Going Natural...Very Slowly

As I grow older {snort.}, I start to go back to my hippie roots.  I'm not sure where they came from.  My parents are perfectly normal people.  They both have normal-people jobs.  Well, if working for a cigarette company and the clerk of courts is normal, anyway.  My mom did stay home when I was a wee little tyke, before I started school.  She did make quite a lot of my clothes, and my grandparents have always gardened, but overall, normal country folks. 

I, however, have always been a tree hugging, animal saving, dirt worshiping hippie.  I was allowed to run around in the woods barefoot too much, I suppose.  One of my elementary friends and I were going to live in a treehouse when we grew up and make all our own clothes and such.  Sat around at recess hand-sewing a "quilt" together.  Anyway.  I digress. 

I have slowly been weeding out our commercial cleaners--home and self.  So far, I have homemade bathroom cleaner, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, and now disinfecting spray.  I am most pleased.  I basically have just started replacing the store-bought stuff as we run out.  We went through a heavy couponing phase, so it will probably be sometime in the next millennium before the hubs runs out of soap, but that's alright.  I'm not going to purge and throw out everything.  I feel like that kind of defeats some purpose since it would all end up in the landfill.  My closet is now filling with things like washing soda, castille soap, borax and a serious I-kid-you-not 15 lb. bag of baking soda.  You should all go take out stock in Borax.  Or Arm & Hammer.  I seriously can use up some baking soda and borax. 

I have found many of my recipes on Crunch Betty's blog--total plug here, but no, I'm not getting compensated in any way.  Like enough people read this for her to want to compensate me anyway.  But, hey, Leslie--if you stumble upon this, I'm open to free stuff any time.  :)  This chick is amazing.  An inspiration.  And hilarious.  I used her formula for spray, and I really struggled with the whole two-week incubation period.  I didn't want to wait for my vinegar to infuse!  But I did, and now my counters are sparkling.  And best of all, I know there isn't any nasty stuff for my fur babies to lick up.  Aurora was the world's worst to lick up any 409 that landed on the floor. 

If you're looking for some inspiration, check out my Pinterest board on Cleaning and Such Nonsense.