Clean toilets make me happy

Yes, I'm really talking about toilets today.  I have a fabulous toilet bowl cleaner recipe I want to share with y'all, and well, there's just not much else going on around here right now.  Both boys are down for naps, and I have some free time to myself (gasp!).  So I'm using it to get all excited about how clean my toilets are!  My friend Betsy found it hilarious how stoked I can get about this, and some of you may think I'm downright weird, but I'm going to share anyway!  This toilet bowl cleaner will not only disinfect (but not sanitize) your toilet, but it will also save you money and ease your conscience about pouring nasty chemicals down the drain and releasing toxins into your house.

So without further ado...drumroll please...here's what I now use to clean my toilets:

Lisa's Toilet Bowl Cleaner
6 oz. (3/4 c.) hot water
1/2 c. Borax
6-8 oz. (3/4-1 c.) liquid dishsoap
8 oz. (1 c.) white vinegar

Dissolve the Borax in the hot water completely.  Pour the water mixture, the dishsoap, and the vinegar into an empty 24 oz. toilet cleaner bottle.

Voila!  Easy peasy, healthy, and oh-so-cheap!  Just use the same way you use your store-bought toilet cleaner, but let sit for 10 minutes in the toilet bowl so that it has a chance to disinfect things in there.  And enjoy your clean toilets!

The Oil-Cleansing Method

Twenty-three days ago, I began an experiment that I felt was fairly low-risk based on the testimonies of people I trust.  Still, it was a little scary.  Using oil to clean my face at night was a completely foreign concept to me, and one I was still a bit skeptical about.  "What if my face turns into a mass of hideous blemishes?" I thought to myself.  But I figured that was a bit dramatic, and I really didn't have that much to lose.  So I gave it a shot. 

I started out with a 25%-75% Castor oil to sunflower oil ratio.  Night #1 left me pleased:  my face was instantly soft, my makeup came off effortlessly, and my skin had less redness than usual after a deep cleansing.  I was feeling confident. 

But by the day after Night #3, I had two pimples on my left cheek and a patch of dryness on my right cheek.  What's up with that?  So I trusted in my knowledge of my skin (which is usually dry) and added more sunflower oil, figuring that the blemishes were an effect of things being purged from my skin.  I think I was right.  By the day after Night #5, my pimples were gone, and the dryness was still there, except it was everywhere.  So the next night, I added more sunflower oil to the mixture, making it about a 15%-85% ratio.  I also mixed a tiny bit of sugar in with a little bit of the oil to act as a scrub to clear away the dead skin.  This seemed to work, and I haven't had to do it since. 

So seventeen days later from the dryness issue, the skin on my face is soft, clear, nearly devoid of redness, and quite happy.   You should know that I usually don't have the best skin:  it's typically patchy, dry, and blotchy-red, and I have hereditary dark circles under my eyes. But take a look at me sans makeup: 

This was taken using Photobooth on my iMac (because our camera is broken), so it's not the clearest shot in the world, but there are obviously no blemishes, the skin is soft and shiny without looking tight, and my cheeks don't have patches of dry redness.  I have a little mascara on (because even with relatively dark brown hair, I have blonde eyelashes...go figure), but that's it.  Hopefully you get the picture: this method works. 

The only thing I've had to be careful about is completely rinsing my face at night.  After a week, I noticed that my pillowcase was looking quite oily -- not cool. But since then, I've done a double rinse (once with the cloth, once with warm water), and I haven't noticed any problems. 

So there you go!  Success!  I know a few of you have also been experimenting with me.  If you would care to leave a note in the  comments as to how it's going for you, I'd love to hear about your own experiences.  And if others of you have questions or reservations, feel free to voice them as well. 

Homemade Deodorant Re-cap

You may remember that back in March, I started a new experiment of using homemade deodorant.  I just wanted to let you know that it's going fabulously!  I really, really love it.  It fits all the criteria I had hoped it would:  it's cheap, it's earth-friendly, and most importantly, it works, even on the hottest, sweatiest days.  I keep a small jar in my bathroom to apply with my fingers, and an old deodorant container in my fridge (because on hot days, it feels so good to put something cold under my arms).  In the winter, I'll be able to keep the deodorant container in my bathroom, since the coconut oil won't melt once it gets colder than 74 degrees.  But, after five months, I'm sold.  Hooray for baby steps!

The search for truly healthy skin

Hey ladies, how many facial cleansing products have you tried in your lifetime?  Too many to count?  Yeah, me too.  I've also spent literally hours of my life standing in a store aisle trying to find just the right cleanser to make my sometimes dry, sometimes oily, always blotchy face magically gorgeous.  Who knows how much hard-earned money I've spent trying different products, a lot of which haven't worked.  And something I've been coming to realize lately is that there are potentially very harmful things in those cleansers -- things the oh-so-trusted FDA hasn't even bothered to have tested...which means I'm the guinea pig.  (If you want to be even more scared...um, informed...on this issue, take five minutes and watch The Story of Cosmetics.) 

What's a girl to do on a tight budget and with the drive to be as healthy as possible?  Thanks to my friend-of-a-friend Katie at Simple Organic, I have something new to try:  the oil-cleansing method.  What?  Cleaning with oil?  Isn't that counter-intuitive?  I thought so and was pretty skeptical about it until I did a little research (most helpfully, here)  and have started to think differently about my skin's needs.  My body produces oil naturally, and when I try to strip it of that essential oil, it often works overtime to produce more. So, I'm embarking on a new adventure.

The anti-inflammatory, healing, and cleansing powers of Castor oil mixed with the soothing, moisturizing powers of sunflower oil are supposed to give me glowing, smooth skin.  And since it's easy on the budget ($3.19 for the bottle of Castor oil + $7 for the bottle of sunflower oil, the combination of which looks to be able to last me at least six months), and proven safe for my body, I'm willing to be the guinea pig here.  For my combination skin, I'm going with a 25% castor to 75% sunflower oil ratio.  If you have oilier skin, you might want to try closer to a 30/70% ratio, and if you have drier skin, a ratio of  10/90% might work best for you. 

The method is easy, too:  massage the oil deep into your skin, rubbing all over your face and eyelids.  Place a hot, wet cloth over your face and let it cool.  Then rinse the cloth again in hot water and gently wipe off all the oil.  That's it!  I tried it last night, and I was immediately happy with two things:  1) It took my eye makeup off beautifully and effortlessly, and 2) I didn't feel the need to moisturize afterwards and I wasn't greasy, either.  My skin just felt soft and happy.  I'm going to give it a week or so to see how my skin reacts and if I'm using the right ratio of oils.  I'll keep you posted!

All-purpose cleaner

A few of you have asked for my all-purpose cleaner recipe.  I can't remember where I got it from (so I can't responsibly give the credit to whom it's due), and I don't really have a set recipe, but I can tell you what I do...and that it's really simple and CHEAP, not to mention all-around better for the earth. 

Here's what you need: 

• an empty 32-oz spray bottle
• hot water
• about 1/2 cup of Borax
• vinegar at room temperature
• a tablespoon or two of lemon juice (both fresh and bottled are fine)

And here's what you do:  Fill the bottle about halfway up with really hot water (but not boiling - it might melt the bottle!) and add the Borax to it.  Shake it or stir it or do whatever you have to do to make the Borax dissolve.  Once you can't see any clumps in the bottle, add enough vinegar so that it almost reaches the top.  Add a little lemon juice, and you're done.   You're ready to safely and cheaply disinfect your home!  This cleaner works on all kinds of surfaces:  tables, countertops, sinks, toilets, etc.  To disinfect, spray it on and let it sit for about 10 minutes before wiping off with a clean, wet rag. 

From paper to cloth

Paper napkins, paper towels, paper tissues...these products were regularly on our grocery list at one point in time.  They were so easy, so convenient, and we were so used to buying them that we didn't give their presence in our budget a second thought, let alone what sort of environmental impact they might have had.  But we've incrementally switched to using cloth versions: cloth napkins, cloth diapers and old towels, and cloth tissues (a.k.a. handkerchiefs). 

I still keep a roll of recycled select-a-size paper towels on my kitchen counter for small, quick jobs, but it takes well over a month to go through one roll because I use old diapers and towels for messes and spills now.  And we keep a box of Puffs Plus facial tissues in our main bathroom for guests.  But honestly, I much prefer all of the cloth versions.  Cloth napkins feel so much more elegant and help wipe up spills at the dinner table caused by an energetic four-year-old better than their paper counterparts.  Cloth diapers soak up so much more liquid than paper towels (extremely handy when said four-year-old tries to pour his own milk on the kitchen floor) and clean windows and glass with ease.  Old, ratty towels and washcloths are great for your everyday cleaning jobs around the house.  And when cold season hits, handkerchiefs really do protect one's runny nose from turning into one akin to Rudolph's.

As with many things "green," a case can be made for frugality as well.  We use these napkins, towels, and tissues over and over and over again, and plan to for many years until they utterly fall apart, so we're saving a ton of money.  But we're also doing something responsible for the environment by reducing the amount of paper products produced (which saves trees as well as lakes and rivers from the byproducts of production), in addition to the amount of paper products finding their way into landfills.  Plus, as an added bonus, the performance of the cloth versions far exceeds that of the paper ones.  It's a win-win-win!

These things take time.  We didn't stop using paper for everything in just one day (and we really still haven't) - it happened in baby steps over a few months, maybe even a year.  In fact, there's still one step toward paper reduction that we haven't taken:  toilet paper.  Just the thought of using cloth for that area of life gives me the heebie-jeebies, but we'll probably someday take that step as well.  (I'm hoping that getting back into cloth diapering with this next little one will give me some incentive and motivation.)  So, we still have some changes to make, and when we're ready, we'll take another baby step.

What kind of baby steps are you taking or thinking of taking in regards to paper?

****

Apologies for poor picture quality.

With a cherry on top: Our fruit-picking summer

I'm slowly reaching my goal of hitting all the local u-pick fruit this summer and loading up with as much as possible.  (So excited to make that deep freezer work and have cheap fruit all winter at our disposal!)  In early June, we went strawberry picking at a fabulous family-owned organic farm near Plymouth and came home with 14 pounds of plump, sweet berries.  During the first week of July, we went cherry picking for the first time at Lehman's Orchards outside of Niles, Michigan (just 20 minutes away from us), where we picked over 50 pounds of tart cherries and subsequently froze them.  An added bonus from that trip was the 2 gallons of cherry juice that was accidentally squeezed from the pitted berries as they were transported in plastic bags from the farm to our house.  We added a bit of sugar and drank to our hearts' content for almost a week...I miss that juice. Two weeks ago, we brought home 14 pounds of blueberries from The Blueberry Ranch here in Mishawaka.  Last week, my parents gave me a huge bag of peaches from the tree in their backyard, which I peeled, sliced, and froze.  All that's left are raspberries, if I can find a picking farm anywhere nearby (any suggestions, South Bend area residents?), and of course, apples, which we'll pick up at our favorite apple farm on one of our fall trips to Bloomington.  But so far, we're right on track!

What do I plan to do with this abundance of fruit?  The list is practically endless!  Smoothies, pies, cobblers, pancakes, muffins, oatmeal cereal, ice cream, pure snacking on frozen goodness...these only scratch the surface of possibilities for the bags of fruit lining the door of our deep freezer!  We've already enjoyed blueberry-walnut oatmeal, cherry-almond oatmeal, blueberry cobbler, cherry pie, blueberry pancakes, and various versions of breakfast smoothies.  We look forward to raspberry ice cream, peach cobbler, and homemade applesauce.  

All of this fruit-picking has been really good for our family.  Not only have all the fruits been at extremely reasonable prices ($1.25/lb for blueberries as opposed to the $3/pint in the grocery store - hello!), but it's been both satisfying and rewarding to spend time out in the sun together, sweating for our food.  I hope it's helping Ian to have a better understanding of where our food comes from, how it grows, and that what appears on our dinner plates or in our breakfast bowls has a deeper story and that we can have a part in that story beyond our role of consumption. 

Ian and his friend J-man at our early July cherry picking adventure

Another Baby Step: Homemade Deodorant

About a week ago, I went out on a very inexpensive and low-risk limb and tried making my own deodorant. When I shared this with the world via Facebook, I got various reactions, including, "Interesting," and "Hope it works!" (Thanks, Mom!). It seemed like a lot of people were cautiously skeptical...and for good reason. Body odor is nothing to be messed around with in our society. You stink, you're not cool. But since I had over half a tube left of my good ol' chemical-laden standby, Dove Ultimate Clear for Sensitive Skin, I figured, why not try something more natural and inexpensive....just to see?

I was made aware of this recipe via one of my favorite blogs, EnviroMom, and since it was easy, cheap, and accessible, I chose to try it over countless others out there on the Internet. It seemed to me like a doable "baby step," and lo and behold, it was! I'm totally impressed. Granted, it's not 98 degrees out there with 98% humidity yet (we'll see how it works at the end of an Indiana July), but even through various sweat-inducing activities, my armpits have stayed pleasantly dry and completely scent-free. So, for those of you interested, here's the magic formula:

1/4 c. baking soda
1/4 c. cornstarch
6 T. coconut oil

Blend them together with a fork or a food chopper until they form a semi-solid mixture, mash them into an empty deodorant tube, and you've got yourself a handy B.O. fixer! I like it better than some of the other natural products out there (like those of Arm & Hammer and Tom's), and I even like it better than my former anti-perspirant.

As a word of caution, though, one thing about coconut oil is that it turns to liquid at 76 degrees Fahrenheit, which is fine in these cooler days of winter/spring, but in the summer, I don't keep my house that cool, so I'll probably have to store my deodorant stick in the fridge, which might be a tad of an adjustment. We'll see how it goes. Also, because of the aforementioned melting, when I'm finished applying the deodorant, there's usually a small amount of wet residue dripping down the side of my tube, simply because the contact with my body has made the oil melt. So, I have to take a small piece of toilet paper and wipe down the tube before placing the cap back on. To me, though, those things are worthy adjustments in light of the fiscal, environmental, and potentially healthy rewards of managing my body's odor.

The Wonders of Vinegar

In my post on homemade laundry detergent, I alluded to the fact that I love vinegar.....Or maybe I said it outright. I think my actual words were "love affair," and that's not far off. I use the stuff daily for a myriad of tasks around the house.

Why? Well, for you penny-pinchers out there, it saves you from buying all sorts of fancy (read: expensive) cleaning products for your house. At about 2 bucks for a 32-ounce bottle, you can't beat its price. For the tree-huggers, it's a completely safe, non-toxic product that can be bought in bulk at most grocery stores, and is even edible, so you don't have to worry about your kids accidentally ingesting small amounts of it. It's the best of both worlds!

And the sheer number of tasks it can perform are staggering: From drawing venum out of jellyfish stings to soothing a sore throat, or from cleaning out your teapot to getting that kitty pee smell out of your carpet, this product is a serious workhorse. It may smell funny (and that's what warded me off for quite awhile), but the beautiful thing about it is that it dries odorless, which is actually the perfect type of clean. Score!

So, a brief rundown of ways my friend Vinegar is commonly used in our house:

• in place of rinse aid in the dishwasher
  
• to clean my coffee maker and carafe (run 1 c. water and 1/4 c. vinegar through the brewer, then run 1 c. fresh water through again)
• to inhibit the growth of mold in the seals on my fridge (rub a sponge dampened with vinegar on the seals and let dry)
• in a solution as a multipurpose cleaner (fill a spray bottle with 1 tsp. borax, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 2 tsp. vinegar, 1/4 tsp. dish soap, and 2 c. hot water). This can be used on pretty much any surface.
  
• as a window cleaner (fill a spray bottle 1/2 full with vinegar, then fill with water). For an added "green" bonus, use an old cloth diaper to wipe dry rather than paper towels!
  
• as a fruit fly catcher (put 1 cup vinegar in a bowl with a small piece of fruit, cover with plastic wrap, poke a bunch of small holes in the wrap, and let sit on your counter. The bugs will get in to drink up the fruity vinegar, but won't know how to get out!)
  
• to eliminate odors from clothes in the laundry (in place of fabric softener, I sprinkle some baking soda in the wash and put vinegar in the fabric softener well -- my clothes come out fresh and soft). For you cloth diaper users out there, this was my standard practice for washing them. The vinegar and baking soda work together to remove soap residue, odors, and stains without breaking down the fabric like bleach does.
  
• as a pre-treating stain remover from clothes (either spray the offending spot with vinegar or soak the garment for 10-15 minutes in a bucket with a vinegar-water solution)
  
• as a substitute for buttermilk (stir vinegar into milk at a ratio of 1:16, or 1 tablespoon per cup, and let stand a few minutes)
• in homemade vinaigrette dressings (at a ratio of 3:1 oil to vinegar, mix the two together with salt, pepper, and herbs and spices of your choice)
  

There are a ton of ways to use vinegar that I've yet to try. Some that pique my interest include using it on your oven to prevent grease buildup, cleaning the toilet with vinegar and baking soda, removing sticker residue from surfaces, removing rust from old nails, using it as a skin cleanser, killing weeds outdoors, and brushing it on baking bread for a crispier crust. Clearly, my relationship with this wonder product is not over and will only continue to grow.

Are you now ready to go out and spend a mere two Washingtons on a big jug of environmentally-friendly vinegar? Have you found any interesting ways to use vinegar in your house that I haven't mentioned?

Both my life and this post were made easier by Heinz's book Over 10o Helpful Household Hints for Vinegar by Christine Halvorson, published by Publications International, Ltd in 2008. It was a very thoughtful gift from my Grandma DJ at Christmas a couple of years ago. Thanks, Grandma!

The Long-Awaited Granola Recipe

Because my family is attempting to eat healthfully, have some variety, and stay on a budget, breakfast is sometimes the hardest meal of the day for me to shop for. I make our own bread, but I really try to limit our consumption to one loaf per week, so toast is ideally only an option on two or three days out of seven. On Saturdays, I often make pancakes, but I don't have time for that the other six days of the week. Oatmeal, while cheap, gets kind of old and boring after a while. Sure, there are your inexpensive, processed cereals, but what kind of nutrition are we really getting from those? And what about all those wasted cardboard boxes and plastic linings to deal with? Enter homemade granola: a thrifty, health- and earth-conscious homemaker's best friend. I started making granola about six months ago, and I've gotta tell ya, there aren't many things that I make that are more filling, more nutritious, more economical, and more tasty than this homemade cereal, inspired by Mother Nature.

So, for my first post of the year, in honor of finishing things I started last year but never got to, I'm going to make good on a promise that I made to several of you months ago. Behold, The Granola Recipe:

Ingredients (amounts are approximates):

3 1/2 c. rolled oats

1/2 c. coconut flakes, unsweetened

3 T. ground flaxseeds

3 T. sesame seeds

1/4 c. sunflower or pumpkin seeds

1/2 c. mixed nuts, chopped

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. sea salt (or less if your nuts are already salted)

1/3 c. honey*

1 T. pure maple syrup*

1/4 c. canola oil

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

2 c. dried fruit (cranberries, cherries, raisins, or chopped apricots, etc.)

*For a cereal with a lower glycemic index, use agave syrup instead of honey and maple syrup
Directions:

Preheat oven to 350^oF. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients except the dried fruit. Stir well to incorporate. Spread out the mixture on the baking sheet into an even layer. Bake for 20-23 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Remove the granola from the oven and cool completely, in its pan, on a wire rack. Once cool, put in a bowl or cereal container and mix in the dried fruit. Keeps for up to two weeks in a cool, dry place.

This cereal is so versatile. Don't have sesame seeds? Skip 'em. Don't like coconut? Cut it out. Like lots of nuts in your cereal? Pile 'em in! Want some hot cereal on a cold morning? Pour one cup of granola in a bowl with about half a cup of milk, microwave on high for 30 seconds or so, and you've got yourself a warm, hearty breakfast.

If you end up really liking this granola, try out some of these other recipes (all of which influenced my current recipe):

Homemade Granola from The Kitchen Sink Recipes
Tropical Granola from Annie's Eats
Granola Bars from Alton Brown on the Food Network
Homemade Granola from Joy of Baking

30 minutes to Cheap Laundry Detergent

Is anyone else amazed at how much it costs just to keep your house and clothes clean these days? I mean, we have our dish cleaners and laundry cleaners and floor cleaners and sink cleaners and toilet cleaners and carpet cleaners and window cleaners, not to mention all the gadgets that go with them (mops, dusters, brushes, etc.). Up until a few months ago, I was probably spending somewhere between $250 and $300 a year on laundry care alone with detergent, fabric softener and dryer sheets.

But last winter, my friend Allison had a wonderful idea: homemade laundry detergent! She figured out that it cost her about 75 cents for 2 gallons. The idea intrigued me, but I didn't try it out right away -- I had a full bottle of detergent that I'd just bought and wanted to use it up first. Then when it ran out, I just didn't have the time that week to commit to making some myself (or so I thought), so I bought another big bottle. The next time I went to buy some, Meijer had raised the price on my favorite brand, and I was going to be paying 50 cents more for a bottle. By that time I'd had enough. It was time for me to give it a shot. So I bought the "ingredients" that Allison's recipe suggested, and took another baby step.

The recipe calls for a bar of Fels-Naptha laundry soap (*NOTE:  I now use Castille soap. I found this next to other bar soaps and hand soaps in the household products portion of Meijer's grocery section.)  It also calls for Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda and Borax, both of which are in the laundry section of the grocery store.

To make the detergent, you first grate 1/3 of the Fels-Naptha bar (saving the rest for other batches) into a large stainless steel or aluminum pot, like this:

Then you add 6 cups of water and heat over moderate heat until the soap is dissolved. Next, add 1/2 cup of the super washing soda and 1/2 cup of Borax and cook for about 15 minutes, or until it's the consistency of honey.
Stir occasionally to keep the soap from sticking to the side of the pan. Smile and enjoy the lightly soapy scent wafting through your house!
Put the soap mixture into a bucket and add 5 1/2 quarts of water (that's 22 cups), and stir until well-blended. Here, I added a few drops of lavender extract for extra scent. Using a funnel, pour the mixture into a gallon jug or old laundry detergent bottle. It makes about 1 1/2 gallons of detergent, so I have to use two different bottles. Here, I used an old vinegar bottle (I'm sure I'll blog about my new love affair with vinegar sometime, as well):
When you do laundry, shake the bottle well, and use about 1/2 cup for a regular-sized load.

As it turns out, it only took about 30 minutes to make, and my first batch lasted me 2 months! That batch did only cost about 75-80 cents, so it was definitely economically friendly. Plus, it reduces the waste going out of my house since the ingredients make so many batches (I've only used 1 cup each of the soda and Borax, so there's a lot left!) and I can reuse old laundry detergent bottles. Then the boxes from the soda and Borax can be recycled. I haven't researched yet as to the environmental-friendliness of the detergent itself, but both the Super Washing Soda and the Borax claim to be natural. And the Fels-Naptha soap is such an old product, I'm thinking it's probably not too processed. At the very least, I'm saving on containers by reducing, reusing, and recycling, while saving money at the same time! Double score!

For an extra bonus, you may be interested to know that we've been very happy with the performance of this detergent and have noticed that it possibly even cleans better than the stuff we were previously using (Purex Natural Elements). I've even formulated my own stain fighter using an old Spray'n'Wash spray bottle filled with a solution of the detergent and some more water (so it doesn't get stuck in the sprayer). So happy and so cheap!

So what kinds of things is your family doing to save money?

-

Blogs I Read: Part 5

Blog #5: EnviroMom

Ok, so this blog could really be called "EnviroFamily", but it wouldn't have the same familiar ring to it reminding us of the environment. As you can probably guess by the name, it's a website devoted to environmental responsibility, especially in regards to raising families. Plus, it's written by two run-of-the-mill stay-at-home moms in Portland, Oregon. Their whole shtick is the idea of "baby steps" -- huge, astronomical lifestyle changes just aren't practical in a family setting. At any rate, it's been very helpful for me in my quest to s-l-o-w-l-y adjust our lifestyle so that we live in a more economical, sustainable, and earth-friendly way, and by my own actions, to teach Ian to do the same.

What I love most about EnviroMom is that they're so NOT pushy and judgmental. In fact, they spend most of their time talking about what they haven't mastered yet and ideas they're still just thinking about but haven't implemented yet. It's a daily chronicle of their little "baby step" decisions to cut this small thing out, or add this activity to their lives, etc.

Some things I've changed in our household because of EnviroMom are:

• using old diapers instead of paper towels
• using cloth napkins instead of paper napkins
  
• buying in bulk to save on container consumption
• generally reducing what I bring in to the house so I don't have to recycle/throw away as much
• composting my food prep scraps instead of tossing them in the garbage
• using homemade vinegar solutions to clean my windows instead of store-bought ones
• using phosphate-free dishwasher detergent along with vinegar in my dishwasher
  
• spending more time outdoors
• trying to limit Ian's toys to mostly wooden ones instead of plastic
• feeding Ian snacks that are homemade/fresh and not out of a box or a package

Some things that are still "stewing" in my brain for possible future baby steps:

• using wash cloths instead of toilet paper for every day use
• buying bikes to do more of our errand running/church going that way instead of in our gas-guzzling Jeep
• buying most or all of our food through local businesses or farms
• switching to "greener" beauty products (possibly reducing my use of makeup -- gasp!)
• canning/freezing food like crazy in the summer so I don't have to buy it through non-local means in the winter.

I've still got a long way to go, but it's all about "baby steps," right?

-

Book Report -- In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

My friend Andrea was reading this book, and after hearing a brief synopsis from her, I was intrigued. Not the "I-have-to-read-that-now!" kind of intrigued, but the sort of curiosity about something that you know will shake up your life a little bit, even if you don't really feel like shaking things up. Deep down, I really like complacency. It's comfortable. It feels better to be a little ignorant and keep living life the way you always have than to stumble across new information that shocks you a little bit into making some changes.

Which, of course, is what this book by Michael Pollan did, to some extent. Now, our household has been on an on-going quest for a healthy lifestyle ever since Eric and I got married. Little by little, we've been educating ourselves on finding the right balance of nutrition and exercise to keep our bodies and minds working as well as possible. So it's not like I've never thought about the things In Defense of Food pontificates on. Pollan just gave me a little more information...."food for thought," if you will.

The premise behind In Defense of Food is that we Americans don't eat like we were intended to eat as human beings, and we need to get back to the basics. Pollan suggests a mindset that is driven by reminding oneself to: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." In other words, eat mostly real, whole food, not "food products" created by science. Don't stuff yourself; it's just not healthy. And while there are some definite health benefits to eating meat, dairy, and grains, try to focus more on eating plants instead. For more information, read the book. :)

While Pollan didn't convince me that all "food products" are evil, he did convince me to at least think more carefully about the food I purchase and consume and its affect on both my body and the environment. For instance, I'm trying to frequent our local farmer's market more often for my produce than my local mega-mart. The food I can find there comes straight from the earth and has mostly been raised without pesticides and fertilizers...and is a heckuva lot cheaper than visiting the organic section of the regular grocery store. Thankfully, South Bend has an indoor farmer's market that is open three days a week, so I can actually fit this into my lifestyle in a more convenient fashion. Also, instead of going straight for the nutrition facts on food labels, I'm trying to worry less about the fat/protein/carb/calorie content (although those things should still be considered in a balanced diet) and concentrate more on exactly what is in the food I'm buying. Ideally, an ingredient list should consist of mostly food. I know, I know, that sounds crazy! But all those food derivatives (high fructose corn syrup, sodium bicarbonate, maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate, to name a few) are simply not food.

So anyway, I came away from the book having learned some things, as well as having more questions pop up in my mind to be considered in later research. But for now, I'm taking to heart his admonition to eat food, not too much, and mostly plants. What do I have to lose?

gDiapers

Thanks to a suggestion from some friends, we've made a mini-revolution of diapering in our family! They're called gDiapers, and they're.....wait for it..... flushable!!! No more stinky poopy diapers in our trash cans, and no more filling up landfills with disposable diapers that will take at least 500 years to decompose! Apparently, conventional disposable diapers are the third largest contributors to landfills in the world and yet only five percent of the world's population uses them. Even though we were only using 30-40 disposable diapers per month (because we use cloth diapers during the day), that was still at least 360-400 diapers we as a family put out there in the last year alone. And to think that most diapering families use on average 2500 disposable diapers a year!

At any rate, after much consideration and research, we decided that the best thing for our family was to switch to gDiapers for at night and while travelling. And they really work well! They're kind of a hybrid between our cloth diapering technique and regular disposable diapers. They have cloth covers (gPants) with velcro fasteners, water-proof polyester snap-in liners, and environmentally-safe "pads" that get pressed into the liners, which are then either flushed or composted when dirty or wet. We've even been able to switch from using pins and plastic pants with our cloth diapers to using the gPants with a cloth liner instead of the flushable liner. This also makes potty training much easier since we can much more easily take off Ian's cloth diaper right at the toilet, without having to mess with pins and whatnot.
We've been fairly happy with the results, too. The gDiapers are really an ingenius invention that could possibly change diapering as we know it. They certainly changed our lives, and in the process, also made us more aware of our waste in general. I was reading in the book of Genesis some time ago, and in chapter 2, verse 15, it says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." In the original Hebrew language, "work" has more of a meaning of "serve" and "take care" has more of a meaning of "protect." Adam's first job was to serve and protect the land that God gave him! How does this not apply to us, as well? This earth is a gift from God, and we are responsible for serving and protecting it as best as we are able. Therefore, we've become really convicted in this area about making sure we're not polluting the land with our trash, and have stepped up our recycling habits. Our next step will be working on a good compositing system so we can throw away even less waste. It's all a process, and I'm sure God has more steps to take us through!