Three Ingredient Laundry Detergent!

I've been into this whole, you're-engaged-so-learn-to-be-a-wife thing. Lately, I've been noticing areas in which money is being OVERspent. One of the areas I've seen is in the realm of laundry. I cannot stand how much laundry detergent costs! plus, if you want to buy something natural--Heaven forbid, it costs a small fortune! Upon researching, I found out a remedy to this problem!

3 ingredient laundry detergent:

What you need:

1 cup Borax
1 cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (not to be confused with baking soda)
1 bar of soap (Ivory or Fels Naptha), shredded (using a cheese shedder or zester)
Cheese grater or zester ^^
blender or food processor
large bowl
1 seal tight container

yields about 32 oz or about 60 loads.

Directions:

1. Shred the soap with cheese grater into large bowl
2. Add 1 cup Borax and 1 cup washing soda.
3. Mix liberally into mixing bowl
4. scoop about 1 cup at a time into blender (after 1 cup is done, add to the container, and so on)

Use about 1-2 tbsp per load depending on size. Voila! Money saver! All of the ingredients together cost as much as a premade detergent but cost about 1/5 of the cost per load. Hello!!

Let me know how it goes!

The Perfect Gluten Free Sandwich Bread

Alright everyone. I know it's been eons of time since I've made a blog post, what can I say? Nursing school is a time-suck. But I vow to make more of a conscious effort to share what I've been doing (more like Siri will tell me).

What's new? Well, as some of you know, my tummy has become quite the little nuisance, always cramping and sharp pains everywhere. This, coupled with my inability to stay awake no matter the amount of coffee I drink, has propelled me to go gluten-free. What is gluten? It is a wheat protein found in pretty much everything. Everything. As I threw away all the good I enjoyed in my life, I was seriously dumbfounded! Why is everything so full of this yuck? I'll make another post about my gluten research later, but for now, the PERFECT GF sandwich bread (because I've found that gluten-free premade bread is absolutely disgusting).

Original Recipe Found in The Gluten-Free Bible (Modified by me *)

Ingredients:
3 Cups Gluten-Free (I've been quite fond of Bob's Red Mill) Multipurpose flour (found in the natural food section) *
2 packages (4 1/2 tsp) of active dry yeast
2 tsp xanthan gum (also Bob's Red Mill and in the Natural Food aisle)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp flax *
1 cup warm water, and additional as needed
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, at room temperature (to make mine room temp, I hold them in my apron pocket (also gets your kangaroo desires out of the way))
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp cider vinegar

1. Line 9x5 -inch LIGHT COLORED loaf pan with foil, dull side out (do not use glass). Extend sides of foil 3 inches up from the top of pan. Spray with nonstick cooking spray and sprinkle with flour blend.
2. Combine 3 cups flour, yeast, xanthan gum, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk 1 cup water, oil, eggs, honey and vinegar together in a medium bowl. Beat into dry ingredients with electric mixer (or use a fork if you're broke). Should look shiny, smooth, and thick.
3. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap. Let rise in warm place 30 minutes or until batter reaches top of pan (I put near the oven).




4. Preheat oven to 375degreesF. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when tapped and internal temperature is 200 degrees F. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

Let sit for about 30 minutes before cutting.

Savannah Staff

This girl is nutz. Upon requesting new things to blog about, she has requested I blog about her. That's all fine and dandy, but let's just talk about this PRIDE...just kidding.

I'm super excited to be in Savannah's house (shared with Cherell and Denise), but again, this blog post is about Savannah. We're going to be roommates next year, and I can already tell it will be off to a killer start. Let me recount the reasons of which she will be such an asset to our home next year: she's hecka open, she's goofy, she'll be a GREAT gym buddy...especially when I don't want to go, we're doing homework, she's always open to doing it.

I've also had to deal with the fact that my new goal in life is to not wake her up from her deep slumber with my incessant potty breaks during the night. She's such a trooper even though I'm incontinent as heck this week. One her very many complimentary attributes. 

She's wearing pink pants today. 

Campus swap has been fun down here in Champaign, so far I've been able to sit down and study out nursing and how it relates to God with a girl down here, as well as study at parkland. More to come starting Wednesday, not to say nothing's getting done, but lots is getting done. Like watching The Walking Dead and wearing a sweatshirt from a school I don't attend, to which...

...happens. 

I love Champaign. I love being here. 

A Pseudo Domesticated Queen: 2 Homemade Cleaners YOU Can Do

I was thinking about how it's hard to reconcile the need to be frugal and the effectiveness of the chemistry products that are so enticing (especially after my lovely experience with ammonia in chemistry freshman year of college). That AND there's no way I can clean anything with bleach and NOT get it all over my clothes. So, through the interest of keeping my sanity, I decided to try mixing a few concoctions that will fight the tough dirt and ick of the world!

The first one is a homemade antifreeze spray:

That sounds sketch, but let me explain why this was so important to make this. On Sunday it was around 10 degrees outside and the night before it was 33 degrees. JUST the temperature before water can be ice, meaning it rained liquid for a solid hour. THEN it froze. A half centimeter of ice. SO much ice, I didn't have a scraper, NOTHING. But when it came down to it, a recipe I picked up worked magic and dissolved the ice (after pouring a whole tub of salt over my car to no avail). This is a helpful recipe to dissolve ice and scrape it away. Move on with your life.

What you'll need:
1 small spray bottle
3 cups of window washing liquid (I bought a refill for windex, generic, and instead of a spray bottle full)
2 full bottles (12 fl oz each) of Isopropyl Alcohol
4 T Iodized salt
1 Gallon jug (leftover milk perhaps?)
Water

What you'll do is start by filling up the jug 2/3 of the way with HOT spout water. That will help everything dissolve faster. Pour in the 3 cups of window washing cleaner, the two bottles of alcohol, and the salt until full. It should look like this: 

In the gallon                                                                                  Pour in the bottle

Save the gallon and refill the bottle when you're done! 

THE SECOND!

It's the moment you've been waiting for, deeper cleaning power than bleach, with the toxins of a mere cooking ingredient, stronger than a moving train. It's VINEGAR!!

What you'll need:

1 spray bottle

1 bottle of vinegar (32 oz)

Water.

Directions: pour the vinegar in the gallon, fill the rest up with hot water, pour into the spray bottle.

 DONE

The effect of this is so safe, that you can even have it around your kids. Plus because of its acidity, you can bet it will kill those pesky germs and fight grease! Check out these before and after pictures:

This stove has been ratchet since the day we moved in, not even fixed by bleach!

Before:

AFTER!:

A total change! Vinegar is also able to cut through stains, grime on dishes, leather stains, glass, toilets, surfaces, marble and SO MUCH MORE. Plus, it's cheap, so holler for a dollar honey boo boo!

This has been another episode of my random domesticated spree, hope you gleaned valuable information from it! Until next time! Hugs, Kauffee

Tips For A Successful First Day

Hi all! I know it's been a bit of time since I've logged on here, but I'm happy to report back to my small internet following with one of my favorite topics: preparation to succeed! I know...cheesy slogan, but I feel that it carries a lot of merit. One doesn't merely succeed by it happening upon them (usually), but out of the fruit of successful preparation. Proverbs 15:22 says "Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed," which basically encompasses the sheer volumes of success that can be gleaned from preparing for the new task whatever it may be. Here are (hopefully) some helpful tips to get back into a swing of things, or start the swing of things.

1. Buy a planner: I know, I have said this a million times, but actually being able to visualize what you have this week is a very effective method of staying organized. Using one of your five senses, you are able to have a tangible grasp on your time. Paper and pen don't usually scream STRESS STRESS because, let's be honest, what's written is written. Your thoughts/anxieties, when regurgitated, are not actually that rational, which is a fun thing about the human brain. Plan your week, note how you REALLY do have free time. Plan that free time to be a productive time. Going in with an idea is great.
2. Planning in advance: Look at your schedule, do you see an exam, a meeting, a trip coming up? Prepare in advance. Do you know in two weeks whether or not you'll be sick? I certainly don't! If you prepare in advance, when things you can't schedule in (i.e. "Stomach flu 1/19-1/21") come up, you will not be completely behind. Stress put on our bodies related to extra worries actually lower our immune system by taking up energy needed to fight off infection. That's one of the reasons why when we're stressed, it seems the cold NEVER goes away! Plus, if you plan in advance, and your boss/professor tells you to do something you weren't aware of, you can do it!
3. Set up a nice bedtime routine! According to Mayo Clinic, adults need about 7-9 hours of quality sleep. What?! That's a whole lot of sleep at one time. If we have prolonged sleep deprivation, our body's immune response is slower, our chemical processes are decreased, and we're not having as many firing synapses which accounts for grogginess and forgetting things. In your schedule, set a bedtime! A good time to sleep is about 30 minutes before you actually slip into your deeper unconscious mind. For example, I want to get 8 hours of sleep and I must wake up at 6, 9:30 is a good bedtime. The thirty minutes are there to give you a bit of cushion to actually fall asleep. When going back to school, it may be hard to get into this pattern right away. An over-the-counter sleeping supplement, Melatonin, is an amazing product to help you knock out, PLUS it's a key factor in sleep (actually is what causes you to have eye crust in the morning)
4. CLEAN YOUR ENVIRONMENT!: I cannot stress this enough. Something that is just amazing is falling asleep to Law and Order, however, it can lead to more chronic headaches, and less deep sleep. That and falling asleep in an environment that is crowded, messy, and dirty can affect sleep effectiveness and stress patterns. There is a lot to be said about working with your chi, because when your thoughts are floating to the heap of clothes on the floor, you may be a little distracted. If things are in your room that are out of place, do a complete overhaul, like yesterday, and focus on maintenance. Have you ever been studying and just wanted to clean your house instead? Your unconscious mind may be telling you what is REALLY necessary for you to have an ideal work environment. Same with sleep environment. If you're falling asleep with books on your bed, you are not giving yourself a much needed solace. A helpful tip is to take your books and neatly stack them or reshelve them with a marker of some sort to return to later. Turn your laptop off. Put your phone across the room and on SILENT (not vibrate). An alarm clock away from your bed is helpful too. If you train yourself enough, your bed can be a place your body will associate with rest and not stress, and your sleep with thank you!
5. Turn off electronics at night before you go to sleep: It is imperative to note that electronics with their backlit screens can actually stimulate the mind into thinking it is outside, causing a small increase in energy. If you want to fall asleep in a more full and complete manner, use that 30 minutes I talked about in point number three to have all ipods, computers, ipads, phones, whatever OFF. Staring at the screen checking facebook is not only time consuming, but it is detrimental to your mind's perception of the bed as a solace (point #4). Turn it off, you can text them back in the morning.
6. Know when is most productive for you and when is not: For me, I pretty much am brain dead past 10 PM. If I've had a long day, forget me retaining anything I try to cram in. What's helpful for me, then, is to schedule work at earlier times so that I can actually retain what I need. Some people, the morning is not a thing they like, which is fine. Schedule your work for when you can feasibly retain it. Studies show that retention rate is 60% higher within 24 hours of learning, and whenever you can more effectively study the better. Studying right before bed is usually ineffective as well. Set aside times, when it gets around bed time, resolve that one more hour will probably not do much, close the book, and get ready. Again, more sleep and reinforcement helps you retain. Cramming does not.
7. Resolve your issues: Take care of the fights you've had, drama you've been apart of, and stress you have. If that means merely texting someone, "Hey, if it's alright with you, I'd like to talk tomorrow." your mind is more apt to feeling like the door is closed on that issue so that you can resolve it later. If you're stressed, say a quick prayer, write down your stressors and resolve to deal with them tomorrow. Getting them out of your head will help you recover and not have fitful sleep. I feel that as a person this is super helpful, not to mention getting to sleep in peace!

I hope these tips were helpful!

Pizza Pasta Crock Pot Magic!

One of my new year's resolutions was to master the kitchen. Ambitious I know. I love to cook, but I moreso love to EAT! I feel that the crock pot is the most amazing invention ever in that I can throw things in there and set it to go...and there will be food for weeks! I just completed my first shopping trip with a purpose and completed my first recipe: Pizza Pasta in the crock pot. Let me just say that it smells DELICIOUS and tastes amazing! Here's the recipe!

Inside the crock pot. :)

Crock Pot Pizza Soup – prep/no cooking, freeze in zip lock bag (split recipe in half between two bags)

–1 jar (14 oz) of pizza sauce

–3 empty jars full of water

–1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped

–1/2 red onion, chopped

–1 cup sliced mushrooms

–1 cup baby tomatoes, cut in quarters (or 1 can diced tomatoes, drained)

–2 cooked Italian sausage (I used chicken Italian sausage)

–1 cup sliced pepperoni, sliced in quarters (Hormel turkey pepperoni is labeled gluten free)

–8 fresh basil leaves, chopped (or 1/2 T dried)

–1 T dried oregano

–1/2 to 1/3 cup of dried pasta (if your pasta is tiny, use 1/3 cup. if it’s big, do 1/2. I used 1/2 cup Trader Joe’s brown rice penne) (I didn’t add any pasta to this one, it might actually be great with garlic bread… mmmm!)

–shredded mozzarella cheese (to add later)

The Directions.

Use a 5 or 6 quart crockpot for this recipe. Serves 4 hungry adults, or 2 hungry adults and 2 kids with enough leftovers to feed them all again.

Wash and prepare veggies. Dump them into the crockpot. Cut up the sausage into small pieces–I sliced, then cut the pieces in fourths. Add to crockpot. Cut up the pepperoni, add it, too. Add basil and oregano. Pour in the pizza sauce, and follow with three empty jars of water.

Cover and cook on low for 7-9 hours. Everything in this is already cooked, so you are really only heating through and allowing the flavors to meld.

Thirty minutes before serving, add the dry pasta, and turn to high. My pasta only took 20 minutes to soften quite nicely.

Garnish/top with shredded mozzarella cheese

4 Things to Make a Monday Rock

So, there is a trend that I've noticed, and that is a horrible disdain for Mondays. It's true, this is a start of a LONG week and a start of school, work, or whatever. Long times are ahead, filled with projects, exams, papers, and just plain adjustment from that wild and crazy weekend (though mine are usually me staying up until 11 and waking up at 7...like a rebel). My Mondays aren't that bad this semester due to the fact that I have no class on Mondays or Fridays, and I love every second of it. It's the bomb diggity, but Mondays can still be terrible. Poor Monday, it never had a chance.

Or does it?

I have resolved this semester to love Mondays. You heard that right, love them. They're still going to be there, and the multitude of things to do that week will be there too. But I have a few tips for you to make your Monday rock, following anecdotal evidences of why they actually suck.

Mondays = Stress. Yes, this may be true, but WHY are they stressful? Let's break it down: I have an exam this week, I have a project due soon, I have so many appointments, I'm tired. All of those things are completely in your control. Yes, I said it. You're the reason why you're stressed.
1. What did you do this weekend? Did anything this week strike you as important to note? Probably not. Weekends are turning into a time to completely check out. Studies have shown that once distracted from a task it takes 5 minutes to completely refocus. 5 minutes x 10 texts about that crazy hangout later = a whole 50 minutes of distraction, and that's IF you were focused in the first place. Weekends are definitely there for recharging, but do yourself a favor, and devote an hour and a half to uninterrupted (meaning put your phone in a drawer) productivity. This way, it will never feel like you took a break from work, and thus won't be such a shock when you start up again.
2. That sleep schedule. You know it's true. Studies show that when you alter your sleep schedule from what is typical, you are more likely to feel groggy and discombobulated when you readjust. Changing your sleep schedule and having your body adjust to it may take months! You're losing precious work hours by vegging out 12 hours at night on weekends. You wake up feeling "refreshed" but in actuality you are more tired the rest of the day. Make it a goal to sleep 8 hours a night, even on weekends. If the getting up hurts, set a coffee pot timer. Something that helps me wake up is setting an alarm for 20 minutes before I'm supposed to get up so that I am already pretty much awake. It's also important to sleep around the same time (give or take a few hours) each night and wake up around the same time. For example, during the school week, I sleep from about 10:30-6, and the weekends it's more like 11:30-7:30. My body has gotten so used to it that sleeping 10 hours just makes me sick!
3. Schedule your week ahead of time! Set a time during your weekend when you will take out your planner (and if you don't have one, get one), and well...plan! My planner is organized by hour and I put everything in it, too. Put in your classes, your appointments, your times with clubs/church, and note what you have to do! Look at Thursday and see how it's jammed up...well, then do your work early for that day. See how Tuesday is chill? Do more extra work or get coffee with your friend that day. The point is, you really HAVE a lot of time, I'm almost guaranteeing it, you may just need to visualize it. If you see there is a lot of time here or there, you will be more apt to being productive and less apt to hating everything that has to do with starting this week. I will even schedule when and how long I will study and stick to it like I would a doctor's appointment so I can sleep at 10:30. Don't procrastinate. You'll hate Mondays even more because you're going to dwell on how long you've put everything off!
4. Change your attitude. A lot of the things we hate about Mondays are hyper-inflated by everyone around us. We need to look at them from a different perspective, like, "Hey, I was actually ready for this terrible week, I am going to make the most of it," because think about it, why do most people hate summer by July? We aren't doing ANYTHING. You need to enjoy the work. Cherish it. Why? Because being inactive makes you feel sluggish. Synapses aren't firing as often. You're not being stimulated. Make your work fun. Look at your study guides as a game. Listen to music. Anything. There are no rules as to how you put the information in your brain. Something I like to do not related to studying is cleaning my room on Mondays. The weekend can pile up lots of things and I can oftentimes look at my environment as a reason to hate my life. Stop that right now! Pick up those papers, put them in folders, take the sheets and fold them, make your bed, pick up your clothes, organize your desk, put your planner on your desk and just feel the chi flow. Remember, it only takes one deep cleaning to set you up for maintenance, and believe me, your brain will thank you.

So let's change our views on Mondays, and learn to LOVE what renewal they have to offer!