When is a Sponge Not a Sponge?

When it’s made of cotton!  Wanna hear a confession?  I haven’t owned a sponge in almost two years!  That’s right… TWO! 

I may not have mentioned this, but I love to crochet!  I can knit too but, it just isn’t as fun as being a hooker!  I can it down and repeat the same stitch over and over again with out getting bored as long as there is a good movie or tv show on.  If I don’t have either of those, then a great conversation will work, too. 

Once upon a time, TF had mentioned that a friend of his used dishcloths rather than sponges for washing dishes.  It’s something I’d never seen, but I was intrigued.  A few years later and in the middle of a deployment, I found my hooks in a box.  I was given a huge spool of cotton yarn that seemed like the perfect material.  One night while incredibly lonely I sat on the couch with a glass of wine by my side and started to chain.  Then single crochet. 

Before I knew it I had some little wash clothes.  I instantly knew they’d be wonderful for wiping down the counters.  I gave them a try and they worked fabulously!  I was smitten.  If you could be smitten with homemade washcloths, that is. 

The next night I tried to make them a little denser so they’d work well for scrubbing.  What I came up with were little “dish-cleaning cloths.”  Instant love affair.  Since those two nights, we’ve not owned one sponge!  Ok, they won’t soak up the spilled coffee on a bad morning, but that’s what towels were invented for.

I keep a basket next to the kitchen sink filled with the cloths.  About 15 or so with each.  A fresh one for each day.  Before, I toss them into the dirty laundry, I zap them in the microwave for 15 seconds.  Make sure it’s wet, though.  Also, you might want to let it cool for a little while before you retrieve it.  Trust me.  I learned the hard way.  TWICE!  Then on laundry day, just wash them on hot with your socks and undies. 

There are two advantages to doing using cotton dishcloths. 

A-    One is that as long as you don’t use terrible chemicals, when they wear out just cut them up into smaller portions then compost!
B-    I’m hoping that I can use this as a cheap ploy to get LBG to help with kitchen cleaning when he is old enough.  I’ll make them in an array of colors and then he can choose which color he wants to use.  Then when one dies (all but one has lasted well over a year!) he can put it into the compost bin!  We’ll see if this plan actually works, but I’m optimistic! The kid’s going to need to learn to clean somehow, right?!

Now, for all those hookers out there, I’m going to share my patterns.  If you don't know how to crochet, I highly suggest hitting up youtube and learning how! 

These are my own and I’d really love it if you’d only used them for yourself and gifts.  Also these aren’t exactly scientific, but who cares?  It’s not like you are wearing them!  Also I don’t feel like using fancy abbreviations… so you will just have to read it all out!

Dish-cleaning cloths
Size F crochet hook
100% cotton yarn- worsted weight
no gauge

Chain 17
Turn and Single Crochet in 2nd chain from hook.  Continue across Single Crothet across.  Chain 1 then turn.
Repeat the Single Crocheting across, chain 1 and turn for 16 more rows. 
Bind off and weave in tails.

You’ll want to make the stitches fairly tight to give it a semi-scrubby quality.  The edges curl but it’s really not a big deal!


Counter Wiping Cloths
Size G crochet hook
100% cotton yarn- worsted weight
no guage

Chain 30
Turn and Double Crochet in 3rd chain for hook.  Continue Double Crochet across.  Chain 2 then turn
Repeat the Double Crochet across, Chain 2 for 16 more rows.
Bind off and weave in tails.

Tighter stitches seem to work better.

Happy Hookin’!

PS.  My digicam is charging right now, but tomorrow I’ll show you photos of my basket!

A Homemade Failure

A few months ago, The Father actually asked me if I'd look into finding a recipe!  I was completely shocked because he was giving me the side eye the whole time I was grating bars of soap for laundry detergent. 

Would you believe he asked me to look into making dishwasher detergent?!  I suppose he realized we run our dishwasher a lot and we could probably save a ton of money making it for ourselves.  Running your dishwasher saves more water than and handwashing so we make every effort to wash as much as possibly mechanically.

Over the next month or so I did some research and kept reading that the homemade stuff is never as good as the bottled goodness from the grocery store.  I, however, refused to believe that as a fact and kept an eye out for a recipe that was supposed to work wonders.  I deep down there MUST be a recipe that doesn't involve a chemistry lab and won't cost me a fortune, but would get the dishes clean. 

Eventually I found one and bookmarked it.  Once our bottle of detergent was 3/4 empty, I made a batch.  *I'm not sharing recipes because I don't think they were worth sharing*  This particular batch called for a billion or so packages of sugar-free lemon kool-aid.  The acid in the mix was supposed to help the glasses come out nice and shiney.  The first load we washed was on the small side, but we wanted to try it out before washing a normal sized load.  The dishes came out seemingly clean!  Yay!  The recipe lived up to it's hype. 

We carried on washing our dishes with the mix for about 5 days and then something unexpected happened.  We had an amazingly warm day and I'm convinced that is what set this whole thing off. 

Anyhooo, back to my story.  I opened the dishwasher one morning to find the inside was crawling with millions of ants!!!!!  Of course, by opening up said dishwasher, I'd unleashed them to crawl all over my kitchen.  Let me just say, my skin was crawling for days because I was convinced they were all climbing all over me.  It took about a week for me get all the ants out of my kitchen.  I suspect that they were attracted to the lemon kool-aid even though it wasn't supposed to have sugar in it. 

While I was wrangling ants, I found another recipe that was deemed "The Perfect Recipe."  I had to try it.  This one called for citric acid as a means to help the glasses come out shiney.  It also said that the amount of vinegar released by the rinse agent dispenser was not enough and you should add more prior to starting the wash cycle.  Despite doing this, all the dishes came out with a powdery residue.  It was gross.  I ended up having to rinse most of the dishes again by hand.  That doesn't exactly save water, now does it?

Good gravy!  Maybe my orginial findings of "Don't waste your time," were correct!

I was still determined to find something that will work.  So, to the latter mix, I added more citric acid to see if it would help.  Everything looked like it'd pass through a baby powder factory, just the same.  More vinegar this time.  Nope, still not working.  I even added more sea salt, just in case.

I finally threw in the towel!  LBG's bottles weren't clean by my standards and that just isn't acceptable.  Not to mention the rest of the dishes  I suppose I could have continued to tweak the recipes until I found a combination that worked for us, but right now I have more important things on my plate- like sharing the wonderful outdoors with LBG and reminding TF how to compost since, apparently, a 15 month deployment and 8 months of not having a compost bin has wiped his brain clean of what is compostable and what isn't. 

Maybe next winter, when there isn't much to do by way of fun things, I'll tackle the dish detergent quest.  Maybe LBG will even be able to help me by shaking up the jar!  But for now, we'll stick to our Seventh Generation and Wave brands. 

All-Purpose Cleaner- revisited

There is a slight side effect to my AP Cleaner recipe.  The Dr. Bronner's Soap curdles.  YIK!

I'd just shake the bottle well and go on my merry way cleaning what needed to be cleaned.  The Father brought up a point I hadn't considered.  What if we aren't getting the fully benefit of the soap because the curdles might not fit through the sprayer tube?


I went to the lab, to see what was on the slab.  My kitchen once again became my chemistry lab.  A small part of me wish LBG was old enough to do mini science projects with me.  I bet he might enjoy them.  We will probably revisit this one for fun in a few years.

A small drop of Dr. B's into some vinegar and a small drop into some water revealed that the vinegar is the culprit.  I don't exactly know why, but I'll accept my finding.

My usual mixing process is water, vinegar, soap.  What if we switched it up?  Knowing that the vinegar makes the soap curdle, it probably isn't a good place to start.  So, I added my soap to the water and stirred it all around to mix it in.  Then came the vinegar.  The whole mixture turned a milk white evenly through out!

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!

So here is how it goes:
Mix the Water and Soap together first, then add the vinegar.


1 cup Water
1/4 tsp Dr. Bronner's Magic Castille Soap
1 cup White Vinegar.

Pedaling the Freecycle

What? You don't know what a freecycle is? It's the really cool bicycle that only goes backwards and in a circle.Ok, maybe not, but that would a super nifty contraption and I'll be asking Santa for one next year.

Freecycle is like Craigslist only every HAS to be free. If you don't know what Craigslist is... well, you need to get with the modern times!

You list your FREE items on your local listing board and then wait for the emails to roll in. If you are in need of something, you can post a *Wanted* listing and maybe someone will be able to help you! There are stipulations such as you can't exchange any money, you can't ask for outlandish and unnecessary items like a brand new ipod or X brand of digital camera unused. It's a great way to get rid of unwanted items that would otherwise end up in the dump. It's also a great way to collect items for your charitable organization!

While I've known about Freecycle for a few years, I've never actually used it. Don't ask me why. I'll never know why I've put off utilizing just a beautiful tool for so long. I'm sure I'm deserving of a few lashing with a wet noodle- and I accept.

This morning I had an epiphany! Instead of taking my walking cast, which is part of my New Year 50 to the Goodwill-I don't know of a local free clinic- why not Freecycle it?! As many might say, the snowball effect was in motion. The next time I knew, I was listing a wrist brace (if you know me, you know my bones like to break on occasion,) a bin of various un-eco-friendly cleaning products, 14 bottles of nail polish, an two unopened bottles of bodywash that I'll never use! Good googly moogly! I hope the Freecycle mods appreciate my offers, since they had a posting asking more people to offer things because there were too many "wants."

Ok, now hurry up and wait! First, I have to wait for them to be approved and listed. Then, I have to wait for the emails to start rolling in, which I really hope will happen. I want to add these items to my 50.

I never thought this idea of the New Year 50 would be more than just getting a few extra things out of the house!

The Verdict is In

I hate the smell of Tea Tree Oil.
Remember when I said I'd be adding some to my All-Purpose Cleaner? Well, I did and I hate it. It makes everything smell musty. I knew this would probably be the case because I've used it before in other applications and hated the smell. I guess I'd been hoping the almond scent from my Dr. Bronner's soap would mask it. Yeah, no.

While I knew I didn't care for the smell, today cemented it when I used the cleaner to not only wipe down my counters, but also my kitchen floor. I spent the day trying to escape the smell!

It now boils down to the question: do I continue to use it regardless of the smell? TTO, just like any other essential oil has some wonderful properties. It's been show to stall MRSA activity and it doesn't cause resistance, it's great for acne, and will even help with foot fungus.

The inner battle has begun.

The New Year 50

Last night while reading this blog, I discovered the concept of "The New Year 50." Here is how it works. Between Christmas and New Year's you have to get rid of 50 things in your house. They can be small or large. You can pass them on, recycle, upcycle, repurpose, or as a last resort: tossed.

Since, I'm slightly late to the game, I'll be doing my 50 during the first week of the new year. I'm also making it a little more challenging. NOTHING can go in a trashcan! I'll begin January 1st and on the afternoon of the 7th, I'll post my list.

Please wish me luck and feel free to play along!

Disinfectants and Germies

Ya Think?

I'm not even going to comment on this other than maybe my childhood resistance to washing my hands may not have been such a bad thing.

You call that clean?!

How can you call your counter top clean if you just sprayed chemicals all over it? Or the kitchen floor for that matter?

I'll be the first to admit, I spent a good 3 or 4 years addicted to Clorox wipes, bottles of bleach, and cans of Lysol. Even better, I'd eliminated paper towels and made my own cloths for use with such cleaning items. Yeah, still can't figure that one out!

Then one day I had an epiphany! If I'd be comfortable licking it, I consider it clean. Would I lick a freshly bleached counter? Would I let my child play on a freshly chemicaled floor? Not on your life! There has to be a better way. Luckily for me, TheNest.com created a Green Living board. This lovely board came to the rescue! Since the creation of this board, I've gained a wealth of knowledge in the clean-cleaning product department.

Did you know vinegar kills most germies?! And on top of that... you can drink it! Sounds clean to me. Dr. Bronner's Magic Castille Soap has 18-in-1 uses, there must be some household cleaning uses. Oooooo, I love kitchen chemistry!

My recipe for All Purpose Spray cleaner:
1 Cup White Vinegar
1 Cup Water
1/4 tsp Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap in the smell of your choice.

Pour into a spray bottle, give it a few shakes, and away you go! I use Almond scented soap, but that is because I have it on hand. I'll probably buy the Tea Tree Oil variety next for it's antibacterial properties!

I use this mix for my counters and my hard floors. This weekend I'm going to mix a batch with a few drops of TTO. We'll see how I like it.