The Sh!t I Don't Buy (or use)

For the last ten years I have not bought traditional (aka toxic) house cleaners, dish soaps, body soap, shampoo, conditioner, or deoderant. No, I don't shop lift them or get them for free... I stopped using that stuff and here is how it all started:::
*
When I got diagnosed with Celiac Disease I was told that not only would my diet be changed but also anything I used as a personal care product, on any surface in my home or on my body needed to be gluten free also. Back in the day I already ate organic, and when I sent out nearly 100 letters and far more phone calls to companies trying to search for gluten free & healthy alternatives to clean up with not one company could say they were safe for me to use. Lawsuit worries, combined with the fact that gluten is in nearly every product Americans purchase in ways you would never guess.
What happened at the time was I was really sick, mostly bed ridden, mostly in a wheelchair and I thought 'what the hell, who needs that shit anyway!'
It wouldnt matter if I didn't use shampoo, it wasn't like I had a HAwT date while I was half dead and 80 pounds.
Much to my OCD mother's dismay, I began a life of chemical and gluten free discoveries about ways to naturally keep me and my home clean without creepy goops, sprays, lotions, potions that all came in wasteful packaging anyhow. My hair took a few weeks to adjust. My skin seemed to never care. My mom swore she suddenly could smell my armpitts (even though I had not put on deoderant for years prior to that time)... but I soldiered on.
And now ten years later...
*
Here are the 'cleaners' I use instead of store bought products::::

1. Shampoo/Conditioner ---> Hot water plus Salt (or) Boiled lemon with lavender (or)Straight lemon squeeze (or) Vinegar (rarely unless i do something stupid like put olive oil in my hair to make it beautiful only to discover I can't get it to wash out for 3 weeks!)

2. Deoderant ---> I do like the europeans. Just wipe um' and go. Covering up your special hormonal scent is going to get ya in bed with the wrong kinda guy.

3. Mopping ---> I mop with water mixed with vinegar and baking soda. Alternately if you are not scent sensitive you can use an essential oil mixed in water to mop with, I use cypress.

4. Kitchen/Bathroom ---> A blender helps with this, cause if you blend ginger & lemon it makes an amazing surface cleaner. The ginger will eat through the nasty build up on your stove too! If you don't have a blender, using a lemon or vinegar straight up is good... i use apple cider vinegar cause it's gluten free.

5. Dishes ---> Hot water with fresh squeezed lemon. When something needs a scrub I use salt. If a pot has something caked/burned on the bottom boiling a lemon with water in that pot and letting it soak helps lift the skank.

6. Detergant ---> Baking soda ( and/or apple cider vinegar) works the best on clothes. Lemons are ok, but I don't think the PH is good for the clothes on a regular basis, especially natural fiber clothing.

*
Much of the products people use these days are hype. We are led to believe by advertising that if we don't buy these things we will be covered in germs (I haven't caught a cold or flu or any contagious illness in many years), we are led to believe we will "stink" or be a "dirty hippy", or that babies shouldn't be allowed to crawl on our floor... but new studies have shown all our hand sanitizer use, anti bacterial shit, chemical for hair and body, and paranoia of the natural world (dirt & animals) is actually destroying our health. Doctors think that this faux cleanliness is the leading cause for allergies and autoimmune diseases, not to mention epidemic spreading of colds and flues.
*
The saying is now "cleanliness is next to sickliness"...
and I believe it.
Read about it Here... here and at web MD here.
*
Viva La NO SHAMPOO!

Xoxoxo

Collecting Pine Cones For My Plants

See all those plants? Those are some of my organic babies I keep indoors in the winter, a few year round... I fill up half my bedroom with plants mainly cause i love them, but also for good indoor air quality. You can see my cat Toots loves them too, she likes to sit in the pot with the tiny pine trees i started this past summer from pine nut seeds. :) I am always adding things to my potted plants to help keep them alive- like leaves, horse dookie, wood shavings, dried flowers/weeds, rocks and pine cones. It gives the little slugs, doodle bugs, and worms a place to live, eat and breed- making the plant's soil much healthier in the cramped space of a pot.

Today I went for a walk down Willow Creek Road to a spot where I had seen some big sap layered pine cones, that I wanted to collect for my potted plants and for decorating with AND so i can touch them and smell the pine sap whenever I want... ;) mmmm. It was so fun to get out the freakin' house after all these weeks of frigid temperatures keeping me mostly trapped inside, we finally got up to almost 50 degrees today... ya know, in the sunny spots.
When I got home I gave each of my babies a few new pine cones. :) YAY!
XoXo

House Plants Filter Indoor Air

I am a huge fan of growing house plants! I used to have a black thumb that killed anything I came in contact with but somehow I turned that poor thing green and now grow over 25 plants inside my house. It is amazing how fast plants can clean indoor air, ridding the house or office of old smells like smoke or chemicals in as quick as 48 hours - making a safer environment to breath in. If you keep your plants healthy by giving them good soil, don't over water, and get plants from local growers who didn't blast them with chem fertilizers and pesticides then you should have almost no probs growing some greenies in your space. (Even if your thumb isn't so green!)

Here's the official Wikipedia list of house plants that filter your indoor air:

"The first list of air filtering plants was compiled by NASA as part of the NASA Clean Air Study, which researched ways to clean air in space stations. As well as absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, as all plants do, these plants also eliminate significant amounts of benzene, formaldehyde and/or trichloroethylene.
English Ivy (Hedera helix)
Spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum)
Golden pothos or Devil's ivy (Scindapsus aures or Epipremnum aureum)
Peace lily (Spathiphyllum 'Mauna Loa')
Chinese evergreen (Aglaonema modestum)
Bamboo palm or reed palm (Chamaedorea sefritzii)
Snake plant or mother-in-law's tongue (Sansevieria trifasciata 'Laurentii')
Heartleaf philodendron (Philodendron oxycardium, syn. Philodendron cordatum)
Selloum philodendron (Philodendron bipinnatifidum, syn. Philodendron selloum)
Elephant ear philodendron (Philodendron domesticum)
Red-edged dracaena (Dracaena marginata)
Cornstalk dracaena (Dracaena fragans 'Massangeana')
Janet Craig dracaena (Dracaena deremensis 'Janet Craig')
Warneck dracaena (Dracaena deremensis 'Warneckii')
Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina)
Gerbera Daisy or Barberton daisy (Gerbera jamesonii)
Pot Mum or Florist's Chrysanthemum (Chrysantheium morifolium)
Rubber Plant (Ficus elastica)
Top performers for removing formaldehyde.
Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata "Bostoniensis")
Florist's mum(Chrysanthemum morifolium)
Gerbera daisy (Gerbera jamesonii)
Dwarf date palm (Phoenix roebelenii)
Janet Craig (Dracaena deremensis "Janet Craig")
Bamboo palm (Chamaedorea sefritzii)
Kimberly queen fern (Nephrolepis obliterata)
Rubber plant (Ficus elastica)
English ivy (Hedera helix)
Weeping fig (Ficus benjamina)
Peace lily (Spathiphyllum sp.)
Top performers for removing xylene and toluene.
Areca palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens)
Dwarf date palm (Phoenix roebelenii)
Moth orchid (Phalenopsis sp.)
Dumb cane (Camilla) (Dieffenbachia camilla)
Dragon Tree (Dracaena marginata)
Dendrobium orchid (Dendrobium sp.)
Dumb cane (Exotica) (Dieffenbachia "Exotica Compacta')
King of hearts (Homalomena wallisii)
Kimberly queen fern (Nephrolepis obliterata)
Warneckei (Dracaena deremensis "Warneckei")
The recommendation of NASA is to use 15 to 18 good-sized houseplants in six- to eight-inch (203 mm) diameter containers in a 1,800-square-foot (170 m2) house."

Happy Growing and Happy Breathing!
xoxo

Keeping House Plants Alive

I used to be one of those people who killed any plant I ever tried to grow, indoors and outdoors - I even killed mint which is almost unheard of! Over the years I have learned some simple guidelines to follow, mainly by watching nature and reading a few sustainable gardening books too. Now my plants are kickin' it!
Here's some tips that will help you keep your house plants alive!
1. Try and start with organic or ecologically grown plants. The ones purchased at the big box stores are like buying a heroine addict who's gonna get fast worn out and go into shock when the blast of unnatural fertilizers run out. It's near impossible to save these pesticide laden plants once death is near... but if you already have some re-pot them right away with some compost dirt & a non plastic container.

2. Build an Empire. Literally build a little eco world in your pot, with pine cones, leaves, cut grass, decaying sticks, rocks and dead flowers. You should get some little bugs living in there who come with the stuff listed above that will constantly be feeding on the decaying matter & turning into compost to slowly fertilize the plant. Adding worms is good too - but I once had a weird mass suicide of worms where they all jumped out the pots at the same time and dried up over night! Poor worms!

3. Good dirt! Mixing some yummy dirt is essential. Using some dark black mushroom compost, chicken poop and sandy soil to hold water is pretty ideal across the board, especially for most common house plants.

4. Don't water with chlorinated tap water. Potted plants do not have the filtering range of outdoor plants and all chemicals will eventually build up in the pot making it toxic to the plant. Use some sort of filtered water (which we all need to have for our health too!)

5. Use a healthy pot. Sometimes plastic is just not breathable for a plant, and likewise some decorative containers have paints or glazes that are hazardous to the plant. If you are growing indoor herbs to use in cooking, it is essential to not use a crappy possibly toxic pot! Go with Terra Cotta or some other natural element that gets good circulation.

Happy growing this winter season!