I suppose I should thank my Mom and next older sister for a lot of my quirks/ things I just grew up doing.
My Mom has a strong aversion to many typical chemical cleaners preferring to use more simple methods. Her tactics were beyond weird for the times. Nothing like being in a well off neighborhood and your Mom making you dump tubs of dishwater into the flower beds. Oh we had a dishwasher, and we did use it. I doubt many realize how much water they use daily, especially in the kitchen. Put a big tub in the sink that you have to haul off and you will notice very quickly. Running the water to rinse out the coffee pot, running the water until it is cool for a drink, rinsing dishes, washing hands, etc. it adds up to a LOT. Try doing it for a week and you will see. If you use that water for trees or flowers you want to make sure you use a safe mild soap. You will also find yourself not cranking through the soap nearly as much as before too.
My Mom also would make us toss the leftovers and remnants from cleaning out the fridge in a rather forested area of the yard too. We had an understanding with the local raccoons that developed over the decades... they can forage for the food scraps that otherwise would have ended up in the trash... as long as they stay out of the trash. Always 2 Moms and their mess of kids would show up every dusk and patiently wait (unlike the squirrels who took to ranting at us through the screen door during the day.) 1 raccoon mom was bold and brave, the second was the total opposite as she was always wild-eyed and jumpy. They would gather some food to walk to the little pier we built on the pond and dip their meals as they ate.
We sadly had to sell the home I grew up in right after my sister passed in order to pay the insane medical bills. Not long after we left our former neighbor told us how the raccoons suddenly started raiding garages and trash. Thankfully she took up the torch and the raccoons are behaving again so those on the warpath to trap and kill them has been squelched.
My next older sister is a health nut. She always has been the one reading labels and wanting to know what everything is and it's effects for most of her 40+ years. As overbearing and annoying as it can be at times... it also is helpful and well intentioned. I began paying more attention to her when I was pregnant as any chemical smell would send me reeling in nausea. The natural cleaners I could handle, but the synthetic commercial brands triggered immediate bad responses. Super sensitive was putting it mildly... car exhausts, chemical cleaners, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides.. you get the idea... dry heave galore and darn near passing out. Pretty much everywhere except my Mom's house and her isolated farm felt like a war zone.
On the up side... my daughter has a crazy amazing immune system, and the only thing she is allergic to is bindweed (which gives her a mild rash) and mosquito bites (yeah I know, an odd one to add, but my husband is not allergic to mosquito bites, so nothing happens when he does get bit. No bump, no itching, nothing. His sister is very allergic to mosquito bites and each one swells up to half dollar size. I am typical.. medium sized bump that itches like mad but they attack me in swarms.) She's not allergic to poison oak, poison sumac, poison ivy, bee stings... after many hiking trips she proved the only thing to fear after she had wandered through masses of poison something or other... is the person changing her clothes and washing them better not be allergic either.
So anyways I thought I would post this link on healthier cleaning alternatives. Speaking of which, I better go attack the house so it is ready before the weekend starts.
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