Miscellany

• I love Christmas, but I'm glad it's over. It's like going on vacation but being glad to sleep in your bed when you get home. It's chaos, glorious chaos, but makes you appreciate the routine days throughout the rest of the year.
• I finally got all of my decorations put away. 
• I'm nesting. Bad.
• This is a good thing as Evelyn's room is finally getting some attention and our basement is getting more organized by the day.
• I'm a little freaked out by the fact that I'm having a baby in two months. That is not enough time to get everything done. I'm trying really hard, but not being very successful.
• Rob has been hearing yet another round of layoff threats. This one sounds legit, but when you hear them at least once every four months you begin to ignore them. God will take care of us.
• I don't think Rob would be disappointed to have to find a new job considering how much he dislikes his. Maybe this is God telling him to move on?
• I am finding my job harder and harder. My body is protesting sitting all day staring at a computer. I feel tired and frustrated. I miss teaching. I miss my baby. 
• Evelyn has begun with the tantrums. She's attempting to scream/cry and fall on the floor when she doesn't get her way. Fun, no? At this point, we are both just completely ignoring the behavior or telling her that when she is ready to be kind we can do an alternative activity.
• I'm struggling with the idea of Evelyn weaning (yes, she's still nursing). She is beginning to drop morning sessions and I've noticed changes in her habits as my milk changes back to colostrum (aren't our bodies amazing?). Outside pressures make me question how I'm handling it, but I know deep down that it's a positive part of our relationship and that someday she will wean and I won't have these moments anymore. This may be a whole other post in and of itself though.
• Parenting is hard stuff.
• How the heck am I going to handle two?
• I often feel like I don't devote enough attention to certain activities. I stink at remembering people's birthdays and sending cards. I want to take more pictures of life and keep my photos organized. I want to be crafty or keep my house cleaner but I feel like I can never keep up. I think this is common with moms. But, it's hard when others seem to make it look so easy. 
• Example: I'm 3 years behind on putting our family photos into our annual ornaments. Also, I desperately want to make a photo book for Evelyn's first year, but I feel like I have to be doing so many other things that I can't focus on it. I think the part of me that can't stand to start a project and not finish it in one sitting is my greatest detriment in this department.
• If people call me a procrastinator, I'm not sure what I'd label Rob. His incessant habits of procrastinating are grating on my every last nerve right now. I can't get going on Evelyn's room because his desk covered in his crap is still in there and I, obviously, can't move it. Also, him and trash is probably topping my list right now. Is it really that hard to take two steps to throw the wrapper of a piece of candy away? Also, when I ask you to take the trash out (because you yell at me when I do it - being pregnant an all) that means actually taking it outside and putting it in the can, not setting it in the garage for morning. And then not doing it in the morning either. I might as well have just done it myself.
• Thankfully though, when he does get motivated, there's no stopping him. He's been working hard on the basement and it's finally getting there!

Green Cleaning: All-Purpose Spray

I'm leading off my series on green cleaning with an all-purpose spray. I already talked about some of the standard ingredients needed to make your own household cleaners here, but I'll list them out with each recipe and go a little more in depth on the reasons they are used and why.

I've only tried two all-purpose spray recipes and so far I'm loving the second. The first recipe I used was not by any means bad, I just didn't love it, and if I don't love it, I don't use it. I was confident that it was doing it's job as far as cleaning is concerned, but I didn't care for the fact that it:

1. Contained borax - I also outlined here my feelings on borax. While it has not been found to be particularly harmful, if I can make a spray that does the job without it, why not?
2. It left a film on my kitchen table. I'm not sure why, but I have my theories and I wasn't a fan. It's funny, it was only on my kitchen table, nowhere else. 
3. I don't feel like it ever mixed well, I expected to have to shake the bottle to mix the oils in every use, but the bottle always had solids stuck to the sides and that bothered me.

So, I took the recipe I used and compared it to a couple of others and recently made this one:

All-Purpose Spray

 - 3 Tablespoons Vinegar

 - 1/2 teaspoon Washing Soda

 - 1/2 teaspoon Castile Soap

 - 2 Cups Hot Water

 - 20 drops essential oil (optional - I used tea tree)

Simply mix the ingredients together and you're done! Personally, I mixed the washing soda into the hot water first to dissolve it, then added the soap and then the soda. 

The original recipe did not call for essential oils but I added them for a couple of reasons. First, scent and second, tea tree oil has natural anti-fungal/bacterial/septic properties. So I felt like it gave it an extra oomph. You could also add lemon or orange for a nice scent. Or, you could use a certain scent of Castile soap. I used peppermint. The peppermint mixed with the slightly woody/earthy smell of the tea tree is very refreshing.

Now, let's talk about actually cleaning with the all-purpose spray. As its name implies, this spray is your go-to for regular household jobs. I mainly use it in my kitchen for cleaning off my counter tops, stove top, kitchen table, sink, etc. Another thing I have fallen in love with for cleaning is my Microfiber Scrubby Cloths. I just got these from Zulily for a great price along with my BPA free spray bottles. They are amazing. They clean well, have a nice little scrubby piece, and wash great. The mixture above is a general cleanser and will provide sanitizing properties, however I wouldn't say it is strong enough for something such as cleaning a cutting board where raw meat has been. Some recipes have tried to adjust for this by adding hydrogen peroxide. This is good, in theory, but there are a couple of things to be aware of.

Hydrogen peroxide is absolutely approved for sanitizing after raw meat and such (proven to kill salmonella) and is also an effective bleaching agent. So why not just add some to the mixture? Have you ever noticed that when you buy peroxide it comes in a dark bottle? That is because, when exposed to light - as well as other elements, peroxide loses it's potency. Additionally, hydrogen peroxide mixed with vinegar in on bottle creates an entirely new solution that will not do what it is intended to do. So, my advice is to get a bottle of peroxide and screw a spray nozzle on it and keep it next to your all-purpose spray. Then when you need it, you can spray some on the surface to be disinfected followed by your all purpose spray and you should be good to go!

Hopefully, you like this recipe as much as I do. I love feeling at ease with what I am using to clean my house!

My Mom Thinks I'm a Hippie (And So Do I): Green Cleaning Ingredients

Becoming a mom makes one a little neurotic about things (please tell me I'm not the only one who became neurotic?). Before I was married and contemplated (seriously, at least) bringing another life into the world, I had it all figured out. We all had it all figured out as teenagers, right? I was going to be getting an epidural, followed by bottle-feeding, and not batting an eye at crying it out. Oh boy, I've officially hit three of the biggest mom controversies ever. Well, this post isn't about those topics and please don't get all defensive. I'm just being honest here. Things didn't go as I had planned. I ended up with a lot more time to think about how I would raise my family than I had expected. Thus began my journey into the world of being a (somewhat) crunchy mom.

The beauty of living now is that we have choices. My choices aren't the right choices for everyone, but they are the right choices for me. In the end, my journey through parenthood has been the exact opposite of my childhood daydreams. I've become a natural-birthing, breastfeeding, babywearing, cloth diapering hippie. My mom thinks I've gone off the deep end. It didn't stop there. Enter household cleaners. Finally, we've reached the point of this whole post. I've already stuck my toe on the other side of "crunchiness," why not just jump right in?

I'll be breaking this topic up. Today, we'll be talking about "Green Cleaning." In this post, I'll discuss the basic ingredients needed to make your own cleaners and then I'll do some subsequent posts about the recipes I've tried and what has/hasn't worked. This has been a trial and error topic for me. So, I'll be updating as I learn new tricks.

I think it goes without saying that our cleaning products can be, um, harsh? The chemicals that are present in the products we use are really downright frightening when you look at it. We're talking chemicals that are labeled as carcinogens, are known to cause cancer, respiratory issues, reproductive issues, etc. And we spend ridiculous amounts of money on them! Funny thing is, you can literally (can anyone else hear that word and not think of Parks & Rec, or is it just me?) clean your entire house for so much less with just a few magic ingredients.

Here's the list of ingredients I started with:

• White Distilled Vinegar - the single greatest and most versatile cleaning aid. And, it's SO CHEAP! A lot of people complain about the smell, but I answer that with two things: 1) It doesn't stick around. Once vinegar dries/evaporates/whatever, the smell is gone and 2) Get over it. Eventually you'll learn to like it. It's amazing how much other cleaners burn my nose now. I feel a little comforted by the smell of vinegar these days. Though not as effective as products like bleach, studies have proven that vinegar can reduce e.coli, salmonella, and other yucky things living in your house. We'll discuss how it can be made more effective later. So, you can get nearly the same disinfecting power without the use of something as harsh as bleach.
• Castile Soap - This stuff really is magic. It can be used for so many things and comes in so many great scents. I've used it in my hair, as baby wash, as a wipe solution for cloth diapers, as dish soap. Plus, it's all natural and made from a vegetable base instead of petroleum (you know, that stuff your car runs on?) so it already sounds better. If you want some interesting watching, there is a documentary on Dr. Bronner. He was, er... eccentric?
• Washing Soda - Not to be confused with baking soda, though they come in pretty much identical boxes.
• Essential Oils - These are not necessary, but do make for some great smelling cleaners with a little more oomph. In addition to scent, they have natural cleaning properties. I was able to find all of these at my local vitamin store. Some of my favs are:
• Tea Tree - A powerful anti-fungal, anti-septic, and anti-viral. It may not smell the best, but it's got some really awesome cleaning abilities!
• Lemon - Another disinfectant. And, it smells lemony-fresh!
• Sweet Orange - It doesn't have a lot of cleaning properties, but I like to add it for scent purposes.
• Other good ones are peppermint and eucalyptus
• Baking Soda - This works as a natural deodorizer and creates your mildly abrasive cleaners
• Salt - I'm still experimenting with different types of salt (sea salt vs. kosher salt vs. pickling salt) but this also adds an abrasive characteristic to your cleaners.

There are a few more ingredients that I'll talk about later in specific recipes, but one I want to discuss a little more in depth is Borax. Borax is a common ingredient in homemade cleaning products. I used it in my first batch of cleaners without question, but in my next round I wanted to check the ingredients I was using and make sure they were as harmless as I thought. Everything passed with flying colors except Borax. Which got a big, fat "F" from the Environmental Working Group's database on cleaners. I didn't want this to be my only source and so I went digging. Borax is a controversial ingredient. Some are saying that it's just fine, while others argue that something that works so well at killing roaches couldn't possibly be safe to use as an everyday household cleaner. While the conclusion the author reached in this post is not the conclusion I've reached, she outlines the facts about Borax quite well. At this point in time, I plan on trying to leave borax out of my homemade cleaners. I mean, if I can make things that work just as well without it, why not? Then I don't even have to worry about it. However, if I find that things work better with it, I'll revisit the subject later. 

In the mean time, if you want to test a new batch of recipes you can follow me in the coming posts. I'm anxiously awaiting my BPA-free spray bottles (which unfortunately don't have the best reviews, but I got them for a killer deal and am going to try them anyway) and my microfiber cleaning cloths to come in the mail. Then, I'll be getting started on a new batch of All-Purpose Spray and trying a new version of dishwasher detergent (since the last batch didn't go over quite so well). 

And, I need to figure out how to get more pictures in these posts. Wall-o-text isn't very inviting, is it? Give yourself a pat on the back if you made it this far!

So, just because she's cute! Evelyn wanted to give daddy a hug: