After our dishwasher broke, we waited for a month for the maintenance crew to actually fix it. Long story short, it's been 2 months and no one has come to fix our broken dishwasher. That's ok! The hippy husband suggested that we wash our dishes by hand for a few months and see the difference it makes on our electricity bill! (You gotta love a husband who so willingly follows in the quest of living a more sustainable lifestyle!) After I finally ran out of the Dawn dish soap that I had been finishing up, I needed a new dish soap that I could make just like all of the other cleaning products in my house. At first I tried only using castile soap as my dish soap but I needed something to cut the grease. The first recipe I tried combined castile soap with lemon juice and vinegar, but I eventually realized that the reason that the solution curdled so often was because I was mixing castile soap (a base) with vinegar and lemon (an acid) which was advised against by Dr. Broner's themselves because the acid/base chemical reaction makes the soap de-saponify causing it to no longer be soap and render it useless as far as cleaning. Continue reading “Make Your Own All Natural Dish Soap”
Going Green With Your Pets (They’re part of your family, so why not?)
If you are anything like me, you just love animals of all shapes and sizes. I have pretty much had every kind of pet that you can think of (except a bird as I have a fear of them thanks to Daphne Du Maurier and Alfred Hitchcock.). I have had the normal; dogs, cats, and fish. I have had the “small animal”; hamsters, gerbils, rats, guinea pigs, and mice. I have even had the exotic; ferrets, lizards, frogs, salamanders, and (my personal favorite) snakes. In fact, I love snakes so much that even as a child I adored them. When I was about 10 or 11 (this was when I was in 4th or 5th grade in MN) Easter was coming up, and I wanted to do something special for my mom. I knew that the baby garter snakes were out in full force and thought my mom would just LOVE to have a bunch of them as her own pet. Continue reading “Going Green With Your Pets (They're part of your family, so why not?)”
Green Cleaning in the Bathroom
What is considered to be one of the grossest rooms in the house? I am pretty sure every one of you said the BATHROOM! Going green in the bathroom is not that hard to do. Switching out a few things can help reduce your footprint greatly! There are tons of natural cleaners that work wonders in the bathroom as well! By now, I am starting to realize just how AMAZING vinegar around the house is. It most certainly is going to do some powerhouse cleaning in my bathroom too. When we first started cleaning with vinegar, I wasn't really into the smell that went with it. Continue reading “Green Cleaning in the Bathroom”
Going Green With Your Laundry
Everyone has laundry to do. Some people do their own, while others do the whole household's laundry. I am fortunate to have a Husband that does his own laundry. I do the household, Silas, and my own laundry. It is so nice not to have to worry about an extra person's laundry! Continue reading “Going Green With Your Laundry”
DIY Upholstery & Carpet Cleaner That’s WAY Better Than Resolve!
Yesterday I got my Lavender essential oil (that I ordered from Amazon) in the mail. I was so very excited to see the UPS truck pull up to the house, that I nearly knocked my son over in the process to get to the door! I really wanted something that smelled less antiseptic than the Tea Tree oil and vinegar do. As soon as I opened my package, I set about making up a new batch of my All Purpose cleaner, only I decided to get creative in the process. What came out of this recipe was surely worth the little amount of time I spent putting it together. Continue reading “DIY Upholstery & Carpet Cleaner That's WAY Better Than Resolve!”