Hi there Mom Ez! So happy to finally get this blog posted. Just a quick, silly story about my Blog account..... I worked so hard on this blog post and it was almost done. Well I logged out and my blog was saved but not posted yet. I had a busy couple of days and then I went back to finish my blog...well... I
could not remember the email that I used to sign up for my blog. So, I tried everything I possibly could to try to get into my blog to no avail. I just wanted to
cry. So after a week and a half I sat down at my computer to try again and out of the
amazing, miraculous blue sky it just came to me. I remembered the email. So needless to say I am a very happy Mom E right now. Note to self...Write down your new email and passwords in case you forget!
So now you get to hopefully, enjoy my Everyday Mom E Solutions...
A few months ago I discovered something that has literally
changed my life. I'm sure most of you have discovered it too.
It's called P i n t e r e s t!
When I first heard of Pinterest I was not enthusiastically interested, but I signed up anyway to check it out. I looked through the posts for a couple days and thought it was a
neat idea but I quickly lost interest. Then about a month ago I had noticed through email, that I was getting more and more followers. Why, I didn't know, but I logged on again and realized that there was
much more of a variety of interesting things posted than what I saw last time. Probably because I had so many new people to follow.
Well since then I am a
huge Pinterest lover! There are so many interesting things that people post about. I think it's neat because you can see things or find out things that you have never seen or heard of before. I enjoy the recipe's, inspirational quotes, adorable and
funny pictures of animals and kids and decorating ideas but the thing I
love the most are the DIY projects for almost anything you can imagine.
The reason I said it has changed my
life is because I am not the most organized and tidy person. I love my house to be clean and
organized but with two teenagers, a school ager and two toddlers it has been
quite an overwhelming and frustrating task. So when I started seeing organizing and cleaning tips, DIY( which is Do-it-yourself for those who don't know) projects and
Homemade everything products, I started getting really motivated and excited about getting organized and doing these things in my home.
At first I thought, oh this will probably only last a week and it will all get
messed up again just like always. But it has actually been about 3 weeks and things are still looking pretty good, except for right now since I have let the dishes go and have not
picked up the toys since yesterday because of all the sickies. I'm sure I will be feeling back to myself again by tomorrow and I can tidy it all up.
It is so much easier to clean up an
organized house. If everything has a place you don't have to wander around wondering what to do with it or stash it somewhere it doesn't belong. Not that this is at all a new concept.
Most people have probably been doing this for a long time but when you have A.D.D. it is so much harder to process these things in your head and stay motivated. I'll talk more about the A.D.D. aspect another day.
I have
always been a frugal shopper. I want the best deal on
everything I buy and I am not afraid to stay away from the brand names. So when I saw all of the products that you can make yourself at home and how easy they were to make, I had to start trying them. Not only am I
saving money but I also feel like I am protecting my family a little more by not using all of those chemicals that no one can pronounce. I'm sure that's something that every mom can appreciate.
So I want to
share a few things that I have learned the last few weeks. I will share the projects and homemade products that I have completed so far and as I do or make more I will share that
valuable info with you.
The first thing I started with was organizing my kitchen cabinets and Pantry. I saw this post from the
Delightful Order blog about organizing
Everything! It really got me excited about all of the things that I can do in my home to simplify, create, organize and decorate.
I started with my food container cabinet. Here is what it looked like before:
and after:
It is so much easier to find what I need quickly. I added 2 clear bins. One for the lunch totes, and one for the food containers and the things that were not in bins were stacked neatly
Next was my cabinet under the sink . This is such a difficult cabinet. It's the biggest one in my kitchen but it's in the corner which makes it hard to fit bins in right to organize. Also my sink has a disposal so there are a lot of pipes and stuff hanging from the top. Makes it much more difficult to reach the stuff in the back. So here is what it looked like before:
there was a lot of space in the back that was not used because it was too hard to reach, but by adding the bins you can just pull the bin forward to get what you need. So this is what it looked like after:
It's a little hard to see how it is organized nicely. What I did was add 5 blue bins.
-One for garbage bags
-one for floor cleaning products
-one for disinfectants and deodorizing products
-one for dish soap and dishwasher detergent
-one for household cleaners.
There is also:
-a small basket for dusters and a few other miscellaneous items
-a small basket for air freshener products and refills
-a small basket for sponges and scouring pads.
I'll be adding more organizing projects as I get to them. Here are a few DIY product recipe's I have tried so far.
Powdered Laundry Soap
1 bar of soap (Ivory, Fels-Naptha . I used Zest because I liked the smell.)
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
Finely grate bar of soap. Mix in Borax and Washing Soda and that's it ladies and gentlemen. Super easy! Found this one on Jillee's
One Good Thing
Mine is a little chunkier because I did not have a fine grater yet.
Still works great and looks pretty too. Lol
I used an empty dishwasher pod container.
It's perfect, it has a flip up lid and you can easily scoop your detergent out. (You may want to make your own pretty label if you like your detergent box pretty. lol )
One more thing I want to tell you about today is the foot soak that I tried.
I am a no shoes person in the summer when I am outside, so my feet get pretty disgusting with calluses and dirt in every crevice (sorry that sounds kinda gross). I have hated my feet in the summer for that reason, but I have found a wonderful solution to my horrible looking feet and it helps detox my body.
Relaxing Detox Foot Soak
1 cup of Epsom Salt ($ store)
1 cup of Sea Salt
2 cups of Baking Soda
Mix these ingredients together and store in an airtight container. When you are ready to use it, scoop out
1/4 cup of the mixture and pour in to hot water. Make it as hot as you can handle. Soak for 30 minutes...AHHH!!!, dry feet and wash with soapy water, dry feet again and apply only 100% Aloe Vera. Try to stay away from pretty smelling lotions because they have additives that can put toxins back into your body after a foot detox. (That is really hard to do because Aloe Vera does not have a pretty smell.) You can also add a few drops of essential oil to your foot soak like Lavender, peppermint, basil or rosemary which all have added benefits. Or even rub a few drops right on your feet to make them smell better afterwards.
I'm so excited to share this blog with you and I hope you find some things that are helpful to you
Everyday.
Thanks for checking out my blog.
Please keep coming back. I will have more great Mom E Solutions soon!