When in doubt...water it down...:-)

Somehow I managed to wean myself from drinking pop.  I don't know how, exactly.  I was drinking diet pop, but realized it was giving me nothing of nutritive value and I was paying for that.  So I switched to juices.  They are great, but have a lot of sugar.  So I have gotten into the habit of watering juices down, about half-and-half.  Still tastes great.  I find I do the same thing with soy milk (or almond or coconut, I have a dairy allergy to regular milk) when making hot chocolate.  Tastes wonderful, half the calories, and I am hydrating...can't go wrong with that...:-)

In a pinch, make your own dishwasher soap

I try to wait until I have a full load to run the dishwasher.  That usually happens every few days.  But I frequently fail to coordinate that with having enough dishwasher soap on hand.  So then I have to go out and get some, which can be annoying.  I could stock up, but that would be too simple. :-0

So I found a recipe online one day when I ran out and discovered that you can use Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, which I also use in making homemade laundry detergent, baking soda (for the grease) and lemon juice (to clean the spots off of glass) to make a very good dishwasher soap.  It works too!

Who knew? How to make your own lavender liquid castile soap

I have been a fan of Dr. Bronner's soaps for as long as I can recall. The fragrances are refreshing and wonderful.  The soap is versatile -- I use it as shampoo, for dishes, as handsoap of course, and just about anything else I can think of.

But it isn't cheap, especially when you use a lot of it.

So I began to wonder, more as an exercise in logic than as a necessity, if it would be possible to make my own version of this. The lavender scent is my favorite most of the time, so I focused on that.

Lo-and-behold, there are recipes online that can show you how to make castile soap, no less, as well as how to make liquid castile soap from a bar.  I didn't feel quite ready to tackle making the soap itself, but I remembered buying bars of Kirk's castile soap some time ago.  They sell for about $1 a bar, as opposed to a bar of Dr. Bronners which costs about $5.

So I went to Cub and bought 3 bars of Kirk's soap for about $3.  I shaved about a third of a bar and then put the shavings in a washed out bottle of a sport drink.   I filled the bottle with water and let it sit.  I turned the bottle upside down once a day.  In about five days the mixture was the consistency of liquid castile soap.  I then added a few drops of lavender oil, and voila...

And it smells almost as good as Dr. Bronners!

Make your own designer vaseline products...

Guess what?  I thought I had to buy Vicks or Mentholatum to have something to comfort my family and me when beset by a cold or coughs.  Not so.  Get some regular vaseline and add eucalyptus oil to it.  It smells wonderful and is very inexpensive.  You can also add a touch of a cherry oil if you like, for the wonderful cherry-vicks aroma.

I also happen to like baby powder aroma vaseline.  Don't have to buy that either.  Buy some inexpensive baby powder scented oil on ebay or wherever and add it to regular vaseline.  Ta-da....

Also, just guess what one of the secrets of the old movie legends was?  I got this straight from something attributed to Lena Horne, who happens to be one of my favs and lived to a ripe old age with glorious skin.  Vaseline!  You don't have to spend a fortune on the skin products that blur lines etc.  Just apply a bit of vaseline to your cheeks.  Not that they don't work -- they do; just that there is a cheap alternative.  Also, when I sit in a sauna or hot tub guess what goes on my face to moisturize it?  Yup.  Vaseline...

Love the stuff...