Oh Two for You

We all know that having a good amount of oh two (o2) in the house is good for health and good breathing air so we've been meaning to add some plants to our indoor area for a while. My mom gave us a Christmas Cactus last year and I've yet to kill it (mega points for me because I just can't remember to water things to save their my life). Christmas Cactus only needs watering about once a week and it gives blooms in the late fall all the way though January. So I had my eye on getting a larger Christmas Cactus from Lowe's for a week or so. The other night we popped in to Lowe's and they were half off already marked down to clearance. So I picked up this guy for 5.99 along with a bigger pot because I didn't want to hang it. 

Since I'm keeping the plant inside and on the floor I wanted to provide some irrigation so my water wouldn't seep to the bottom so I tossed in a few large handfuls of small rocks.

Then I added some scoops of dirt making sure to sift through the clumps and set my plant inside in the center. I topped the whole thing off with a layer of sand. The pot is Allen Roth and is bamboo and in a really nice shade of mustard green(ish). We got a raised plastic tray to rest on the bottom and you can barely even see it.

Also on clearance was this neat little cactus grouping. Seeing a theme here? Cactus + easy maintenance = my jam. This grouping came in a nice white ceramic bowl and topped with rocks and was only 4.99.

I also finally got my hands on an orchid. These guys are also easy to please since they only need three ice cubes a week.

Aren't the colors on this guy just beautiful? I described him to my mom as a purple and white snow leopard. I think it suits him well.

Grande Knock Out Rose With a Shot of Nitrogen

Hey guys! Just a quick thing that I found super duper exciting today! Did you know that coffee grounds are great for your soil and gardens because they are rich in nitrogen, an essential nutrient for plant growth? And that it keeps away ants, slugs, snails and cats? Did you know that if not used for aiding in soil growth they would be sent to a landfill? Well, did you also know that Starbucks bags up their coffee grounds and saves them for customers daily for free? I didn't, until today!

I walked into my local Starbucks to grab my daily fix and saw a bin on the floor full of large grounds of coffee and I was like, "hmm...that's weird." Until the words "free" on the side really caught my eye. I looked closer and saw the label read that these were meant to be used for you garden and soil and is super eco-friendly. So I double checked and lugged one up to the counter and said, "for real, is this free?" And sure enough there were going to let me lug away this big ole bag out of the store to use as free plant bed nutrients. So I did, thanks Starbucks! The guy at the counter told me that if they don't have some sitting out next time I'm in I can always ask them to start saving some just for me and I can just stop in and ask for my bag. How sweet!

Though I'd share this knowledge I came across today and maybe your local Starbucks or coffee shop has something like this they can offer for you!

Mr. Clean

Remember when we went all eco-friendly on our cleaning supplies back in this post? Well I wanted to share a small update on how the bathroom cleaner is working out for us. We bought Meyer's Clean Day Bathroom Cleaner in Lavender. I was a little apprehensive about it because it boasts on the bottle how it has a 'non-harsh' 'all natural' formula and since I've only used products that usually contain bleach or other harsh chemicals I was worried that it wouldn't get the job done. 

So I let our bathroom sink get a little grody and junked up with toothpaste and soap rings. Isn't it lovely? Then I took our all natural, smell good, earth friendly cleaner to the test. I sprayed the cleaner directly in the sink and on the faucet and underneath the soap dispenser. I left it sit on there for about as long as it took to set the cleaner down and grab my damp washcloth then I started wipping it off. I used normal pressure just to test it's strength and let me tell you, it did great! 

See how shiny and sparkly it looks now? It got all of the toothpaste chunks off as well as built up soap residue on the faucet and the soap ring our dispenser leaves underneath itself. I didn't have to put any extra elbow grease into cleaning which is nice. And the smell? It's great, it's like a soft lavender scent, not too strong but you can still get a whiff. It didn't burn my nose or eyes like most cleaners and it didn't dry out my hands all funky like harsher cleaners do. Bonus!

We've been sticking with the vinegar + water combo to clean our kitchen and dining room table, but I think I will try to find a Meyer's all-purpose in Lavender just because lavender smells better than vinegar, you know? Here's where you can buy a two pack of the lavender all purpose cleaner refills, just provide your own spray bottle and you're good to go. 

                                          

I've also done some research on reusable swiffer cloths because with hardwoods I've been having to swiffer three or four times a week so we go through them pretty quickly. I found these on Amazon. I'm thinking about ordering one or two here pretty soon when we run out of the swiffer cloths we have now. It says it's machine washable so I figure it will be nice to have one on backup if the other is still drying. Happy green cleaning! 

It Isn't Easy Being Green

So just the other day we ran out of everything. You know, the moment when you realize you need laundry detergent, dish soap, toilet bowl cleaner, bath tub cleaner, and all purpose cleaner? It sucks because you know you need it but it's going to break the bank. Then I got to thinking (watch out) and I asked myself, "why do we need so many different cleaners when they are all supposed to...wait for it...clean things?" And is it normal to want to fumigate the house after you clean the tub? I don't think so. So before we went out to go buy 5 or more different cleaners I did a little research and prioritizing. I've been wanting to simplify and downsize a lot of things in our life so I figured now would be a really great time to try and start the process.

First I made a sort of head count of what needs cleaned in our house and what we currently use to clean it and then decided what part of that I could/should/wanted to change.

Here is a small rundown:

Bathrooms: 

Scrubbing Bubbles Bath and Tub Cleaner

Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Homemade mixture of Lavender Pledge + water in spray bottle for counters

Windex for mirrors

Kitchen:

Homemade mixture of Lavender Pledge + water in spray bottle for counters/cabinets

Homemade mixture of vinegar + water in spray bottle for floors/appliances

Bar Keepers Friend for the sink

Living Room:

Homemade mixture of vinegar + water with reusable cloth to mop wood floors

Swiffer with scented Swiffer pads to sweep

Swiffer duster with spray 

Laundry Room:

Variety of detergents (usually whatever is on sale)

Dryer Sheets (usually walmart brand)

As you can tell we kind of sort of already started a little bit of homemade cleaning supplies with our spray bottle concoctions. But I still felt like we were getting cleaners that were too specialized, cleaning products that were redundant and plus we weren't really thinking eco-friendly thoughts when purchasing certain cleaners (whether it be the ingredients and/or the packaging). So finally, off to the store we went. I had this idea of starting off with using Seventh Generation products. I had read great things about them online and I was ready to justify a little pricier item for a safer environment for our house. Until I actually saw the price tags. Seriously a 50 oz bottle of laundry detergent (which is the same size we usually get on sale that typically runs around $5) was $16! That's crazy! Their handheld cleaners run anywhere from $4-$10 more than others. Now I'm not saying they aren't worth it and they aren't great for the environment and that if you can afford it then great go with eco-friendly convenience in a bottle. I will say that I think companies try and sucker some people in to the 'eco-friendly' phase we are all in and price things higher but sell it by pulling on our mother earth conscience. ANWAYS, that's my rant. 

We ended up picking up Mrs. Meyer's for our new bathroom cleaner to replace the scrubby bubbles and it's lavender scented so it will also replace the pledge + water concoction we were using for the counters. I'm going to start using the same vinegar + water mixture we use for the floors for our mirrors and cabinets because did you know you could use vinegar + water for almost anything? We also picked up Clorox 'green works' toilet bowl cleaner. Both of these items are 99% naturally derived   and both contain citric acid, water and essential oils - the toilet cleaner has a thickening agent which I'm sure is what helps it stick to the sides of the bowl longer in order to clean it better. This is why I don't think we could use all purpose cleaner to clean the inside of our toilets so that's why we will have two cleaners for the bathroom. Next item, laundry detergent. 

Instead of going broke trying to clean our house and our clothes I remembered a post I had seen a while ago about how to make your own laundry detergent that just so happened to also be eco-friendly.  It needed three ingredients (all of which we picked up for around $15) and would make 5 batches with 40+ loads per batch. We also needed to get a container to put the detergent in once we had it all mixed (we are now using powder detergent instead of liquid). 

Here is a shot of all of the ingredients plus the bottle of detergent we just finished up. 

All you have to do is grate one bar of soap per batch (these soaps were $1.07 and smell nice and lemony and say they are extra stain booster to laundry loads, but you can use any bar of soap). 

Then mix in one cup of Borax and one cup of the Super Washing Soda. This only requires one tablespoon per load so I dropped in an old measuring spoon so we wouldn't use too much. 

The photo above is with only one batch made up, I still have four bars that I can grate to add to it. But with all the batches combined that gets us 200+ loads. I did the math on our average loads and that will get us through an entire year. That not only saves us around .8 cents per load, but it also saves us 4 additional trips to the store, nice! These products are also super eco-friendly (without even trying) - their boxes are recycled paper and they only include one ingredient each. The box of Borax also has a huge list of other things you can use it for. I also did a small load of laundry just for you guys so I can see if only one tablespoon can do the trick (really, we were using a capful of the liquid, maybe a half cup, before). So the verdict is in and....

...the clothes are clean! The lemon scent is gone, but what's left is just a nice 'clean' smell. 

So I think this is just the beginning and there might be some tweaking here and there with what we end up liking or what ends up not working well. We also still need to figure out our dusting/swiffer/sweeping issue...But I think this is a good start...I'll keep you updated.