Freezer Strawberry Jam

A main staple in our house is Strawberry Jam.....it can't be bought from the store though, it has to come out of the freezer
(put there by me).  In fact we were cleaning out and rearranging our storage room and found quite a few bottles of store bought jam.  My hubby asked why we still had them, "because even if they were starving in an emergency the kids wouldn't eat it!" (he's right).  When my nieces and nephews are eating lunch at my house and I ask what they want, they ALWAYS ask, "do you have any of your yummy strawberry jam?"  PB&J it is! 
So last week when I found strawberries for $5.00 a case I knew what I thought I would be doing that day.  Luckily strawberries will last for a few days to use for jam, because an hour after I unloaded my strawberries my hubby and I ended up making an unexpected trip to Brianhead.  My son had been hurt in a snowboarding accident and I spent the rest of the day at Instacare.

 

Pantry Organization

My pantry was out of control in need of a make over.  I could clean it all out and in 2 or 3 days it was a mess again.  I have a lot of stuff in there, and there just wasn't enough room. See all that stuff in the corners....It would take 5 minutes to get to it by the time I moved everything.  As you can see, when it got put away it got shoved somewhere else and things never seem to fit the same going back in.  HELP!
 I wanted 90% of the stuff in "A space" but only had 40% of my pantry that was "A space".  So.....my job was to make more "A space".   I called in reinforcement from my better half (doesn't hurt that he's very handy too!). 

My scary thrown in pantry!

Liquid Laundry Soap

I posted about my dry laundry soap, now for the one I started with originally.  I remember being very unsure of this when I first made it.  How could I make 5 gallons of laundry soap that would actually clean for under $5.00 when I would pay over $50.00 to buy an equal amount of "loads".  Just like the dry soap, you don't use near as much soap.  I use 1/4 cup (which is actually more than it calls for). 

***Warning, this post has picture overload***

 

So...Let's get started.

You will need (all found in the laundry detergent isle)

 1 bar of fels-Naptha soap

1 cup borax

1 cup arm and hammer washing soda

2 cups baking soda

and a 5 gallon bucket for mixing and storing