We have a winner! :)

Thank you all who entered our giveaway for the Kitchen Unpaper Starter Pack! 

We 8 entries and I numbered you accordingly as you posted. First 1 and last 8.

I used Random.org and it picked a winner!

And who is #2? Let's take a look....

Yeah Kimberly! Contact me with your addy and I will get your pack on the way to you! :)

If you didn't win, don't fret. We have more of these sets and we will be doing more giveaways soon for more packs. Just keep checking back to see when to enter. 

Thanks everyone!

*CLOSED* Ditching the Disposable Giveaway

Since I first wrote about becoming paper free, I have encountered many people 

on my blog, on our Facebook page and anywhere on the Internet where 

I might discuss this that express they too would like to be paper free in their homes. 

They see the benefit not only to our natural resources but it is a time and money saver. But the common thing after they express is to me is, "But I don't know where to start."

Friends, it is overwhelming. So much paper, so much waste. Such a disposable society.

When I started to try to answer these question it became apparent that 

I too had struggled with this in the beginning. 

What cloth should I use for each task? Did I need a lot of cloths? Do I go cold turkey?

It took many months if not a year of trial and error to get where I am. 

My goal is to help ease your struggle in your process should you also 

want to be a paper free home. 

After pondering these questions I decided to make and give away a 

Starter Kitchen Unpaper Pack, here is what the pack consists of :

2 Microfiber Cleaning Cloths

4 All Purpose Cleaning Cloths

2 Un~paper Towels

4 Dinner Napkins

How do you enter?

Leave a comment on this post.
Easy peasy.

No pushes to join us on other social media.

No requirement for you to promote this giveaway elsewhere.
No standing on your head while reciting a 15 sentence poem on why you love my blog.
Just comment. :) 

Also, if your outside the US...go right ahead and enter.
Everyone is entitled to leave the disposable culture behind.
Even people in Hong Kong. :)

Only restriction is one entry per family. Let's keep it fair.
You have until September 16th, 2012 9 am EST to get your comment in & be entered.
One random winning will be drawn and announced by 5pm that day. 
So, what are you waiting for? This is easy and simple.
I want to make it simple because it should be.
And because I truly want to remove the confusion around taking this step.
So, go ahead, enter.
I thank you.
And the trees  & earth thank you. :)

Killing Germs Can Make You Sick

If you were to use the restroom at my house you might be surprised at your choice for hand washing.

No hand soap dispenser. No bar of anti-bacteria soap. 

Just a plain handmade looking bar of soap with no logo carved in it.

Would you feel safe?

A few months ago you would have found a nice shiny bottle of anti-bacterial soap, some hand sanitizer and

for good measure a bar of soap with some words that sound like Vial inscribed in it. Just for added safety 

there would be a can of Lysol somewhere too. Even though we were 'green' and natural , I assumed I was in the trenches in the line of defense on the war of killing germs. I assumed that if I could get rid of the germs then my green/natural lifestyle would some how be safer. I was using tree oil in my cleaners and vinegar. 

But I wanted to ensure the germs were gone. 

Then one day an article caught my eye. Was my soap safe?  What do you mean SAFE? It is SOAP for crying out loud. It was anti-bacterial SOAP, of course it was safe. I started to research, read and much to my dismay the very thing I was doing to keep my family safe and clean, was actually contributing to a bigger problem with their health. I never questioned what made the soap anti-bacterial. I never questioned it. I should have.

What makes it effective?

Triclosan and Triclocarban are the two most common germ fighting ingredients found in not only your hand soap but mouth wash, tooth paste and hand sanitizer to name a few. Do they work? No. Many studies show and even the FDA concludes that they work no better than regular soap and water. So, they don't help but does that make them harmful? Actually, yes. See, Triclosan and Triclocarban are used in hospitals to scrub patients to stop the spread of bacteria and germs. It works really well at that job. But just like we are concerned about our bodies being immune to antibiotics in meats, dairy and prescriptions, we should be concerned with them in our personal cleaners as well. The danger is it could be making us susceptible to hardened strains of bacteria, making it harder and harder for us to fight off super bugs. And sadly making the prescriptions we need to work in those cases effectively useless.

We need to get rid of germs, right? Wrong. 
Most germs are not bad for you and in fact having germs can be helpful to you in your health. See, when we "kill" germs we are not really killing them all. What we are doing is fact killing the weaker strands of germs. Leaving the hardened super germs and no low level germs that actually help strengthen your immune system. So in effect our efforts to make us germ free has in fact made us more susceptible to illness and weakened our immune systems. If you think about how one treats allergies naturally you know this to be true. One of the most common ways that doctors tell seasonal allergy sufferers to treat their allergy is to add local honey to their diet. Ours did. Is it because there is a magic cure in honey? No. But it does contain the allergens in low levels that is making you miserable. Then what happens is you build up an immunity to that allergen. It is low levels, not enough to trigger an attack but enough to help your body learning to resist the larger amounts that send us sneezing. This is the same principle with germs. I am not saying don't have good hygiene. I am however saying, washing with regular soap and water is enough and will keep you just as safe if not more so then the products that fill your cupboards.

What do we use instead?
For your hands and body, just plain old soap. And the most basic naturalist form of soap will do.
You don't want your soap to contain any of the following :Sodium Lauryl Sulfate or Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Propylene Glycol (Antifreeze), Dioxane or Dioxin. Those are harmful chemicals and not needed to get you clean. You want a very pure soap and if it is a good soap, it really won't lather much.
The lather comes from some of those chemicals, not from soap in it's pure form.
To sanitize your home you can not get anymore basic that vinegar. Make sure your vinegar is a plant based vinegar though, not a petroleum based one. Vinegar is an effective disinfectant, killing 99% of bacteria, 80% of mold and 80% of viruses.

Common Sense, not chemicals. 
Cleaning yourself and your home does not have to be a higher science.
It requires common sense, some good plant based ingredients and that is all.
Regardless of what major manufacture companies try to tell you.
Even the FDA agrees. And trust me when I say that is probably the only time
me and the FDA is on the same side of an argument.
The thought is if these cleaners do no better than traditional soap and water, then why risk it?

I Fired My Dishwasher

In my quest to lower our electric consumption we have stopped using some 

of our modern conveniences. One of them is the dishwasher. 

I know there is an argument that dishwashers save money, water and energy.

I am not sure I believe that but I do know in our case, it wasn't saving us any of those. 

We have a rental and we are stuck with the relic that is installed here. 

On top of that, we have very hard well water and even when the dishwasher runs half way decent, 

the hard water drowns any attempt at cleaning. What should take one wash, takes two sometimes three. Wasting water, wasting electric, wasting soap and wasting my time. 

So, we hand wash.

Mostly the girls do and I help now and then. But we are seeing results.

Last's months electric bill was down $80 from the previous months. I am sure the dryer 

being off, the AC is off for 8 - 12 hours a day (it is getting harder to do 

that with temps in the upper 90's) and the dishwasher not running all dang time helped.

What it has also done is made us aware of our resources. 

Water is a precious resource. Clean water even more precious. 

And something that most Americans take for granted that it will always be available.

 Our family knew if we were going to be serious about using less resources and under consuming water 

was an important area to start with. Plus, whether you are on a well (like us) or on city water, when 

you use less water somewhere there is less electricity being used. When you have a well you see

the electricity reduction first hand, on the city water maybe not but it is there.

We are using less water, I know we are. 

Maybe if you have a highly efficient machine that runs once a day, then I can bet that 

hand washing would use more. But most of us run our dishwashers more than 

once a day. We home school so there are three meals made at home on any given day. 

Which resulted in the dishwasher being ran at the very least three times a day. 

More than likely it ran more like 5 times because the size of our family or it just wasn't getting clean. 

Most people I know pre-rinse before they load their machine.

That water should be taken in account when weighing which uses less. 

We could talk about convenience.

 But if our family was worried about making our lives more comfortable we wouldn't be 

doing half the things we do. 

Sometimes simpler isn't less work. 

It is however sometimes, better.

 

Green Cleaning Series : Microwave

I realize that sounded a bit oxymoron.

If your really natural, you don't use your microwave, do you?

We aren't there yet. Though we are getting better.

But if your like me you may need to warm up or defrost something because you

wasn't dutifully prepared. It's okay, it happens to the best of us.

In this case in our home, it was defrosting some frozen black beans

I had frozen in a glass jar. I told my oldest daughter just heat them 

up enough to slide them out of the jar. Some how that got lost

in the translation. What she heard was, Heat that mutha UP!

And this was the end result.....

And to make matter worse, she did not know it had exploded. 

So, she kept right on nuking the contents that had splattered all over the microwave. 

It was nice and baked on by the time we noticed. But did I get upset?

No.

Well, maybe I had strong words about listening to all directions with her.

But I wasn't worried about the mess. 

After dinner that night I poured some of my citrus vinegar into a bowl 

and then mixed it with some filtered water.

I placed it in the microwave uncovered and heated it on high for 3 minutes.

When it was done, I set the timer for 5 minutes. During this time I 

was hand washing the nightly dishes and cleaning up in general. 

When the 5 minutes was up I could tell the glass "plate" was going to need

to be soaked. I simply slipped it into my dish water I had in my sink.

Then I took a dish cloth and without much elbow grease wiped the  microwave clean.

Yes, it was that effortless.

The water and vinegar had made steam in the microwave, therefore loosening all 

the baked on, caked on, splattered gunk. To the point all I had to was simply

wipe it away. It took me less than 3 minutes to wipe it out. Once I was 

done I turned my attention to the turntable. It had soaked in warm/hot dish water

for nearly 3 minutes. It also wiped clean with very little effort at all. 

Don't dismiss the power of steam! 5 minutes after I started to wipe 

the microwave down it looked like this...

Not too shabby and done without using any harmful chemicals or much effort on my part!

Green Cleaning Series : Lemon Infused Vinegar

One of the most common and powerful all natural cleaning agent

you can use is vinegar. Most of us know this.

But did you know you can booster it's cleaning power?

With one simple ingredient that is affordable, incredibly powerful

and readily available to everyone. 

Lemons.

Yes, that is right! 

Lemons!

Lemon juice is so powerful it has even killed the 

HIV virus in a test tube.

There is theories of it in the use of curing cancer too.

But I digress. We are talking about cleaning your home.

The interwebs is all the rage right now with the notion you can

turn your unused orange peels into a sweet smelling vinegar for a 

great homemade cleaner.I decided to take it one step further. 

While I do make the orange vinegar as well because we eat a lot of oranges here in 

South Florida, I wanted a cleaner that had a bit more power to it. 

Something that when I used it I knew things were REALLY clean. 

And since I use lemons to clean my cutting board and scrub water stains off my faucets, it 

seemed natural to use the leftover ones instead of throwing them in the compost.

So here is what your going to need :

2 Organic Lemons (yes, it needs to be organic. I will explain)

2 Pint Jars

Some White Distilled Vinegar

This recipe will make 2 pint jars. If you want to make less, then just
half it & use one jar and one lemon.  


Directions:
1. Cut up one lemon for each jar.
Please only use organic lemons. Because you are using the 
entire rind if you use conventional lemons you will introduce pesticides
to your cleaner. If you can not find organic lemons I suggest you use a 
good produce wash and thoroughly scrub your lemon. The last thing
you want to add to your home after going through this whole process 
is more unwanted chemicals and pesticides. 

2. Fill jar completely with vinegar. Put the lid on and let stand for one to two weeks.
The longer you let it stand, the more potent it will be. Do not worry if after 2 or 3
week it seems to have a layer of "scum" on top. That is a vinegar "mother"
and it can be used to make more vinegar down the road. But that is another
post for another time!

Use this vinegar in place of regular white distilled vinegar in my all purpose
cleaner recipe for more boosted cleaning powder. Feel confident when your
cleaning your home that you have are safely getting your families home clean!

Green Cleaning Series : All Purpose Cleaner Recipe

One of my first goals when I was 'going green' was to remove toxic cleaners

 from our home. After some research I found it was a lot easiest than I thought.

There are basic ingredients that you can use and it need not be expensive.

I thought I would do a series on the subject to help those who are also desiring

to clean without worry of toxins in their homes and around their families.

What do I need?

It is a simple list actually. And easily found in most discount big chain stores for cheap.

Distilled Vinegar

Baking Soda

Cornstarch

Rubbing Alcohol

Lemons or Lemon Juice

Tea Tree Oil

Other Essential Oils (optional)

Where do I start?

The first place is up to you. But my advice is to look at the ingredients of your

store bought cleaners. See which one is the most offensive to you and replace that

one. For me it was the kitchen all purpose cleaner. You can be super frugal and just

re-use the old container that your previous cleaner was in to mix your new one

in. For me though, I did not like the idea of re-using a container that held those

toxins. I invested a $1 and bought a new plastic spray bottle and recycled my old

container. Sometimes it is like weighing the lesser of two evils when we are

on this journey. 

Is there a basic recipe?

There are a ton of basic recipes out there. Too many to mention. Simply Google

the term, homemade cleaner, and the results are staggering. You have to research

to see what recipe appeals to you. For our family I knew I wanted a vinegar based

all purpose cleaner. Vinegar has shown itself to be a powerful cleaner in our home

and something I could rely on for cleaning power. Here is my basic recipe :

1 part vinegar

1 part water

5-10 drops of Tea Tree Oil

Mix together in a spray bottle, label and clean with the knowledge it is safe

for your family & home.

Next time we will discuss how to boost the cleaning power of your vinegar!

How to Become a Paper-less Kitchen

First, let's get the most ask question out of the way....
'What's the big deal anyways? It's just a few paper towels.'
If you have ever handed a guest a cloth napkin or a dish towel for a mess,
and your not at a Crunchy Mother Play-date, then your going to get this.
Or maybe I just have strange people in my home.
It never fails, someone has to ask.
I use to say something cute like, 'Because I love doing laundry.'
But that is an lie and it also does not deter the more adamant ones.
So, how about some facts instead?
Did you know that 40% of the landfill is made up of paper products?
That is always shocking to me when I read that. That means 40% of what
is in there can be recycled. But people choose not to. Mindlessly tossing their paper
items in the trash. I use to be one of them. Using cloth deters that lazy mind of just tossing.
Besides, paper towels can NOT be recycled.
It is estimated that if each family cut back one roll of paper towels a year it would save over half a million trees each year. Just one less roll.
Because I am all about going big, my first thought was....if I forgo all of them think of how many trees would be saved??? And I like breathing air, so I am all about saving some trees. ;)
Furthermore, it take one or sometimes two WHOLE trees to make one roll of paper towels.
Let that sink in.
I will wait.
Mind boggling isn't it?
That is the effect I was going for.
At this point in the conversation I am usually faced with a person with their mouth agape.
Now it's time to sell this paper-less show!
I do one extra load of laundry a week for my cloth kitchen products. Not even a full load.
I was in cold. A little bit of homemade organic detergent (yes, another post, another time) and
if they are icky, some homemade oxyclean/bleach (yes yes yes, another time) helps as well.  
I line dry and I'm back in business.

What do we have in our cloth only kitchen?
Various cloth napkins. All picked up from the thrift store for less than $.10 each at the most.
We are a family of 5 , we eat 3 meals a day at home so for me I am comfortable with about 50
napkins. We don't need them every meal so this lasts a week.
Cleaning Cloths. This is a modge podge of rags. Some are worn out wash cloths. Some are towels that
had holes in them that I cut up for rags. Some are some neat microfiber cloths someone gave me. I save those for cleaning mirrors and windows. These cloths are used to scrub counters, wipe up messes, dampen use for BBQ fingers at the table and so on.
Cloth Kitchen Towels. Again, all bought used at the thrift store for less than $.50 each. I have about 12 and need more. I have found after a few years doing this that traditional dish towels are nice but good quality hand towels meant for the bathroom are much more absorbent. Often they are tad bit larger. I am not a person whose hanging towel on her stove must match the throw rug at the sink, so this works for me. These cloth are use drying dishes, cleaning up spilled drinks and whatever else you can think of.

Laundry like I said is once a week. Maybe a half to 2/3 of a load. I wash in cold and then line dry. It
really isn't an issue. Maybe because I have solved the laundry battle in our house is why I can say this!
YES, another time and another post. It's a recurring theme around here.

Family cloth. Or how I lose all 3 of my readers.

So......
Have you heard of using family cloths? Instead of TP.
Yes, its washable TP.
I know, it sounds.....gross.
But if you have ever changed a cloth diaper (I have, a ton of them!) then this is no different.
We have been using family cloths for about 3 years now exclusively.
I used them for about 5 years before the rest of the family converted.
I also use mostly all cloth feminine pads.
I save the disposable ones for when I am out of the house.
At home I use the washable kind.
And lets face it, when its time to use those I am home A LOT.
The most obvious question we get is...why?
First of all, millions of trees get chopped down each year just for TP.
Just for stuff to wipe your hinney with.
That is just nonsense poopy pants. 
Second, its convenient. We never run out.
I keep a bag of t-shirts etc in the bathroom to cut up new ones and in a pinch until the dryer is done, I can cut a few up.
Three, and the most important reason, it just feels darn good.
We feel and are much cleaner.
Since we are already all over TMI Land, I will just put this out there.
No more "marks" from the men of the family.
Don't worry Honey, I was talking about the little guy. ;)
We occasionally wet them for a messy .... mess.
Use a clean dry one to dry the bum if needed.
Now the second most ask question.
Does your bathroom smell?
No.
I assure you.
I am the person who gags at the first hint of cat poop.
Each bathroom as two cans. Each clearly marked.
Clean.
Dirty.
The master bathroom cans are just small trash cans.
The kids bathroom is cans with lids.
Only because they use the wipes to clean up any animal accidents.
And for whatever reason that seems to get ripe smelling over the course of a day or two.
One day a week I dump them all in the washer, run it twice on the hottest setting, extra rinse and bleach.
In the 3 years the family has done this (and 5 years I have done this) we have had zero instances of any infections we were having before or any sanitary issues.
I am convinced we are cleaner. Healthier. Better wiped if you will.
Does it save money?
Well, lets be honest a $1 a week for cheap TP here at our house.
And I honestly use that in the washing & drying.
So probably not.
BUT...
Its one less thing we are adding to our septic or landfill.
Less packaging.
Less waste.
More comfort.
And one less thing I depend on the grocery store for.
Now, excuse me. My toilet paper needs to be washed. ;)

How I clean my bathroom mirror...

Riveting. I know. As if you didn't know how to clean your potty.
But as I was scouring Pinterest (spawn of the devil that place is...) for all natural homemade cleaners I realized there was a common compliant about homemade window cleaners.
It doesn't get the really gnarly schtuff off bathroom mirrors is what I heard, consistently.
I have used homemade window cleaner for awhile and never had that problem.
Then it dawned on me....maybe how I clean is different.
Maybe someone hasn't tried the way I do it.
This isn't a recipe but a method.
It's not hard.
In fact it's so simple, I am wondering if everyone doesn't already do this.
And maybe they have some super sonic grime I'm not aware of.
Before I even think of cleaning the mirror, I wipe down the sink and counter in the bathroom.
Again, not rocket science. But there is a method to my madness.
Then.....
wait for it...
I take my wet cleaning cloth and scrub the mirror.
I don't use anything but vinegar in my home, which is why I can do this and not make a huge smudgy mess.
But it works.
Then I leave it, and go clean the potty.
Once I am done the last thing I do is take my homemade window cleaner and clean up the streaks on the mirror.
Viola, no mo' icky grime.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy. :)