Keeping Clean

The last two weeks have been filled to the brim with life at home, I am most definitely not short of things to do.  In between cleaning the house, moving the laundry along its conveyor belt and sourcing, preparing and eating food, I am busy with enjoying the sunshine, my garden, daily walks, knitting and sewing.  I fall in to bed each evening exhausted and happy, my sleep is deep and restful.

Talking of cleaning the house I promised that I would come back here and share with you in greater detail some of the things that I use to do this after mentioning them recently.  A year of poor health, as a result of flu several years ago, meant that I had to stop using all the cleaning products we had in the house.  I became sensitive to limonene an ingredient in many of the eco-friendly products, although this was some time ago I have not gone back to buying these products as I love the alternatives more.  It was a bit of a harsh learning journey for me, but over time it has made me realise that I prefer what we use now, coupled with the fact that the children were very young when we made that transition so it is all they have ever known, they don't like the smell of bought cleaning products.

I thought I would start in the bathroom, I swear there are fairies living in mine who come in and leave their dirty foot prints the minute my back is turned.  I clean regularly it just never quite looks like I do, with four of us at home all the time at the moment I guess that is kind of inevitable.

The bath, shower and basin are all cleaned using bicarbonate of soda, bicarb for short and known as baking soda to some.  I wet a cloth and use the bicarb dry to rub into the surfaces to get them clean.  If you have tiles in your bathroom an old toothbrush and bicarb made into a paste is great for cleaning the grouting.  The loo is cleaned using a mix of bicarb for the outer surfaces and white vinegar for the bowl itself.  I usually line the bowl with the vinegar and leave it for a few minutes before scrubbing with a brush and flushing.

I also mentioned that we use loo cloths in my recent post.  They sit in a small basket by the loo.  When they have been used they go into a old nappy/diaper bucket that I kept hold of mostly because it has a lid and not many buckets do, the bucket is about half full of cold water which the cloths are soaking in until it is time to wash them. I usually wash ours once a week, we have about 60 - 70 cloths in use at any one time.  I pour the soaking water down the loo and rinse the cloths thoroughly in hot water in the basin before loading them into to two drawstring mesh bags.  I find that if I don't put them in bags they get worn out a lot quicker.  I wash them on a normal cotton wash and hang them out to dry - preferably outside - they are tedious to hang up as there so many of them. Inevitably they get worn and holey, at the end of their life they are put in the compost bin.  Once we are reduced to a quantity that doesn't get us through a week I will make some more.  This is about every six to eight months for us.

We inherited a carpet in our bathroom which we have yet to replace, one day.............. carpets in bath rooms with young children are not a good combination so I created a powder to sprinkle and leave over night before hoovering up, it worked really well.  It was a mix of bicarb, a very small amount of borax with a pinch each of  ground cloves and cinnamon.  My own version of shake and vac for those that remember such things.

The downstairs in our house is all hard floors which I wash about two or three times a month.  I use our homemade liquid soap for this job, the soap is a made using a bar of Oliva soap one of the few cleaning products we buy.  We grate it, add water and bring it gently to the boil to mix the grated soap.  My husband makes this so I am not sure of the quantities he uses, I am sure you could find these online if you look as that is what he did.  We make 5 litres at a time.  We have two dispensers, one upstairs and one in the kitchen, 5 litres of homemade soap lasts us about nine months.  I know someone who uses this for washing up too, we haven't found it quite right for that job so we buy washing up liquid the only other cleaning product we purchase.

We don't do much of our washing up by hand as we have a dishwasher, we make our own powder using equal parts of bicarb and borax.  We have a jar of this mixture in the kitchen as we also use it to do the laundry too, more of that in a moment.  Dishwashers also require rinse aid, we use white vinegar and softener which we are luckily enough not to need as our water is already soft.  I always think that is a rather odd way of describing water! Now, back to the laundry.  We use half a tablespoon of the powder I have already mentioned for each wash as a laundry powder.  As a fabric conditioner we use about a tablespoon of white vinegar with a few drops each of lavender and lemon myrtle essential oils.  I have noticed a significant reduction in the amount of moths in our house since using lavender oil in our laundry.

I think that is everything I use around the house, now to our bodies.  If we have a bath, which is less often these days, we use fine oatmeal which we hang in the foot of an old pair of tights and the water is strained through.  We sometimes add Epsom salts which are great for relieving aches and pains.

We wash our hair using rye flour.  I find I need to sieve this to get rid some of the bran which otherwise gets left on your head, not a look that you want to be sporting!  I make the flour into a paste with a little water which I then rub into my hair.  It has a surprisingly soapy feeling but obviously doesn't produce a lather like shampoo does, it also doesn't sting your eyes if it finds its way in.   I wash my hair every ten days or so, it doesn't need washing any more often.  One of the side effects, for me, of not using shop bought shampoo is that my hair has become much wavier and I often get ringlet curls in the ends.  I always wanted curly hair when I was a little girl, it seems I had to wait to get my wish!

I have also used bicarb and cider vinegar to wash my hair, it the first thing I tried when I couldn't buy any with ingredients I could use.  I tried many different methods but always used the bicarb first like you would shampoo, either dry onto your hair, a watery solution (1tbsp per pint of water) or mixed into a paste first, once you have rinsed that off mix a tablespoon of vinegar with a pint of water and use that as a conditioning rinse.  I stopped because I found this combination rather drying for my hair.

Toothpaste was one of the most difficult to find alternatives to, ten years ago there were few recipes on the internet.  Nowadays I use a tooth powder to brush my teeth with.  I have tried many different recipes over the years, one used crushed eggs shells which was pretty revolting, I didn't make any more of that!  I have also made a few using coconut oil which makes a paste but again I didn't particularly like them.  I have been making the same powder for many years now and am happy with it.  It takes some getting used to it you are used to using a bought paste, it is pretty dry at first, I wet the brush and then spoon a little paste onto the brush.

Tooth Powder Recipe:

4tbs bentonite clay/fullers earth
2tsp bicarb/baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
10 drops of peppermint oil
3/4 tsp activated charcoal (optional)

Please note that the peppermint oil needs to be food grade oil, not an essential oil which is different.  Put all the dry ingredients in a jar and mix them together then add the oil mixing as you add each drop to disperse it through the powder.  I have read that bentonite clay should not be stored in a metal container nor should you use a metal spoon to dispense it, I have also read that this is not true.  I keep mine in a glass container simply because it is easy to see how much is left and I use a metal spoon to dispense it and have for years so make of that what you will.

Still with me?  I am nearly there!  The last thing I am going mention is deodorant.  Unlike many of the other things I make this is one that I have not changed since finding a recipe all those years ago.  I don't use this a huge amount so this quantity can last me for months, in fact I cannot remember when I last made some.  I used to buy Toms of Maine deodorant back in the day and now reuse the old container to hold my homemade recipe, it has been in use for nearly ten years!

Deodorant Recipe:

1/4 cup bicarb
1/4 cup arrowroot
5 - 6 tbsp coconut oil

Melt the oil and mix in the powder, allow to cool a little before pouring into the container.  You could also mix in a few drops of your favourite essential oil if you wish.  Please note that as this contains coconut oil it will become runny in temperatures around 24°C/76°F so you will need to keep it somewhere cool, I put it in the fridge on the rare days the house gets up to this temperature.

So that is what I use and make here.  I hope you haven't read this and feel overwhelmed or that there is so much you should be doing.  It has taken me years to get to this point, a slow journey with a sudden change of direction due to illness about ten years ago.  Had I not been ill maybe some of these changes would not have happened, maybe they would but slowly over time, who knows?  What I do know is that I started some time in my teens, when I became aware of animal testing, I decided that I didn't want to put anything on my skin that had been tested in that way.  The only products I could find that met that requirement were sold in a health food shop, a world that I didn't know existed back then, it started me down a path I am still on today.

Thank you so much for reading this far, I do hope some of what you have read has been useful and/or interesting to you.  If there is anything that you do that I have not mentioned here, please do tell me in the comments I would love to hear about them!

[Almost] Edible Spring Cleaning

There is something about the Spring that makes you want to clean and declutter.  After months of cool temperatures it feels wonderful to be able to throw open the windows on a sunny day.  The sunlight has the added disadvantage of showing how much dust is swilling around as it glistens in its rays, doing a merry dance.  I am the first to admit that I am not a huge fan of housework, I do the minimum I need each week.  I am reading a fascinating book at the moment, it is not about cleaning but it does mention our obsession to clean and in doing so we are ridding the world of good and bad bacteria and worryingly in the case of the good ones possible forever.  A bit of dirt is no bad thing it would seem, I am also doing my bit for the preservation of good bacteria.

I mostly* always use my own homemade products when I clean.  The cleaning product aisles in the supermarket are not ones I ever venture down.  When I inadvertently do, on the way to the checkout, the smell of chemicals is really strong and totally overpowering.  A recent study highlighted that whilst they might clean our homes the fragrance chemicals in these products react with the air effecting air quality in our homes, if you also use scented candles and air freshness you could be creating an interesting, and not terribly good for you, soup.

The two ingredients I use the most are ones that you might find in your food stores.  Bicarb [baking soda] and white vinegar, I use enough of each to justify buying it in bulk as the shops tend to only sell small quantities.  I use the bicarb to clean all surfaces, floors and the bathroom suite either sprinkling it neat and rubbing it in with a damp cloth or dissolving in water and using the solution which is what I do to clean the tiled and wooden floors.  A 50:50 mix with borax is my washing and dishwater powder.  I inherited a carpet in my bathroom which can get a little smelly at times, but this carpet deodoriser is perfect for removing the smell.  You may wonder why we don't just get rid of the carpet but the floorboards underneath are not a suitable flooring either, the bathroom will eventually need an overhaul so there is no point replacing the flooring only to rip it out again when we come to replace everything.

My oven doesn't get a clean inside very often, we eat very little meat so I can get away with it.  But when it does get a clean I make this:

Oven Cleaner mix 1/4 cup salt, 3/4 bicarb and a 1/2 cup of water and mix into a paste, apply into a warm and oven and let it sit for a least an hour or overnight and wipe clean.

I not only clean the house with bicarb, I also use it to make.....

Deodorant  1/4 cup deodorant, 1/4 arrowroot, 2tbsp coconut oil (you can also add drops of essential oil if you wish) melt the coconut oil and mix.  I use an old deodorant stick and keep refilling it, you might need to store this in the fridge in summer if your house gets warm.

I mentioned white vinegar earlier, this is great for cleaning glass you can spray it on neat or dilute with a little water, wipe off with some old newspaper.  It gets used neat as a fabric conditioner , 2 tbsp with a few drops of essential oil.  I use lavender which seems to be doing a great job of keeping the moths out of our house, that is not to say we were ever infested with them but I rarely see them in my house these days.  I also use it neat to clean the loo.   If you have mildew then mix 50:50 with salt to make a paste and wipe onto effected area.  I have read recently that you can use it as a weed killer anyone ever tried this?  I am not sure what effect it would have on the soil or on other plants growing near by, I will be doing a little more research before trying that one out I think.

You have probably had enough now, so I will leave you with one last recipe.  I mentioned recently that I make my own toothpaste, here is my recipe for that:

Toothpaste 4tbs coconut oil, 4tbs fullers earth /bentonite clay, 1/2 tsp fine sea salt, 10 - 15 drops food grade peppermint oil.  Mix together, add a little water if necessary to gain the consistency you like.

What cleaning products do you make?

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* I buy soap and washing up liquid

I will be back on the 20th (Wednesday) with this months In My Kitchen if you wish to join me.

Finding Alternatives

I try to be a mindful food shopper, only buying what we need to prevent food waste but it is really hard to completely reduce the packaging food is wrapped in.  Everything comes packaged in materials, sometimes excessively so, but then there are many foods that it wouldn't be terribly practical to transport without some form of packaging.  It is all a bit of minefield but it is all too easy to think, oh that can be recycled I am not convinced that that it is a valid argument at all times.  It can make us lazy.

I stopped buying cling film a long time ago.  I didn't like the idea of wrapping my food in plastic and, it seemed very wasteful.  It is not easy to reuse, by its very nature it sticks to itself, so neither washing it or storing it between uses is remotely practical.  But what to use instead.  Cling film performs many jobs, amongst which it stops food drying out, I have been struggling with this since stopping buying it.  Nothing I used to cover bread rising or dough resting was quite the same.  It was whilst looking for inspiration for Christmas presents that I found my solution, beeswax coated cloth.   You can buy these from a few places online but my inspiration came from a craft book found in the library, a how to make your own.  Perfect!

It was January before I had a chance to give it a try.  I collected together the materials I needed.  A grater, paintbrush, beeswax, fabric and pinking shears.  Everything I read suggested having a separate grater for this job, one that will never grate food.  We already had one as we grate blocks of soap to make our own liquid soap.  The paintbrush is washable in boiling water if you don't want to go out and buy an extra one, although again I read suggestions to have a designated one.  The beeswax I bought took me into a whole new world of language.  When I looked in to what I needed I discovered that not all beeswax is 100% natural, that some is food grade, some cosmetic grade, some is really hard to grate.  It seemed like a bit of a minefield but I wanted to buy as local as possible, I get my candles from a local candlemaker but he didn't use his own beeswax to make them and suggested I contacted his supplier, who was also local.  Personal recommendations are always the best aren't they, it led me to exactly what I needed, a block of beeswax that was easy to grate and had no hidden added extra ingredients.  It smelt wonderful too. The fabric was the easy bit, it needed to be light and 100% cotton I have plenty of that.  The pinking shears are to cut it to prevent fraying so there is no need for any sewing.

So what do you do?  Grate the beeswax.  Cut the fabric to size.  Put the oven on a low heat (I found 30°C just right).  Put the fabric on a baking tray (you might want to line it with something to stop the wax melting onto it).  Sprinkle the beeswax over the fabric as evenly as possible as if you were making cheese on toast.  Place in the oven.  Check often and when the wax is just beginning to melt and soften remove from the oven and spread the wax all over the fabric with the paintbrush (you can check on the reverse to see if it is evenly spread).  Hang up to cool and dry.  As easy as that.

If you don't spread the wax around with the paintbrush you will find that you get small pools of melted wax with gaps in between.  Don't worry if this happens just sprinkle some more wax and return to the oven.  It is better to start with less wax rather than more, you can always keep addding!  I made a small test one first and then tried some bigger pieces.  I cut them to fit the dishes and bowls that I wanted to be able to cover.  If, like me, you find that they are bigger than your oven just coat half of the fabric at a time, carefully draping the rest of the fabric out the way.  This is when you realise that you should have really cleaned the oven a little better before starting.........

I have only been using mine for a few weeks and they are wearing well.  I am told that you can recoat them, time will tell.  I made a set for a friend which were really well received (they are the fabrics in the photo).  They must only be washed with cold water and a mild soap to clean so are not suitable for storing meat.  They can be molded, just by the warmth of your hands, to fit any shape of dish or food.  They are not suitable for food containing a lot of moisture.  Making your own not only works out a lot cheaper but you get to choose whatever fabric you like.  I love them!

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I will be back on Saturday to share more of what I have been up to in my kitchen this month.  You can join me if you want to share what you have making and eating this month. 

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see hat others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly link up here are mine for February...

...nourish I have porridge for breakfast every morning in the winter, complete with some mashed banana and a teaspoon of slippery elm.  I have been meaning to soak the oats for some time now as I was sure that I had read somewhere that the oats were more digestible if you did.  I was intermittently remembering to soak them until I read an interesting blog post about soaking your oats and I knew that I had to try and remember.  I have taken to setting an alarm on my mobile phone to remind me to do this, until it becomes part of my evening routine.  The porridge tastes so much better for it, I soak mine in water and a dash of cider vinegar, but I am yet to be convinced that it makes me feel any better but maybe the benefits take a while to be felt?

...prepare I have a second alarm on my mobile phone to remind me to do something each evening and that is to feed my sourdough starter.  A few years ago when Alice was small I had a sourdough starter which I managed to keep going for a number of years.  Sadly, for reasons that I can no longer remember, that starter died and I had to throw it away.  I have been meaning to start one again for some time now but to get one going you have to feed it every day for a number of days, we were away quite a bit in January so it became a February job.  It is is looking and smelling good and I hope that in March it will be ready to make and bake bread with it.

...reduce my small pile of clothes that I mentioned last month got a little smaller this month.  I made a pair of trousers for Alice from an old pair of mine.  You can read how I did it here.

...green I have posted before in these refections about my uses of bicarb, I make deodorant, washing powder, dishwasher powder, carpet deodoriser, and wash surfaces with it.  I also use it to wash my hair in place of shampoo.  I started by using a recipe that I found on the web, a few months later I tweaked it slightly, then when I started swimming regularly it all went to pot and I had to add a Vitamin C rinse at the start.  There are many websites that give you advice which is based on the individuals findings but I have found that these don't really work for me.  There are so many factors to think about that it is likely that every person who washed their hair in this way would use a slightly different method.  So if you have ever tried it or are considering doing so then the only advice I would give is to persevere and keep trying different quantities of bicarb and water (and cider vinegar and water to condition if you are doing that too) until you find the one that works for you.  If you live in a hard water area then the bicarb will not dissolve as well in the water so it will not work that well. If your hair is getting very dry, reduce the amount of bicarb, if your hair is getting very greasy then reduce the amount of vinegar.  It is important to remember that what you eat effects your hair too!  I wash my hair once a week using this method, I have long hair ( a couple of inches below my shoulders) and I can wear it down all week.

...grow we have a few edible plants growing in the garden at the moment.  The snowdrops have been delighting us with their presence for a few weeks but no other bulbs have made an appearance, yet.  My rhubarb that I split late last year seems to have survived the hacking and all three plants have started to sprout.  I have cleared the polytunnel of all the plants that have died over the winter and it is now ready for Spring sowing, there are a few salad leaves that have survived the winter which we are enjoying with our meals.  I have bought all my seeds for the year now and am ready to go when the weather warms up.  Inside my sprouter is providing us all with some crunch to go with our winter salads.

...create I always do more of this in the Winter when there is nothing to do in my garden, so I have been trying to think about some of the Spring projects to make for all the birthdays coming up at a time when the garden is also pulling on my time.  I have made the pair of trousers mentioned under 'green', I made a skirt for Alice, some more coasters like those that I share last month and a shawl that I cast on last month is now ready for blocking before being sent off as a gift.  I also ripped all the stitches out of a cardigan I had been knitting for myself and cast on a different pattern with the same yarn.  I knew that I if I carried on I would be knitting something that would not be worn so despite it seeming like a lot of effort for little gain I knew it was the right thing to do.

...discover I have been planning a topic based on the solar eclipse that we will have in our part of the world in March.  As well as thinking about learning for the children I have also been finding interesting books to read for myself.  I have started a trilogy of books which are fiction based on historical facts. I have really enjoyed reading the first one this month and look forward to reading the other two books in March.

...enhance several people have mentioned in the last month or so that it would be lovely to have a home ed camp this year at some point.  We have been talking about doing this for a few years now, so I decided it was time I did something about it.  I have been making enquiries of various campsites to see whether they will accommodate such a group and hope to advertise it to my fellow home edders soon.

...enjoy we have been to a new home ed group this month, it has been running for a while but we haven't been as I wrongly thought it was going to be a really long drive.  We have made several new friends and hope to make this a regular commitment in our week.

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see hat others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly link up here are mine for January...

...nourish I have felt a desire for pies this month.  Warm, nourishing food after time outside in the cold.  Each week we have had a least one meal if not two.  A lentil pie with mash potato topping, a spinach and feta filling wrapped in puff pastry, a leek and squash pie, are just a few that have made it to our menus.

...prepare we seem to be spending more and more days of the week having lunch away from the home.  This means I have to provide a nourishing lunch that will keep us warm and full.  Most evenings whilst cooking the evening meal I have also been making a pan of soup to eat, on some occasions I have made a large enough quantity to freeze some ensuring that I have a supply for 'emergencies', you never know when you might need soup.......

...reduce I have a small pile of clothes in a drawer that are beyond repair but the material could be put to good use so I have kept them.  An old pair of linen trousers have been transformed into mats for hot drinks with a piece of old towel in the middle they are the perfect thing to protect our tables from being marked.  I shared a how I did it here.   I also started on a pair of trousers for my youngest from an old pair of mine.

...green we have been visiting and staying with friends and family quite a bit over the last weeks/months.  It has been lovely to spend extended time with the ones we love but it has created a lot of washing for me.  A skin condition that developed a few years ago has meant that the only washing powder I can use is one I make myself.  There are times when touching items washed in other cleaners can make it worse so I usually take my own bedding with me!  The powder I make is a simple combination of borax and bicarbonate of soda, equal amounts of each.  We keep a jar of the mix on the kitchen counter as we use this mix in the dishwasher too.  I use a tablespoon and a half to two tablespoons per wash depending on how dirty the items are.  I add two tablespoons of white vinegar and seven drops of lavender oil as a fabric conditioner.  I have noticed that using the lavender oil has really reduced the amount of moths I have been finding in the house.

...grow it is also quiet on the growing front for me at this time of year.  We are in the middle of Winter now and it is too cold for much to grow.  The hardy herbs are still providing me with their leaves for cooking and I still have a small amount of salad leaves growing in my polytunnel which provides a welcome bit of raw green to my meals.

...create January is often a quiet month for me after the busyness of creating for Christmas.  Perhaps because I managed to make everything in good time that has not been the case this January.  I have been knitting a lot, a cardigan that now has sleeves attached and the beginnings of a yoke, a scarf that I am writing the pattern for as I knit, a sock which is growing slowly and a shawl which I cast on a few days ago and is growing very fast.  I have also made some more fabric bowls as a birthday present for a friend, the start of a pair of trousers from an old pair of mine and the project mentioned under reduce.

...discover I have been keen to observe more of the old traditions and festivals this year.  I have been writing them into my diary for a while now but not actually finding out about them and adding them to our week.  This month we have been finding out about Plough Monday and Wassailing, both very similar traditions based on the type of agricultural practiced in the area.

...enhance I am an assessor for the D of E Award, these award, there are three levels, is started at age 14 and includes an unaccompanied expedition which is what I assess.  Although I have not assessed any this month (they have to be completed between Easter and October when the weather is usually less serious) I have added four dates into my diary this month for later in the year.  This is the most I have ever completed in a year and some of them are in places where we can take a short holiday when we are there, I am really looking forward to them all!

...enjoy we have two weekends away this month one to stay with my brother the other with an old friend they have both been filled with fun.

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see hat others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly link up here are mine for December...

...nourish December can be a month of overeating.  When I worked in a supermarket in my late teens and early twenties I was always amazed at the quantity of food people would buy at that time of year. I know that many people do so because they are cooking for many more people than they usually would but I can't help wandering how much more food waste there is at this time of year compared to the other eleven months.  I have tried to keep our diet simple this month as I know that the potential for upset tummies is higher.  I am not, and never have been, a fan of the rich foods such as mince pies, Christmas pudding and Christmas cake that are traditional so I am looking forward to getting that back on track in January.

...prepare it is the season for parties and sharing food with friends.  I have made quite a bit of food that we have added to buffets and Jacobs join meals with friends.  Simple dishes such as dips and vegetable sticks, homemade bread sticks, hummus and falafel are what I tend to make to share.

...reduce December is the time of year when consumption and spending can be excessive.  The scenes we have seen from Black Friday were thoroughly depressing to me.  I had an idea for a present I could make for a few of the children I give presents too and realised that I could make them from bits I had already.  These charming little baskets are a great way to use up small pieces of material, I had to buy a small amount of interfacing (used to stiffen them slightly) but the rest I found in my stash.  My husband also made two presents out of pieces of wood he had in the workshop, a saw horse and a lee board (for use on a canoe when sailing).

...green last month I mentioned my uses of bicarb including as a carpet deodoriser and one commenter asked for the recipe so I thought I would share it here.  I have used this successfully in our bathroom which is not a room I would choose to have a carpet in but we inherited it with the house.  We have yet to refurbish the bathroom, and will definitely be installing a different flooring when we do, small children and carpeted bathrooms do not a good combination make!  Now back to the deodoriser.....here is my recipe I adapted it from one which makes a very large quantity, I did not want/need to make that much:

4 tbs bicarb

1 tsp borax

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground cinamon

You can also add 1 tsp of finely chopped dried mint, rosemary, lavender and thyme I didnt have all of these so I just added rosemary and thyme.

Mix all the ingredients together and sprinkle on the carpet where you need it, leave on the carpet as long as possible and Hoover up.  I do this last thing at night and Hoover up in the morning.

...grow we are in the middle of our coldest weather now, it is too cold for anything edible to grow.  This time of year is all about tidying, weeding and fertilising.  I have managed to get into the garden a few times to deadhead, tidy, and spread our own compost and horse manure that we collect from a neighbours family farm.  It is good to give the soil a rest for a bit making it ready for the growing months.

...create I try to make as many presents as I can as gifts for Christmas and Birthdays.  In years past I have knitted most of these but I was finding it took up about six months of the year which was just too long.  This year I knitted a few and sewed many which actually meant I made many more presents in less time, five people were not given anything handmade at all, they were all given a book instead.  The rest (eighteen) got one sometimes two handmade things and my husband made two presents too, maybe in the not too distant future we can make and give at least one homemade present to each person?

...discover I have been trying to focus more on festivals in the last few months of this year, finding a way to either observe them or to enhance our learning and knowledge about other cultures, religions and countries. As Advent drew nearer I halfheartedly thought about ways we could observe the four weeks leading up to Christmas.  I have read about different ways that people do this and I wanted something simple that would work as a focus for the weeks which we could work into what we do.  I settle on a focus for each week using the four festivals adopted by steiner/waldorf methodsof learning and it worked so well for us that I know we will use this again.  I kept it simple this year but I know that we can use this as the focus of our learning at this time of year for many years to come and am looking forward to planning more activities in the future.

...enhance I had a knock on the door early in the month from our local councillor.  Here in the UK some local services are run at a fairly local level with some money trickling down from central government and some paid locally.  Every four years we get a chance to elect who we would like to represent us on the council to ensure our local taxes are being spent wisely, our local councillor wishes to stand down before the next election and asked me if I would like to stand in his place.  I was rather taken aback, it is not something I had even considered.  I have mulled it over and decided it is not for me but I was very flattered to be asked.

...enjoy this month has to be about celebrating Christmas with family and New Year with friends.  Knowing that this will happen and does so every year is reassuring and comfortable.  It is a very busy, bustley (is that a word?) time of year and it is easy to lose focus which for me is about family and friends.  It should be a time of coming together and enjoying each other's company and that is exactly what we had this year, a perfect end to another good year.

Bicarb

I have been using this around the house more and more over the last few months as I keep find more great uses for it. We have finally got round too buying a large quantity of it as we were getting though the small amounts we were buying really quickly.

I have been using it as part of my hair washing routine for a while and I made deodorant with it some months ago and still using my original batch. I also have been using it for some time to clean the bathroom, the tiles, surfaces, sink and bath all get a wipe with a bicarb paste.

I have now started to use it more in the washing machine instead of washing powder or liquid, a tablespoon for lightly soiled or two if more heavily soiled. I also put two tablespoons of white vinegar in the conditioner slot with a few drops of lavender oil, you could use any essential oil you like the smell of. I use lavender oils as it repels the moths. When I am not using this I use Eco balls.

It can be used in the dishwasher to make your own powder, I mix a tablespoon of bicarb with a tablespoon of borax the dishes have never been so clean.

This week I have sprinkled it on the carpet in the bathroom as it was getting really smelly. I would not choose to have a carpet in the bathroom, but it was in the house when we moved in and we have other priorities in the house. I left it on the carpet overnight and hoovered up the next morning. The smell has gone, for now!

I have also used it on a mattress that got wee on it, again sprinkled on and left all day, hoovered off, smell gone.

I have also read recently that it can be used to get oil stains out of fabrics. I have yet to test this, but will be giving this a try next time we have something with oil on it.

I started to look into making my own household cleaning products when I experienced a bout of Urticaria last year. I had no idea what you could make at home and how many products I was buying could be replaced with so few ingredients including one I already had in the cupboard.

Hair

In May I posted about the beginning of my shampoo and conditioner alternatives journey. Since then I have to make more changes to the quantities I have been using.

I had opted to use bicarb and cider vinegar to wash and condition my hair, following a outbreak of Urticaria. I had started with a tbs of each in a pint of water, before finding that that made my hair too dry. So I switched to using a paste of bicarb and a little water applied to dry hair, rubbed in and washed out to wash my hair and the same quantity of vinegar to water that I had before, as a conditioner. After using this method for six weeks or so I found that my hair was getting very greasy. I thought it was because I was using too much bicarb, so I reduced the amount and made a more watery paste and continued with the same mix for the conditioner. No change. I knew that the mix I was using was stripping my hair of its natural oils and my hair was then overproducing to compensate, what I did not know is what was doing the stripping.

I tried not washing my hair for two weeks, my hair is long enough to be tied back or up. It didn't get any greasier in that time, but it did start to hurt from being pulled into a different position all the time. I needed to do more research. I discovered that if you are experiencing greasiness using bicarb and vinegar you need to reduce the vinegar. Why was that not obvious to me, as an acid it was bound to strip natural oils!

So I am now still experimenting with exact quantities. I am using more bicarb and water mix to shampoo and a lot less vinegar and water to condition. I have found that the amount of vinegar is critical as too little and my hair is heavy and lank. I can feel it is the right amount now. Just need to work out the optimum quantities for the bicarb.

I live in an area with very soft water. If I go to my mum's house the water there is very hard and the mix does not work. The bicarb will not dissolve in the water due to the minerals already present. I have read that it will work if you boil the water first, some have even suggested using this boiled water to rinse your hair was well as mixing to make shampoo and conditioner.

I do not have the option of returning to using shop bought hair products as I do not want to risk the urticaria returning. It has been a slow journey to find what works for me but I am sure I will get there in the end, I hope!

Shampooless

In November last year I was forced for health reasons, see this post, to stop using my shampoo and conditioner.  I had to come up with an alternative.  After searching in all the shops in my local town I was unable to find one that contained ingredients that I could tolerate.  Not wanting to be in a situation where I would have to drive miles or having to order on the internet each time I ran out, I thought about making my own.  After much searching it seemed there were recipes to make shampoo and conditioner which involved lots of ingredients and you ended up with a shampoo and or conditioner not unlike one which you would buy, except that you have total control over the ingredients.  The alternative was much simpler, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar.  I was really sceptical that this combination could leave my hair feeling and looking clean but my hair desperately needed a clean and in the absence of anything else, I gave it a go.

I started off with a mix of 1teaspoon of bicarb in a pint of hot water which I poured over my scalp and hair, I massaged my scalp and rinsed this off.  I followed this with 2 teaspoons of cider vinegar in the same quantity of water which I again rinsed off.  I found this combination made my hair very dry so I reduced the amount of vinegar to 1 teaspoon to a pint of hot water.  This seemed to be alright but after a month or so my hair still seemed to be fairly dry.  So I tried a different method with the bicarb.  First I tried making a paste with a teaspoon of bicarb and a little amount of water.  I rubbed this paste gently into my scalp.  I have fairly long hair which is quite thick so found this method difficult to apply.  I made the paste a bit runnier the next time and applied to my scalp and this is the perfect combination for my hair.  I have also reduced the amount of vinegar slightly.  I have been using this combination for about three months and my hair is definitely less dry.

I am now washing my hair every 5 to 6 days and my scalp is far less itchy than it used to be.  I live in a soft water area.  Before trying this method my hair would be greasy after about 2 to 3 days.  Most shampoos strip your hair and scalp of the natural oils that you produce.  Your body tries adjusts to having the oil stripped by going into overdrive and producing loads, therefore your hair will look greasy.  When you stop using shampoo you will probably go through a detox period when you hair will look really greasy.  You body is still in overdrive.  If you are patient then it is worth the wait.

Deodorant

For some time now I have been trying to find a deodorant that works for me.  Last year I started to have symptoms of Urticaria a skin condition that you can read about here.  The upshot of this is that most skin products or products that come in to contact with my skin have ingredients that make me itch.  I tried using bicarb on its own for a while.  I found it difficult to apply and it make my skin a bit red, dry and itchy.  After doing some research I realised that bicarb on its own may be a bit strong for my skin and it would be better to mix it with something else to tone it down.

I have now settled on the following recipe:

Homemade Deodorant
1/4 cup bicarb
1/4 cup arrowroot powder
5 tbsp coconut oil

Coconut oil is solid a room temperature.  I placed it in a glass bowl and put the bowl in another bowl of boiling water and left it to melt.  I then stirred in the bicarb and arrowroot.  I left this to cool a little before putting into an old deodorant stick that I had cleaned.  I bought all these ingredients in my local health food shop.

I have been using this for the last month and it seems to be working.  We have had the occasional warm day but admittedly it has been cold on most days.  It remains to be seen (and smelt!) as to whether it works in hot weather, if we get any this year that is.