My laundry products. Every load, every day.

What so many detest, I love. I'm a laundry fanatic. I love doing laundry. Grocery shopping? Not so much.

I am the only person in my family permitted to do laundry. For 6 people, 5 beds, 2 dogs & all the extras. Just me. I am so particular about our clothing & cleanliness, that I just don't allow anyone to help wash. And I like it that way. And I'm pretty confident my family likes it that way. Ha!

I own about 10 laundry baskets. Each evening, when putting on jammies, everyone brings their dirty clothes down for the day. They place them on my washing machine & I then distribute them into the appropriate basket. I wash every color separately (dark blues/blacks, light colored towels/underwear/socks, white t-shirts, dark underwear/towels/socks, pinks, purples, greens, medium blues, reds, grays, browns, etc. Yes, I am that anal!) Clothes are expensive, so I take care of them. And I like for my family to look nice. I take pride in my family dressing nice. It doesn't have to be fancy-smancy, but it does have to be clean & wrinkle-free. That's I why I do all the laundry myself. So, to say I'm just a tad picky with my laundry products would be an understatement.

The photo you see above are the laundry products I use every day. Nothing more, nothing less. Every load, every day. I used to use Borax in every load of laundry, but I stopped purchasing & using that a few months ago. I've never looked back & I miss it none (saving that money is nice, too!). What you see in the photo above are the best laundry products on the market. They are healthy - they are natural, safe & non-toxic. And they are very effective & work exceptionally well. If they didn't work, healthy or not, I wouldn't use them, because they wouldn't meet my personal standards. But they do. I love them & will never, ever go back to store bought, chemical filled laundry products. Who wants all those toxins on & in your skin? Not me & not us. Our allergies have improved tremendously just by switching cleaning products & laundry products. I've used these products now for almost 2 years & I just can't say enough good things about them. Added bonuses? 1.) I order them online & they get delivered to my door. Three less products I have to shop for. 2.) They literally last for months (the big box of detergent lasts us a minimum of 4 months) & I don't have to reorder often. Yip!

Ok. So this is what I use:

Get Clean Fresh Laundry Concentrate (detergent). For a full load of clothes, I only use 1/4 cup. That's it! That's all it takes. Our clothes are (very) clean & have an extremely mild, soft scent. Nothing overbearing, hardly noticeable & no chemicals. This detergent comes in liquid or powder form, scented or unscented. I use the powder because it's less expensive. I ridiculously love it. Oh, one more thing. It keeps my darks, dark! No fading & I just love that fact! (This product is available in small & large size.)

Soft Fabric Fragrance Free Dryer Sheets. These are so cool & so different from traditional dryer sheets. Instead of soft, they have a rough, crunchy texture to them. I toss one in every single load & when the load is complete, I open the garage door & toss it in the recycling bin. They're biodegradable! Love them.

Nature Bright Laundry Booster & Stain Remover. I used to use this product in whites alone, but I now use it in every load, even darks. It freshens every load & is superior in removing stains. I've used it on my carpet, even, to remove a 5 year old carpet stain! I use it on my counters to whiten the grout. I use it any & everywhere I want to whiten & brighten & remove stains. Phenomenal.

That's it! Those 3 products are all I use to get our clothes fresh & clean. Shaklee does offer a fabric softener but I admit, I've never used it. I have never used fabric softener, so I've just never tried it. But I hear it's pretty darn good, too. Here's the link if you want to check it out: Soft Fabric Concentrate.

If you are searching for healthier laundry products, I urge you to try them. I promise, you'll love them! Heck, if you don't, just call Shaklee & let them know. Shaklee has a 100% money back guarantee. If you have any questions, email me & it will be my pleasure to help you. My email is: adoringthesimple@gmail.com

Happy laundering!

(There are some links on the right sidebar ------> that show even more examples of how fantastic Shaklee's products are. Feel free to peek!)

Mexican Quinoa & homemade garlic bread.

What to do for dinner? The holidays are over & I have yet to get to the store to restock. Being it's so cold here & almost all of our smoke alarms malfunctioned during the night, I knew grocery shopping wasn't going to happen today. I'm also currently in the mindset, I ain't wasting nothin'. I'm about saving money this year, not tossing it in the trash. Which, unfortunately, sometimes I did in the past.

I knew I had 2 lbs. of hamburger meat. I knew I had a box of Quinoa, which I plan on incorporating into a lot more of our meals. Quinoa is so healthy! Do some googling. I had some onions that my husband had cut up a few nights ago, & I had some celery stalks that had gotten lost amongst frig items. Using those 4 ingredients, I sat down & googled. And found this recipe.



I dug in the pantry & found a can of diced tomatoes (that's luck - I don't buy them - my husband must have). When reading the recipe, I also read the comments. Some noted the recipe was good, but bland, & that they added taco seasoning. Great! But I didn't have any taco seasoning. I was searching for a homemade recipe, when one of my Shaklee partners led me to this recipe. Fortunately, I had all the ingredients! But one. I made it anyway! I was very leery about homemade taco seasoning but I have to say - it tasted great! Will use it from now on.

Here are the ingredients I used for my Mexican Quonia:

2 lbs. ground beef.
chopped onion - I didn't have as much as I would have liked - probably 1 cup or less.
chopped celery - I didn't measure - just chopped some up & tossed it in. I'll include this every time - added a nice crunch.
(I browned the meat with the onion & celery, & also threw on some dried onions & garlic salt. Why not?)
1 can diced tomatoes - could have used 2 cans, but we aren't huge cooked tomato fans - so one was ample for us.
2 cups uncooked Quinoa (rinse it first, which I did).
1.5 cups water.
Taco seasoning - I didn't measure, but probably used about 2.5 tablespoons - next time I'll use just a tad less. It had a yummy kick!
Cooked uncovered, stirring frequently, until the Quinoa is done.

Topped with just a tiny bit of sharp shredded cheese (I shred my own now - no more preshredded!)



Recipe makes a ton & is very filling. Fed 5 (my youngest did not like it - no surprise there - other 3 kids loved it!) & have a lot left over. Next time, & there will be a next time, I'll add corn & beans & will probably top with a bit of sour cream. Really, you can change this recipe up any way you want. My husband thinks it would be great in a taco shell.

I decided to make some garlic bread to go with it. This is my sister's-in-law recipe that I've used for years. Sometimes I cheat & buy the frozen, but most of the time, I make this.

Bread.
Generous amount of butter (real butter!).
Light sprinkle of garlic salt (don't do too much!)
Top with parmesan.
350 degrees, top rack, for about 8 minutes or until cheese is melted.



So good! I forgot to add a veggie with dinner. I'm a tad tired due to last night. We'll blame it on that. I did attempt grapes, but they didn't look too good. They, too, had gotten lost in the frig. So I tossed those. No one seemed to mind.



I better get to the store tomorrow.

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Happy New Year!

Oh my gosh! Hi! Happy New Year! Have I really not blogged since December 12th? Wow! I am ready for things to settle down!

I'm so excited & ready for 2014. An opportunity to begin again, an opportunity to start fresh. Yes, please! I'm already making my to-do list! Ok, honestly, it's just adding to my current one. Top three? 1.) Getting my photography business off the ground! Why do I always choose the worst time to do this? Christmastime, really? Cold outside, people traveling, Christmas photos already done - geeze. 2.) Working my Shaklee business bigger, badder & more intensely! I want a huge team & I'm looking for serious Distributors and/or Partners! Best darn products available! Yip! Products everyone uses - it's just a matter of switching brands! 3.) Decorating & recipes - big time! (Maybe that should be #3 & 4?) I am going to whip my house into shape & beautify this puppy if it kills me! I have so many new ideas, & lots that I've had on my list but still need to do! And now that the holidays are over, I'm jumping right back into our improved eating. I don't regret, at all, pigging during the holidays. Heck no! Life is too short to fuss over foods during the holidays. But certainly, that eating regimen can't continue. School starts back on Monday (I am so heartbroken - I hate sending my kids back to school & it just gets harder every time it's time. Sniff.) & so does our typical routine.

What have I been doing over the last 3 weeks? Christmas, obviously. Purchasing, wrapping, 3 school Christmas parties, my husband's family Christmas, tying up loose ends, spending quality time with the kids just enjoying, our family Christmas & immediately following that, 3 of my children had birthdays! Christmastime at our home is exhausting! 3 birthdays following Christmas is so hard. But that's what God gave us & we make it work!

This year for birthdays, I did something new. I combined all 3 birthdays & we celebrated on one day. That means 2 had to wait for their birthdays & one had hers early. I was worried. Then I felt so guilty. But the day of the celebration, it worked! We went to Chuck E. Cheese (my kids' all time favorite!), then we took them to Toys R Us & let them pick out what gifts they wanted (on a budget, of course) & then we came home & had ice cream cake. The result? The kids loved it & asked to do the same for their next birthdays! I don't know if I'll comply, but the day was different & quite honestly, so much easier! But I don't want to be about easy all the time - I want to be about special. So we'll see.



Funny, I forgot candles. Turns out, I had just enough (of a mismatched variety) to equal their birthdays totaled together - 25! Ha! Improvise. Winning!

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And thank you so much for following my blog & supporting my business - I appreciate you SO much!

Here's to a beautiful, healthy, happy, positive, fun, shiny '14!

MckMama Truths & MckMama.

It's been a while since I've blogged about MckMama. Truth is I'm really busy, but I do check in with MWoP every now & then. Rest assured, MckMama's still at it - being deceitful, manipulative & being so dishonest it's sickening. And equally important, blowing ungodly amounts of money (& bragging about it) while judgements are still being filed against her left & right. The most recent? $50,000 (fifty thousand!) filed by her MOTHER-IN-LAW! LOL Now if that doesn't take the cake!?

Anja made the decision to turn off all comments on MWoP (www.mckmamatruths.com) effective sometime in January, 2014. You gotta give the girl props - MWoP is not an easy site to administer & control & she's done a fabulous job for a very long time. Thank you Anja for all your time, effort & dedication to keeping the site informative.

MckMama is still scamming & I think until justice is served (haha, right?), a site such as MWoP needs to & will always, exist. The purpose is to hopefully prevent more innocent people from falling into her trap & spending their money on untruths, as well as calling her out & holding her accountable for all her false claims.

The only site I know of currently that will be open to comments is: www.mckfacts.com. This site has brought over a lot of MckMama's history (& photos - she ain't skinny like she claims!) & Disqus is active on that site.

I may begin to blog about MckMama more frequently, as her crazy antics continue & she continues to get away with it. If nothing more, she is entertaining. I guess there is one thing she's good at.

Happy Thursday!

Update! Jennifer McKinney was arrested & taken to jail on January 24, 2014! Read about it here, including a link to all details!

Homemade hot chocolate!

This is delish, people! Yum! Typically, I'm not really a hot chocolate fan. The box packages are just crap, the Hershey's Cocoa recipe is too rich for me & I am not fond of overly rich dishes/drinks. But when I found this crock pot homemade recipe (original here), I decided to try it, since my kids love hot chocolate. And can I just say - winning!



1.5 cups whipping cream
1 - 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
6 cups of milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups of chocolate chips (milk chocolate or semi-sweet - semi-sweets are richer, so I always choose milk chocolate)

Stir together whipping cream, milks, vanilla & chocolate chips in crock pot.

Cover & cook on low about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until mixture is hot & chocolate chips are melted. Stir again before serving. Garnish as desired.

When mine was finished, I switched my crock pot setting to 'warm'. When we were ready for our hot chocolate, it was just the right temperature, instead of having to blow, wait, blow, wait, rinse & repeat.

Also, I stuck the whole crock pot in the frig & when my kids are ready for some more tomorrow, I'll just stick that puppy right back in & warm it up!



Baby it's cold outside! Make some! :)

*Side note - my sister-in-law told me the original site (link above) has many awesome recipes! She made the hot chocolate, beef stew & bbq pork chops & said they all are amazing! I'll be checking into those!

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Happy looking gorgeous! :)

Oh Christmas tree...

My kids' Christmas tree is up & the other day, I happened to catch a glimpse of what I thought could be a really cool shot. So the other night, I pulled out my camera to see if I could capture it. And I did! Winning!



Isn't that awesome? Was taken at night, in the complete dark, all manual settings, 50mm lens, no flash.

Love it!

I am so excited for Christmas this year! I'm simplifying & I feel so less stressed this season! :)