1 bar Fels-Naptha laundry soap, grated fineI don't remember when it was that I made the last batch, but the last time I went shopping I bought two fresh bars of Fels-Naptha because I knew I was getting low on the detergent.
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
Mix well. Use 1 heaping tablespoon per load of laundry. Should be good for about 40 loads.
I typically do two loads a week--and if you get 40 loads from a batch, then that's 20 weeks' worth, which--best estimate--is roughly five months.
Just now I grated up the bar that's been sitting, open, in Mom's old room since I bought the last two. I think that was in December or January, and opening the package lets the bar dry out so it's much easier to grate. As a plus, the bars also have a pleasant scent which offsets the smells from the cat boxes.
So I put the new bars in there, open, so they can dry out, and grated up the "cured" bar, and mixed up a batch of laundry soap--all the while feeling as if I were doing something illegal. I didn't have Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" going through my head, though if it had occurred to me before just now it probably would have been.
There's nothing illicit about making your own laundry detergent, damn it, though I bet the major detergent manufacturers would like for it to be. "Ah, you're manufacturing detergents without a license, thus putting an extremely tiny dent in our profits!!!" Actually, me making enough for my own use isn't going to put anyone out of business, so I'm probably safe.
But if enough people catch on and start doing the same....
* * *
Speaking of making things I haven't made for a while, last night I made brownies for the first time in God knows when. Lemonzen was suitably impressed at the quantity of butter and chocolate that go into making them, and she liked them--as everyone who's ever tasted them has. It's impossible not to like these things.
But I'm running low on a bunch of stuff, so I'm going to have to go shopping relatively soon. I need butter and eggs, and I used my last box of chicken Rice-a-Roni last night; also, there are a bunch of other things I need.
Even after getting a nap this evening I still don't have any frickin' energy. As I was getting a load of laundry started, I thought, "Well, maybe I'll get at the Fiero tomorrow and it'll just all go together, snap snap click!"
And then I said, "Yeah, and maybe a monkey will fly out of my butt with this week's winning Powerball ticket, too!"
*sigh*