Have been looking up info on safe, environmentally friendly cleaning products that I can make myself. Decided to try making a dishwasher detergent replacement. Here is the recipe: 3 parts washing soda to 2 parts borax. This is for hard water, if you have soft water you can do 2:2 ratio. I also had a problem with a film on the dishes, so I put white vinegar in the rinse and the dishes came out perfectly clean and sparkling. Cheap and good for the environment! What's not to love?

I'm all about trying to be environmentally friendly, so this new application, Local Cooling , seems like an easy way to save energy. I will install it and let you all know how it works out.

On a geeky note, I have been using Twitter occasionally, and just thought it was cool that it got a mention on Marketplace Morning Report.

You can file this next bit under religion and politics. Since the presidential races are already heating up, I found this interesting: Mitt Romney and the Mormon Church. I have a friend who is a Mormon, and while she was at my house for a Relay for Life team meeting, she happened to mention that she was wearing her Mormon Underwear. Interesting!

Earth Day and Cougar News

In honor of Earth Day we decided to make homemade laundry soap. Ray actually did all the work, I just helped shop for the ingredients :-)

Here is a link to the recipe and a photo of our "slime". We used Kirk's Castile soap, Arm & Hammer Laundry Soda and 20 Mule Team Borax. These were all available locally in our small town, so they should be easy to find. I will let you know how well it works when I try it out this weekend.

Now for the cougar update- A few years ago I was driving down a dirt road in a pretty remote area of northern Michigan and saw a large animal crossing the road. It was a cougar! Now, I am something of an outdoorsy type and have seen many wild critters while delivering the mail, camping and fishing, so I think I know a cougar when I see one. However, the official word from the DNR at the time was that there were no cougars in Michigan. As time went on, more and more were sighted in Michigan. Well, I thought I was one of the only people to see one in my area, but on Monday a customer of mine came running out to my car to tell me that he had seen one across the road (about 200 feet) from his house! I was so excited to know that I was not a lone loony! He also told me that the corner store had a photo of a cougar, and that another local had seen one feeding on a road kill deer. I will have to make sure I have my camera with me from now on. If I get any pix I will post them.