A couple of months ago I mentioned that I was using a laundry detergent that I had made myself from a recipe I had found online. Well, we have been using that for three months now, long enough for me to say we LOVE IT.
First, it is really cheap to make (about $10 for all ingredients and we have been using that first batch made in March until today when I had to make another!)
Second, It makes our clothes really soft and they smell clean, not clean as in perfumed like some detergents but fresh and odorless.
Third, It is super easy to make.
The recipe is below if you would like to try it for yourself. You don’t have to use the brands in the photo but it is what we had available at our local Meijer.
12 cups Borax
8 cups Baking Soda
8 cups Washing Soda
8 cups Bar soap (grated)
* Mix all ingredients well and store in a sealed tub.
* Use 1/8 cup of powder per full load.
Sometimes seeing something in a different context makes all the difference. Stats and data are not always easy to visualize. Chris Jordan translate some very sad statistics into a more meaningful picture in a recent TED talk.
Tonight my friend Shannon and I decided we would skip our weekly planned yoga class and head over to the Lexington Art League for an ARTalk. Tonight’s artist was Phillip March Jones (I love that his middle name is March) and his presentation was fascinating and inspiring and witty!
ARTalks are regular events were an artist is invited to speak about their work and its evolution and the processes they use. First off, Jones’s journals intrigue me. Many of his thoughts and drawings in the journals become larger paintings but the journals themselves are little works of art. And he has SO MANY journals. He is constantly writing and drawing in them. Second, his exploration with medium and techniques was really interesting. It was great to hear his thoughts behind the works and how those thoughts evolved. The one thing that he reminded me about the most was the need for a sense of exploration and play in creativity. He started a lot of his pieces just seeing how different elements (paint and beer in one painting) react to each other and he worked with the results. It was very liberating to hear him talk about that.
I came away from the talk tonight inspired and excited about my own art work. I often get caught up in the final results I want and don’t do enough playing and experimenting. I think it might be time to brush off the moleskin journal and art supplies and see what happens.
Between yard work, house stuff, freelance jobs and work in general I feel like I have been running full speed for some time now. I was looking through my photos I have taken over the past month, that I haven’t had time to process and upload to flickr, and I realized that I have been busy! John and I created a new flower bed in the back yard and planted it full of herbs and veggies. Hopefully we will have tomatoes and peppers soon as well as some basil and oregano and much much more.
I have also been weeding, planting and mulching the front flower bed and it is really starting to come alive. There are a few areas I want to work on but I’m pretty pleased with the results so far.
Gratefully I have been able to spend a lot of time with friends the past few months. In April I went to the wedding of some good friends in Gatlinburg, TN and they asked me to take photos for them. It was one of the most beautiful weddings I have been to. It was outdoors near a stream and was attended by close family and friends only. It was a small, informal wedding and it was perfect. I decided I wanted to surprise them with a book so I came home and started the task of processing the photos I took and laying out a book using the online book template software from blurb.com. I finished the book a couple of weeks ago and sent it off to print. When I got it in the mail this past Friday, I was really excited to give it to them. It turned out great! The print job was wonderful. I gave them the book this weekend and they loved it! Mandy even teared up on me. That is a thank you that you don’t get every day and I’m glad I decide to do this for them.
Speaking of flickr, I have met some wonderful new friends through flickr and it has been amazing. Not only do we have the photo taking hobby in common, we are all alike in many other ways. They are all interesting, wonderful people and I love when we get together because it always a lot of fun. Just a couple of weeks ago I had dinner at my house to get everyone together for one and also so that we could celebrate one of the flickr peeps new job and her journey south for that job. Kristy is now working for Teach for America and has moved to Louisiana. I know it wasn’t easy for her to leave all her friends here but what an exciting journey she is making. She is going to do great and she has flickr and the internets to stay in touch with us all here. I’m already planning a trip to see her sometime as I have never been to Louisiana.
I love this photo below taken by Chris who is the photo above with Kristy. From left to right is Alexa, Kristy and myself, aka Swelldesigner, Posey Pinkerson and Attercat on flickr.
This past weekend was a great reminder to me how special my family is to me and how little time I really get to spend with them. My nephew graduated from high school last Saturday which seems impossible to me. It seems like yesterday that I got a call telling me that my sister was in the hospital in labor and that our baby boy could be born any minute. Now he is thinking about his future career and working to save money for college. He has turned out to be so responsible and such a wonderful guy. I couldn’t be prouder if he was mine.
His little sister is just as amazing and I can’t wait to see where she ends up a few years down the road. She is already one of the sweetest, most loving kids I know. We are lucky with those two.
The following photo is one of my favorites I took over the weekend. I don’t get my appreciation and love of the animal kingdom from a stranger. Merlin and my sister’s dog Maggie love my dad. All I have to do is say “peepaw” to Merlin and he starts wagging his tail and whining. Nothing gets him more excited than a road trip to mammaw and peepaw’s house.
It is good to have such a wonderful, supportive family. I’m so thankful for them and I need to spend more time letting them know it.
I woke up this morning full of wonder, wanderlust and excitement about all the things I haven’t done and seen in this life and so thus begins an ongoing project for me to start listing these things here to capture them so that I can start marking them off my list. Because I’m going to you know! I am!
Travel to Fairbanks Alaska to see the Northern Lights.
Learn how to sew my own curtains and shopping bags (Must buy sewing machine!)
Learn how to screen print (maybe get a gocco)
Travel abroad for at least a month
Go to Iceland… Some friends just went there and their photos make me drool!
Build a compost bin and acquire rain barrel(s)
Go to New York City.. I have never been… and see a Broadway play
Bike to work regularly
Become a Yoga diva
Become a better runner. Maybe do a 5k or something. I need to find one and start training eh?!
Focus on shopping local.
Some of these things on the list scare me and really push me out of my comfort zone whether for money reasons or just the unknown or the fear of trying them and failing. Yay! That is exactly why I wanted to make this list. My comfort zone has recently started to smother me.
A couple of days ago I was watching one of my favorite tech video podcasts called Tekzilla and they were talking about DSLRs. They mentioned the new Canon Rebel XSi which is a pretty significant upgrade from the XTi that I owned and one that I was not aware of until watching said podcast. “Owned?” you might say… “Don’t you mean own?”
Well I did own it for approximately one hour after watching the podcast and then I sold it by simply asking through twitter if anyone might be interested in a camera because I was thinking about upgrading to a new one. I got a response in less than 30 minutes and after some Q & A back and forth it was sold! It sold so fast that I almost panicked when I realized that I had just sold my camera without having a new one…. even knowing if I could get one of the new XSi.
Everything worked out in the end and my brand new camera is on a UPS truck on the way to me now.
It has been a long time since I last attempted to blog but now I feel I have a different purpose and an actual reason to blog. The past several months have been interesting and I have started changing in ways I never expected. I guess part of that is simply that I am growing older and my priorities are changing. I am aware now more than ever of how short life is and how I don’t want to wake up some time down the road and feel like I didn’t make it as interesting and full as I could.
I have been thinking about how I want to improve my life and start living the values I have held inside of me for some time now and the first step was to stop eating meat and to start challenging myself to make choices that were sustainable and beneficial for everyone. John and I joined the local food coop Good Foods and have started trying to eat more organically and buy local when we can. We also bought our first canvas shopping bags and started using those as often as we can. We still sometimes forget to take them with us but we are working on that! Today, we actually made our own washing detergent from a recipe that I found here. I’ll let you know how well it works soon.
On another note, I am slowly turning into a yoga nut. I just started taking classes at a local yoga studio and I love it. I have done the yoga classes at my gym from time to time but they are nothing like this. They mainly focused on stretching and the body. The classes I am taking now are about mind and body and I always leave them feeling more relaxed, less stressed and like I have had a brief chat with my inner critical self and we have come to terms with our differences for the moment. It is such a supportive, loving environment and I can’t get enough of it.
Finally, spring is here and I feel energized and ready to see what else I can learn about myself. It has been an interesting year so far and I’m going to make sure that it gets even better. Here is to the journey that lies ahead and all the growth that is yet to come!
Thanks to my good friend, I was introduced to a wonderful artist yesterday. My friend Kathy emailed me a few weeks back and asked me if I had heard of Charley Harper and if I knew about an exhibit he was part of at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC).
CINCINNATI’s Contemporary Arts Center ends 2006 with the most anticipated exhibition of the year. Graphic Content: Contemporary and Modern/Art and Design unites the internationally praised work of Cincinnati’s modernist pioneers with the work of today’s most exciting emerging artists. Designer/celebrity Todd Oldham’s enthusiasm for Modernist painter and illustrator Charley Harper’s work sparked the inspiration for this exhibition.
I had not heard of him and, being one that is always open to a road trip, I agreed to drive to Cincinnati with her to see what it was all about. I’m happy to say that I love his work, his wonderful sense of humor and his dedication to environmental causes. Part of the exhibit was a video of his life and work described by him himself. It is always nice to hear what the artist was thinking when they were creating a piece of art.
Read more about Mr Harper on Wikipedia
A large collection of Mr Harper’s works for sale at Fabulous Frames
