Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Best Dishwasher Detergent, UPDATED

(Originally published August 1, 2007)


Two years ago, my life in the kitchen took a dramatic turn: we bought a dishwasher. Except for a brief respite of a year or so (when I was sick and we had been given a used dishwasher which we used till it died) I have done dishes the old-fashioned way: make the kids do'em.

Of course, many times it ended up to be my turn as well, and with four growing children, and homeschooling, and cooking from scratch, our whole kitchen seemed to be dishes. Dirty dishes on the counter waiting to be washed. More dirty dishes in the sink being washed. Clean dishes in the drainer waiting to be dried. More clean dishes on a towel waiting to be put away.

With the advent of the dishwasher that all changed. It became a fun game for me to load up the dishwasher and then clean up the rest of the kitchen while my happy Bosch maid washed the dishes for me. As time went on, it degenerated to dirty dishes on the counter waiting to be loaded, and clean dishes in the dishwasher waiting to be put away, but it was still much better than B.D. (before dishwasher)

And then I tried a new detergent. I had been using a gel, even though the people at the appliance store- and even the sticker on the dishwasher- recommended powder, because it made more sense to me. It was already wet, so it didn't need to dissolve; it should work great-- and it did. But then my conscience began squirming and said maybe I needed to use what the experts said to use. I bought a big box of powdered detergent and it was a disaster! The powder got into every cranny of my dishwasher and hardened there into a cross between cement and putty.

My dishwasher was no longer a happy little maid, but a surly slave. "You want clean dishes, I'll give you clean dishes....NOT!" It seemed to delight in spraying most of the soil from the dishes up inside the glasses and drying it there. Oh joy. There's nothing more frustrating than putting a relatively clean glass into the dishwasher (it just had iced tea in it) and taking it out completely coated with unidentifiable gook that must be scrubbed off.

I also was having trouble with a white coating on all the glassware, and the troubleshooting guide that came with my dishwasher was not exactly helpful. If my glassware has white streaks, it means I used too much rinse-aid. If my glassware has white deposits, it means I used too little rinse-aid. The problem was, I couldn't tell the difference between a deposit and a streak. In fact, it looked like I had both. So that meant I was using too much and too little rinse-aid?

We spent nearly a year fighting with this mess, but I won't bore you with the myriad of possible causes and solutions, or recount to you how many times I ran the dishwasher empty of dishes with some new something that might-- this time-- clear everything up. I'll jump straight to the happy ending.

We decided the problem was twofold: hard water, and soap scum. And the solution entails two parts as well. The first is a product called LemiShine, which I found at our local grocery store. I followed the instructions on their website and then ran the dishwasher empty one more time, and Wa-La! that took took care of all the residual soap scum and hard water deposits.

Next, we needed something to keep it that way while getting the dishes clean. And that something is a recipe I found for homemade powdered dishwasher detergent that works wonderfully. No scum, no hard water deposits, and no concrete buildup-- in short, clean dishwasher and clean dishes.

So here's the recipe, as I made it:

Dishwasher Powder

1 cup Borax
1 cup baking soda
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup LemiShine


Use a tablespoon per load, a little more, a little less, depending on how dirty the dishes are and how hard your water is.

I am just thrilled. I have my dishwasher back. And my dishwasher is a happy little maid again.

Check out this blog: crazy-mumma.blogspot.com and search under Labels for "homemade" to find interesting homemade stuff, like liquid detergent and toothpaste and shaving gel and cat food.]

UPDATE, 1/6/09
I wrote about my trials and tribulations with my new dishwasher quite a while ago, and it appears that lots and lots of people have the same difficulties. You would be surprised how many searches I get for "dishwasher detergent," "white streaks on dishes," "best dishwasher detergent," "best dishwasher detergent for hard water," on and on in myriad variations.

I hope that post has helped somebody, but I need to amend it. In that little piece of writing I told how I had discovered how to make my own detergent, and to use a product called LemiShine. That all worked for a while, but then the rot began to set in.

You see, I found that the homemade detergent was not stable. It had salt in it, which absorbed moisture from the air, and quickly made it unusable. I could not make a large batch of it to use out of, and it was a real hassle to mix it up fresh every day or so.

And then something happened to the LemiShine. I used it faithfully for many months, all the while watching my dishes get more and more coated with a white layer of something that could only be gotten off by hand with much elbow grease.

I tried using more LemiShine, vinegar and baking soda-- even washing the dishes by hand now and again to start fresh. But it was no use. My dishwasher was all gunked up, the shiny stainless steel interior was white with deposits, whether of hard water or detergent, I couldn't tell, and my glasses were gross.

And then.

A friend introduced me to Glass Magic. I had seen it on the shelves, but never bought it, because the box looks like the Cascade box, and Cascade did a number on my dishwasher. But I was desperate.

My friend said it took a few washings with it, but eventually all her glassware came out clear and shiny again, and her dishwasher was clean.

So I bought some, and you know what? By the time I had used up the box (which at my house was a week at most) all my glassware looked NEW. I'm not kidding. And the stainless steel interior of my dishwasher? SHINY SHINY.

So I have a new hero.


Glass Magic® Performance Booster (2744338210) - 8 Pack
I'm not getting paid to say this (though it would be nice), but if you have problems with hard water or detergent scum, get Glass Magic. It will make you, and your dishes, and your dishwasher, very happy.


UPDATE 7/10/09:
Glass Magic is now called "Finish Glass Magic Performance Booster" and the box looks like this:

Finish Glass Magic Dishwasher Performance Booster: 16 OZ

It's still the same stuff, and it still works great.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Quick Takes Friday #10




Here we are: another whole week gone, and for my Seven Quick Takes let me take you through my week.

-----1-----
Last Saturday:

My house guests (brother and his 10-year-old daughter and her 12-year-old sister) went home after a two-week visit. Big general sigh of relaxation among all the household.

LovelyDaughter and JD showed up in time to say good-bye to the visitors, and then stayed for dinner (our noon meal), and then stayed to hang out. It felt real holiday-ish.

In the evening, JD and LovelyDaughter let me ride along to see the town fireworks, and when we got back, we found the other boys had planned a surprise and had a pile of our own fireworks ready to set off. I know they blew mucho wages on that display but it was great fun to watch and they had great fun putting it on. I don't know who comes up with the names for some of these fireworks--stuff like "Crazy Exciting" or "One Bad Mother" or "The Whole Enchilada"-- but for some reason it adds to the fun.

And then I plunged in and made homemade lemonade for the first time, and discovered that it's ridiculously easy:

1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Heat till all the sugar is melted. Then add:

1 cup lemon juice
3-4 cups cold water and ice (more or less, till the sweet/tart ratio suits you)


That's it! Unless you want to spruce it up like I did, and put a whole sliced lemon into it and stir it around. And then put a slice of lemon in each glass, which will make everyone say really nice things about how you're spoiling them.

-----2-----
Sunday:

JD and Lovelydaughter came over again for the day, I went to the library in the afternoon (big splurge activity), and in the evening Swede came over, which made a great ending to a great holiday weekend.


-----3-----
Monday:

Laundry, laundry, laundry. All the bedding the girls and Brother slept on. And I do mean ALL, since one of the girls has to wear Depends at night, and let me just say that perhaps "Depends" is not the best name for something that undependable. The foam mattress they slept on is still out in the yard airing.

Bake bread.

-----4-----
Tuesday:

Laundry, laundry, laundry. Everybody's clothes.

Bake bread again, while the weather is reasonably nice so I don't have to use the oven later in the week when it's supposed to get really hot again.


-----5-----
Wednesday:

Crash. I did some cleaning in the morning, and then read a book all afternoon. As Agatha Christie wrote in a story in another one of her books, I was both "soothed and stimulated by the perusal of it."


-----6-----
Thursday:

Super Crash. I'm ashamed to say I did absolutely nothing all day beyond making supper and was still exhausted.

Well, I gave a whole morning of my life to reading The Persian Pickle Club, and I felt cheated. For one thing, I kept noticing little things that seemed to say "This description is to add atmosphere," or "Here I throw in jargon for realism." It's disconcerting to have a story keep somehow reminding you of all the things you read in "How to Write a Best Selling Novel and Make Big Bucks."

For another thing, the "moral" of the story was something to the effect of "it's okay to kill a man if you save a woman in the process."

?????

And the secondary moral was like unto it: "women need to stick together because women's friendships are strong and heartwarming, and better than relationships with men."

Or something like that. *sigh*



-----7-----
Today:

Hubby has charged me with taking two naps today. He said "get rested!" before he left for work this morning. I don't know if I'll manage to sleep twice, but I will probably try for a snooze this afternoon. Right now I need to do a little cleaning up and go buy some groceries.

And now I am looking forward with anticipation to tomorrow: We are invited to spend the weekend with some friends who live about a two-hour drive from here. I'm really, really looking forward to the chance to visit with friends, and also the break from my kitchen!




More Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Quick Takes Friday #9



-----1-----
It's been a busy week, what with three house guests (my brother and his two girls). As usual, I feel like I spend most of my time planning meals, cooking them, and cleaning them up.

Here's what we had today:












How'd I do for my first time to grill steak?














Dessert: "Mud-from-the-Crik," aka Ice Cream Sundae Cake.













Would you like a closer look at that?














(Pix courtesy of DrummerDude, who I think could have a future as as food photographer...)


-----2-----
Two days ago we did something I've been dreaming about for a year: we bought a new mattress.
Mattress Set
Last July, Hubby and I and Swede spent a night in Denver at a Comfort Inn, and that hotel mattress was the most comfortable I've ever slept on. You may remember that in the morning I tore the bedding off the bed to find out what kind of mattress that was.

Well, now we have some money, and we drove to the Denver Mattress store in BigCity and told the sales guy what we were looking for. He sold us a mattress and we brought it home, set it up, and slept on it.

BIG DISAPPOINTMENT!

My ribs hurt and my hips hurt and my back hurt. After I'd been tossing around on it for HOURS I looked at the clock and discovered I'd only been in bed for an hour and a half. This is going to be a LONG night I said to myself. And it was, and Hubby agreed, and now we are on a desperate search to find The Perfect Mattress.

You see, the label on the mattress did not say exactly which model of mattress it was; it only said "Denver Mattress Co, Hospitality Division." So we had to try to guess which model, which is complicated by the fact that the Hospitality Division is separate from the Retail Division. Hubby says if all else fails we are driving back to the Comfort Inn in Denver and offering to trade them our mattress for theirs! :)

On the bright side, I bought a pillow and it IS just like the one in the hotel. At least my pillow was comforting last night while my ribs were hurting!

-----3-----
We also ordered a new couch:

http://ep.yimg.com/ip/I/bizchair1_2059_8151868576
The website said they ship in one to three days. It's now been two weeks, and the only sign of life I can see is that our credit card has been charged with the order.

Let's hope all goes well, and that we like it as well as we anticipate. The couch we have now was a hand-me-down twenty-seven years ago, and it was probably ten to fifteen years old then!


-----4-----
Today for the first time I am wearing these:

Naturalizer Gersen Chrome Yellow Canvas

I'm wearing them with black capris, a yellow scoop-neck tee and a white camisole.

Technically, they should be all I was looking for in a pair of flats: cute, stylish, comfy... I'll let you know later how they live up.


-----6-----
Makeover Update:

New book! Just came today!

Flatter Your Figure

I paid one penny for it (at Amazon), plus shipping, of course, but still a good deal. It has all kinds of great diagrams, so it looks like fun. I'll let you know if it's good or not.



-----7-----
Okay. I'm done. Have a great 4th!


More Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Quick Takes Friday #8



-----1-----

I enjoyed this post written by the author of the blog Zen Habits.

To summarize: he suggests that you do only three things today, and choose them for importance, not urgency. However, I remember when my children were small, the organizational rule of prioritizing by importance-not-urgency did not work unless you counted urgent things-- like changing diapers or doing laundry-- as also important. Doesn't it seem like young children make all of life urgent?

However, I think I might like to try it now that the kids are all grown. I have a tendency to put so many things on my list to do TODAY, that I'm still trying to get through the list after three days! And then I feel like I'm always behind.



-----2-----

One of my new favorite fashion blogs is called La Bella Figura. Being inspired by French and Italian wardrobe simplicity, she wears nearly the same thing every day-- a black skirt or black jeans, and a fitted tee in some nice color with some sort of feminine detailing, one of two or three necklaces, and one of two or three pairs of black shoes. She looks beautiful and put together in a very simple way and I'm inspired by it.

Then there's this gal whose closet must be as big as entire bedroom, but I read her blog just because of her wardrobe creativity.



-----3-----

Yesterday I wrote about keeping cool in this hot weather and today I want to add to that. Here are two ways to keep DRY in hot, sweaty weather:


undefined "Smooth seamless microfiber construction moves with you. Soft, lightweight feel. Breathable fabric keeps you cool and comfortable all day. Classic bikini cut. Tag-free to eliminate tag chafe." (Barely There Breathe Bikini Panty)

I never knew it before, but microfiber makes all the difference in the world!

And then there's this:


And it really works.

Now I want to find similar things for Hubby, but for some reason men's underwear, especially microfiber, costs about triple what women's underwear costs. What's up with that?



-----4-----

Just a note: last night I made fajitas for supper, but instead of stir-frying the meat as usual, I marinated it and then grilled it--to keep from using a burner in the hot, hot house--and then cut it into strips. It was so good that it all got snarfed up very quickly and I had to serve up the portion I had saved back for DrummerDude's lunch to have enough. You can find the recipe here.



-----5-----

Not long ago DrummerDude showed me a YouTube video that had me in tears. We've had a couple of rough years at our house with various family members dealing with depression and even suicidal thoughts, and this song touched those deep feelings.

Here it is, if you've like to see it:





-----6-----

This post by ElizabethEsther about her 18-month-old twins made me laugh.



-----7-----

These leather and pearl bracelets
Chan Luu Multistrand Leather Bracelet


that I saw at Une femme d'un certain age that are for sale at Garnet Hill have me inspired. I don't want to pay $180, though, so I'm thinking about the three pearl bead necklaces I have, and the spool of leather lacing I have, and wondering if I can make my own....



-----
More Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Staying Cool in a Heat Wave

This week I have come up with some tips for how to keep cool in 90-some degree weather with 109 degree heat index in a house with only a window air conditioner.

1. Don't cook. Serve meals of sandwiches and fresh fruit and salad. This keeps the house from additional heat.

2. If you do have to cook, put the food in a roaster on the porch. (If you have plug-ins on your porch like I do!)

3. Make lemonade out of lemonade mix and real lemons and ice, to drink in the hottest part of the day. Or mix cold ginger ale, mint leaves, and lime slices with ice.

4. Wring out a bandanna in cold water and wear it around your neck.

5. Save the baking for evenings when the day is coolest.

6. Wear skirts instead of jeans or shorts.

These of course are aside from the obvious solutions of getting out of the house completely by going swimming, or, in a pinch, shopping at the air-conditioned mall, but they work--or at least they help. I know because I've tried them all!

Monday, June 22, 2009

And then I'm going to get some SLEEP

We've been busy enough lately that I can't even remember what we've actually been doing. The next activity blots the memory of the last one!

However, I can tell you that Friday my brother and his two girls arrived for their annual two-week visit (which requires the usual preparation, you know, cleaning, making up beds, planning menus, etc.), and then Saturday four of us left for Holyoke, Colorado. We went to help with two meetings where as a part of a larger worship team we were basically teaching how to worship, sort of (which required the usual preparation of packing up all our instruments, including the drum set, and the amplifiers and cords, plus clothes for the weekend).

Oddly, the highlight of the weekend was the place we spent the night Saturday night. Lovely people, who very hospitably opened their home to SEVEN people with ease and fed us four kinds of fresh fruit and cereal and coffee cake and toast for breakfast, with a side of refreshing conversation.

While we (me, Hubby, GuitarGeek, DrummerDude) were gone, MB3 worked on his room remodeling and made quite bit of progress.

Today? I have been very tired, as I always am after these kinds of events. I always thought God would put me in full-time ministry someday, but I'm beginning to see maybe the reason He hasn't is because I'm not physically or emotionally cut out for that kind of long term stress. It wipes me out, just over a weekend!

Hopefully, my active recuperation today (as in, TWO naps) will set me on the road to being rested and getting rid of my new cold sores. And that's good because there are lots of things I want to do now that my nieces are here. Things like camping out in the yard, going swimming, going to the zoo....

So, I'm off to bed, as soon as I bake these four pans of buns. I know it's bedtime, but the extreme heat today made it just ridiculous to bake anything before now (ten o'clock at night)!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

DIY Makeover Quote #10

"Individual style is about doing your own thing, not someone else's. It's taking bits and pieces of what's available and putting them together in your own personal way, breathing your own life into them."

~~Leah Feldon, in Dress Like Million (On Considerably Less): A Trend-proof Guide to Real Fashion.