Hippie Stuff

Yesterday I picked up this little gem from the library. The Naturally Clean Home by Karyn Siegel-Maier. Some of my friends and sisters are into the whole "taking care of your home the natural way," so I'd thought I share this great find. 

It's essentially a recipe book for cleaning your home, inside and out. It even has ways to clean your car. I might have to give that one a try soon, because my car is in desperate need of a cleaning and I already have all the ingredients. Just water, castile soap and a few drops of lemon or orange oil. Simple!

These are the areas she covers in the book.

Kitchen

Bath

Laundry

Wood Care

Cleaning Metals

Walls and Carpet

Cleaning the Air

Garage and Basement

Garden and Landscape

Home Office

This book is full of recipes for everything you could ever need, but she points out that many solutions are multi-purpose. Baking soda, Borax, vinegar, castile soap, lemon juice, and some essentials oils are really all you need to make pretty much everything in this book. 

How many of us have a cabinet under our kitchen sink FULL of cleaning supplies, many of which we don't use or haven't used in a long time. ME! I love the idea of having just a few homemade products that work on everything. More money in my wallet and more space under my sink. It's a win-win!

Some of my goals since being married are to simplify our home, to use natural products, and also to eat foods closer to it's source. Instead of trying to tackle all my goals at the same time, I'm mastering just one for now. It's the cleaning because it's so much easier. I usually have all the ingredients I need already in my pantry, mixing them in a spray bottle doesn't take more than 5 minutes, and then I don't have to think about it for months. It's just one small thing I can do for my family and it hardly takes any effort at all.