We like to begin our home school year at the beginning of August. This just works well for our family. That means I have about two weeks left before we hit the books. I’m really excited about this, and they aren’t admitting it, but deep down, my boys are excited too. ;)
August also brings quite a bit of other “excitement” as our garden will be kicking out lots of produce, which will need to be preserved. Our soccer season also starts in August. Our boys are on teams, but more importantly, the college team my husband helps coach gets underway the second week of August. Three-a-day practices keep him hopping plus, if you’ve been reading here long, you know that I usually feed the soccer team for an entire week before the college classes start. I LOVE doing this – the ladies on the soccer team are a joy to serve. I hear there will be 43 players on the team this year. That’s a lot of food! Stay tuned to hear how all of this goes.
Here’s a big pile of our books – in desperate need of some sorting and organization!
I tell you all of this to say that I have a whoppin’ two weeks to get myself organized before the month of August slaps me in my eager – but full scheduled – face. I’ve spent a good part of the summer working on two new books. Now that they are in the editing stage, to say that my house needs a little bit of love would be an understatement. And there are other areas of life I really need to get organized and prepared for, simply so that the beginning of our school year goes more smoothly.
And so…I have made myself a list. I’m calling it the Two Week Tackle because well – I have two weeks to tackle this list. Can I do it? Who knows?
Want to watch me try? Yes, I figured you might.
Here’s the Two Week Tackle List, which I reserve the right to add to or take away from at any given time as the crazy urges hit:
- Organize school books and create a schedule for our school year
- Clean out kitchen cabinets – replace shelf liner
- Deep clean the entire house
- Plan and begin to prep soccer meals
- Make and freeze healthy convenience foods for the month of August
- Make homemade hand soap and laundry detergent (just because I really want to try)
- Experiment with homemade white chocolate and butterscotch chips for the Heavenly Homemakers Recipe Challenge
- Finish creating the Whole Foods Pantry resource list that so many of you have been requesting
Regarding this last bullet point – I will, for at least one week, be taking a break from writing my bulk food posts. Creating the Whole Foods Pantry resource page is a big job to undertake, and the more I write about bulk food, the more it has been brought to my attention that you would really benefit from this list. I’ll pick up with the bulk food series once the Whole Foods Pantry resource page is finished.
And so, during the next two weeks, I’ll be cleaning, organizing, sorting, writing, finishing the books, cooking, and in general, preparing my household for the month of August.
I’ll try to blog my way through the list with some pictures and explanations if I can. There may be times I just hop onto Facebook and give a quick update. If you aren’t already following me on Facebook, you may want to click over to do that now. I’d hate for you to miss any pictures of my insanity. ;)
And now a question for you:
What are you most excited for me to tackle and share with you? Which item should I do first?
If you’d like to join the Two Week Tackle – get your list ready and share it in the comments!
Sounds like fun! I’m most interested in reading about how you organize all of your books and create the schedule. It seems like there is never enough room for all of the great books that the kids can read…at least around our house! I try to box up some of the ones that aren’t in our history rotation for the year. Other than that, not sure what else to try for us personally.
Have fun!
I am wondering if you know approximately when your cooking books for children will be finished? I am looking forward to them for my daughter. She loves to cook. You cook like we do,so I am anxious for recipes she can just make instead of having to change some of the ingredients. Thanks!
Really, really, really soon. How’s that for approximate?? :)
Our goal is for Matt to finish giving them his edit (which he’s great at) – then we’ll send them to two other people for editing mid-week. THEN, maybe the beginning of next week we’ll be able to offer them??? Ooh, I hope so!!
I’d love to hear what healthy convenience foods you make. I’ve basically stopped buying snacks from the store, and am trying to make them instead. But sometimes I’m busy with the one- or two-year-old, and can’t prepare something when someone’s hungry. My 11-year-old will.not.eat.fruit. (Well, he’ll eat grapes, but I’m not spending 2.99 a pound for them, which is how much they are here right now.) Instead, he’ll make himself a PB&J sandwich or eat the circle crackers I keep on hand for the child with a lot of food allergies/sensitivities who doesn’t have so many quick food options available.
I’d love to have healthier options available that he can just reheat himself. We’re slowly working our way through your recipes (which are great, btw), but I never seem to have any leftovers to put away for another time. Can’t wait to see your convenience food list.
This is fantastic. I really need motivation to get things moving for our upcoming school year.
And, a healthy recipe for white chocolate chips?! Yes, please!
I have been making homemade laundry soap for a year or two. It is so simple to make and cost very little. It cleans as well as any laundry soap I have tried in the past. With just myself and my husband, I don’t have to make soap but once every 3 or 4 months and that is 1/2 of the recipe.
Would you mind sharing your recipe? I tried a few kinds, but haven’t had great results. So now I use 1/2 store bought soap and 1/2 of my homemade. The biggest problem I have had is food stains from the 3 yr old and the 10 mo old not coming out. Any suggestions would be helpful!
I don’t have a homemade laundry soap recipe, but I have found Oxygen Bleach to be awesome at removing stains in my children’s clothing. I buy mine from Tropical Traditions when they have free shipping days, but I’m sure it’s available in many stores. You can use it in several ways: 1. make up a solution to scrub into individual stains, 2. add directly to the load of laundry, 3. soak major stains in a bucket overnight.
I usually soak most of my baby’s bibs and clothes overnight because he spits up a lot. I have found that the oxygen bleach even takes out older, set in stains. I LOVE it!
I use the recipe that the Duggar family uses. Here it is:
Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap-Front or Top Load Machine
4 cups hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax
Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.
Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (Will gel)
Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 fallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.
Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
Top Load Machine – 5/8 cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
Front Load Machines – ¼ cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)
She also has a recipe for powdered laundry detergent on their web site. I usually pretreat with a stain remover or degreaser for grease but I had to with store bought laundry detergents anyway.
I prefer Oxy-Clean spray stain remover (I get it at the local WalMart store).
Here is the address for the Duggar family:
http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html.
I hope this works for you as well as it has for me. I saved gallon plastic jugs from what ever I had in gallons (milk, juice etc.) washed of course, to pour the finished soap into. I asked our local Braum’s store to save me an empty 5 gallon plastic bucket. They were happy to do this and I knew that it would be food grade plastic. As I said, I only make ½ of the recipe and it is plenty for me and my husband. I wish I had known of this when I was raising our 4 children. It would have saved lots of money.
I use this same recipe for laundry soap and I love it. I go through a 5 gallon bucket every month. If I forget to make a new batch and have to use regular soap, I add 1/2 cup borax and 1/2 cup washing soda to the load of laundry and it makes a huge difference. If it’s a load of whites I’ll also add a few drops of Mrs. Stewarts Bluing (mixed with a quart of water). My whites that had trned grey are white again.
I use a similar recipe for laundry soap that works well.
1 bar fels naptha bar soap shredded
2 c. washing soad
2 c. borax
Mix dry ingredients together. Use only 1-2 Tbsp per load.
This is cheap and it goes a long ways! I pretreat my stained
clothes from my kids with liquid oxy clean. It gets most stains out.
Good luck!
Here’s what I use, Fels Naptha is great, but we are just now
finding it at our stores. I used another one before this, but
this one has no mess and no risk of over-boiling, which would always
happen with my old recipe. This is great and I usually make it every 3.5-4 months.
Here’s what you’ll need:
5 gallon bucket with lid (you have to buy one of these in the paint section and you have to pay for the lid separately…however it’s worth it!)
4 cups hot water
2 sm bars of ivory soap
1 cup Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda
1/2 cup borax
1. Grate soap into hot water in medium size saucepan. Heat until soap melts completely.
2. Fill 5 gallon bucket 1/2 full of hot water. Add melted soap water, borax and soda. Stir until powder is dissolved.
3. Fill bucket the rest of the way with hot water
4. Stir well–cover over night. Mixture will thicken.
5. To use–fill a laundry soap container 1/2 full of soap mixture (150 ml/2= 75, which is 9 cups + 3 ounces) Fill rest of the way with water. Shake well before each use.
6. ONe load= 5/8 cup of soap.
Tips:
After sitting overnight the mixture will be pretty thick. Be sure to stir well trying to mash up the lumps before pouring into another container to dilute.
Hope you find a laundry soap that works for your family!
Uh – I just have to drop a line to say, “Impressed!” Never mind the homeschooling and canning, but my husband is also a college soccer coach and I am doing good to make them just ONE meal in pre-season. All I can say is, WOW. That is a lot of food to go through your kitchen. A LOT of food!! Best of luck!
How to organize and get ready for school!!! I see we have some of the same books piled up. I’m doing Sonlight 2nd grade & Kindergarten & have no idea how to organize for 2 students! Had good success keeping my son on task with the Workbox System at the end of last year, but that takes up a lot of room. I’d love to see how you organize for more kids.
These next two weeks, I’m getting ready for the arrival of baby #6. He’s technically due August 14th, but I almost always go or am induced early.
I’m wanting to clean out/organize my pantry.
Add another 10 or so meals worth of dinners to my freezer.
Add another 5-8 meals worth of breakfasts and lunches to my freezer.
Begin planning for our school year, which probably won’t begin for us this year until sometime in September due to imminent arrival of our next little one.
Simpley put organize the whole house….I am in love with space bags!
Make pizza pockets and other easy treats for my 2 1/2yr old.
Work on two scrapbooks.
Plan my youngest soon to be 1 and my husband soon to be 31 both on the 27th…birthday party in Washington during our trip home to visit family….taking into account we have family that are gluten / dairy free, some are sugar free (US) and some are no starch or sugars!
We start school the beginning of August as well. So my to do list looks pretty close to yours: make school schedules for an 8th, 6th, 4th, 2nd, K year old and make sure the 3yo is not lost in the shuffle, clean out the kitchen, which connects with the dinning room, which is where we school, clear out bedrooms and clean all windows, finish making aprons for everyone…I”m looking forward to all your updates.
Just take two days to work on each project :) and take it all one day at a time.
I just wanted to remind you that no matter how “noble” and “needful” are plans are, sometimes our loving Master has other plans. So, I hope everything gets done, but don’t forget He has the master plan! God bless!
No better way to show love to a college student than to feed them! Two of ours are through college and 3 are in college now so I know nothing means more to those kids than home cooked food! Bless you for doing that :)
Ok, I’m tired just reading your list ;) Have you somehow managed to bottle up more hours in a day? I’m looking so forward to following you, mainly b/c I hope it motivates me too! I have 2 weeks until we start school and I don’t have half the stuff to do that you do.
So, yes! Up to the challenge! Will follow and looking forward to it!!!!
Ahh yes, planning. At the end of this week we are moving across the country. We are spending next week traveling across the country, seeing the sites. The following week will be unpacking. Then starting our school year. I am feeling a little overwhelmed :0) but I know it is in God’s hands. I wish I was setting up things now for our school year, but I guess it I will have to do that as we go along.
We are looking at starting school August 1 as well. I’m looking forward to it. Can’t say the kids are!
I’m hoping to get some major cleaning done and make ahead meals. We will see what God allows!
homemade hand soap..hmm…I’ve heard of the laundry soap, but not hand soap. This is interesting to me since we seem to go through a lot of it…especially during the summer months with the kids home! I have found the automatic dispensers to help with them using less of it and it’s cleaner (no more puddles and dribbles). It’s expensive to buy them, but I think it’s well worth it!
oh yes, august seems so far away all summer and then boom, there it is! garden explosion, canning crazy, back to school, messy house! can’t wait to see what you have in store for us.
Me too! I had such a long list for this summer – and ended up with a hurt back and on the couch for six weeks. Now I can move slowly and carefully without much bending, twisting or lifting. So we’ll see how organized we are when we start school! But I was just thinking ‘I have two weeks to get done as much as I can!’ :-) At the same time we’re eating through the pantry and freezer since we’re about to take two pigs to the butcher and need our freezer space! Our garden died out this year so I don’t have preserving to take time this year. :-(
Let’s go! Thanks for the motivation.
Laura your list mimics mine. Looking forward to see if I can “keep up” with you. Or at least stay on task, which I’m not right now :)
Love the list Laura! It never ends, does it! But I love to keep busy, as well as planning ahead.
I have been making homemade laundry soap for about a year now, and won’t ever look back! I have a step by step tutorial, I would be more than happy to share it with you and all your loyal fans!
Love this post Laura! This is right where I’m at now too! Garden is coming in and we want to start school in two weeks. I had thought of delaying it another week but canning season takes place whether we do school or not, might as well get it going too! My house needs a major clean/organizing. I have a huge list of bulk stuff I need to buy. We just brought home 70 pounds of peaches this morning and I am about to start working on them. I’m picking blackberries in the evenings and my grandpa’s blueberries are about ready to pick and put up. We have bible school this week and family coming in this weekend! Does the craziness ever end? What a blessed life:)
Thanks for the motivation to get moving on my projects. My next 2 weeks look crazy, too! We are moving to Rwanda in about a month, so this week we are packing a 20 foot container and shipping that ahead of us. Then it’s finishing up raising our support, packing our suitcases and saying our goodbyes. I love your upbeat attitude about all you have to do. I need that nowadays!
Laura, can I just say that you are AWESOME! I could make a list very similar to yours but I have a feeling I wouldn’t get much of it done. We plan to start our school the first of September. For now we will continue light math (mostly math facts), reading, and nature study. Good luck to you!!
Once again you’ve inspired me! I have my own list up on my blog an I hope i get a lot of it done. Good luck, Laura!
Hey, I like this post. It’s pretty much where I am in our our gearing up to homeschool in early August, too. Well, except that I’ve still got to get the stuff ordered! … ugh, I’ve even still got decisions to make for my 10th grader!
Thanks for posting about this & motivating me to get busy.
I’ve been making homemade liquid laundry detergent for the past few years and love it. We do a LOT of laundry in our house and it’s so nice not having to spend money on store-bought detergent!
This will be my first year in 20 years that I wont be getting ready for school to start. I am now quilting seriously and cake decorating so I will be plenty busy.
I like Flylady for getting organized. Good luck Laura.
I second Flylady!
We are rearranging our home to make room for my 15-year old sister in law to move in with us. While it is a good thing, it is very difficult to empty out an entire room and try to find a new place for all the stuff. Oh and I’m in the middle of research project. Ugh. I wish you well on your next two weeks!
I’m interested in your house deep cleaning! Mine is a disaster waiting to happen…oh wait it did. lol.
I just bought a teacher’s planner to plan out some pre-school lessons with my son this coming year. I’m probably going to wait until September to start but I’m eager to read your blog and see what you do with your kiddos.
Goodness! If you can accomplish that in 2 weeks you are superwoman to me. I would be lucky to get all that done in 6 months to a year! In my mind I am organized, but I can never get it that far. I’m a mom of a newborn and 2 year old. That must be it, but even with only one I couldn’t get much done. More power to ya!
Yes, since my kids are not babies anymore, that makes a big difference!!! HUGE difference actually – because instead of keeping me from doing the work – they can actually help me accomplish it. Hang in there. Some day you’ll be able to get more done. In the meantime, just love on those babies! There’s nothing like those sweet baby years.
A friend and I just made a quadruple batch of crock-pot soap today! We love it!!! We use Wardeh’s recipe from http://www.gnowfglins.com. Super quick and easy…
I’m really hoping for the Whole Foods Pantry resource list :) I’m moving from Alaska to Oregon in two weeks….we’ll basically be starting over with everything (including our pantry) and I’d love to have a resource list….especially from someone I trust, like you!
I hope you have a great time working through your two week tackle list. I’m inspired by your dedication, and impressed that you did your least favorite task first. Great job!
I was just making a mental “to do” list right before reading your post! I am now inspired to go make my own Two Week Tackle :) Not as excited to actually tackle it, though!
I’m getting married in 11 weeks, so much of my list has to do with wrapping up wedding planning: design, print & mail invitations, figure out catering, rent tablecloths, get centerpiece stuff, find someone to take pictures, etc.
My non-wedding tasks include: making homemade granola, cleaning the bathrooms (both mine & my fiance’s ~ rather begin cleaning his house now, than have an overwhelming mess later!), writing & mailing Thank You’s, getting my oil changed, changing my cell phone service provider…
Thank you for sharing your Two Week Tackle ~ reading your updates will encourage me to keep on trucking! :)
I couldn’t find the link to the recipe for laundry soap that I use but I did a post on my blog about it (with pictures). I love it!! It is also easy to make and a great deal (I figured it out to about 2 cents a load if I remember correctly (at work and my sheet is at home). http://littlehouseinthecorn.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/adventure-with-homemade-laundry-soap/
I made mine in the begining of April and have about 1/4 of the bucket left with 3 people in the house.
I’ve been on bed rest for 7 weeks (with 10 more to go) and I find myself a little envious of anyone getting to do anything… even cleaning fans!!! Good luck tackling it all.
I’m most excited to hear about what you will be cooking for the soccer gals! My daughter (4 yrs old) is starting August first with her Super Butterflies team and I would like to bring at least one snack to every practice and game. If you have any quick ideas you’d care to share, I’d love to hear them!