Goodbye World

It seems that this might be the term when finals, midterms, papers, and professors who are firmly convinced that they are the only ones expecting anything from me at the moment finally gets me, so I wanted to come on here and say my goodbyes.

To the world: It's been fun; sorry it's been so short.

To my friends: Thank you, I wouldn't have made it this far without you.

To my family: I love you guys dearly and apologize for the expenses about to be inflicted on you.

To my university professors: When I come into your class and fall asleep with my pen in my hand, it is not because I'm uninterested in the material, lazy, or just generally don't care. It is because I haven't had more that five hours of sleep a night in about as long as I can remember (so that is only last Tuesday - details) and have averaged about 3. Assigning more work to keep me on my toes will not help. I will admit that some of you were alright though.

Now I need to go try to finish one more paper before my mind snaps. Goodbye

Quote

Am I what-nizant?
-Dean Martin

As anyone reading this may have noticed, the reviving is not going well. School tends to be all consuming. And since I've also been working two jobs, trying to get a house ready to move into, and spending about 9 hours a week at church, well, it just adds up. I need a daystrecher. Yes, need, we're talking desperate here.

Well, I have some work to finish before I can go to bed, and since the alarm goes off in six and a half hours, I probably ought to get to it.

Quote:
Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.
- Dr. Seuss

Farewell

Hello world

I think it's time to revive this thing.

I'd wanted to set up a schedule, have some backup posts ready in case I was too busy to write, and generally do it up right. But I've missed it. I was going over my posts today and decided, "Who am I kidding? That's not what my blog is." I don't really even want an overly organized blog.

So, this is me. Off the cuff. Writing what I want, when I get a chance.

I really need to work on the layout though, it's awful

Hi guys,

I've lost my internet access; thus the long hiatus. Eventually I'll find a better place to live and make sure it has internet, but until then, blogging has gotten a smidge difficult. I miss you guys.

Muse

That's customer service

In my last post I described my first experience with Soap Nuts. In it I mentioned off hand that the bottle had leaked.

When I got home today I found a package from Laundry Tree in which I found a note that read,

[Muse]-
Sorry about the leaky Citrus Mist bottle! Hope it wasn't a huge mess in your mailbox?
Here's another sample bag to replace the messy one. If you try the shampoo trick, let me know what you think! -Lisa

Well Lisa, it wasn't a big deal at all, the bubble wrap lining of the padded envelope contained the small leak nicely, it just smelled really strong when I opened it. I do appreciate your concern. Also, the small bottle of Energy essential oil blend arrived perfectly intact and unleaked. Thank you.

I will now overcome my nervousness and act as a shampoo guinea pig. It certainly can't make my hair any worse (I hope). I'll get back to y'all in a few weeks on that.

The back of the bottle reads

Energy Blend: our fave smell ever.
Do with it what you will: add scent to your laundry (washed with soapnuts, natch), make your own cleaning solutions, or even stash it in your purse and sniff it when you need a boost.

Hmmmm, smelling salts.

Off to boil me some soap nuts ...

SoapNuts

Blogger updated their dashboard a few days ago - I think I like it this time.

A couple of weeks ago I participated the the bloggy giveaway carnival at 5minutes4mom and let slip that I had won something. Well, I've finally had time to try it out, take pictures of it, and get the pictures uploaded. Just call me speedy.

And here it is: SoapNuts from LaundryTree

And when I opened the bag I found this:
The small fruits are the soap nuts, also known as soap berries. They contain saponin, a soap chemical, which is released when they are run through the wash cycle. You can read more about it at wikipedia. That bag should do six to eight loads of laundry. Since they are odorless, a small bottle of essential oil is also included, that one is citrus mist.

So I counted out four of the berries (they are technically not nuts) and tied them up in the muslin bag. The essential oil is put on the bag itself; I skipped this step since the bottle had leaked in transit.

I then dropped the whole thing on top of my laundry and chucked the whole pile in the washing machine.

I have no way of knowing how clean it got my clothes, but they were much softer. There was one shirt that had to hang dry, and even it lacked the stiffness that usually results in.

Another claim made about these is that they are good for people with sensitive skin. It doesn't seem to have helped me much in that area, but then I really can't say for sure since I had a major breakout a couple of days before I used them, and it still hasn't cleared up entirely.

I found a few places that suggested boiling them down to create a liquid soap which could be then be used for everything from dishes to bath soap. I'm somewhat curious to try it as a shampoo, I wonder if it would do for my hair what it did for the shirt.


Quote:

Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
-JFK

Goodnight

I'm famous

My first post is up over at A Frugal Housewife.

Head over there and read it.

I'll be contributing semi-regularly in the coming months.