Brightly Green: April 2015

Sunday, April 26, 2015

De-bunking Myths about Green Cleaners

Suppose you are a contestant on The Family Feud. You are asked the question, "Out of one hundred people surveyed, which room in the house contains the most germs?" Which room would you answer?

Instantly, you would say, "the bathroom." More than likely "the bathroom" would be the #1 answer on Family Feud, and your team would get to start the next round. Our fears of bathroom cleanliness are the number one reason why people believe they need strong chemical cleaners to combat germs.

The Blessing of a Broken Dishwasher

--written by Brenda
I will be honest, one of the on-going challenges in my home has been keeping a clean kitchen. It is not for lack of cleaning products as I am a firm believer in cleaning with all-natural, green cleaning products. Something mysterious seems to occur between the late afternoon hours and the late night hours of the day. The "Dirty Dish Bandits" show up and do their mischief. (I am sure these "Dirty Dish Bandits" are in cohorts with my teenagers!)

Then one day it happened, my dishwasher died.

It was not a sudden death but a slow drawn-out death. Even though I knew it would happen soon, I was not ready for that day.

With my dishwasher now beyond repair, the Dirty Dish Bandits wreaked even more havoc in my kitchen. Although my children (college-aged & teenagers) do chores around the house, and clean up the dishes after supper, my kitchen always seems to have some dirty dishes lying about (in those peak hours I already mentioned). When the dishwasher broke, the problem became compounded.

I decided enough is enough and one weekday afternoon I set about removing every cup, glass, bowl, plate and all silverware from my kitchen cupboards.

The broken dishwasher was propelling our family into minimalism!