Break

It has been awhile since I posted and in that time we have had a lot of changes in our family.  For starters, we welcomed the final addition to our family, Charlie.  I had to have a C-Section with him, so I took some time off of everything for recovery and just to enjoy my family.  I have never been so thankful to have an amazing employer that worked with me and all the things that we have changed in our lives saved us enough money that we didn't miss my income when I was out of work.

Another change we made was we started making our own dish detergent.  It has worked out really well for us and we have been happy with the savings.  It is a simple recipe of 1 cup Borax, 1 cup washing soda, 1/2 cup Kosher salt, and 1/2 cup LemiShine.  I make a double batch because it fits in my container and a double batch is just enough that I can dump the entire LemiShine in the mix.  It is a little heavy on the LemiShine, but since we have really hard water I think it helps tremendously.  It cost me about $6 to make a double batch give or take just a bit.

We also have been on a household purge.  We are getting rid of things that we haven't used or are broken.  It is amazing just how much stuff kids hoard because they feel it is important for some reason.  We are taking 4-5 bags a week out of our house of just hoarded items.  I am selling what I can on swaps, but for the most part I am just trying to get the junk out of our house.  With all of us living in our small house we can't afford all the "treasures" to remain in our house.  We haven't even made it through half of the house yet, but we are getting there.  I am dreading the basement which is where everything goes that needs to be either sold, stored, or goes to the playroom.

I have made the decision that we are going to get more organized and I am going to make closet storage systems for our family.  That is my next goal to conquer, but I have to get through the purge so I know what I need to store.  I am looking forward to the end result.  I will have a house to envy at the end.  But the getting there is an uphill battle.  We will prevail!

We are hoping to sell our home later this year and in order to do that we need to have the best organization to hide the fact that we have 5 kids living in this very small house.  We also have some small home improvements to make to get ready to go.  I got an amazing deal on some ceramic tile, so we are getting ready to re-do some floors.  That has prompted a mini-renovation to the kitchen and I sure there will be more that follows.  It seems to be a never ending lists of projects and changes to be made.

The conversion to a more natural life seemed daunting when we started, but once we made the first change the ones following got progressively easier.  We have removed most of the chemicals from our house.  We have started eating as much fresh and local food as we can.  And we have cut back on our general consumption in a month.  In doing this we have eliminated excess waste from our home.  All of these changes have made us stop and look at our priorities as a family.  People get so caught up in the latest, greatest, whatever that they are losing sight of what really matters.  The changes we are starting to make now have a completely different motivation behind them and at the end of the day, that makes me happy.