Vinegar on windows!!

Just wanted to post to say I used a vinegar & water mix in a spray bottle (with some lemon juice) yesterday to clean my windows & mirrors and it worked great!! I had read that vinegar can sometimes be streaky on the windows but I knew this morning would reveal the truth.

As the morning sun shines thru my giant livingroom window, no longer do I see a million hand prints, just sparkly clean. No streaks either!

Score one more for cleaning with vinegar!!!

Clorox comes clean... about what is IN their products

Clorox took the path less travelled in chemical cleaning world & decided to disclose WHAT is in their products. While it is a positive step in letting us know just what we are exposing ourselves to, the information was far from "good news".

Just in scents alone, over 1,200 ingredients are used in fragrances alone!! Shocking really!

This article on enviroblog summarizes some of the worst finds of the chemicals listed.

Hopefully in the future Clorox might offer some of their products fragrance-free to cut down on the shocking amount of chemicals they use.

I for one won't be rushing out to check their labels... nothing a little vinegar, lemon & baking soda can't take care of anyways.

Water Conservation vs Cleanliness

I was thinking about water conservation while I was in the shower today. I grew up with a home that had a water cistern that we filled, so saving water was always something we just did. No long showers, no lush green lawns, rain water buckets, etc.

Once I moved out, I figured I earned the right to a nice long shower with tremendous pressure... and so I have gone on my merry way enjoying long showers.

When we moved up here I was super excited by the water pressure we had. It just thunders out of the tap!! But first,  we needed a new shower head and my husband came home with one of those low-flow types. I can honestly say that while I tolerate it, I really HATE it. Where is my pressure? Where is the thunderous out-flow of warm water? Yes, I've gotten used to it, but I still resent it. It does the job, but I still threaten it with replacement.

One of the main reasons I dislike it is because I have long THICK hair. I feel like I spend longer than ever under the water, trying to rinse my hair so it doesn't seem like a winning situation. Also, because there is less pressure, I feel like I can't warm up (even with hot water) We are in northern Alberta and a good hot shower should warm me to my toes but I feel like it takes twice as long with this thing. My solution has been to put the plug in the tub while I shower so I'm warming my feet & my head at the same time. It has worked.

Another reason I resent it is because I don't tend to waste water anyways. I'm not one of those people who shower every day, especially in the winter, I generally shower every third day. With thick hair & dry skin, its all I need (unless i was physically dirty)

And this got me thinking about our modern culture's perception of cleanliness! You know the old saying "Cleanliness is next to godliness" and it seems we have taken it straight to heart. Pretty much everyone I know showers every single day! We slather our whole bodies with soaps (most of which are not safe for our skins), shampoo all the nutrients & oils out of our hair & off our skin... and then still complain about how fast we're aging, or how dry our skin is... so then we slather more chemicals onto it trying to reverse the process.

And not just our bodies, if that isn't enough of a water waste. We obsessively clean our vehicles, our windows have to sparkle, the entire floor gets mopped if something is dribbled in one spot. Clean Clean Clean! Water water water!

I know its our culture to have instilled all these "normals" in our minds, but it is shocking how much water we use just for appearances. Not just for cleaning, but north Americans are obsessed with perfect patches of green grass around our homes.  We all want that gorgeous, silky soft lawn (that more than 50% do not ever step out on). While I admit, its nice to have great green grass for the kidlets to play on, and to walk barefoot across, it really is just a vanity thing that we all have deemed acceptable.  So there goes gallons & gallons of more water, especially in hot areas where grass really was never meant to grow. (And I won't get into the labour involved in maintaining these lawns, nor the chemicals that generally get used to make them more PERFECT than our neighbour's)

Its just a funny thing we westerners do that less developed countries are probably amazed at. Especially where water is scarce and we have it in such abundance that we hardly give it a second thought.

So, while I don't feel guilty for resenting my low-flow shower head, I do get these convicting thoughts of looking at the 'big picture' from time to time. While I don't share all of these "vanities", I do participate in my fair share and its definitely something I will be considering in a new light in the future when it comes to water usage, land usage, and remind me to not take water for granted so much!

Hand-Made Quilts

Another goal of mine for 2011 was to learn to sew! I've never had talent nor desire previous to this year, but with baby #2 on the way, I figured it was time I learned to make something! So I figured sewing straight lines would be a good way to start and I got busy learning about quilting.

While the fabrics are neither organic nor "green" learning how to make things definitely is a good thing for sustainability and saves a bit of $$ too. I started with picking some cute boy-ish fabrics and buying the appropriate tools to make the job easier. Its no longer about measuring tape & a good pair of scissors. A wonderful tool called a rotary cutter and a self-healing cutting mat are a quilter's best friends. Add to that a large see-thru measuring mat and you're good to go.

Of course a good pair of scissors & a sewing machine are also helpful. I don't have my own machine so I borrowed my sweet niece's who is away at college :)

Once you have the tools, its time to decide what you want to make and how big. I didn't really know anything about quilting but I knew I could at least a sew a straight line so a simple patchwork quilt seemed like a good choice.

I wasn't sure how big I wanted to make it but since I was just learning I figured I'd start with one very small. And I knew I wanted it to be soft & warm so I went to choose from soft flannels at the fabric store, and matched the prints with a super soft minky fabric to go on the back.  We just have a small fabric store here but even then, the choice took me almost an hour.

I got a few tips for working with flannel, because it shrinks quite a bit I was told to wash & dry it first. And then iron it if its wrinkly. And I read a tip online that said to use a 1/2 inch seam allowance instead of 1/4 inch because flannel frays. (This just means to start sewing in a half inch from the outside edge) What I learned after my first experience is that not all flannel is alike. The printed flannel is much sturdier than solid. The solid frayed & skewed & looked awful in general so I did not use it (it was plain yellow)  But when I went to the fabric store the second time they said that instead of running it thru the wash (with the agitator) to just WET it and put it in the dryer and it shouldn't be as bad. But it definitely needs ironing when its cheaper material.

Now its time to cut!! The fun part! I decided that I wanted each square to be 5x5 inches, so in order to achieve this with a 1/2" seam allowance, you need to cut the squares 6x6 inches. First thing is to align the two straight edges perfectly & smooth it in half (or iron it if you want it perfectly aligned... I was a bit impatient for this so I just smoothed it) Trim the non-straight edges with a ruler & a cutter so they are as straight as you can get them.

Then I cut full strips of 6 inches, still folded in half and used my see-thru ruler mat to cut 6x6 squares (2 at a time because of the fold) Note: I tried folding again but cutting thru 4 layers didn't make a nice cut so I would stick to 2 layers only.

Use the most of your fabric, starting from the straight edge and not the folded edge. (Trim off the very ends of the straight edge)

Work thru each fabric the same way and you should be left with a few stacks of perfect 6x6 squares!

Now you want to decide on the lay-out or pattern of your quilt. You can choose a complex pattern or just lay them out in alternating colors/prints to your liking. For my first quilt I just alternating prints making sure the same print wasn't touching in the following row.  You can either do your layout on a big table, or, in my case, I lay it all out on the floor, rearranging squares till I had it how I liked it. Because I just wanted a small blanket to start I made the size 5 squares by 5 squares. Great size for a cuddle blanket or to cover a wee babe up in the carseat.

Once the layout is decided... start sewing. I chose to do one row at a time. First face two squares together, pattern side in, and sew one edge. Then do the next two in the row face to face. Then piece the 4 squares face to face and sew that edge. Because mine was uneven (with 5 squares instead of 6) I sewed the final sqaure on last.

I placed that row back in its pattern & picked up the squares for the next row and so on until I sewed all 5 rows. A good idea now is to take your iron and quickly press all your seams open & flat - this will make sewing easier.  Then take the two rows, match them along the appropriate edge and what I did was match the seams & pin them together and the two outside edges so it wouldn't move to much.

Now you should be left with something that looks like a finished quilt!! Be proud! It wasn't that hard afterall was it.

To add a backing, lay the fabric of your backing material down (nice side up) and lay your quilt top on it (nice side down - so the nice sides face eachother) This is when I pinned A LOT. Especially because the backing was minky and minky is quite stretchy. So I pinned & pinned, trying not to stretch the minky too much. After it was securely pinned, I trimmed around the edge of the minky so it was the same shape as quilt top.

Go ahead and sew it all the way around now! I left the width of one square for turning it inside out. I tried leaving a smaller opening but it was just too much of a struggle (hence I learned of the other wonderful tool called a SEAM RIPPER) Once its turned inside out - there it is - your beautiful almost finished quilt. All that is left to do is stitch that opening closed. You can either hand stitch this, or in my case, I just zipped a line across with the sewing machine. I changed the bottom bobbin to a chocolate brown thread to match the minky backing so the white thread wouldn't be so obvious and tried to keep the seam close to the edge. Ta-da! You're finished!

I was so pumped by my first accomplishment (picture at the top) that I went to the fabric store and got more fabric. I wanted yellow to be in the original quilt so instead of the cheapo solid yellow, I found the same color with a dot print & bought some of that to go with the others. I knew I wanted to make a slightly bigger one with a fancier lay out, also for baby#2 so after cutting and changing the layout a million times, I came up with this one.

 So, now the new guy has two made-by-mama-with-love blankets and I have learned a new skill. And, I have the fabric all picked out for Ethan's big-boy quilt when I get time to pull out the sewing machine again.

All this to say... if I can sew some straight lines that make a quilt, then anybody can do it! Give it a try!

Updates

Our family set of stainless steel bottles by Kleen Kanteen arrived last week and they have been fantastic. Not only is our Brita jug giving us great tasting water straight from our tap, but the stainless steel keeps it cool so we can have the bottles of water around us all day long. My son loves his new sippy cup cuz its "coldies" to hold when I first fill it up for him. And now he's drinking more water this way too. Its been a great 'small step' for our family. Not only are we drinking tap water, filtered and tastey, but we're drinking more of it, which is great for our bodies!

Also, I have been LOVING my cast iron frying pan. I made pancakes & eggs in it this weekend successfully. The eggs cooked a bit quicker than I expected so I threw a lid on top to get the yolk to cook a bit better but I'll learn as I go along.

And, while I have remembered a few times to take my cloth shopping bags, I forgot the time I did a big shop and was feeling so guilty accepting all those plastic bags. So, I need to get better at remembering my bags. Its grocery shopping day here again today so I have pulled them all out and put them on my purse in hopes that I will most definitely remember today! I'm also going to try & remember to take back all the plastic bags I've been saving to put in their recycling. One less thing cluttering up my laundry room and then I should hopefully remember to do it more often!

Yay for Cast Iron: No More Teflon for Me!

Another small step was successful yesterday. I finally was able to buy my first cast iron frying pan.

We are phasing out our teflon coated non-stick frying pans and I have to admit I was a bit afraid to make the switch. I loved the convenience of my non-stick pans and I kept reading that cast iron needed all this special care, seasoning, etc.

How easy it was!!  Lastnight I browned my ground beef in it. It cooked so evenly. I coated the bottom with a tiny bit of oil first and let the pan get hot before I dumped the beef in. I thought it would stick wickedly or something, no problems at all. And to clean it, just scrub with a little hot water (no soap) and dry, add a teeny bit more oil and put it away.

Today I was eager to try my grilled ham & cheese sandwhich. Its my pregnancy craving. I've had one every SINGLE day since November. And it cooked just the same as it always did in my teflon pan! I just wiped it out with a paper towel & put it away!!

Even better, I'm getting the iron benefits which we all need, but I seem to need even more during pregnancy.

I learned that you probably shouldn't cook acidic things, like tomato sauce in cast iron as it really causes the iron to leech out & can give an iron taste to acidic things. However, after a while, once its been frequently used, this doesn't seem to be a problem. So the pasta sauce I was making was completed in my stainless steel pot. But for these purposes, I think I'll invest in a good size stainless steel pan as well.

So what's wrong with Teflon coated pans you might wonder?  This is what I've read:

Taken from the Environmental Working Group's website article:

"Teflon is the brand name for the synthetic chemical polytetrafluoroethylene (a term that does not easily slide off the tongue), or PTFE. It was introduced for commercial use by DuPont in 1946. The original version had the problem of being easily scratched by ordinary cooking utensils. Instead of getting trace amounts of iron from food cooked in cast-iron pots, we were getting trace amounts of Teflon. Silverstone, the next generation of nonstick cookware, is more durable than Teflon. It is chemically related to Teflon, however, as are all nonstick coatings in use today.

... PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid, used to make Teflon) is known to cause cancer and other health problems in laboratory animals, and Houlihan is especially concerned because in people, "blood levels are too close to the levels that harm lab animals." Additional animal studies show that other chemicals used in food packaging, carpets, and clothing break down into PFOA in the environment, as does Teflon when ingested.

There are two concerns with Teflon and other coatings: the potential toxicity of residual chemicals used to make the coating, and release of chemicals during product usage. PFOA is a key chemical in the first category. It is listed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a persistent chemical and potential human carcinogen (cancer-causing chemical). DuPont maintains that all Teflon-coated cookware is safe because no PFOA remains in the finished product. But the company acknowledges that when heated in excess of 660 degrees Fahrenheit (340 degrees C), an empty Teflon-coated pan can release toxic fumes into the air. Independent tests show that during preheating on a regular kitchen stove, nonstick cookware can easily reach a temperature of 736 degrees-in as little as about three and a half minutes-and release toxic fumes. Two chemicals in those gases are linked to cancer or tumors in laboratory animals (PFOA and TFE, tetrafluoroethylene), two are potent global warming gases (PFB, perfluorobutane; and CF4, tetrafluoromethane), and one is used as a warfare agent (MFA, monofluoroacetic acid). At higher temperatures achievable on kitchen stove tops, additional extremely toxic gases are released, including PFIB (perfluoroisobutene) and a chemical analog of the World War I nerve gas phosgene.

In fact, the Environmental Working Group found 16 studies conducted over the past 50 years showing that heated Teflon decomposes to over a dozen types of toxic gases and particles. Many of the studies were done by scientists at DuPont who were looking into "polymer fume fever," a condition documented among workers making Telfon products. Symptoms (which can be confused with flu) include malaise, shortness of breath, headache, chills, cough, sore throat, and fever. Pulmonary edema, a potentially fatal condition, may also develop. Cases of polymer fume fever from home kitchen exposures have been reported in medical journals, leading some doctors to recommend stove ventilation whenever using nonstick cookware."

Doesn't sound very pleasant does it?  I had heard that teflon pans emit potentially dangerous chemicals before (you know, pet birds dying and all that) and had read that you should never heat a teflon product beyond medium heat, and never use a product that has scratches in it.

But the more I read, the more I decided that even these precautions weren't enough for me to keep using the pans I had.  I just had to make the step to buy my cast iron pan & give it a go!

I will probably have a bit of a learning curve for things like eggs & pancakes, but I'm looking forward to the challenge if it means I'm protecting our health!!

Ignorance is bliss??

We really are in a "don't ask, don't tell" sort of society aren't we? People don't like being informed that what they are doing (living, consuming, etc) could be bad for them, and most don't care if its bad for anyone else around them.

I didn't really think I would be one of those 'stand on my soapbox' sort of people but the more I learn the more I feel like its my duty to inform the uninformed. Imagine my surprise that people don't want to be informed and when they are, they prefer not to know or care because they don't want to change anyways.

I'm fairly passionate about things like breastfeeding, cloth diapering, anti-smoking, etc. And, while it makes me sad, I'm used to a lot of my "information" falling on deaf ears, or just being the 'thanks but no thanks' attitude of receiving new information. But now that we are trying to green up our world, trying to find more things to make our lives & the lives of our kidlets healthy, its like we've crossed over in to the realm of extremist.

When I learn things that could be potentially dangerous to my health (like the plastics & bottled water stuff) I feel like this is "big news" that I want to share with others. It seemed eye-opening & shocking to me. Or what I've recently read about teflon frying pans. And we're still learning, daily, as a family, the things that are health hazards and wishing we weren't so ignorant to them in the past few years...

So why does it seem so many people are content with their ignorance? Why do they desperately not want to know? Are they afraid of change? Or do they just not care for their own health? Or the health of others around them?

I'm definitely not out to save the world. I honestly don't give a rat's a$$ about "global warming" or "protecting the environment". I'm troubled by what I see is going on in the world, but my focus is not that big. I want to protect MY environment, my home, my family for our health & well-being & for the longevity of my children. I want them to have less exposure to all the health risks we have been so ignorant to in the past few decades. I want to be more informed about what is in my food, my drinking water, and what chemicals are being let off from my possessions, disrupting the natural balance of our bodies, my children's bodies, and the natural balance of the earth around me.

And once I've learned the facts, I can NOT be ignorant to them. I can't always make immediate changes for the things I learn, usually due to finances, but I make the goal to make those changes as soon as I can, even if its just small steps, I always want those steps going forward, not backwards, and certainly not standing still.

So, if I come across as a bit of an activist, an extremist, or just plain eco-crunchy-hippy-preachy-OUT THERE, then too bad, at least I will not leave you with the excuse that you "just didn't know", because Ignorance is NOT bliss!