Homemade laundry detergent

Made my own laundry detergent the other day! Washed a load with it too. Seems fine...the only difference I noticed was that the clothes didn't have that overwhelming fresh laundry smell. Which some like, some don't. You can add essential oils to it to get a scent, but I didn't have any to use. Didn't have a container for it either...had to use a fish bowl I had laying around.

I followed this recipe.

Two tips:
I'd probably double the recipe--the original recipe doesn't make much and it's a hassle to grind up the soap. I'd rather make a bunch than have to drag the food processor out every 2 weeks.

DO NOT hover over the food processor after you grind the soap up. I inhaled a bunch of soap particles and I about keeled over. Blech!

Recycled Napkin Rings

These are awesome! I can't wait to try it. And no sewing!

This is just awesome

Design Sponge Blog

I'm totally enthralled by this blog and I can't even remember how I came across it. It always has the most amazing pictures.

The rooms always look so well put together, but not--like the designer wasn't trying (a good thing). If I was to try anything like this, it'd just look like a room full of crap.

Maybe it's the photographer. Perhaps if I have a professional come in and snap pictures of my house it'd look like this blog. Nah, probably not.

One of my goals in life is to have my house look amazing and still feel welcoming and cozy. Wonder if I'll ever achieve that.

Change of plans

No matter how cheap we got the cottage/cabin, it's still a lot of money when people require 2 or 3 night minimum stays. This is what I came to realize the other day. So then the question became...

Do we want to spend $300 on a place for 2 nights after our wedding or would we rather save that money for our real honeymoon?? My answer: save it (no surprises there). Mr. P's answer: spend it (no surprises there).

Now we're (I'm) back to square one. Because I work at a hotel, I qualify for an employee discount at all IHG hotels. Whether or not they'll give me that discount for a jacuzzi tub room, I don't know.

The plan is to see what kind of rate I can get for a jacuzzi tub room and go from there. One hotel I checked with doesn't give discounts on the weekends (poopheads!) and so it was going to be $200 for one night. Ridiculous.

The other good thing about going with a hotel room is that it's possible we can rent space there too for the Sunday brunch for our out-of-town friends. That would certainly make life easier.

P.S. Callie keeps peeing on the dog beds. It's pissing me off. *no pun intended--okay, maybe a little*

Coupon organizer in the mail

So I broke down and bought a custom made coupon organizer like the one with which I fell in love. I'm still in love. I would give my left arm to be able to do this. Well, maybe not my arm, but I'd definitely shave my head. Check out iSew's etsy shop. Here are the pics: