while we need to look around and inside ourselves and see what we need and what we need to get rid of. When it comes to the fridge we definitely need to do this weekly! I wondered if I had to post a picture of my fridge every week if I would be more motivated to keep it tidy. Lord forbid I snap a picture of corn growing hair to someone. Its okay to admit that things are messy. Everyone has something messy in their lives whether they want to admit it or not. Trust me the disgusting fridge is the least of my messy worries these days and thats okay. I will get there and so will you. Enjoy where you are but look forward where you are going to be later. For now when I am having a bad day I will open my fridge and enjoy one area of my life I seem to have under control for right now.

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Great now I am reminded I need to clean the oven

I dont carrot all.

I hope you got my little carrot pun in the title. I love growing carrots but for a plant so small they take lots of time. I have found growing them in pots the easiest way. You can also plant plenty in a pot, around 12 per square foot. This is where that math comes in handy. Once the growing season is over I will just add some compost, worm tea and worm casting to the soil and its ready again next year. In fact I will probably put some seeds in the ground this fall for quicker germination in the spring. I may have mentioned this but I loved the idea of growing the Paris Market carrots.Those grow round like a radish but they take as long to grow as the longer ones so I think you get more bang for your buck and growing season with the Danvers and other longer carrots.

We will definitely be growing more cow peas next year. They are a super hardy plant, they dont care if you forget to water them and they are actually still blooming and its almost October. I think I paid $2  for my seeds. Saving seeds to plant next year and its a free crop. Yay!!!!

Mr Ladybug and I will be cleaning up the garden beds Saturday. The temps are getting cooler in the evenings and we have a date planned tomorrow night with a bottle of wine and the fire pit. Let hope for clear skies so we can look through the telescope.

I have a busy morning with appointments so I threw some chicken in the crock pot and turned it on this time. We will not be ordering out tonight unless there is a power outage while I am gone today. I actually did just hear a chainsaw so that means the tree guys are cleaning around the utility poles. That scares me a little.  Have a great Thursday!

Establishing new roots

The other day I was looking at my memories on Facebook and found my blog post from a year ago about why I stopped going to church. I had stopped going to church a year prior to that post so its been 2 years now. For those of you who dont know me or know me well it wasnt that the church I was going to was bad. I think I had just had it with church and christians in general. That doesnt mean I stopped believing in God either. I still study my bible and even go to a bible study, I pray and share my prayer requests with other believers to pray for me. I love Jesus and thats a huge part of who I am and why I am here. I just got tired of the nonsense and others opinions. Opinions like "you are too progressive in your thinking" or "or your views are too liberal". I love and accept ALL people. Some just make it a little harder to love than others and I find those people usually call themselves Christians which by the way I don't call myself that anymore. I am just a Jesus loving girl who wants to love all my neighbors, save the bees, play with my chickens and grow all my food in my back yard, learn about herbal medicines, meditate, take pictures of the moon, grow new things and drink lots of tea. Is that too much to ask?  If you want to learn any of those things then we can be friends.  It doesnt matter if we agree on religion, I don't care if you identify  LGBTQ or the other ones  I tend to forget. We are all human. I don't care what country you were born in or how you got here I am just glad that you are alive and I want you to thrive.

Micah 6:8

But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.

I think sometimes we decide what would be fair and just to our neighbor. Someone is stealing gas out of our kiddos car. We usually leave it parked on our driveway at night. A few thought have been to slash this persons tires. Would that be fair and just since they need to maybe get a job so they can pay for their own stinkin gas? Well if they dont have money for gas but I am pretty sure they dont have money for new tires so we have made sure to park the car behind our gate and will look into getting a locked gas lid. I will pray that these people get their act together. 

I think there lies the problem we dont root for those how are not like us. What a different world we would live in if we helped each other reach our goals and be so happy when others fail because we dont like something about them. Seriously just bake the damn cake and wish them well. Yes I just went there

Zechariah 7:7-10

There’s nothing new to say on the subject. Don’t you still have the message of the earlier prophets from the time when Jerusalem was still a thriving, bustling city and the outlying countryside, the Negev and Shephelah, was populated? [This is the message that God gave Zechariah.] Well, the message hasn’t changed. God-of-the-Angel-Armies said then and says now: “‘Treat one another justly. Love your neighbors. Be compassionate with each other. Don’t take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor. Don’t plot and scheme against one another—that’s evil.

Defining “Neighbor”

25 Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

26 He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

27 He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”

28 “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

Sometimes I wonder if the problem in the world is  we do not really love ourselves. I think maybe our definition of love is warped. Maybe if we gave ourselves what we needed instead of what we wanted we would be happier and loving others would be easier as well. We need to unplug. We need to have quiet. We need to have enough rest. We need a million other things. I think we think we need more things when in reality we need to step back from lots of things.

I think that sometimes we are so rooted in our beliefs and maybe we need to establish new roots. To establish a new plant you dont just throw the whole thing away. You clip something from the original plant and you place it in fresh water that you change regularly and wait for those new roots to form. Once they are established you plant the plant in good fertilized soil so it can grow and be just as strong as the old plant.  All my parables are about gardening. 

If you are still reading this post I am glad you didnt leave. we will now talk about rosemary. The herb, thats not the name of the person stealing our gas if you were wondering. This is my rosemary plant its looking pretty good and I plan on babying it all winter to keep it alive outside. But you never know whats going to happen so I have clipped 10-12 pieces off the top to start indoors. I dont need 10-12 new plants but its doubtful all will take root and I have several people I can give an extra plant to for their garden.

This is the plant I planted this spring and its grown very nicely.

If you look hard enough you can see that the stem is lighter and gets darker and woodier towards the bottom. Cut right above where it starts getting woody. 

Here are the stems and a peppermint stem I cut on accident, Looks like peppermint tea for me all day.

Place your cuttings in clean water and sit along side your aloe vera plant vintage juicer you use to make lemonade for Mr Ladybug.Do you have an aloe vera plant? They are so handy to have in the kitchen incase you burn yourself.

This is a clipping from the original plant I clipped when I bought it just in case something happened to it, I clipped three and gave one away and I kept forgetting to water these two and one of them did really well and the other one is just sad looking but still has some green. I will bring them in when it gets cooler and we will see if I can bring it back to life.

Keep it Simple

I try to keep things simple but my brain is always saying GO BIG OR GO HOME. Then I usually go home all stressed out. I have a pretty busy week pulling things together for my dads celebration of life plus all the normal stuff that normally goes on in my week plus all this crazy rain making my pets act terribly. I bet I say to myself "keep it simple" a million times day.

Simple for you and for me can be two very different things. I know a few people who could whip up a fancy dinner party in 30 minutes and it looks so nice and they enjoy every single second of it and that is great and I love that they can do that and love that they love to do it.  I am not one of those people.

I was talking to a friend on the phone yesterday and we were talking about shopping out of your own pantry. That means using up what you have and not running to the store. This is a great time of year to start before the holiday cooking season arrives and it helps you to not have to throw away food that expires like the instant coffee I had from 2015 a few weeks ago, I bought it to use in homemade hot chocolate drinks. So yesterday I went through the canned food in my cabinet and found cream of broccoli soup. I am sure i was for a recipe long forgotten. I grabbed a can of cream of mushroom cooked some chicken breast, boiled some egg noodles and topped with some cheese that was going to expire on a week and dinner is served.

1 Chicken breast cooked and chopped

1 bag frozen broccoli

1 bag of egg noodles cooked

1 can of cream of broccoli soup

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

2 cups of milk

8 oz shredded cheddar cheese

Mix all ingredients together except for cheese, put into a 9X13 baking dish, top with cheese and bake 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Weekend Adventures

We had a great weekend and didnt even mind all the rain. The cooler temps are amazing! We went to my moms place in the country and Mr Ladybug was mowing her yard and I saw him get off the riding mower. He was looking at the ground and then was trying to catch something. I was so excited and I didnt even know what he was trying to catch. It was a big frog but it got away. Luckily for me he caught a smaller one later and brought it to me. Later we were walking and spotted this spotted frog. I had so much fun trying to catch it myself. Luckily Mr Ladybug wear a hat and we were able to catch it together. I felt like a little girl again trying to catch frogs and laughing.  You should definitely add frog chasing to your bucket list if you havent done it in a while.

I found out that my parents had a crab apple tree. This excited me to no end. I am definitely going to get the stuff together to can some in the next few weeks. Momma if you are reading this be prepared to can some crab apples. We also plan on getting some persimmons if the squirrels dont steal them all and maybe some walnuts.

Then there was a little humming birds and the Eastern Phoebe. I didnt even know the Phoebe existed. Another exciting moment. Have you noticed how excited I get? Maybe I need meds or maybe people need to be more excited about little things. If I could encourage people to do one thing is to go on adventures. Explore the world around you. That could be in your own backyard and putting up a bird feeder and count how many different birds you see or traveling to the ends of the earth. Whatever it is have fun.

We had the simplest and most tasty dinner Saturday night and followed it with a trip to Dairy Queen for ice cream cones. Being in the country is a little shocking when you want to do something spontaneous like grab ice cream comes. We had to drive like 20 miles. As city people we are  use to being 5 minutes away from just about anything we want to do. But I think by the looks on our faces the 20 mile drive was worth it.

Orange Glazed Pork Chops with Spinach Salad

20 oz of pork chops
1 TBS dijon mustard
6 TBS Orange Marmalade
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon

For salad

 8 cups Spinach or arugala
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1 cup chopped walnuts


Mix the marmalade and mustard together and set aside
Heat oil in pan over medium high heat  and cook pork 3 minutes on each side. Cover with a lid when you flip them. A meat thermometer should read 145 degrees when they are done. Once done set aside.

Add marmalade mixture to the pan and scrap all the brown bits from the pork off the botton it takes about a minute to do this and heat up the mixture.

Spoon the mixture over pork but leave about half of it for your salad dressing. Once pork is glazed add 2 tablespoons of apple cider or balsamic vinegar to pan and mix well. Spoon this mixture over the salad.
As you can see I added apples to our salads. This was a last minute decision and I will probably add orange or mandarin slices to it next time.

I really want to make a quilt. I really have way to many irons in the fire these days to give a quilt the time and energy it deserves soooooo I decided to compromise and make one quilt block by hand once a month starting in October. To celebrate Halloween and my favorite black cat Socks I will make a black cat quilt block. The idea is to have 12 quilt blocks completed by this time next year and maybe I will be able to add some other blocks and get at least a twin sized quilt. If you would like to join me on this adventure I will post the quilt block info on the blog. I would love love love, like get so exited love to see your quilt blocks as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd09yfUWsAo&t=20s&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop

How I lose money using my crockpot.

I use to use my crockpot all the time since I was always in and out of the house all day and we had to be so many places in the evenings with three kiddos in school. In fact I had three crockpots. I hardly even use them anymore but the past month I have used one of them twice. I guess I should have said tried to use it. A few weeks ago the problem was the roast I used was too big and it just didnt get finished by dinner time so we ordered out and ate the meal the next day. Yesterday I was going to be at my moms which is about an hour away and we didnt know when the internet guy was going to get there so I thought putting chicken in the crockpot to shred when I got home would make for a fast and easy dinner. It would have had I actually turned the thing on. So we ordered out. So when they tell you that cooking at home saves you money they arent always right! The important thing is no one starved.

I love these flapjack bars from Graze. They have so many different flavors and I have yet to find one that I dont like. Dont worry I do not get money from Graze and since I have found a recipe for a copycat version I plan on making my own. Of course that will depend on whether or not I turn on the oven. Graze is a snack company that you order single serving things from. They are pretty good at sending you coupons in your email so you can get them for an okay price. Its still a little pricey but some of the snacks are things I havent seen in stores so its nice to have something different. My daughter likes the blueberry toasts with a vaniila dip and the boys like a cheese board snack.

We are trying to decide on a color to paint the living room and I grab paint samples everywhere I go. Mr Ladybug just called me and told me that he had grabbed me some orange samples from Home Depot but left them in the shopping cart. Maybe forgetfulness is contagious.

I have a nice boring day at home and hope to get a few things accomplished so I am keeping this short and sweet. Find joy in your day, appreciate all who cross your path and dont forget to extend grace to others and especially youself, you are worth far more than rubies.

FOCUS

How on earth do people stay focused? I left the room to grab a pair of scissors and I end up throwing out a few things from the fridge. Do not worry I do not keep my scissors in the fridge, I heard a large truck drive down the street that reminded me that the garbage truck will be coming soon and I wanted to throw some sketchy leftovers out before they came. So 15 minutes later I walk back into the room I was originally in only to realize I need to go get the scissors. Can you relate?

Remember yesterday I said that I liked to stand in rain puddles with my rain boots. Its one of my little joys. I was telling my daughter last night that I think people think they have to have these big wows when there are little joys in our lives most days that we overlook. We miss them because we are waiting for our big WOW. Anyway I love to look at rain drops on plants. I really love them on flower petals. So yesterday when it was sprinkling I grabbed my camera and my umbrella and headed out the back door. This vine is actually a weed in the picture but I let things grow to see what sort of bugs it attracts. The bees are loving this late bloomer. Notice that the picture is out of focus. I took several pics and this one is the best. It took me most of the day to figure out why. I was standing in the rain holding the umbrella in one hand and the camera in the other. One handed was not steady enough to stay focused. Instead of just going outside without an umbrella and without my camera, I was only holding the umbrella to not get my camera wet.  I could have just stepped out the back door and enjoyed the little flowers and the rain drops and my little joy but I was trying to create a wow moment with my fancy camera to impress my followers on social media. There is absolutely nothing wrong with posting your pics. I love love love to see what friends are doing but sometimes we just need to sit still and enjoy our moment and keep it to ourselves.

So how do we stay focused? I have no idea. We got our Birds and Bloom magazine in the mail yesterday and I loved the owl on the front. I was thinking with eyes like that how could you not stay focused so I tried it as you can see in the picture. After like 30 seconds my eyeballs started feeling like they were drying out so I had to go back to normal eyes. I am thinking that when I leaved a room to get something I am going to start talking out loud to myself like "get the scissors, get the scissors, get the scissors" and not stop my chanting until I am in the room where I was originally and finishing my task. I will keep posted on how that works.

One thing I did right yesterday was stick to my plan. I had chili down for our dinner and when I went to get out the hamburger I didnt have any. I was certain we had one more pack. I usually buy 15 pounds at a time and so its sometimes easy to forget when you run out. I did have a chuck roast though. I chopped it into large chunks and ground it in the food processor. I had paid $2.19 a pound for it. So for ground chuck that a pretty good price. Mr Ladybug and I decided we may just starting stocking up when its on sale and grinding it ourselves. Had I stopped what I was doing drove to the store and then get distracted at the store and maybe even make another stop before coming home I would have gotten fewer much needed things done at home, like laundry. I would have hated to send my hubby or kids out the door this morning naked.

Now I am going to vent. This is a picture of my horseradish. Its 2 years old. I read so many things about how it takes over and once you plant it you can never get rid of it and blah blah blah. We dug ours up, we planted it in a big pot so we wouldnt be battling it for the rest of our lives and we had 5 of the puniest roots I have ever seen in my life. We just planted it back and walked away. It does leaf alot and we harvest a few of the leaves to cook with but I have no idea where all the roots are. I can tell you that I will be marking Horseradish Farmer off the my things I want to be when I grow up list. Now worm farming is another story and I will share that with you later.

Happy Rainy Monday

Hi my name is Mrs Ladybug. I am 48 years old and I love to jump in puddles. I love to stand in puddles. I am of course wearing rain boots when I do this.  I also like to stand in the wet grass with bare feet when it rains. Its really simple things that make me happy. I sometimes think as we get older we tend to forget how little things can bring us joy. We also live in a go big or go home kind of world that tells us our little joys arent good enough.

We made the lobster bisque and it was good but not exactly the taste we were looking for. If you would like to try it its not terrible difficult and it tasted yummy. I would lower the cayenne pepper it calls for if you arent into spicy.

https://thesuburbansoapbox.com/easy-lobster-bisque/

I had actually planned on posting more today but my computer and patience have other plans. Mondays can be like that sometimes. I guess that means I can put my rain boots on and splash away. Enjoy something about your day.

Poke weed and lemons

Do you know what poke weed is? Most people dont let it grow in their yard like I do but if you know me I am not most people. Poke weed is actually edible but you are suppose to cook it down and change the water three times to avoid tummy and bathroom issues. I personally think that sounds like a lot of work and scary if you dont do it right. So why do i let it grow wild in my yard? The first time I spotted it a few years ago I thought lets see what this thing does. The birds, caterpillars and bees loved it so we decided to let it stay. I knew you were not suppose to eat the berries but I read in a Little House book that Ma painted Lauras dolls mouth and cheeks with the berry juice and I was hooked. After further research I found out not only can you use the berries for dye but ink as well. I have been practicing with my fountain pen and poke week ink and will share at a later date when I dont mine having purple hands. If you happen to have access to poke berries and want to make a dye or ink you just crush about a cup of berries and put it through a fine mesh strainer. Add 1/4 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and salt and you are done.

 My family has been on a homemade lemonade kick and I wanted something to do with the lemon peels. I put them in a jar of white vinegar and plan on using it for homemade cleaner and in my fabric softener. It smells sooooooo good. It doesnt taste bad either, When have you ever said that about an all purpose cleaner? To make the lemon cleaner throw the peel of the lemon into a jar and cover with vinegar and let set for 2-4 weeks. Strain and put in spray bottle and use as you would any spray cleaner.

Mrs Ladybugs Homemade Lemonade

The Juice of 2 whole lemons (about 1/2 cup)
1/2-3/4 sugar or honey ( the sweetness depends on you)
8 cups of water

I usually add 1 cup of hot water to get the sugar to dissolve and then add 7 cups of ice water.
I dont have a picture of the lemonade because it doesnt last that long.

Did you see that moon last night? I was very happy to be out last night and see Jupiter hanging out near the moon and spotted Mars as well. I can not wait for the temps to cool off and just sit out and look at the sky.

Expert Advice

What makes one an expert? I read a lot of books, blogs, magazines, and whatever else I can get my hands on, about gardening. I will put into practice what others write about only to find out they are idiots! I believe I posted before about not trusting blogs or youtube videos where they show you how to do something but never the end result.  Dont even get me started on reading a blog on how to do something and notice when I search others blogs for the same thing the articles are just copied and pasted as their own, including pictures. UGH!!!!


For three years in a row we have grown garlic with a decent yield. For some reason last year we managed to plant both hard neck and soft neck garlic and found out that the soft neck does not produce scapes. So I had the same yield of bulbs but about half toe scapes for pesto. By the way its time to be thinking about where and how much garlic to plant. It goes in the ground at the end of October. If you are going to order yours you need to do that soon. We have had the best luck with buying it from or local farmers market. We have found Siberian does really well in our area and it produces scapes. We will probably plant mostly Siberian but will try one or two new varieties. You can get organic garlic from your grocery and grow it too but more than likely its soft neck so you will have smaller bulbs and no scapes but may be cheaper and easier option for beginners. I will make Mr Ladybug. yes I said make. help me make a video of easy garlic growing options for newbies. I really wont have to make him he likes gardening and helping me

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Look at my Cow Peas or blackeyed peas. I will definitely plant them again. I mentioned before that I read to plant them after your spring peas have finished as a good substitute to grow during the hotter weather of summer since these are a southern crop. What my reading did not tell me was they were a bit slow growing and would keep me from having a fall crop of peas. I can not wait to add these to some soups either. Can you tell I really like soup? Mr Ladybug and I tried Newks Eatery recently and had their lobster bisque. We were just talking about it yesterday. I think we are going to try to make it homemade this weekend.

I guess my title for this post is a little misleading since I do not have any college degrees or fancy initials after my name. You can read all you want and ask as many questions as you want from just about any subject but until you actually do it you are not an expert. I speak from experience and failures.

My daughter gave me this little journal and I love the cover. Whenever faced with the question "To be or not to be?" always choose to be. I wanted to be a chicken mom so we got chickens, we wanted to be bee keepers so we got bees. After this weekend we will be lobster bisque makers. We all have different talents and passions and the world needs all of them. Sometimes we are so busy working we have no time for enjoying or being. Be things that excite you and share those things with everyone. The world need more of that too.

Making Changes

I have recently accepted the fact that I need to start writing stuff down. If I do not write it down then I will forget and then when its time to go to sleep all the things I forgot come to mind and I cant go to sleep because i am stressing over the things I forgot. How insane is that? Its okay I now know that my body is changing and while some prefer to call it menopause I like to think that I am just changing into a butterfly like my little quote above. I sure hope my wings are purple and red! I am sure I have just lost half of my readers but thats okay because I know that I am in good company with the few crazies that will continue to come along with me. What color do you hope your wings are?

My kiddos have planners to keep up with assignments, important dates and all that other fun stuff that goes along with busy college life. I have yet to find one that speaks to me. I dont need it to do alot and I want it to be cute. I am guessing that I will be making my own so there will be future posts. I am working on a daily sheet and once I get it tweaked I will pretty it up and make some copies I will also share it with you if you wish to print it off as well.  Here is my prototype.

It was so wonderful to step outside to cool air this morning. I am so ready for sweater season. I am not sure if the things I wrote down for goals should actually be on my to do list but something I would encourage anyone to add to a list of goals is something fun. Cleaning the bathroom and laundry are not fun.

We had intended on smoking several different types of meats over the weekend but the weather had other plans, This makes dinners so much easier with the meats cooked and planned. So now I just have to cook things the old fashioned way in the house. But at least I still had my weekly menu planned.

I will probably change the New Habits categories to New Habits an Hobbies because I really think we should continue to learn new things that interest us. Mr Ladybug and I have became interested in eighteenth century cooking,

Since the whole point of this blog was to share and document things that I find helpful and hope others do to I hope that my to do lists can help me stay focused. Two things that I made last week that I am definitely going to keep using is a fizzy toilet cleaner and a fabric softener.

Toilet Fizzy

1 1/2 cups baking soda
1/3 cup citric acid ( this can be found online, in the canning department of the grocery or in the bulk food section of some co ops or groceries)
10 drops of lavender oil
10 drops of peppermint oil
10 drops of tea tree oil

Put baking soda in a bowl and add all the oils and mix well with a fork then add citric acid. You do NOT want to add the liquid of the oils to the citric acid or it will start fizzing. So doing this in the proper order is important. Place in a container and add a tablespoon to your toilet and clean.

Fabric Softener

2 cups white vinegar
2 cups spring water ( you can probably use tap water but I wondered if the chemicals in it may break down some of the things in the softener and made it not work as well in the past)
1/8 cup Vegetable Glycerin ( I found mine at a local co op but I am sure you could find it online and maybe at a pharmacy or health food store)
10-20 drops favorite essential oil (I used lemon and lavender)

Mix together and remember to give a good shake before each use. I use a wash cloth and pour some on it and throw it in like a dryer sheet. I will probably put mine in a spray bottle.


I also planted some mini basil and cilantro to have inside during the winter. I found these cute pots marked down to 25 cents at Walmart.