Cooking homemade foods? Completely up my alley. I love taking whole ingredients and whipping them into something delicious as well as healthy. But as we're continuing on this journey of being as self-sufficient as possible and not contributing to the amazing amount of waste that is generated by the average household, we've made some big changes. One of those changes is that I will no longer buy any cleaning products, instead choosing to make them as we run out of what we already have. This will ensure that what I'm using is safer for us, the daycare kids and the dogs as well as being less expensive and having a lessened impact on the world around us.
Now, usually I just use a steam cleaner for the floors - it's as good as it gets other than using electricity. Runs on water, washable microfiber cloths...sounds good. And it is for the every other day running to keep things clean, but not for the ground in dirt of our vinyl floor that I hate (and did not choose!) that came with our house. So, I wanted to deep clean the floors but needed something to do it that would work. I researched and found that white vinegar is a great floor cleaner when diluted with some warm water. I put about a cup of white vinegar to about 6 cups of water and my scrub brush and microfiber cloth went to work. In less than 30 minutes, I had hand scrubbed the whole floor and it looked fantastic! It was a big area so it sounds like a long time but wasn't that bad. And I take solace in the fact that I was working hard for 30 minutes, not just pushing my steamer back and forth. :) It was work, but the vinegar solution dried super clear and brought the dirt up that I didn't even know was there and just thought it was part of the floor. I will be adding a vinegar wash once a month to the floors and am so glad I gave it a try.
Another big issue I tackled this week is paper towels. What a money waster that has been in our lives! The daycare kids use paper napkins after washing hands, we use paper towels for cleaning, mopping up spills, everything. But no more! I bought a massive stack of microfiber cloths from Sam's club last week...it was hard to reconcile the fact that they were made in China, but I tried to convince myself the offset of no paper towels would be worth it. I still feel badly about it, but I'm getting there. I did try to buy American made but couldn't find them. I added regular hand towels to the daycare bathroom for the kids to use after hand washing and realized there is another benefit. Reduced trash in that bathroom! I still get plastic bags every other trip or so at the grocery store to have as bathroom trash liners because I change the trash in that bathroom once, sometimes twice a day. But adding in real hand towels means that we went 2 days with one bag. Huge difference!
I am looking forward to sharing with all of my followers as I change more and more of our lives to a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle. My blog is a great place to document my love of cooking from scratch, but there is so much more to the journey than that. We're striving to minimize our impact on the earth, be good stewards of all the blessings that God has given us and also to keep ourselves as healthy as possible by eating healthy foods and surrounding ourselves with less chemicals and processed products. I hope that you're enjoying our journey.
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