The Cleaning Battle

I'm addicted to the 100 days of real food blog. If you've never looked at it, you seriously need to, like right now. Go read hers instead of mine! ;) She is such a great resource for menus, ideas, and just everything. She did a series on 100 days of real food on a budget, however her "budget" was nearly twice what I have to work with and for less people....almost got a little discouraged for a second, but I KNOW it's one step at a time here and I just need to keep reminding myself that. Like constantly.
I was bored last night (husband was working, kids were outside playing, baby was sleeping) so guess what I did for fun? I mopped my kitchen! I swear, my floors have never been so clean. Of course, with 3 boys in the house, they pretty much needed to be done again this morning, but whatever. Cleaning has never been my most favorite thing to do, but I love a clean house, so yeah, it's a constant battle. Add those darling 3 boys and this pretty much sums up my cleaning life

So anything I find that motivates me and makes the job a little less torturous, I'm all about it! Lately, that motivation and joy comes in not having to pull out the Hazmat gear and banishing the children to another sector of the house just to clean something.
I made my own laundry detergent awhile back, and while at first I loved it I began noticing that our clothes were coming out looking a little dingy. Ok not a little dingy, a LOT dingy. I then read that you have to mess around with the ingredients if you have hard water (which we do) until you find the perfect balance to get clean clothes. Ahem. Yeah, definitely don't have the time or motivation to do that... this is a hard one for me, because I love CLEAN clothes and already am a "snob" when it comes to laundry detergent (as in, I only use Tide). So I'm looking for some ideas here! Does anyone have a laundry recipe that actually works for hard water areas? Or an affordable "natural" detergent they use that WORKS?

Mopping is Fun Again!

I think Pinterest is partly to blame for the sudden rise in attention to all things "natural". At least it is for me. If you haven't joined yet, you should! There are SO many recipes and ideas on there and such good ones,  it makes you wonder where it's been all your life! And when every pin practically promises to revolutionize your life, you feel almost obligated to try it. So, flashback to last week when I decided to mop my floors. Which has become a chore of rare occurrence since the birth of our little Violet.....um, working on changing that... Anyways, I went to go mop and realized I was out of my usual floor cleaner. I then remembered I had pinned an all natural one that (surprise!) said I would never want to clean my floors with anything else, never, ever again! So I decided to try it and guess what? It actually was pretty amazing!! I hesitate to give something my ultimate stamp of approval upon the first try, so I won't go as far as to say I will never use anything else, never, ever again. BUT, I gave it another try today and yes, I still love it. And the fact my house smells fresh and clean, but at the same time nothing like a chemical factory, makes me want to mop my floors every single day! So enough of my babbling, here's the recipe:

Heavy duty floor cleaner recipe: ¼ cup white vinegar, 1 tablespoon liquid dish soap, ¼ cup Arm & Hammer Super washing soda, 2 gallons tap water
That's it! 


Side Note: It says not to use on wax floors because it will make them "waxy"...???... But other than that it seems pretty safe on most surfaces. It gets SUPER sudsy in the bucket (and stays that way) & left my tile floors feeling almost soft. Before my reformed ways, I would use Lysol Disinfectant cleaner (the yellow one) and it left the tile feeling sticky. I'd so much rather have soft than sticky...
Now go mop your floors and prepare to be amazed!