Homemade Kitchen Cleaner

I am never buying kitchen cleaner again. I had recently converted to Caldrea cleaners, because (a) I'd found a ton of them at a local TJ Maxx for el cheapo, and (b) they were the yummiest smelling, eco-friendly-ish cleaners I had found for less than $9.99/bottle at William-Sonoma, oh, and (c) the bottles/lables were pretty cute, and I'm a packaging whore, and that matters to me.

But - I had also recently stocked up on all the necessary ingredients for making pretty much any home cleaner that I would want to make - I have all the requisite essential oils, glycerine, vinegar, baking soda, washing soda, borax, etc. So, when I started to run out of my last bottle of Caldrea Plum Nutmeg (which was the least yummy smelling of the bunch) I made some of my own.

First, I started with this book The Naturally Clean Home: 150 Super-Easy Herbal Formulas for Green Cleaning by Karyn Siegel-Maier.

In it is an ultra easy recipe for an all-purpose kitchen cleaner/degreaser she call's Lemon Blast Cleaner, which calls for:

• white vinegar


• borax


• lemon juice


• eucalyptus, lemon, lime or orange (I used eucalyptus) oil


• liquid Castile soap

Cirrus seed extract (I use grapefruit seed)

Now, I'm not going to give you the exact recipe - becuase it's not mine. It's from the book - but if you buy the book, or get it from your local library, you'll need the above items on hand. I found that this receipe worked fine, but smelled nasty. I thought it would smelly like lemon and eucalypus - but it was like sour vinegar.

So, I added two full droppers of Lavender essential oil, at approximately 10 drops per dropper, and another full dropper of eucalyptus oil. And, the result of THAT is the best smelling cleaner I have ever had the pleasure to clean with. AND, it SERIOUSLY cleans the counters. It cuts grease and food and everything else from the stove to the counters. I use it on our granite countertops and they absolutely don't have a streak on them.

Love. It. LOVE. IT.

Boxing Day Baking

My son won't eat vegetables. I mean, he'll eat baby carrots or the occasional broccoli floret under duress (or promise of ice cream). But, generally speaking we can't make the kid eat veggies. And, yes - he will sit at the table all night, forgo all sorts of dinner and treats in lieu of eating the smallest bite of asparagus. Seriously.

But, he loved my brother-in-law's zucchini bread, so we JUMPED on the chance to make more - considering that he didn't realize that he was in fact, consuming a vegetable (squash is a vegetable, right) disguised in bread.

Yes - I am counting zucchini bread as vegetable consumption at this point. It was an easy recipe for zucchini bread which I found at the Food Network. It's a Paula Dean recipe, and is NOT low fat ... but is also not particularly unhealthy, either. Now that we've made it once, I will play with adding zucchini and nuts to up the nutritional value, mix white with whole wheat flour (instead of using all white as the recipe calls for) and may add baby turkey to it - oh yeah, I just said that. It sounds nasty, but put it in pancakes. You'll be surprised - moist and delicious, and you can't taste the turkey (really) at all (much).

Take: 2

I want to just go back and delete the post from August 24th, where I lay down a 365-day challenge to myself. Because if it were never written then I would be sitting here on October 1st feeling like a failure for having totally blown my own challenge (which I was totally serious about, btw) on day 2. Yeah ... that's a "2". As in, #2. As in, the number which follows #1.

I'm beating myself up for weakness. Apathy. Failure to take care of myself. I find that this beating myself up crap is effective at exactly one thing - nothing.

So, let's just try this again. Not 365 days, but one day. One minute. One foot in front of the other. Right now, time to do something wonderful. So, right now - what am I going to do?

It's getting late, 8:51 pm MT (I'm in Denver) I have a terrible sinus infection and after many (MANY) homeopathic remedies TOTALLY FAILING I gave into the siren's call from the NyQuil and am hoping to pass out into sweet unconsciousness REALLY. REALLY. SOON.

But, before that happens - a few goals for the next 24 hours ...

Health & Wellness

(1) Drink 64+ oz of water (probably more since Denver is turning me into a raisin)

(2) Track. Track. Track. (That's Weight Watcher's speak for "write down all your food and activity and try to stay within your daily points (read: caloric) allowance".)

Memory Making

(1) On Tuesday, start a "Hands to Remember" folio. Granted, Wyatt's first day of Kinder is a month + behind us. But, I really like this idea.

(1a) Post pix and blog about this project since all I seem to do anymore is think about craftiness and never actually get crafty.

My Personal 365 Day Challenge: Day 1

I am one of those people from whom "tomorrow" is always the best day to get serious about something - mostly eating better, losing weight and exercising. 

I am IN LOVE with tomorrows. Especially if tomorrow is Sunday, which is the first day of the week, which is the best day to start anything because I love symmetry and order (which you could NOT tell from my house).

I let tomorrow stop today. My husband and I have spent the past 3 years in limbo since our house was very nearly destroyed in Hurricane Ike. We moved out, but never really settled back in. I mean, we live here - quite successfully and happily. But pictures were never hung back up, things were never really organized back into ... home-ness. Then we decided to sell the house, so we put everything on hold for that, a year later we've packed 1/2 our things and have said countless times ... we'll do that after we move. Well, here we are.

I didn't try harder to lose weight because I was going to have another baby - why do it twice (that's dumb, I know). I don't work out regularly because I just flat out can find about 100485 other things I would rather do at any given moment.

So ...  I'm giving myself a challenge. I don't want to sit here in another 365 days, saying to myself "Jeeze, if only I'd focused and lost this weight I've been carrying around for like ...oh, six years now." Or, "Hey, remember two years ago we decided to sell the house, look - those boxes are still sitting in the corner ... I wonder what is in them?"

No. I am going to TRY REALLY HARD to focus on RIGHT NOW. Not tomorrow, not next week, not later today. Right now. So, here I am, not procrastinating but writing this down for someone (anyone?) to ready - On August 23, 2011 will be end of this 365 day challenge, and hopefully .... no DEFINITELY the beginning of a new one.

Today is Day 1. Today's challenges are:

-365 days without diet soda (oh, Coke Zero, how I will miss you)

-365 days without fast food (I know, it's just disgusting. I'm embarrased to admit that I eat fast food. It's like the modern version of smoking.)

-365 days of REALLY exercising every day. Yes, every day. Maybe someday, I won't exercise every day. But, I need to do this. First 30 days? Jillian Michael's 30-day Shred.

-365 days without commercially processed carbohydrates. No pasta, unless I make it. No bread, unless I make it. (PS - Ground wheat may be considered a commercially processed carbohydrate, but I'm ignoring that, cause if I make bread or pasta - I won't feel bad eating it.) No carbohydrate that has partially hydrongenated anything or high fructose corn syrup - none of the latter for my son either.

I think that that is enough for now. Day 1 - so far, is a success. I have to exercise yet ... as soon as I get the boy to bed.

When bad things happen to good knitting needles.

I know I am not the one who used my size 9 knitting needle as a:

(a) screwdriver?

(b) can opener?

(c) awl?

(d) drill?

Regardless, it's ruined. Damn. No one in the house is fessing up.