My worst nightmare is now my favorite thing!

I will be the first to admit I have always HATED LAUNDRY!! I'm sure you can see my tag on my blog stating that I blog to keep from doing the laundry.. to true!

In my house you never know which person is going to have a skin reaction to a certain laundry product. We can go months and then suddenly boom! Can't use the 2 big containers of soap any more someone broke out in a rash. So it always feels like when is the bottom going to fall?

Then no matter what we used I could always smell a little sour smell. I'm sure it's probably do to our water but it really annoyed me. It's like the soap was masking the sour water smell. 

Add to that the loading unloading and folding and ugh. GO through all that for laundry that didn't smell clean..

Well, these last 2 weeks it's all changed! I love my laundry and can't wait to do it.. granted I'll be glad when there's less of it.. but wow.

The first thing i started doing was making my own laundry soap. It's not hard...

I take a few bars of our homemade Cold Process soap that is not overly supper fatted. ( why waste oils and moisturizing soap on the laundry?

Grate this and put in a container then mix in enough washing soda to cover the shreds so they no longer stick together ( I have used baking soda also with good results) Cool thing to the kids can help!

Add about 1/4 to 1/2 cup to your wash.. that's it.

You can add up to 1/2 cup of white vinegar if you need softener
 ( I looked at our softener the other day.. OMG the first ingredient was sugar, then clay, then dye, then fragrance) WOW  maybe I'll just throw some sugar in the wash :)

*Note* You can add Borax if you feel you need it. We don't because we try and use our laundry water in the garden and the Borax can build up and become toxic.

The second change for us was a laundry line. Yeppers, the girl who hated dong this growing up is now doing it willingly as an adult.. who'd of thunk?  I'll have to do a post on my clothes pin bag made from recycled jeans later this week. 

The kids had to get in on the action.. hope this continues!

Colty had to help!

So proud of his wash cloth!

Now our clothes smell nice (the sour smell is gone) and we are saving money not to mention the kids want to help. And I can still pin laundry up 2 items to a clothes pin just like when I was a kid :) Some things you never forget.

Excitement

Okay I'm dancing up and down over here. I'm just that excited. After much talk Corey and I are putting up Laundry lines :) I know probably not what any one was thinking.. but for me I just can't wait to use it. My mom is probably reading thins and rolling her eyes :)

I know I complained a lot growing up about having to cart the wet laundry to the line (had to haul it up steep stairs and hope we missed any landmines :)  But I am looking forward to the smell and feel of line dried clothes. That and what can I say.. if I had to do it, why shouldn't my kids? He he

After talking with Corey the argument went something like this... It will smell better, won't heat up the house, will save money on electricity, will be outside work.. will be physical work... all sounded good in his book.  So this week our laundry lines go up. With trees every where and garden every where else we did have to get creative to find our spot.. so if you drive by our house yes those are the holey jeans I patched waving in the wind in our side yard, next to the swing set, where the whole world can see them :)

Can't wait to let my laundry wave in the wind :)