Kimmie's first post: An Attempt at Homemade Body Wash

I'm so excited to finally have a blog with my sister Kara! I hope you enjoy reading it and find some helpful tips! This body wash is something I found on pinterest and have been wanting to try out.

  I love great smelling body washes but I really dislike spending a ton on something that literally goes down the drain of my shower. I've been eying this recipe for homemade body soap and decided that this was my day to give it a try! I already had all the ingredients on hand anyway.

The bar of soap I started with was only 5 ounces instead of 8, so I just used less water. I figured that if 16 cups were needed for 8 ounces of soap, then 10 cups of water would be used for my slightly smaller bar. I grated the soap and let it dissolve completely in water, added the vegetable glycerine, and stuck it in the refridge for 24 hours.
I have to say that for being soap, it seemed a little disgusting for a portion of the time. I felt like i was boiling cheese.

The next day, I whipped it up with an electric mixer and transferred it to bottles for storage. My result did have a pretty snotty texture, but it works, smells good, AND barely cost a thing!

Kara's First Post: Lemon or Clementine All-Purpose Cleaner

Another snow day!  I've lost count of how many I have had this year--maybe four.  No matter, so long as I get to stay in my pajamas all day.  What a cold and snowy year it has been so far.

This is my first blog on The Wild Rumpus Agenda with my lovely sister, Kimmie.  I wanted to start out simple, so here it goes:

What does one do on a snow day?  I thought about painting my nails, then reading a book, but then I heard the little one, Bear's mid-nap moan, and I thought, "My time is almost up! I better wipe down the stairs,"which get covered with dust in just minutes.  We live in an old house with pre-1978 paint somewhere under the many layers on the walls and trim, and contrary to popular belief, lead is in the dust, not the paint chips, so to keep my fears of lead poisoning my child at bay, I am wiping everything down and vacuuming like a crazy lady.  I used to wipe down with just diluted vinegar and water, but I hated the stinky-feet smell, so now I use lemon or orange infused vinegar, which just smells clean.  In the winter, when my family is eating clementines every few minutes, it's easy to collect dozens of clementine peels.  In the spring and summer, when I make homemade gatorade (I'll blog that come summer), I save up the lemon peels.  All you do is place a bunch of lemon or orange peels in a quart jar, cover it in white vinegar, close it up, and let it sit in a dark place for two weeks.  To clean, I use 1 part vinegar and 3 parts water.  If I am cleaning wood floors, I add the juice of one lemon to make the floors a bit glossier.  It smells so clean, so so lead free.  Oh, and the best part is it's super cheap too!

Supplies:
-a large mason jar
-between five and ten lemon peels
-white vinegar
1. Gather your leftover lemon or orange peels.  I keep them in the mason jar, ready to go.
2.  Put the rinds in the jar and pour the vinegar over them.
3. Wait about two weeks for the lemon oils to infuse the vinegar.
You can use this as an all-purpose cleaner or as the vinegar agent for whatever cleaning concoction you make want to make.
* Happy cleaning *