Eco-friendly Mom Sayings

My daughters love to tease me . they say I say the craziest things. Who me??? Well I guess if you had a listening devise in my house you might die laughing.... they do!

They told their friends one afternoon sitting in my living room some of these crazy things


The number one thing, the thing I say the most and really don't get why this is funny....is:

"Don't throw that away!!"

I sat there asking why is that funny. Guess most parents want their kids to throw things away. Oh.... But then I usually follow with saying recycle that, compost that or we can reuse that.
It was shocking that I was asked by the girls' friends what is compost? How do you compost that?  They think that is throwing it away just throwing away outside....

So Smiley said Oh no the best funniest thing is when she comes up the  stairs  screaming

"I can't find my balls"  or  "Where are my balls?"

Insert loud laughter here.....

 

 smart a** male friend - asked are they are  blue......Yes Smooth talker.  a couple are and the others are white and blue.. but I am use to him, I have know him for almost 10 years...)  

yes I really say that..... I am doing laundry and when I go to put my towels in the dryer I don't see my dryer balls.  So I yell up the stairs "I can't find my balls"  or  "Where are my balls?" or "Can I have my balls back?"   Because they like to hide in sweatshirts or blankets sometimes and the girls will bring them up in their baskets and then place them on the dresser, table or where ever.  So I have to go looking for my balls.... Of course the dog is going crazy looking for his ball, he wants to play.  Oh yea he likes to help me pick them up after they fall out of the dryer.  Then I am heard saying "that's my ball dog, you have your own."  Of course my young adults are rolling on the floor, saying he doesn't have any we got him fixed..... I have to snicker at that one..

So they got me some laundry balls.  Yea the girls told me they know how I like balls so they got me some more, this time for the washer. They are smaller than the dryer balls.  Great more balls for me to look for.......... I might have to scream "have you seen my little  balls??" upstairs........oh I can just hear it now......

AHHHHHH Plastic water bottles  in my house!!!! Oh you have sold my soul to the devil.  Ok I stole that from Living with Ed commercial on Planet Green. . 

That's ok. Time for  things heard said by eco-friendly daughters. Or how you know they are starting to get it.....

"Oh!  better check that for high fructose corn syrup, mom will have a fit. Or Mom won't get it - it has high fructose corn syrup, artificial color,  or fake sugar in it."

"MOM I don't like this yogurt want me to save it for your face and/or hair?"

"MOM can I use out dated lemon juice to clean that?" I tell them if it doesn't smell or tease them as long as they don't drink it...

"my junk mail is on the computer desk to be used as scrap paper."

touché

Citrus Cleaners

De-greaser Spray


7-8 citrus Peels
2 cups of water


Slice peels into strips and boil in the water for 1-2 minutes or longer. Let cool. Bottle. Works great in the kitchen.


Citrus Vinegar Cleaner


Citrus peels
Jar
White vinegar


Place your peels into a jar. Cover with white vinegar. Shake occasionally. Strain and use straight for greasy messes. Use diluted for windows, laundry whitener, floors and surfaces.


Enzyme cleaner


1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups water
3/4 cup citrus peels


Found this at Just Life

Mix sugar and water together in a tight fitting bottle.
Use a air tight plastic container. One that can expand;
Add citrus peels.
Place in a well ventilated area out of direct sunlight. Open once a day for the first month to release the gasses. Push the peels down too. Let sit for 3 months.

The enzyme will turn a dark brown. If it turns black some sugar to start the fermenting process. About the same amount you use to start the enzyme. Plus there maybe a white, black or brown layer on top. That is just the yeast. If the container isn't air tight you might even see flies or maggots. The enzymes will dissolve them.

After the 3 month fermenting strain through cheese cloth.

I am going to try this for those animal accidents, seeing how the product from the pet store also says "natural enzymes"
Plus it is a natural pesticide and insecticide! I have to try that for the garden and inside the home.....

Wild Gray Woman

I hate having my picture taken. i really do. It always looks so horrible that it realy doesn't look like me.  I know it sounds crazy.  but I do hate my picture taken!

Worst then that I am thinking of doing something radical. I want to stop dying my hair. Yes I want to stop using toxic hair dye knowing that most hair dyes are made with petroleum byproducts and cause damage to the environment .  Being a environmentalist, I should have  know better.  I found out this info and now I must do something about it.  Or not do something because of it.

Not to mention all the chemicals and irritates that the hair dye has. I laugh when people tell me that they have to dye their hair because that is the only way they can deep condition their hair. Because the truth is it weakens your hair. You are striping the outer part of your hair to let color sink it.  You can get the same thing with a deep conditioner or leaving it on your hair for a half an hour....  Then I found out that smell that we get is a chemical reaction of sulfur from our damaged hair.  hummm I am having a heck of a time with the frizzy ends....

Plus all the chemicals!
Hair stylist have a higher chance of getting bladder cancer or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. So do women that routinely dye their hair. Not something I want to  do just to up my chances at finding out.........

You know ignorance  is bliss   Doing the right thing isn't always easy......
But I know I will have a growing out period that might not be easy...... I won't look like me. I might start to look (gasp) old....

But will it really be that hard to do? I mean the time we have to take to put that smelly stuff all over our heads and wait 20-30 minutes, Oh if you are really late at the coloring, you have to dye your roots first.  You have to just do the roots then after 10 or so minutes dye the rest of our hair to even it out...... Or just do the roots with the new product to try to keep your roots from giving away you have got some gray up there.

What do you think? Gray hair equal old lady? Or freedom from chemicals? 
Would you stop dying your hair?  Do you even dye your hair?

The girls are betting how long it is till I go and buy a box of some  hair dye.  I told them ha ha it would have to be a natural hair dye like from the health food store.  No more petroleum byproduct. Miss Animal Rights found a gray hair and tells me it my fault, I told it was pay back for my gray hair are her fault.... teasingly. Smiley on the other hand is freaking out, she dyes her hair more than I did. She was upset to hear that it was a petroleum byproduct. And with the Gulf Oil Spill  you know that prices will go upon gas and petroleum products . She is upset the price of dye may go up....

But most of the time when I dye my hair it turns red. Yep a reddish tint. I get deep brown or sunshine blond, my hair turns shades or tints of a auburn reddish color.  I might be able to get away with henna.......... But my favorite thing is cold coffee, it suppose to help natural pigments........ I use a vinegar rinse  with sage and rosemary that is suppose to help gray hair........
I can't wait to hear what my beautician friends are going to say! LOL specially one- he likes to tell me Looks it's time to color again. Yea he likes to tease me that I don't kill (dye) my hair I color it....  

On with the experiment.. 

Garden warnings in the area.

I am reading the area paper on line and guess what I see.... Garden warnings for the area for downy mildew and late blight. What? So I start to research it online. Sure enough I think one of my containers has late blight. Late blight is what  caused the Irish potato famine in the 1850's.... The crop disease that brought my great great (great?) grandmother to this country!!!

Ok I tell myself calm down find out what to do to fix it. One of the first pages I find talks about destroy the infected plants  to save my crop.... Ok I might have to do that for one container but all my plants??? Not a happy camper.  But I not sure if the yellow and brown spots on my leaves are downy mildew or late blight.  I look some more.....  The picture show a brown spot on the stem.... I go outside and look not sure don't see any.

I find many sites that advise me to buy a copper fungicide. I not too sure I want to do that I am trying to grow food to keep the pesticides off my families dining table.  I find a site that offers some organic remedies.  Yea! My plants don't look like that but I will do a couple of the organic pesticide ideas seeing how they are easy enough to do.

Compost tea

I have a bucket of water that I will let sit for a day. I have city water and yes I can filter it but still like to let it sit for a day to get rid of chloride.
Early in the morning I will get some compost and place it in a cloth bag. A cotton sock or you can use a  pillow case if you want to make a lot of the compost tea.
Let it steep for 24 hours. Spray after straining (if needed) Again early in the morning.

or make a spray out of household items:

1 gallon of Water
1 tablespoon baking soda
2 drops dishwashing liquid
1 tablespoon oil. You can use vegetable oil.

So tomorrow morning I  be checking my plants for brown area on the stems. Picking off the leaves that have brown leaves on them. Placing them in a dark colored bag and tying closed so it doesn't infect all my plants.....  let that sit out away from my other plants in the bright sun. They might end up in the drive way... so the dog doesn't scent the bag to mark his territory... I could just see it!!!


A ounce  of prevention is worth a pound of  cure!!

Plus I have compost to make compost tea and you never know what the wet spring and the hot humid summer will bring...........

So I am guessing  too that the EWG Shopper's Guide to Pesticides or known as the Dirty Dozen will include tomatoes, potatoes, squashes,and cucumbers after this....

Leftover Beer?

So did everyone enjoy the fireworks? Well we found that the canine was ok as long as he was busy. He didn't hear the fireworks when the ball is being thrown. Miss Animal rights and I got a workout. PLUS he made friends with my dad. (the dog hasn't been to sure about my dad, but he loved having his ball thrown by a fresh arm!! A male arm that could throw hard and further!)

Well the only thing missing was the left over beer.  I thought about the this morning.

 I am use to finding beer cans and bottles half empty all around the porch and house. Strange thing is I have been here for about 5 years but  I use to live close to downtown. A place where  friends and neighbors would have a few beers before walking to the park to watch the fireworks. Cause parking was easier and we were closer to the interstate.  I would use the beer I found to good use.

I would use the stale beer to trap the bugs in the garden. Most of the time it was a few tomato plants and strawberry patch.  Just pour a little beer into a pie pan and watch the slug and bug party begin.  I used to tease the guys the bugs where as bad as them. They drink too much and drown!

Later that night I would use the beer found inside to rinse my hair.  Beer has vitamin B and natural sugars that  add body and shine. You could use as a setting lotion.  A ex-boyfriend use to tease me I had the right "perfume"  after I would rinse my hair in beer.  It doesn't smell like beer afterward cause you rinse the beer out with cooler water. But the bathroom does smell like beer when you are using it....

So I am excited to hear from a friend that beer can also take out stains in your carpet. OK. Cool I have a stain that I have tried to get out for a while now.  But no stale beer... so I guess I will have to wait, til Jan. 2? LOL You use the stale beer like you do spot remover that you buy at the store. You dampen a clean cloth with beer and pat the stain up with a dry clean cloth. 

I knew I should have made beer can chicken... I might have some beer left over... Well the drinkers where hung over I don't think they would have opened any in the first place......

Boom!!! Boom!!

Through a Dog's Ear is a website that has down-loadable music for your canine friends this holiday. The forth of July can be the longest month here at my house. Seems that my neighbors believe that fire works should and are set off at all times if the day. Plus for many of us in the neighborhood it is maddening that we get to hear them well into the night.  With people having tomorrow off too; I know tonight will be a very long night.  It does distress my poor animals to hear load noises.  Plus the screaming after the loud boom gets them too.  The other night I had a dog on my one leg, a cat on the other plus a cat rubbing on my head from behind my neck.   Yea it been fun on 90 degree days to have my fur babies on me shaking and whining.

Yes they are illegal in my area, but the cops do drive down the street once in a while looking for the illegal displays.

Through a Dog's Ear has music like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and more.  They suggest that you play the music low. Don't try to overpower the fireworks. That will just over excite your animals.  We have been using a loud box fan for the cover up of the fireworks when we leave the house. Like I said they set them off all hours of the day and night.

I also saw that lavender essential oil applied on the spine can help relax your fur babies.  I haven't try that yet but it is tonight I KNOW will be the craziest with the fireworks....  Last year I couldn't sleep because the house across the street  had been lighting off fireworks most of the night.  I pass out around 3 AM and wake at 8AM and they are still lighting off fireworks and laughing.

So being off today is unusual but working the next day isn't. I get to try to sleep through the fireworks, the yahoos! screams and my animals freaking out..... Sad thing is we will be busier then a normal Monday because many people have the day off.  Joy, Joy.

I got a jury duty notice and have to call the fifth to see if I have jury duty.  I don't mind doing jury duty at all it is my civil duty.  Just thinking it may have been different if I did have to go in on the fifth... I can see me being cranky sitting there being asked questions.  If it is a person being tried for firework possession.... I might be crazy and try to make them work in an animal shelter during a firework display and then a loud thunderstorm..... Yea how cool is it now big man.... Sorry didn't get much sleep last night. I had a cat on my legs most of the night. I keep the windows closed to keep the loud booms outside. Plus the smell of gun powder. Yea that a mix loud booms and the smell of gun powder makes my animals freaked out. Loud booms and loud Yahoo screams.... I live by a bunch of Yahoos!!

Happy Forth of July everyone.  We are having hamburgers and brats. or is it Italian sausage? Oh well I got out voted for beer can chicken.  Boston baked beans, grilled corn on the cob, foil wrapped potatoes and watermelon. 

The forth for me is the cookout and summer type foods!

Saving Money

Driving  to work this morning I heard the disc jockeys talking about the US News and Money article  21 Things You Should Never Buy New But they didn't go into to much of the article so I had to do a search for it.

DVDs and CDs
Video Games

Places like Game Stop is a great place to save on these items  Plus get some spending money take in your old I beat that game to a resale store and they might even buy the game off of you.

Books
The library has sales on books. But you can always borrow the book!  There is a couple sites online that you can buy used books in great condition. Amazon.com I like Powell's Books All the books I ordered from them were great looking books and a couple were listed as good condition.  

Special Occasion and Holiday Clothing Jewelry
Maternity and Baby Clothes
Office Furniture
Ikea Furniture
Home Accent

Resale shops and consignment are a good place to find deals on these items

Oh yea your area Salvation Army store, Goodwill or resale shop will have these plus this items too:

Craft Supplies
Hand Tools
Games and Toys
Sports Equipment
Gardening Supplies

The hard  part  about  The Salvation Army store, Goodwill or resale shops are you can't always count on what you need being there.  But it is a good thing to remember you can get things like this.  PLUS you need to look over your stuff. Things get donated ripped, torn broken or with missing pieces.  But many solid things like furniture can be repaired, repainted, stained or  still used a little ugly looking (like a rusty hammer)

Pets  

Adopt  from reputable No Kill shelter.  Sometimes breeders are not the most loving place to be a fur baby from. Not to say that there isn't some great breeders out there just that some are know for cruel acts. (ok cruel in my book)


Consumer Electronics

Refurbished electronic goods  have been fixed and then inspected.  Make sure you have a good warranty for the work.




Houses

Cars




We know that! But the house... ok with the housing market the way it is now more and more people are updating their houses  to be green. It is the market trend. More people are upgrading to eco-friendly remodeling then selling or buying new housing.
I don't trust used car salesman, but you know your car goes down in value the minute it is drove off the lot........  



Timeshares

Oh yea the whatevers that I keeping getting snail mail for.  I don't have any to sell and don't want to buy any....... 


Recreational Items 

Recreational campers, boats and big ticket ideas are a better deal used again Something you really need to check and make sure is in great shape.  But I have my tent.Can't afford a used camper..... But I have rented cabins. Cheaper than a motel room and more fun!!