Sparkly!

My dishes are sparkling, y'all!  Seriously!  These are the little things in my life that make me smile.  Look!

Nary a spot to be found!

And LOOK at how clean my dishwasher is!!

it's GLEAMING!!

Why is this so wonderful to me?  We have hard water.  I mean HARD water.  We don't have a softener (probably because we're too cheap, and to lazy to lug those salt pellets or salt blocks back home all the time), so we live with it.  For years we have been trying to come up with ways to have spotless glasses, get the calcium and lime deposits off our shower doors - mostly unsuccessfully.  Most recently we were using a product called Lemishine that you (until this past Christmas) could only find at Target, and it only comes in a tiny bottle, lasts about a week - smells like lemonade mix...but it's expensive when you consider how much we need to use.  We are, after all, a family of five, we entertain fairly frequently on the weekends ("Game Day" my house!)...so we use our dishwasher a lot.

Well, you may or may not have noticed, but I'm kinda cheap.  I like to save whenever possible - and going green is a goal of mine.  More to save money, a lot to get rid of the caustic chemicals (especially when they don't work all that well!), and to save the planet of course.

So when I saw this little trick, I couldn't imagine that it would work - it was too easy! Too cheap!  And without chemicals too? Crazy!  You want to know the secret?  Here it is!

It's not even raw!  My secret came from another secret of mine...I secretly like Gypsy Sisters (the TV show)

Yes (hangs head in shame!), I'm addicted to this show...as well as the other cultural studies (My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding).  I can't help myself. :)

So, I saw Kayla (last on the right) instruct her daughter to dump this stuff directly into the dishwasher.  Crazy!  Wouldn't it be sticky or something?  I've seen (and tried) plain vinegar in the Jet Dry section of my dishwasher before - without success. I even went so far as to research this on Pinterest (if it's on Pinterest it must be "tried and true" - right?).  So I tried it.  Even using the ultra cheapest dish washing powder (this stuff used to work really well on it's own before we dug new wells in our town, and before we started dumping more chemicals into our water), my silverware gleams! My glassware is sparkly! Spot free!  And as an added bonus, my dishwasher is clean too!

Huh!

Cheap. Green. Effective. Easy.  Available pretty much anywhere!  I've started using ACV (Apple Cider Vinegar) in other areas of my life too, but it's generally suggested that you use raw ACV for beauty and food purposes.  I didn't have any on hand (plus it costs more), so I tried what I had.  I've only been doing the ACV in the dishwasher for 3 days, but I am wowed.  Really.

What more could a girl ask for?

Happy Sunday y'all - stay warm! (We're going to be getting record lows here in Chicagoland, so much so that the governor closed schools for tomorrow!)

Happy New Year! Let's Resolve to be Thrifty!

Happy New Year to everyone who has so kindly stopped by to read my blog!
 
Today I want to talk about learning a hobby that can help you stretch your dollars: Crochet.  My poor grandma tried for YEARS to teach me.  When I got married (possibly even before the wedding) my   husband's step-grandma tried teaching me too.  Poor, sweet thing.  I tried with all my might - too much might probably!  My stitches were tight. Very tight.  Tighter with each new stitch.  This was supposed to be a relaxing hobby!  The tight stitches made me less relaxed - with Each. New. Stitch. I was less and less relaxed.  Tense even.  So I gave it up. Every time.

Well, just before Christmas I decided that I was going to learn to crochet. And that it would be a relaxing hobby, darn it.  It turns out, that if you relax your stitches you have more success.  And concentrating on relaxing my stitches made me more relaxed.  Cool!

Well now I can't seem to stop myself.  I've made headbands (the ear-warming variety), pot holders, coasters, granny squares (to create a blanket down the line), a hat, flowers (to adorn the hat and headbands), and my latest: fingerless gloves.  They are so cute!  I also added some flowers to those.  I'm also working on another blanket - because it's been COLD here and I thought it would be nice to work on something that would help me out before I gift it (I can't tell you who it's for though!).

There are so many cute items to crochet - and all I need is yarn and a crochet hook!  How cool is this?  I can make items that help me out too.  My hands were cold - it's winter in Chicago-land.  But I don't like gloves (they separate my fingers and my fingers get colder), and mittens are just impractical.  I saw these cuties on Pinterest and knew they had to be on my project list.  They were actually really simple and took me about an hour to make.  I had the flowers left over from the day I learned how to make them (I needed to practice) so I put those guys on there - and buttons are the thing to add to projects these days.  They were also here in my stash.

I neglected to mention earlier, that this was a "free" hobby for me to start.  My daughter's friend found some knitting and crochet supplies when cleaning out an apartment he was renovating and gave them to her.  She likes to knit, but the crochet hook was useless to her.  That's what sparked my determination.

I have noticed, however, that yarn is not free.  Far from it.  Well, not all that far.  It's not terribly expensive.  I have seen some cheapskate and thrifty sites suggest using old sweaters for yarn sources as well.  A cheap sweater at Goodwill or a yard sale would be around a buck (if you're a good shopper) or two, while yarn (not even fancy yarn) could start at around $5 for a decent amount.

I suppose it depends on how much time you have on your hands.  If you're a stay-at-home-mom with teenagers who don't depend on you for everything, you have time to unravel sweaters to support your habit.  Otherwise, I suggest Freecycle, and coupons for your new hobby.

Patterns are so easy to get for free, so I don't recommend paying for them for quite a while.  Pinterest is a great source, of course, as are friends and family.

So - even if you don't want to try crochet (although it's pretty nifty!), find a hobby that will help you out somehow.  Beekeeping (for the honey and beeswax - stay tuned for more on this!), knitting, sewing, making your own cleaners and beauty products - all fun hobbies that can help you out in the end, and could even be a home-based business to generate extra income (along with saving you some green!).

This was my first piece...it was supposed to be a dishrag.  Notice the TIGHT stitches!

My coaster! Pretty cute, eh?

My pot holder - also doubles as a dish rag.

My UBER cute hat!  I'm pretty proud of this guy.

Look how cute my fingerless gloves are!