AllThatBlooms

I’m getting married on Saturday.  Everything is crazy!

 I’m loving every second of it.

I will post lots of pictures when we’re back from the honeymoon.. probably sooner

I had this long entry typed about about all the garage sales Mark, his mom and I hit this morning.  I always type them out in a blank email (I have AOL), copy and paste into Wordpress.. because sometimes it’s slow for me.  Anyway, did that.. then got side-tracked and copied something else.. and all I wrote was gone.  Sometimes I’m an idiot.  Oh well!

The basic point of the post was that we got some great deals today, IMO.  We got this nice corner hutch that’ll look amazing in our kitchen once the tile is down.  We paid $25 for that but it’s so worth it!  We’re going to pick it up sometime this upcoming week.  

I also found the exact style of roller skates I’ve been looking for.. in my size for only $2! (The pink wheels are definitely a bonus) How perfect!  I can’t wait to go skating :-D  As usual, we also bought books, movies (I love buying VHS tapes), CDs, clothes and some misc. household things.  (Mark got a bucket of golf balls for $2 that he’s pretty excited about.  Mark’s mom found a stack of old Golden Books that she got for a dime a piece!)  I guess we spent around $70 (in about 7 hours). 

I can’t decide if that’s a lot or not.  I’m not great at limiting myself, but I am cheap when it comes to garage sales usually.  Mark’s mom is the same way.  Neither of us like to pay much for anything unless it’s something we have to have.  That $25 hutch is probably the most we’ve paid for anything at a garage sale.. so I guess that’s good?  I don’t know why but I never think to try haggling a little when I see something I like but isn’t an ideal price.  I’m not sure I’ve seen anything I wanted bad enough to make the effort though.  ( would feel cheap if the owner thought they had a good price on it anyway, and I’m suggesting lower.  I don’t like to feel too cheap.)

Does anybody else feel a little guilty when walking away from a garage sale without buying anything, especially when the home owners are watching you browse their things?  I do a little, but Mark’s mom isn’t afraid to walk away if she doesn’t like the prices.. so I just follow her

Do you go to garage sales looking for particular items?  Today I was really hoping to find a sewing machine.  One was auctioned off for $10 as we were browsing another sale!  I so would have liked that.  I did find those skates and hutch though, so I’m okay.

Pictures shortly.

As a winner in the Laundry Tree’s giveaway for the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival, I received a sample of SoapNuts.  I have to say I was skeptical about this natural cleaning product.  Could a handful of “Nuts” really clean our laundry?  Well, I gave them a try tonight.  I washed a load of slightly dirty laundry (socks, bras, underwear, towels, etc., usually what I wash as ”pinks” - versus a load of, say, Mark’s work clothes that smell like fried food and are covered in who knows what.) with Soapnuts, no added detergent and no fabric softener. 

The first thing I noticed when I pulled the wet clothes out of the washer is that they actually smelled clean.  We usually use a generic detergent (whatever brand it is that Meijer occasionally sells for buy one, get two free) and the wet clothes tend to not smell nice (kind of like they’d sat in the washer for a while, even if they hadn’t) unless we use a fabric softener.  After using the Soapnuts though, they just smelled.. clean.  Everything also looked as clean as it would have been with a commercial detergent.

The next thing I noticed is that the towels felt softer when I was folding them.  I did use a dryer sheet, like I usually do, but everything felt softer than usual.  The towels are usually where I notice the softness (or lack of) after drying them.  (I just noticed on the Laundry Tree website that they mention this.)

I’m trying the Soapnut right now on a load of jeans and Mark’s work clothes, so we’ll see how they come out :)  As of right now though, I really love them and will definitely consider buying them!  I think I’ll check out some of their fragrance oils too.

I should mention that we have hard water.. so the fact that these seemed to have worked for us is a big deal to me.  (FYI - I used four of five of them in that first load, I think.)

If you’re interested in trying SoapNuts you can get a sample of eight (you can use each several times!) for $1.99, BUT if you order by May 15th, you can get them for .99!  See details here.  If a natural cleaning product is something you’re looking for, I would definitely recommend giving these a try.

Is there anyone reading that has, or know somebody that has an Easy Water system?  Mark and I have been looking into it a little and would love some input.  We have really hard well water and have a water softener that uses salt.  It gets expensive having to buy salt as often as we need it, so a system that doesn’t use salt would be nice.  The website claims that the system is guaranteed to “eliminate new scale buildup in water appliances and also remove any existing scale”, that would definitely be great!

 Any opinions on this system?  Any ideas for similar systems?

Did I mention that Mark’s parents got us a nice 3-piece luggage set (similar to Briggs and Riley) as a wedding/shower gift? I had been thinking about getting some for us prior to that because, well, we would need it for the honeymoon. Mark has a big ol’ suitcase and I have a duffel bag. One is too big and the other too small, but now we have three perfectly sized pieces of luggage. I was pretty excited about that I can’t wait to start packing!