So today I’ve done a lot of laundry, including the sheets (since Almost-Three has a runny nose and is home from Montessori today), and my final word about the homemade laundry soap is this: I can’t tell the difference between this stuff and the eco-friendly stuff we spent so much money on. In other words, I consider the whole project a huge success, lumps and all!
I’ve been amazingly productive today: I’ve done a bunch of laundry, including the sheets, and gotten the sheets back on the beds. I’ve looked up Almost-Three’s vaporizer online and figured out what was wrong and now it’s pumping out steam. I put some eucalyptus essential oil in it so that it will help with Almost-Three’s runny nose and congested sinuses while he sleeps. (Eucalyptus oil is my first line of defense against cold-weather germs. Also, of course, echinacea tea, though a doctor I once visited said that the science was mixed on echinacea and that she voted for Vitamin C. But I’ve been trying use food and herbs for medicine and get away from the vitamins, which have limited efficacy anyway since most vitamins need other vitamins to be assimilated into the body anyway.)
By the way, Almost-Three’s name is now officially changing to Toby, because he says that is who he is in the Thomas the Tank Engine pantheon. At first he said that I was Gordon and Lionel was Percy, but then last night that switched: now I’m Percy and Lionel is Gordon. I’m glad to be seen as a self-important and snotty personality no longer by my son. But from day to day, Almost-Three insists that he’s Toby. And Toby is such a nice tram engine, I’m delighted to call him that here. (I’m planning a post on why I don’t really like the whole Thomas the Tank Engine world because where can you post a postcolonial and Marxist close reading on a reasonably-harmless children’s show but your own blog?!)
But right now I have to go back to crochet world. I think I’m addicted. First I worked on a scarf for my sister, and though I still need to do that tassels and all that stuff (I like the actual crochet much more than all the niceties afterward), I then started a new coffee cozy for our French Press. I had made one that worked well for our travel-size press, even when it was steeping, but it’s not big enough for the full-size one when the plunger is still up. I’ve been working the last couple days to remedy that situation. And since I’m at the part where I have to crochet two pieces together, I have to pay more attention and can only do this while Toby is sleeping.
Way to Go Homesteader 
Posted by feMOMhist on October 17, 2011 at 5:25 pm
confusion and delay will not be tolerated. fMhson so LOVED T.T. that when we were searching for “boy” names during second pregnancy we found ourselves scanning the T.T. insert. We picked Spencer.
Posted by Nola, Ph.D. on October 22, 2011 at 9:26 am
I love this. And I totally mean this as a compliment, but it’s like reading a LIttle House on the Prairie blog. I’m a bit jealous because I don’t feel like I’m wired that way. I have romantic visions of myself like that (I was almost an Ag major at U of Iowa–like I applied there and got accepted for the sole purpose of being a farmer, believe it or not). But then again, I also have romantic visions of myself as an automechanic, so there ya go. I am curious about the laundry soap. Is there like a HE machine version of it? (see the fact that I’m looking for an HE machine laundry soap version seems so oxy-mornonish to me). Keep up the great work!
Posted by waytogohomesteader on October 22, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Thanks, Nola! I DO take it as a compliment. (Remember when I was pregnant I constantly thought of Ma Ingalls and how she worked on the log cabin while she was pregnant. Very inspiring.)
I always had dreams in this direction — which often manifested in academia as a real interest in working on ecocriticism. But everyone in ecocrit classes seemed so outdoorsy and hikey compared to me, I felt like a poser. So I’d sign up for classes, show up on the first day only to find that I already felt way behind, and leave.
But the dreams persisted. And I now think that the difficulty in finding my way to this has more to do with the decidedly anti-outdoorsy upbringing. Now I just want to grow food and be somewhat self-sufficient and maybe even write.
Must go because today is Toby’s birthday! THREE! Can you believe it?!
Posted by TigerMomPhD on October 25, 2011 at 9:12 pm
I love Little House! And yes sometime I think we are more productive when we have more to do. Glad to hear the detergent worked out and that things are going well! Happy late birthday to Toby! 🙂