Going Green in Comfort

( Merelize / FreeRangeStock.com ) I need to buy lemons, lot of lemons, for the thorough cleaning my home desperately needs. I've for a long time that people use lemons to clean, but I didn't realize how powerful they can be. According to an article on GreenAmerica.com, lemon juice can cut grease . I had no idea. The same site lists a bunch of other natural cleaners I already knew about — like vinegar, baking soda, club soda, hydrogen peroxide, and borax — but also a few that surprised me, including: Corn meal to soak up spills on a carpet. Olive oil as a furniture polish. Some essential oils may have antibacterial and antifungal properties. " Get Things Clean the Natural Way ," a post on the Better Homes & Gardens website, adds a few more natural cleaners: Salt as an abrasive cleaner.  Microfiber cloths to remove germs. Do you have more tips for green cleaning? Please share in the comments below.

(Image from Pixabay) "That's wasteful." I heard my mom say those two words when I was a kid more times than I could count. Now, I find myself saying it to my own daughter. My husband reminds her to turn off the light whenever she leaves a room, and she needs lots of reminders. I have been tackling how much water she uses at bath time. When she first started taking a bath by herself, my daughter was pretty good with the amount of water she used, but at some point, my husband and I noticed that we've been hearing her start and stop the water more than once. Who knows how long she had been doing that before we noticed? Judging by the size of our water bills, I'd say it was probably four months. So I asked her about it. It turns out she was running fresh water for three reasons: To rinse herself off. Apparently, she had been using so much soap that the water was too soapy to rinse herself. To rinse out the tub. Her dad is usually the first o...

I've been rinsing and saving food cans for more than a year. We FINALLY have accrued enough to make taking them in for recycling worth the drive to the recycling center. We buy only a can or two per shopping trip, so they've been really slow to add up. I'm also in the mood for doing a whole lot of house cleaning and getting rid of a lot of stuff we no longer use. Perhaps I'll be able to find more recyclable metal around the house while I'm at it, though I doubt it. I think most of what I'll be getting rid of will be clothing and toys my daughter has outgrown. We do have a bunch of modem/routers, which for some reason, back when we had DSL cable never seemed to work for more than six months or so straight, so this will be my chance to drop those off as well.

Oatmeal for breakfast © Sugar0607 |  Dreamstime Stock Photos  &  Stock Free Images I'm on the hunt for grab-n-go breakfasts that meet the following criteria: Require no cooking to save on electricity. Are healthful. Can be made using all eco-friendly, organic ingredients. Because I bought a big tub of oatmeal a few months back that I've never opened, I figured oatmeal recipes were a good place to start. So I googled ideas on grab-n-go, no-cook oatmeal, and found quite a few out there that say to just let oatmeal soak overnight, then just grab it on your way out the door the next day. So for the past few days, that's been my breakfast: A bowl of oatmeal soaked overnight in water (many recipes call for yogurt or milk, but I'm trying to avoid sugars, so I just opt for water). I toss in a few pecans and chia seeds, and dig in. I was surprised to find I like it. I really didn't expect to. (Though I recommend stirring in some salt.) To vary...

© Mpalis |  Dreamstime Stock Photos  &  Stock Free Images Balancing my checkbook is a chore for me. Once a month or so, I'll print out the list of everything that has gone through my account and reconcile my register with what the bank says I have. Because I put off this task, printing my statement takes several pages. This past weekend, I printed more pages than I ever have: a whopping 12 pages of debits and credits. I was shocked it took that many pages and I felt guilty for — let's just call it what it is — wasting that much paper. But when you wait three, four, five weeks or so to see where your checkbook stands, it helps to have a printout to cross off items you've already noted or circle items you can't remember making. That got me thinking: I need to do my checkbook more often. Oh, it's a thought I've had before, but this was the first time I realized that I don't need to fire up my computer to balance my checkbook. My bank app makes acce...

Earlier this year, I wrote about going shampoo-free to reduce my use of chemicals and to eliminate plastic shampoo bottles in my garbage. My experiment lasted about a month, but I just could not figure out how to stop my hair from looking oily. My plan was to figure out the best way to go water-only, then teach my daughter and husband the same techniques. © Aleksask |  Dreamstime Stock Photos  &  Stock Free Images   But over time, as I struggled to figure out what tips and tricks might get that icky greasy look out of my hair, I’ve added regular old shampoo back into my morning routine. It started off small, just adding a few drops of my daughter’s shampoo onto my head and working it into a lather about once a week. Then it became every other day, and now I’m back to every day. So much for water-only. I might try it again someday, but in the meantime, I have another plan: Organic shampoo bars. I first learned they existed just this past weekend while ...

One day last week as I putting away my groceries, I learned a little something about Aldi . There, on the side of the bag I had purchased was a notice that the bag was made from 100 percent recycled material and is 100 percent recyclable. I’ve been using those bags for several months now, and that was the first time I had paid attention to what was written on it. It’s just one of many reasons I enjoy shopping at Aldi. About eight or nine years ago when the grocery chain opened its first location near me, I visited its website and learned a little about ways the chain tries to minimize its impact on the environment , from the way the stores are built to having LED lights at all locations and using solar energy at some. I don’t know a thing about the environmental policy of other major retailers I patronize, and it occurred to me recently that I probably should. So that’s on my to-do list: Find out which stores actively work to reduce their carbon footprint and make adjustm...