Beautiful Southern Life

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Summer Cleaning Series: How Do I Start Green Cleaning?

green cleaning, cleaning,
It’s hard to know where to start when it comes to green cleaning. here is a post that will get you on the right track in no time at all.

Getting Started is Really Easy

Make a list of what you use to clean everything in your house with.

  • What you clean your kitchen with?
  • What you clean your floors with?
  • What you use to clean your laundry with?
  • What you use for fabric softener?
  • What you use to clean your car with?
  • What do you use to make your house smell good?

Look at the labels:

  • Are there cautions or warnings?
  • Do the bottles list the ingredients?
  • How many do you know to be dangerous?
  • How many do you really need?
  • How many can clean multiple things? 

 If you toss any chemicals, make sure to do so properly. Cleaners are considered hazardous household waste and need to be disposed of accordingly check with your local recycling facility to see where to dispose of chemicals in your area. If you have a septic system you don’t want to pour it in your drain it will kill the bacteria that are in your septic system. 

You Have Taken Inventory Now What?

This post contains affiliate links. I may make a small commission at no charge to you should you make a purchase through the links below. 

Now that you have an idea of what you use right now in your home, and you know what hazards might be in those products,, now is the time to start looking at what you might want to do next.

There are a few great products right on your local grocer shelf you might want to try. Look for something that is as close to a natural ingredient as you can find.  Here are a few examples that you might see.

If you are like me I shop a lot on Amazon, I get great products at great prices. I have linked the products below so you can go right to your Amazon page and purchase these products if you want too.

I have used Shaklee for over thirty years and love the products. I use Basic H to clean everything. It actually has so many uses and is completely safe. You can use this link to check it out and even place an order if you choose too. There products are excellent and you will love them. I know I do.

This should give you a really good idea of where to start. The most important thing is to start! I did and I really do love the fact that I clean my home with things that will not make me or my family sick.

In my next post I’ll share some of the cleaning products that I make and use on a regular basis. I make my own laundry soap and have used the same recipe for years I’ll share that recipe with you and what I use for fabric softener and how I use it. I will share a few recipes that I use in my diffuser too.

Trust me you want to get these recipes they will save you money and you will love the way they clean.

Have a great day!

Sherry

 

 

How to Create A Goals Board

How do you keep track of your goals? I have an idea I came up with several years ago. It came about when I set my goals and I forgot about several goals because I had written them down and then forgot to refer back to them due to a busy job I had at the time. Life just had gotten so busy and I was not working from home every day so I forgot about them.

Well, I didn’t want that to happen anymore! I came up with a Goals Board solution! I love it. You can do it in any size large or small. You can write them on the glass or you can print them out. It is up to you. I choose to print them in an 8 x 10 frame and I write them on a larger 30 x 30 picture putting the goals I’m working on that month.

I just scouted my local thrift stores and the local Goodwill and found a lot of really nice picture frames that I was able to update and use in my kitchen and office as my Goals Boards. It is so simple to do and will only take a few minutes to do. If you want to get creative with the frame you can and paint and decorate it any way you choose.

I had found a beautiful old wooden frame so I just left it the way it was and I just use Old English on it every couple of weeks.

You don’t have to use it as a goals board you can use it for your chore chart, or for an information center for your family. I actually have used mine for a message board as well. I have since created a message board out of a pretty frame. To hang right by the door so everyone can see it. It has it’s own dry erase marker so they don’t have to hunt for a marker.

Supplies you will need:

a picture frame you like

a sheet of  pretty paper, wrapping paper or poster board the size of your frame

brightly colored set of dry erase markers

a nice bowl to put your markers in

Directions:

Cut the piece of paper or poster to fit inside your frame. I change my paper with the seasons.  sometimes I find wrapping paper I like and use that.

Hang your goals picture frame and you’re done.

Thats all there is to it. It is an easy to do project that will give you somewhere to post the important things you don’t want to forget or the doctor’s appointment you can’t miss.

When you create your Goals Frame or Message Frame be sure to post a photo in the comments I would love to see how you decorated your frame.

Here are a few of the Family and Goals boards I made

goals boards, vision boards, family message centers
Goals and Family Boards to make

Here is my finished Family Board and two of my Goals boards in my study. We all love it and have somewhere to put important notes, chores, and things we need to remember.

If you make a family or goal board be sure to share it with me I would love to share it on the blog with others and I will share it with my readers on my Facebook page.

 

Summer Cleaning Series: What is Green Cleaning and Why Should I care?

Good morning, I sure hope your day is off to a great start. Today I plan on sharing about Green Cleaning and why we all should be finding out more about it.  With all we do in a day now days the last thing we want to worry about is what type of toxic chemicals we use in our homes.

We are all guilty of just picking up a cleaner, like the smell and take it home to clean everything with. Next time you go to the grocery store take two minutes and read what is in the ingredients of the cleaner you are planning on buying. I did, most of the words I had no idea how to pronounce or let alone knew what it was!

green cleaning
Why should I care about Green Cleaning?

This post contains affiliate links. I may make a small commission at no charge to you should you make a purchase.

Why I Green Clean Now

I was working full-time outside the house and also working part-time at another job this was in early 2003. Someone had spilled something on the carpet and I cleaned it with water and a little dish soap. I made a note to pick up carpet cleaner at a local store so I could clean the carpet with the shampooer. I came home and started cleaning the carpet and I started itching between my fingers! Then I started breaking out in hives. Well with in 15 minutes I was in serious condition with my throat swelling shut. I called a friend and they were able to get hold of my family to come take me to the hospital. At the hospital I had a lot of test run and they gave me a lot of medicine to stop the swelling and hives. I looked horrible!

After a lot of allergy testing and months later they were able to find out I was seriously allergic to most chemicals found on your grocery shelf to clean things with. I had to change the way I do things or risk more allergic reactions. The doctors told my husband and I that the reactions will get worse with every allergic reaction I would have.  Just the simple act of cleaning the counter and getting the cleaner on my hands and putting my hand near my mouth, just to swipe away my hair out of my face could potentially send me to the emergency room. That was scary!

We Had to Educate Ourselves

 

The first thing we did was git rid of everything we had that was a chemical. Every cleaner had to go! I started using vinegar to clean with. I was able to still use a few brands of dish soap but I put vinegar in my dish water to kill the germs. I have always used vinegar in my dishwater it just works.

Several months later I had another reaction, I bought some corn at the farmers market and fixed it for dinner, I again broke out in hives and started itching! This is when they found out I was allergic to glyphosates. Well this changed everything. I now had to check every type of produce I ate, eating out became hard due to most restaurants don’t use organic produce. Our family had to eat organic. We started a garden and loved gardening it was a lot of fun and we were able to eat the fruits of our labor. This is my family’s story of why we are an organic house hold.

Studies show that using a common house hold cleaner (you take your pick) used just once a week raise the risk of a child developing asthma. With every cleaner you use you release harmful chemicals into your home environment and chemicals last a very long time, you may not smell it any more but it is still there. When you use a cleaner to clean your floor, a sink scrub, an oven cleaner, then a antibacterial kitchen spray to clean all the germs from your cabinets and appliances you have released multiple chemicals into your home and into the  air in your home. What are they doing to you and your children?

There Are Great Green Cleaners You Can Use

Today there are a lot of companies that try to create cleaners that are safe for you and your home. Here are a few examples of the ones I personally have used. Mrs. Myers, and  Method Both these cleaners work very well. When you  compare them to other cleaners that clean as well as they do they are in the same price range it really doesn’t cost more to clean with Green Cleaners.

I now make and use my own cleaners, hand soap and dish soaps. I make my own laundry soap and love the way it cleans my laundry. I used Mrs. Myers Laundry for a very long time and loved it.  I still use it for delicate items and things I hand wash. The fabric softener is excellent! I also use dryer wool balls with essential oils on them for drying my clothes, this is one of my favorite essential oil blends for the dryer balls.

More Post to Come all about Green Cleaning and How to get started

I will have two more post coming soon on how to start green cleaning and a post with my favorite home-made recipes for cleaning things in my house.

My Favorite Dusting Spray

Here is a link to my  Dusting Spray. It works so well and it actually repels dust so you don’t dust as often. I have wood floors in every room of my house, even the kitchen and I dampen my mop and spray this on the floor and mop as usual and my floors just shine. I personally love mopping now because I love the peppermint smell  through the house. I will share more of my recipes in another post next week so be sure to check back and get your recipes.

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Decluttering Starts Here…

Decluttering Starts  Here

decluttering, clutter, cleaning
Are you decluttering your home. Here are a few ideas to help you.

 

Here is what I am doing right now.

  • First I ordered this book to help me,(I ordered the audio version) “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up”
  • I am working on cooking all the things I have bought instead of running to the store everyday.
  • I am making a list of the cleaning items I use during the month. I do green cleaning so anything that is not a green cleaner is tossed.
  • I am not buying extras on things when they are on sale, unless we use them a lot.
  • I am taking note of the things in my house that I truly love and create happiness and peace in my home.
  • I am going through my sheet sets and only keeping 2 sheet sets per bedroom.
  • I am going through my blankets and only keeping two per bedroom.
  • I am going through our towels in the bathrooms and only keeping the best ones right now. I do plan on going to 3 towels per person soon. here is my goal per person: 2 washcloths, 2 bath towels, 1 large bath towel. We are looking at a color coding system for the towels.
  • I am saying “NO” to extra purchases of things I really don’t need.
  • I am working on going through everyone’s closets and throwing everything that hasen’t been worn in 6 month or a year.
  • We are looking at how to organize the closets better with new organization systems. You can see what we are looking at here on my Pinterest Board. We will customize each closet to the person in the room and how they use there space.
  • We are taking out the wire shelving in the kitchen and re working the pantry using wood shelving and bins and baskets to corral things.

There you have an idea of what I have planned for the month. I have been so busy over the past few months that lots of things have collected in our house and they need to go to new homes. I love it when things are in place and neatly organized.

If you have projects you are working on feel free to share them with me. I would love to see how others organize their spaces.

Have a happy day,

Sherry

 

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