A Week of Green Spring Cleaning (chopping blocks)

Some of you know I was delayed in getting yesterdays post up because my refrigerator and freezer died on me. Luckily we have a deep freezer in the garage so we did not loose a lot. Anyways, you don't care about that... you want the recipe. So here goes...

Really cleaning a chopping block can be a pain! Years ago I used a 50% water and a 50% bleach mix to clean them. Yes, bleach. Again this was before I knew how bad this stuff was and I thought the FDA was my friend. I still  use only two ingredients to sanitize them and normally use my 3 ingredient surface cleaner for daily cleaning.

This is so simple you may laugh.

Yes, that's salt and lemon. I cut the lemons at an angle and not strait up and down. This gives more surface on the 1/2 of the lemon that you will be using.

You will also need a pastry scraper or if you don't have one of them, an old credit card or any plastic- like card will work. No, I'm not going to tell you to buy an new cutting board at this end of this. Pinky-swear-promise.

Now heavily dust your cutting board with the salt and turn the lemon face down on the board. Squeeze and scrub the board with the lemon. The lemon should start to look very abused and the salt will become kind of pasty.

 And scrub some more.

Now let it sit for 5-10 minuets.

Next you are going to scrape the pile of salt, lemon juice, and lemon seeds into a pile with your pastry scraper or credit card thing. See I told you I was not going to make you buy a new one! :)

Scrape off all the salt and lemon juice into a bowl or if you can move your block, scrape it off into the sink.





At this point I normally wipe it down with a dish cloth and a little of the 3 ingredient surface cleaner and let it dry.



Done.

A Week of Green Spring Cleaning (microwave)

Kids are playing video games and enjoying spring break. For once we are out of leftovers because everyone is eating at home all day and the microwave is getting a workout.

Many years ago 'they' came out with these handy dandy little microwave pouches. You put a pouch in the microwave for a few and it would steam and break open a bag that had a little cloth in it.  Nuke and wipes were used here all the time. Then I got wise to the chemicals... and the FDA not giving a crap about me or my family. So how do I get the nice steam cleaned microwave with out all the chemicals??? Simple and we can do it for much cheaper than the advrage $1 a pouch... and sanitize your sponge while at it!

All you need is a sponge. I use my kitchen sponge...a small microwave plate and the 3 ingredient surface cleaner or some white distilled vinegar. I like using the 3 ingredient surface cleaner because I like the smell better that just the vinegar but we use what we got. :)

Now place the sponge on the plate.

Pour your vinegar or surface cleaner over the sponge surface.

Stop when you see the sponge is full. You want a little on the plate but not going over. If you can lift the sponge and it looks a bit like this.... perfect!

Now you are going to put the plate in the center of your nasty microwave....see, I said it had been getting a lot of use recently. I'm going to make the photo bigger to you can really see the nastiness. Ewww!

Turn on the microwave (on high) for 30 seconds. Now flip the sponge over and nuke it for another 30 seconds. Be Careful, the sponge is HOT!!!

Now, the sponge has been in the microwave for a total of 1 minute of nuke time. Keep the door closed and let it sit for 5 minutes (you may want to set a timer). This is to break up the gunk on the walls and to let the sponge cool down. It's really hot at this point.

Once the timer goes off, go in and check the temp of the sponge.  If its not too hot ring it out and wipe down the walls. Start with the inside of the door first because that will cool the fastest.

Don't forget the roof and the outside as well. Just dip your sponge in the plate when it needs a rinse.

That is so much better!

If you have a tray you may want to take it out and give it a rinse in the sink. Don't forget to wipe under the tray as well.

All done and it only took a total of about 10 minutes. :)

A week of Green Spring Cleaning (carpet sprinkle)

It's spring break this week, the weather is nice. I hope it stays that way, last year we had snow and hail during spring break. Gotta love Oregon!  With the kiddo home all this week and he and his friends expected in and out a lot, I figured I should get some spring cleaning and projects done. I'm endeavoring to get a post up each day this week with some of my recipes and how I do things here.

No need to copy how I do things exactly. Everyone has their own way of going about things but I always do better when I see how something is done, then I make my own version of it. If you find something that works better for you, please share in the comments.

Today I'm getting a good vacuuming done as well as cleaning the blinds...we will get into the blinds later and focus on the carpet. I want the house to smell good because I'm going to be stuck indoors most of the week. I opened the windows because its a beautiful 50f out. I know some of you in southern states must think I'm crazy but that's positivity warm for us after a cold winter!

Get out an old jar with a lid that fits... this happens to be an old pickle jar. I have a lot of pickle jars. Don't judge me.

Last time I did this I noticed my jar was not working as well as I wanted it to so I'm going to fix it. I'll show you how to make one while I'm at it.

Don't forget to label it.

This is the way mine was. The holes needed to be bigger so I'm showing you how I mad them and just making them bigger while I'm at it. No need to waist a jar.... even if I do have a bunch of them.

I just used a hex screwdriver (don't use a flat head screwdriver the holes wont work) and a hammer. Put the lid on the jar and make holes by holding the screwdriver on the lid and tapping the end of it with the hammer. 5-6 light-ish taps and you made a hole. Don't over do it and make sure the jar is stable. You don't want to break the jar. Do this a few times on one side of the lid. On my jar the holes were too small so it got clogged a bit. Made the job a lot slower.

This should work a lot better.

OK.... now onto making the sprinkle. All you will need is in this picture....

That's...
Jar (the one you just made)
Baking soda
Essential oil/s - I'm using lemon, lemongrass and sweet orange
and a fork. Yes, a fork.

*The frog salt and pepper shakers are not required but they do make me smile.

 Now fill your jar about 3/4 of the way full with baking soda. No reason to be exact here but a cup of baking soda will do about 1 large room. This is about 1 and 1/2 cups of baking soda. I'm doing my hallway and my living room.

Here is the fun mad scientist part. Add your oils. Some of the normal readers here know I have a thing for citrus scents but you can do any mix you like. I did about 10 drops of lemon, 10 drops of lemongrass and 5 drops of sweet orange in about 1 and 1/2 cups of baking soda. It will look something like this....

Now here is the reason for the fork. Mix it all up! The fork makes it mix faster and better. You could use a whisk but it will not get down into the corners of most jars. This works much better.

Put the lid on and sprinkle it all over the carpet. Heavily! It should look like something out of the movie Scarface. ;) No, not really that bad but you want to be able to see it sitting on the carpet!

Now sit back and have a cup of tea. Let it sit on your carpet for 10+ minutes. I let it sit for at-least a half hour because it makes everything smell so good, but if your in a rush 10 mins will do. Don't worry about walking on it. It actual helps if you do.

When you get around to it. Vacuum it all up. Done. 

How To Choose a Healthy Pet Food

Keep reading to get to the good part written by an experienced vet who knows what she is talking about. Some of this is my normal babbling explaining things in my goofy way.... Sorry, I can't help myself.

As some of you know I keep reptiles. I understand reptiles. Most of the food is fairly straight forward and we only have a few kinds to choose from. When it comes to cat and dog foods, I tend to be at a loss. I don't know what I should get for my two cats. The variety is boggling to the mind and the bright colorful packages are distracting.

 

 

Previously I worked for a pet store with a big variety of dog and cat foods. At that time I did not have any animals except for a few dwarf puffer fish, love birds, and geckos. I worked on the other side of the store from the pet food and spent most of my days scooping reptile and small animal poop. I sometimes would help people with dog and cat food but that was mostly carting it out to their car for them. I learned that some foods were much better than others and that even the really expensive ones were not necessarily the best. Other than that I would send people with questions over to the dog breeders we had working in the store because they knew what was what and I just knew which ones had big price tags and pretty labels. Moral of this... when you are asking the nice person at the pet store what kinds of food they suggest be sure to also ask them if they actually know anything about what they are talking about. *snort*

Our cats, Gibbs and Nyx are typical pet shelter house cats and we adore them. We would love to spoil them with top quality boutique pet foods but most of the time we can't afford it. Knowing that its best to keep cats and dogs on one type of food as the base diet and offer a little variety here and there for treats, I had a hard time picking a food that was good for them.

 

Nyx a.k.a. Budda-belly (self explanatory)

 Gibbs a.k.a Skunkbutt-kun (don't ask)

The shelter was feeding them whatever kitten food was donated to them. At the time (almost 5 years ago now) that was a basic kitten chow. The adoption clerk told us that was a decent food and to keep them on it for a few weeks while they settled into their new home. We did so. At the pet store we sold mostly boutique type food and I remembered how people would talk bad about the 'grocery store' foods. So I wondered if we should switch. The vet we took our kitties to told us to get Purina One Kitten and then switch over to adult in a year.  She also told us to grind up some L-lysine vits and sprinkle it over their food because they each came to us with kitty herpes. Nyx gets runny eyes and Gibbs sneezes a lot. Apperently the L-lysine helps with this but I suggest you ask your vet about it if you have kitties with the same issues.We did what the vet told us to do. 

Recently we switched to Purina One Beyond for our kitties. I can't give any reports on it yet but the switch over has gone smoothy. I've added a few pictures of that bag into this post.

 

I have a good friend who is a retired small animal and exotic vet. She was kind enough to write the below up for me to post in case any of you wonder the same things I did. Thank you Jodi for doing this!!! Jodi also believes in the importance of natural and organic life when possible so I was thrilled when she offer to write a few posts for That Green Witch. Again, thank you! 

Now onto the interesting part...

How To Choose a Healthy Pet Food

Jodi Kettering, DVM

March 2014

The pet food industry is currently a $19.85 billion business. Cat and dog foods account for over 90 percent of the U.S pet food market. Some estimates put the U.S. pet food production at $26.6 billion by 2015. And the overwhelming majority of pet foods are produced by only 5 big corporations: Mars Inc, Nestle, Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, and Del Monte. It is important to know that, since big corporations are more concerned with the bottom line, which is usually profits. And shareholder dividends can come at the cost of high quality ingredients in your pet’s food.

It should be no surprise to find that 9 out of 10 pet owners consider their cat or dog to be a part of the family. Half of pet owners allow their pet to sleep in the bed with them. A third will buy holiday gifts for their pet. With pets being such a central part of our lives, why would we choose to feed them a substandard commercial diet?

It becomes clear as to why we must pay attention to pet food ingredient labels. A basic knowledge of what to look for and what to avoid will help you choose the right pet food for your dog or cat. It isn’t difficult or a time consuming process. Please keep in mind, not every food is right for every pet. Your pet’s age, breed, potential underlying disease, and even gender may influence the type of food you will choose. Protein, fat, and carbohydrate percentages are also important factors to consider when choosing a quality pet food. I will cover these points in a future installment.

My first recommendation is to bring your reading glasses to the store. Pet food labels are notorious for being in small print! Once you’ve got your “eyes” on, forgo spending time on how fancy or colorful the packing looks. While the outside of the pet food bag may have pictures of fresh meats, fresh veggies and whole grains floating about, the inside product may contain ingredients that are far, far from that.

On to the ingredients list. There are 5 simple things to remember and look for when evaluating a pet food ingredients list.

1. Animal protein should be number one on the list. It should also be a “named” animal protein source. Avoid meat by-products or poultry by-products. With by-products, there is no way to know if these items were kept fresh, chilled, and properly stored, or if they were swept off of the processing floor and stored unrefrigerated for hours, or even days.
2. A named animal protein is one that is specific, such as chicken, beef, lamb, etc. Something labeled as just “meat” is an example of a low-quality, questionable-origin food stuff. A named animal protein meal is also fine (example: chicken meal is good, while a “meat” meal is unacceptable).
3. If a named whole meat is first on the ingredient list, it should be supported by a named meat meal as the second or third item on the list. Fresh meat is very heavy (with water), and as such cannot contain enough protein to be used as the sole animal protein. A good animal protein meal will add the necessary protein.
4. Whole vegetables, fruits, and grains are good. These fresh foods contain beneficial nutrients. That says it all. There should be no added sweeteners or colors
5. An expiration date should be at least 6 months away. 10 or 11 months is good. It means the food was made more recently. Natural preservatives, such as tocopherols (forms of vitamin E), vitamin C, and rosemary extract, can be used. Pet foods that have a 2 or 3 year expiration date usually contain synthetic preservatives (BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin).

Dr. Kettering has over 25 years experience in the veterinary profession. She is a retired small animal/exotics veterinarian in Bend, Oregon.

EWWW Ants!

As a reptile keeper not much scares me but ants are one of them. They are creepy but it's not the looks that scares me. It's because they will go after my sweet little fruit eating geckos! Many years ago I had a friend whose home was invaded but a HORDE of ants when the old gas station a half a block away from her home was being demolished. The damned ants killed almost 10 of her geckos while she was at work. That was a very bad day.

I hate pesticides but what do I do? This took a while (read as years) to find something that works. I've tested everything. Borax, Damascus earth, so called 'clean' pesticides and herbs. Some worked some didn't. The ones that have done well are listed here for anyone else to try.

Ant Repellent

With a damp sponge or cloth add 8-10 drops of peppermint essential oil or citronella essential oil and wipe on windowsills, door jams, cabinets, and any areas you think they may come in.

***The same trick will work with earwigs, centipedes, and silverfish. For them you can use peppermint essential oil, citronella e. oil, wintergreen e. oil, and eucalyptus e oil.

*** You can also add some of the above essential oils into mop water, floor cleaners, carpet dust, and counter top wipes.

*** add a satchel of basil with a few drops of the essential oils from above in cabinets or shelves to keep ants and other bugs away.

Safe Ant-be-gone

You will need

¼ flax seed oil

8 cloves garlic (pressed with skins still on)

2 cups warm water

1tsp liquid Castile soap

Spray bottle

In a jar or bowl place garlic and oil. Let sit for at least 12 hours covered. Shake or stir occasionally.

Remove/strain garlic from oil. Poor oil into spray bottle. Add water and castile soap. Shake and spray areas and ant trail.

Bye-Bye Ant Carpet Sprinkle

You will need

1 cup baking soda

¼ cinnamon

20 drops cinnamon bark essential oil

Jar with a lid (holes poked in lid helps)

Mix ALL ingredients well and place in the jar, cap jar. Sprinkle on carpet and let sit for 1-2 hours. Your house will smell like Christmas but its worth it. Vacuum it all up.

Hope this helps keep the creepy crawly ants away! If you have a safe recipe for keeping ants away please share in the comments. :) 

3 Ingredient Body Spray

Body spray is wonderful. You can find it in just about any scent and it does tend to be fairly cheap. Ranging from a few dollars to twenty on the high end. 

The question is what are you getting when you get the nicer ones? Usually a nicer scent and better ingredients. I've seen some of the cheaper ones using food flavorings and food colors as well as some nasty ingredients. The better ones normally have better ingredients but not always. Here is one of my old bottles of Victoria Secret brand body spray I found under my sink. Its one of the better ones around and it still has a lot of ingredients I'm not too happy about spraying on my skin including the food color? WHY DO THEY HAVE FOOD COLOR IN A CLEAR BODY SPRAY???

Remember your skin will absorb about 60% of what is put on it.

So now you have seen what is in one of the "better" brand body sprays and what you would spend $12-$20 on (I got mine on sale btw). How can you make your own for much cheaper and better ingredients? You maybe surprised at how simple it is and how fast you can make it.

Ingredients you will need

Distilled water

Witch Hazel

Essential Oil/s

Supplies

Spray Bottle

Optional – Syringe & Funnel

All and this will cost you about $1 to make. Sure, if you don't have all of the ingredients on hand you may have to buy some. Essential oils are not cheap. Even more so when you look at the size of the bottle and the $5-$20 price tag for 0.5oz bottle can be daunting. Just remember you will only be using a few drops at a time and they never expire. Citrus will loose some of the strength after a year or two but nothing really noticeable.

Directions

(this is the part that the funnel may come in handy if you are a klutz like me)

Fill your bottle ¾ full with the distilled water.

Then top off with the witch hazel. Remember to leave room for the cap/spray tube and a few drops of oil at the top.

Now here is the fun part. Making your own scent. I used...

(this is the part the needless syringe is useful)

8 drops of lemon grass

6 drops of lemon

6 drops of grapefruit

Mix your scents how ever you like. As everyone who knows me can tell you I like citrus everything. You can make a vanilla lavender or maybe a sandalwood sage? 

Next cap and shake the bottle. Do a few test sprays to see if its as strong as you want it. Remember you can always add more if it you would like a stronger scent. A total of 15-20 drops in my 6oz bottle tends to be plenty strong for me.

Don't forget to label your bottle. I use painters tape and a sharpie marker for almost all of my labels. The painter tape is simple to remove and does not leave any residue when its time to remove it.

So what one are you wanting to spray on your skin?

Milk Alternative 101

This has been giving me trouble for a few weeks now. Let me explain why. For years I have been drinking ½ & ½ in my coffee and drinking the occasional glass of cow milk or having it in my cereal. Recently I started seeing a naturalistic doctor and she told me I need to cut out most dairy because of the estrogen they pump into cows to get them to keep giving milk as well of a lot of other nasty stuff. My response "HA! That means no cheese... um, no. Not going to happen.” I have a bit of a fondness for cheese. She just smiled and shook her head in the, I know best, but I can't make you, kind of way and told me to at least drop liquid dairy products because they are the real trouble and just stick with natural cheeses. Okay, I can do that.

Directly after that appointment I made a trip to Freddie's AKA Fred Myers. It's like a nice, more grocery orientated Target for people not in the Pacific North West and they have a decent organic section. It was for wholly that reason and not because it's located one parking lot over from my doctors office. Really.

I looked around and choose some organic vanilla soy milk. Good protein levels and its soy so duh, no cow hormones to worry about. Low on sugars. No additives and I can read all the ingredients without having to sound them out first. Check, check, and check. The next day I made my coffee and I liked it. It was not as thick as with my ½ & ½ and I did have to use more but that's fine. That means more protein.

About a month goes by and I have some tests she requested done. Mammogram and ultrasound and I go back into the office for an appointment to talk about all the results as well as a well woman check. After much talk about other things I bring up that I am liking my soy milk. “Oh” at that point her head popped up from behind my cloth covered knees, “You should be drinking almond milk. I'm sorry we talked about so many things last time. I thought I covered that.” and back down goes the head. “I guess you could have, maybe I missed it because of my worrying about giving up my cheese fetish?” Chuckling from behind my cloth covered knees. “You'll want to avoid soy milk because soy has estrogen in it.” I was confused by this so I decided to wait until she was done so I didn't feel as awkward about the conversation. “So... umm, why would people pump estrogen into soy like cows? Does it make them simpler to milk?" I was only ½ kidding about this. She (again) laughed at me but at least this time it was not while she had the modern version of a popes pear in use so I felt a bit better about it. “No, soy naturally produces estrogen and it's very helpful for older women to drink but you'll want to wait a while before you start drinking it every day.”

So again, I made my way over to Freddie's and got some organic almond milk. About half as much protean as the soy but besides that the containers look about the same. When I got home I looked up a more detailed listing while trying it out with some coffee. If you're interested it's got the same kind of consistency and flavor as the soy... a bit more nutty (it's a nut milk, go figure) and I like it. 

 As you will see below, I decided to approach the Soy and Almond like an ex-boyfriend. No, not with a drink in the face! With a pros and cons list... and maybe some chocolates nearby.

 

SOY & ALMOND – Pro: Each are Vegan and Gluten free.  Not a big deal to me but it is nice to know and maybe helpful to others.

SOY & ALMOND - Pro: Heart Healthy Has been proven to help lower cholesterol & promote cardiovascular health.

Soy Pro & Con: Contains a High Level of Phytoestrogen (that mimics estrogen in humans)  This means it's good for postmenopausal women but not so great for younger women because estrogen increase breast cancer risk.

SOY – Pro: Believed to Help Prevent Male Prostate Cancer

SOY - Con (pro?): May Lower Male Sperm Count. This one could be good or bad depending on the way you look at it. ;)

ALMOND – Pro: High in Natural Antioxidants

ALMOND – Pro: High in Vitamins and Minerals more so than Soy milk.

ALMOND & SOY – Con: Each are considered 'not safe' for infants to drink.

ALMOND & SOY – Con: Each can have severe allergic reactions.

So it depends on how you look at it and your personal health needs. Me, I'm going to stick with the almond and most like still get the soy for the hubby as he liked it. I'm not the kind of health nut that I say avoid everything that's bad for you because eating nothing but Elven Lembas Bread would get really old, really fast. 

Hope this helps you and yours a bit. We will get back to the cleaning and beauty product recipes next time.

The 3 Ingredent Surface Cleaner

If you look around on the internet you will find a TON of recipes for house hold cleaners. Some require hard to find ingredients or supplies you may not want to buy just for cleaners. I don't know about you but I'm not buying a pressure cooker or a second food processor just to make a household cleaner.  I feel that homemade cleaners should be safer, work better, and less costly than buying them.

Today I would like to talk about a SIMPLE easy make your own household cleaner. I use it daily. You'll just need a few ingredients.  If you are just getting into making your own safe cleaners. Let me explain a few things. Vinegar is one of the main ingredients you will need to make your home safer for family and pets. It can be used in a lot of recipes, also if you say vinegar like its spelled, you will have a lot more fun with it. It sounds like a name of a tough and sexy viking from a fun romance novel. Vine-gar! The kitchen warrier! The best friend of a green kitchen. :)

You maybe wondering how our sexy viking friend can help in the kitchen. Well, to be honest, the question really is how can he/it not help, but lets start with another question. What is vinegar?

Vinegar is a liquid consisting mainly of acetic acid (CH₃COOH) and water. The acetic acid is produced by the fermentation of ethanol by acetic acid bacteria.^[1] Vinegar is now mainly used as a cooking ingredient, but historically, as the most easily available mild acid, it had a great variety of industrial, medical, and domestic uses, some of which (such as a general household cleanser) are still promoted today.
Commercial vinegar is produced either by fast or slow fermentation processes. In general, slow methods are used with traditional vinegars, and fermentation proceeds slowly over the course of months or a year. The longer fermentation period allows for the accumulation of a nontoxic slime composed of acetic acid bacteria. Fast methods add mother of vinegar (i.e., bacterial culture) to the source liquid before adding air using a venturi pump system or a turbine to promote oxygenation to obtain the fastest fermentation. In fast production processes, vinegar may be produced in a period ranging from 20 hours to three days.

Well that answered that.Thank you Wikipedia. Vinegar can be used in almost every cleaning product. From cleaning disposals/sinks, shining chrome, deodorizing trashcans and pet areas. The list honestly goes on and on. Today we will start with the basic all in one.

The main thing you want to know is the kinds of vinegar you want to use for cleaning. Lots of types are on the market and some are all wrong for cleaning. Step away from the balsamic! I tend to stick with simple distilled white vinegar for my cleaners and occasionally I also use apple cider vinegar for personal use. Today we will stick with the distilled white.

What you will need.
* An empty (clean) spray bottle. This can be new or used just make sure its been well rinsed.
* A funnel or a lot of towels if you are a klutz like me.
* Marker (very important to label your bottles)
* Water H2O. Distilled, filtered, spring or tap water is fine but if you have heavy water you may want to avoid the tap.
* White Distilled Vine-gar! ...eh hem, sorry. vinegar.
* Optional essential oil. This part is optional but useful. I suggest Lemon because 1) I like the smell 2) lemon is antibiotic, anti fungal, antiviral and antibacterial. You can also use eucalyptus, lavender, tea tree and many others and they work just as well but in my opinion they don't smell half as nice.
;)

Mix
1 part distilled white vinegar
1 part water in a spray bottle
*If using essential oil mix in 5-10 drops in a 16oz spray bottle. I use 5 drops Lemon and 5 drops Lemongrass.
Shake to mix and done. Use immediately or store for later use.

*NOTE
I have used this recipe on all my counter tops and cabinets with fantastic results. I do not have marble surfaces in my home. I have been told that vinegar can stain/etch some marble so be careful.

An introduction

Just a little background for you. No, I am not a witch. Not that I see anything wrong with being a witch or Wiccan. I just didn't think that making 'That Green Bitch' the title of my blog was the best idea so I substituted the B for a W.... I thought it was clever at the time.

I'm a Green Bitch. Green as in, I attempt to live 'green', as in I recycle and try to use homemade recipes for cleaners and beauty products. Bitch/Witch as in I am crafty and I tend to not apologize for the way I am. I am me.

Over the last few years I have been switching over to homemade recipes and I'm picky about them. I can't stand the idea of something costing more when I am taking the time to also make it. So you could call me That Cheap Green B/Witch, if you like. I won't be offended.

I first started to switch to green MYO (make your own) products because my son has/had bad eczema. He actually inherited it from me, but me being me, I dealt with it. I would wear socks on my hands so I would not scratch in my sleep and deal. I could not deal with seeing my 2 year old son constantly scratching and scabbing up his legs and feet. It made him and me cry. We tried 4 doctors and tons of creams and medications trying to get ride of it. It made me wonder what these medications where doing to him... at the same time as NOT working on the eczema.

At one point a friend told me about chemicals in detergent sometimes being the cause of skin problems. My first response was, “why would a company make something that could hurt kids even when used properly?” Yes, I was blind. I had no idea about GMO's, problems with food colors and preservatives or any of that other stuff. I was in the “the FDA is wonderful and they keep us safe” mind frame. So I did some research. Funny thing research. You learn things when you read! Wish I had known that back in high school!

To make a long story short I switched from using Tide brand to Free and Clear brand for about a year and it helped but the eczema was still popping up and rearing its ugly scabby head. Then I took the jump and made my own laundry detergent and with in a month it was gone. Even the little red areas that don't itch but look nasty and never go away... faded. In 6 months the red areas were gone.

All of this got me thinking... what other things do I deal with (like the eczema) that I just accept as apart of life? Dandruff? Dry and oily skin? Heartburn? Headaches and migraines?

I plan to make this Blog all about the things I do here to help me and my family live a better life and not break the bank while I'm at it. Not all of it will be MYO and DIY recipes. Some of it will just be me being a crazy lady. 

I should note that if you are still in the “the FDA is our friend” mind frame, I warn you that this blog may not be the one for you.