Tag Archives: Homemaking

Salads and jump starting my Spring Cleaning

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Last week was overwhelmingly busy for me. I don’t like to have more than 2 outside activities in a week, but somehow, I scheduled myself at least 1 thing every single day. Sheer foolishness. Add to this, my poor husband was in the process of finding a new renter for our first home and the whole family was pretty frazzled by the end of the week. Thankfully, we did have fun and we do have a renter happily contracted for 2 whole years!

Today being Monday, I dove right in with my usual chores and the week’s goal list. What started out as just unloading the dishwasher and cleaning out the fridge turned into a 2 hour long deep cleaning of the kitchen. I didn’t realize how much time had passed until I saw Sylvi standing in the hallway, awake from her nap.

This tidy state didn’t last long… don’t worry ;)

Of course, while I was working away and one child was sleeping, the other was left unattended. He’s pretty quiet when he’s alone and content, so I kind of forgot about him. (Does this give you an idea of the impending disaster?) He was very helpful to me by taking every single last toy out of their bins and spreading them all over the living room. I’ll admit to being shocked when I came around the corner and saw the chaos. On the upside, I went through the toys (since they were laid out for me to see anyway) and weeded out the ones no one plays with on a regular basis, and swapped them out for the Lauri pegs, Farm animal Dominos, Farm animal lacing cards and beads.

Not pictured: the couch, behind the love seat and the dining room.

Our day ended very nicely and I’m thrilled to say that my floors actually got a through vacuuming.  That was much needed, I tell you! Supper was pretty hasty and made me grateful for always keeping my salad greens washed and ready. I recently made a new salad dressing and have been craving salads even more since!  I have nothing against store-bought salad dressings; I love them actually, but Sylvi has (at the least) a sensitivity to some of the preservatives in salad dressings and dips, so I’m back to making my own again. Nothing like watching your child’s face become covered in welts after eating your salad dressing kissed cucumbers to jump start your creativity! This dressing is tangy and flavorful and in my opinion, even better than my old Italian dressing recipe.  Probably because it’s more Greek than Italian, but it still dresses up a bowl of kale like you wouldn’t believe!

Greek Feta Salad Dressing

  • 1 cup oil
  • 1 cup white vinegar
  • 3 tsp. garlic powder
  • 2 tsp. onion powder
  • 2 tsp. dried oregano
  • 2 tsp. dried basil
  • 2 tsp. ground pepper
  • 2 tsp. sea salt
  • 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
  • 1/4 cup crumbled Feta cheese

Pulverize the feta as best you can and then sprinkle the spices over the top and stir thoroughly  Then, mix in the mustard, oil and vinegar. (Alternatively, you could do this in a blender.)  Store in a lidded container in the fridge and shake well before each use.

The oil that keeps the wheel running

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  One of the most frequent complaints I hear from women be it stay-at-home, working full/part-time, parenting or not is the struggle to balance housework. There are dozens of planners, website subscriptions and outlines for scheduling your day.  Personally, I don’t use them. I’ve printed out planners and things of that nature multiple times or tried a digital calendar, but in the end… I’m just a lined sheet of paper and spiral bound calendar sort of girl!

The “brain” of my kitchen: calendar, lists, coffee and the phone.

Before I go any further, let me say this: housekeeping comes naturally to me because I’ve been doing it since I was a little girl. Because of my family’s needs and dynamic, I was capable of doing laundry from start to finish, including ironing without any assistance. I could cook simple meals, clean the house and plan a weekly menu/grocery list. When I was nine, my mother’s health had a collapse and although the grandmas came to help out often, I still needed the skills for days when Mom simply did not feel well, but wasn’t emergent. Therefore, I iron like my Mother’s mother, menu plan like my own mother and fold laundry like my Father’s mother. I enjoy housekeeping in general with the exception of dusting. No matter what I do, I always sneeze. Always.

For my home, at this current stage with two children under the age of 4 this is what works for me. Last year, I wasn’t doing things exactly the same, and next year, I may need a change again. But right now, I need to care for my home and family first, train for my next triathlon, sew and write. In order to get the “fun” activities in my life, I am willing to give up sleep. Like I said, this is what works for me :)

First thing in the morning (often before the sun is even out of bed), Sylvi wakes me up, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Sometimes, I let Matt sleep a little longer, sometimes I don’t and get him moving to work. Either way, I head straight to the kitchen and turn the coffee pot on. I get food for Sylvi and unload the dishwasher and start laundry. I read somewhere that if you spend your first hour of being awake getting your tasks done and don’t check email, you’ll find your day to be much more productive. For me, this is genius since I am a morning person. So… I leave my phone on the charger and the monitor turned off and get my tasks for the day as completed as I can by 9am. That’s the goal. I was done by 847 yesterday, 1015 today.

Every single day I complete 5 tasks:

  • Make the beds
  • Unload the dishwasher
  • Clean the kitchen after meals
  • 10 minute tidy of bedrooms and living room midafternoon and before bed
  • Daily chore

This is why I am not stressed by my home. I am a very particular housekeeper, so I keep up on the clutter (except for the hideous pile of paperwork to my right) and as long as I do that, general tasks are simple.

  • Sunday: weekly fruit/veggie prep (washing, cutting, etc.)
  • Monday: Clean bathroom and diaper laundry
  • Tuesday: Vacuum and 1 load of laundry
  • Wednesday: Laundry and declutter and dust
  • Thursday: Diaper laundry and menu/grocery plan
  • Friday: Wash sheets and towels
  • Saturday: any catch up housework

Each task that I assign to the days are quick ones. I don’t do laundry all in one day because I get burnt out. I do a little bit each day and it’s quick enough that way that it takes about half an hour of total active time. The task that takes me the longest honestly is the veggie prep because I’m washing, peeling, cutting and organizing about 10-15 pounds of produce.

I go to bed with toys picked up, laundry put away and the dishwasher running. Every now and then, I skip this step and then have a grumpy start to the next day because I hate waking to a mess. When Liam was a little baby, a friend mentioned to me that I needed to learn to do my chores while he was up so that he saw that I did other things than wait on him hand and foot. Perhaps a kinder way of saying this would be to simply involve your children in the tasks. When I sweep the kitchen, both kids get out their brooms and “help”. They help me match socks and carry laundry to the bedrooms. Liam unloads the silverware from the dishwasher and both children are responsible to take their plates to the counter after meals. And if that doesn’t keep them occupied for a few minutes, I can always pull out the crayons and paper and they create for a little while.

Once I have all my tasks done… I’m free to start on the list. I make a long list of all the things I’d love to accomplish and keep at it for a week. I’ll assign things to myself in the morning and what gets done, yay! The rest goes back on the list for another time. I’m supposed to roast garlic today.  We’ll see. I’m not overly enthusiastic about it. Some days, like today, I’m in the mood to do nothing extra… my house is clean, the kids are happy and I think we’ll have leftovers for supper. Every day is different!

So how about you? How do you tackle balancing life and your home?

If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry

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You’re supposed to be reading a well thought out post about my home organization. It was going to be great and I was really excited to share how we are taming the daily beast lately. Considering today, though… I’m thinking I’ve goofed.

Sylvi is back to waking up long before my alarm goes off, so I start my day pretty early. I am feeling pretty calm and collected on a regular basis. It’s nice, you know? This morning, I had all our beds made before Matt even left for work, the kids and I were dressed and I had pancakes on the griddle. At 930, I was shocked to walk into the living room and realize I was supposed to be babysitting and the family was here. Uh huh, I tried to be cool and would have never mentioned this, but it definitely sets the tone for how under the bus I was for the rest of the day.

Morning: manageable. Then, 45 minutes after my extra charges left absolute insanity hit. Thus far, my philosophy on parenting has been to stay one step ahead of the short people. Oh and remember where I set the dirty diaper. For the most part, this goes well for me. And then, I get overconfident and try to bake a cake while the kids are eating lunch, get distracted by Lord knows what, resume the cake baking and get it in the oven only to realize that the house was silent. I went to investigate only to find my children hunkered down behind the 25 year old child-sized rockers in Sylvi’s room. The overwhelming smell of Burt’s Bees baby powder hit me in the hallway from behind the closed bedroom door. They had managed to dump out at least 50%-75% of the bottle on the floor: Liam was scooping it up to “make art” on the walls and Sylvi was scooping it up to eat it.

I called my wisest mom friend who then told me to call poison control. While on the phone with that kind lady, I herded the kids into the bathroom since they were ghost white from all the powder to prepare to bathe them. She asked for the ingredients on the bottle, so I left the room only to hear a loud crash and Sylvi try out her newest word: “oops”. In the corner of the shower/bath, we have a tension rod with baskets on it. It took two adults to install it 2 years ago. However, the two small children who climbed in the empty bathtub who decided they wanted the shark in the lowest basket managed to yank the entire thing down, which then almost took out the shower curtain.

Listen. When the lady from poison control wishes you a “less eventful” afternoon, it’s a sign you’re not a wimp and it’s ok to take a break. So I dressed both kids and informed them we were all taking a quiet time. This of course did not occur until I discovered a missing bottle of body wash in Sylvi’s room. Said bottle of body wash, has a pump on top. I have visions of the kids bouncing up and down on that pump while I wrestled with the tension rod in the bathroom. Regardless of how the soap managed to get on the floor, it got there. I just stood there and laughed. At least my floors are really clean.

I have a terrible headache, can’t stop thinking about chocolate and am counting the moments until back up arrives. But, I now know beyond a shadow of doubt, silence is certainly not golden and tension rods loosen their hold over time. The point of this quite laughable story from my day is really to myself. Had this kind of a day happened 2 or 3 years ago, I’d have called my husband sobbing and begging him to come home because I didn’t trust myself to remain calm. Today, I called him to ask if he’d mind stopping at the Y to pay our membership fee. Considering the day’s mayhem, it’s probably better if I don’t attempt to take my little hooligans out in public. :) Yes, today has been hard. Yes, today is not over. But today, I realized that I needed to stop and take a break. My husband won’t be coming home to a tidy house or children in matching clothes, but that cake that kept me from being attentive to my children’s mischievousness was amazing.

On Christmas organization

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Christmas is a mere three days away and my Facebook feed is filling with friends and acquaintances declaring victory over the to-do list and sitting down in front of a tree surrounded by beautifully wrapped gifts and drinking an egg nog. I just wrapped my last gifts last night, programmed my children’s Leap Frog gifts and checked the piles one more time.

Canning cellar = Super secret present location

In our home, we wind up traveling a lot for the holidays. My in-laws live an hour away and we usually make two trips in a week because the reunion typically falls within days of the holiday (for 2012, it’s tonight). If we are going to my grandmother’s, she also lives an hour away and in the case of this year, we’ll also be going there twice in a week: Christmas Eve to celebrate with her, my father and youngest brother and then next weekend to celebrate with my uncles and cousins. Between November and January, we will have had 6 separate Christmas celebrations. It gets a little overwhelming and now I know why my parents would forget gifts at home or lose hidden ones!

For me, I start an idea list in the summer. Two of our nephews have birthdays in December and so we also have a birthday party to attend. On my list, I have the gifts grouped by event and when the date is known, I write that as well. Once I’m sure I know what we are purchasing for people, I write that item down and then I make an additional note: purchased/arrived/wrapped. I try to do as much of my shopping online as I can since I hate going into stores this time of year, hence the “arrived” slot. I cross each off as it is applicable.

All those shipping boxes sure come in handy since that’s what I use to separate out the gifts. Of course, I box them based on date needed and then when we are ready to leave, I just grab the appropriate box and head out the door! And believe me, when it’s a struggle to get your children convinced that a drive in the car won’t end in disaster (both kids detest their car seats), any bit of easy I can get is right up my alley!

I do Christmas cards, and this year they were done prior to Thanksgiving only because Hallmark had a sale in October and I had nothing to keep my hands busy one night while we watched a movie. Even though I printed photos to include in some of the cards, my total for 80 cards and photos was still less than $20. It’s the postage that gets you though… Anyway, I was happy with my cards and photos until I saw some of the photocards we were sent and I remembered why I always do those instead. Next year. There’s always next year…

Christmas has gotten easier for me over the years, even though we’ve had to add more celebrations and we’ve had our children. This year was the easiest, lowest stress and most enjoyable we’ve had in the 8 years since we started dating! Although, I should mention that I got to do it all by myself. Neither child was interested in choosing gifts for others and Matt has been working a lot lately, so I was able to just do my own thing. For me, doing my own thing, wrapping gifts alone in the basement after the kids went to bed made for a practically perfect way to usher in the holiday celebrations!

On cookie baking, chaos and children

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Growing up, cookie baking for the holidays was a big, family event. Mom would put it on the calendar and we’d all gather around the kitchen table rolling, cutting, dusting… whatever needed done. We usually started in November and froze the cookie which were then pulled out and thawed in time to be shared with friends and family. We always made Bethlehem Star Cookies, Sour Cream roll out cookies and Thumbprints.

My first Christmas in my own home was far different than I had anticipated and so I baked. Almost 12 dozen cookies. I wasn’t really good at making decisions that year. Over the years, my cookie baking has decreased and one year I even used store bought cookie dough (gasp!). Last year, the cookies I baked were thanks to a cookie exchange with my MOPS table. If not for that exchange, I doubt I would have even tried.

This year, my children are both interested not only in the baking process, but the eating of the cookies. In fact, Sylvi who applies a less-is-more attitude to speaking has been fairly vocal about her love of “kee-kees”. Liam, having a few years experience, is more than happy to help me usher in all the baked goods. In theory, this is the makings of an idyllic Sunday afternoon spent baking with adorable children, holiday music in the background and plenty of photographs to look back on and smile. Note that I said “in theory”.

Perhaps it’s just my kids. Perhaps it’s their age. Perhaps my enormous kitchen isn’t really all that helpful when it comes to holiday baking with the under 4 set. I’m not sure. But the first cookie baking attempt with both children as helpers ended with all three of us in tears and a dozen organic eggs smashed on the floor. Upon scrubbing the floor, I decided we needed a new plan and got to business.

So far, I’ve baked 5 different kinds of cookies. And aside from that first experience, they’ve all been peaceful.  I used one afternoon to whip up several cookie doughs, packed them in tupperware and labeled them with a post-it. Then, I hung all the recipes on the side of the fridge and waited until we needed an activity. This way, the kids are helping me put the cookies on the sheets, but no one is fighting over who gets to do what. It’s also worked out that I’ve baked each batch with the kids separately. And what a blessing that is! It’s been a mini date with Mama every time we bake… Sylvi hasn’t gotten the same amount of one-on-one during the day (believe me though, all those loooong nights she got plenty of mama time, I just like to hang out with her when I’m not struggling to stay awake.) so I was grateful for the time with just her.

Sylvi and her mini-me mixer helping bake

Liam isn’t as into baking this year as he has been in the past… he just wants to eat. But it’s all new to Sylvi, so she’s been my helper far more often than Liam. We have one more batch of cookies to make for the neighbors and our mailman and then I think our sugar fest will take a break. At least until Valentine’s Day anyway.

Long over due link love

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So what’s going on around your home?  Here it’s been primarily sickness, but I am hopeful that we’ve gotten it all behind us so we can enjoy all the holiday events without incident.  I mean really… is there anything more pathetic than a preschooler laid out on the couch, miserable?

However, in the midst of all this, I’ve managed to finish my Christmas shopping, yay!  And sent out all our Christmas cards. We had family photos taken last weekend, but Sylvi was sick with a high fever and I’m not totally in love with the product.  But oh well, we’re documented as we are.

I’ve been sewing a lot… a LOT. I made a new pincushion… that was long overdue. I was using a pincushion my mother had in 4H. She would have been 59 right now. Mmmm, I hate to say this, but my new one is way cuter than Mom’s.  Sorry 4H. And then, I whipped up this adorable top. Almost can’t wait for summer now! Also, working on a crib sheet for my cousin’s baby and I have a skirt in the works for Sylvi.

I’ve been learning about myself in the last few weeks, too. PhD in Parenting had an awesome post about introversion and I felt compelled to purchase the book she mentioned. I don’t have tons of time to read anymore, but I bought the book Quiet on Nook so that I can read it on my phone or my Nook whenever I have the time. If you are the kind of person who isn’t energized by social situations and have always felt like something is “wrong” with you as a result, I highly recommend this book. In a society where the Queen Bees and Kingpins are idolized, it’s important to value your needs even when they don’t match everyone else’s.

I also discovered Etsy. Not that I didn’t already know about it, it’s just that I’m in love with the creativity I’ve found! Gretchen of That Mama Gretchen hosted a Scarf Tour on the blog and I just absorbed everything she wrote. And then I bought this scarf and this scarf from her Etsy shop. I also bought a scarf from Global Girlfriends in support of women in India. Gretchen changed my ideas about accessorizing. I have worked hard to get myself into the gym and continue working on my health and I tell you sometimes, it just takes an updated look to remind you that you’re not just mom.

So as I spend this week working on Christmas gifts for my MOPS table, finishing my sewing projects and hopefully working out a few new posts… I’m crazy about cranberries and I feel the need to share. But that’s just a teaser to keep you interested. Hopefully.

It does cut the mustard

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I’ve waited a few months since making this recipe to post about it.  I’ve been trying mustard for a few years now, but never knew that you may want to let it be for about 8 weeks before you start to slather it on sandwiches because it is wicked hot fresh out of the pan. But now… it is perfect.  Now I feel safe using it as my standby ingredient in recipes and am really pleased with the taste.

This recipe was unintentionally adapted from The Organic Family Cookbook. I say unintentionally because I wasn’t going to doctor the recipe at all, but I was unable to find brown mustard seeds, so instead of splitting the volume between yellow and brown mustard seeds, it’s all yellow here. The consistency is coarse, but it’s thick so I actually like it better than store bought since it sticks to the crevices of your bread and doesn’t ooze all over the place.

Simple Mustard (by Anni Daulter)

  • 2 Tbsp. dry mustard
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 c. white vinegar
  • 1 c. whole yellow mustard seeds
  • 1/2 c. water
  • scant 1/4 c. raw honey
  • 1/2 tsp. sea salt
  • 1/8 tsp. black pepper
In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, mix the dry mustard, eggs and vinegar and bring to a boil. Reduce heat after 30 seconds and simmer until the mixture is thick.  (Keep a close eye on the pan as the mixture bubbles up and then pops, spraying out of the pan.) Cover and store in the fridge overnight.
In a glass bowl, combine the mustard seeds and water.  Cover and let sit overnight.
In a food processor, combine the two mixures after they have rested over night.  Puree until smooth, adding the honey, salt and pepper to taste (you may want to add more than I did.) Store in an airtight container in your fridge.
*Notes: This recipe make 4 cups of mustard, which is a LOT. I gave at least half of mine away.  Also the author notes that it will last for 4 weeks, but since I allowed mine to mellow for 8 weeks before using, I don’t agree.  In fact, I think the longer it has sat in my fridge the better it has become, but that’s my opinion only.  Adapt as you need!

On contentment and fortitude

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Growing up, all I wanted to do was be a wife and mommy.  I was under the impression that your life would be like Anne of Green Gables: meet that boy in high school, have a little bit of adventure and go to college and then settle down with your high school sweetheart for an idyllic life with your brood of 6 precious children on your self-sustaining farm in the Mohican Valley.  Ahem.  I wouldn’t trade my life for anything, but I would like to point out to my 12 year-old self that it might have been beneficial to ask a few more questions before settling down on this idea of what life would be.

When my life’s path changed and I got to set aside a career and work closer to home, making significantly less money in the hopes of becoming more peaceful so that I could sustain a pregnancy, I jumped at it.  I thought it was my ticket to the life I had laid awake at night dreaming of.  Even though I was supposed to be at peace, I was incredibly discontent.  I hated that I was home more, but there was no baby.  Every announcement of pregnancy from my friends would send me into despair.  So much so that one friend who knew how frustrated I was about everyone else being pregnant didn’t tell me she was pregnant and when she started spotting, she couldn’t rely on my support.  I didn’t know until after she had made it through, the baby was safe… and I was myself pregnant.  I’ve never allowed discontentment to cause me to behave like that again over the desire for a baby.  Admitedly, I struggle.  I was pregnant when Liam was 1 and I’m not now that Sylvi is 1.  It’s not the season of my life for it and I’m working to accept that gracefully.

Once I had my baby and the birth I had dreamed of, I was blindsided by struggles with nursing, colic and depression.  No matter how many positives there were in my life, I couldn’t look past my disappointments and even try to be content.  I wasted the first 8 months of Liam’s life wishing and hoping for change, regretting things beyond my control and pinning for relationships that will never be.

Motherhood is hard.  I didn’t know that when I day dreamed of my children’s names.  When I planned for their births, I didn’t figure in mental battles.  I didn’t realize what sleep exhaustion does to rational people.  But I learned.  And I am still learning.  Because, you see, in addition to the challenges of motherhood, it is also ever-evolving.  I am a routine loving person, but with small ones, the routine isn’t always concrete even remotely predictable.

I want you to know that although I struggle within myself at times to remember that this is just a season of life, it’s getting so much easier.  Life itself isn’t always easier, but my attitude in the thick of things is easier.  Why?  Because I am really am content.  I am content to stay home with my kiddos and be the on-call parent in the middle of the night.  I am content to the be the one who settles temper tantrums and cleans up puke.  I am so grateful to even have these children who laugh, cry, dance, run, scream, hit, pretend and hug.  I am so grateful to be able to stay home with our children, even though it means we have to pinch pennies and make sacrifices.  I am grateful to have a husband who wants me to stay home and care for the house, the kids, and all the logistics involved, including picking of many, many stray socks.

I’ve heard mothers complain of being bored while being at home.  Don’t say that!  Perhaps you long for the days when you could just pick up your purse and jet across town at a moment’s notice, but those days are not part of a season of life that involves small children.  Parenting is a major sacrifice, one in which all your own weakness are amplified and underlined.  Life at home, if your circumstance allows for it, is what you make of it.  Don’t let it stop being a joy.  Don’t let the pressure to rush and be involved in every play date create discontent.  Don’t mistake “me time” for actual restorative moments that refresh you.

Don’t snort after reading that last paragraph and ask where I get off telling you to stop complaining about being bored.  Listen to me when I tell you that contentment is something you may have to work at, but it’s worth it.  Sarah at Clover Lane says it so well:

 “Fortitude is a word often used to describe something big…a battle fought, a peak scaled, a disaster survived.  But when it comes to motherhood, I think fortitude is simpler, quiet, more constant.  I think it is the perfect word to describe a trait essential when mothering many different ages, stages and personalities.”

 Finding the place within yourself where contentment and fortitude are in harmony is so freeing.  You need the fortitude to find the contentment and you need the contentment to manage the fortitude.  Our lives as parents, as mothers, are not here to just exist and change diapers.  We are here to love precious little lives with all our might.

I am far from perfect.  There are days when I want to wallow in my mood and not gently show Liam how to put his unders on correctly for the 47th time.  Sometimes, I get frustrated that Sylvi just wails constantly while she’s teething and there is little I can do to ease her pain.  And sometimes, the sight of a stray sock just about sends me over the edge.  However, I must always remind myself that today may be the last time Liam needs help with the direction of his clothing.  Sylvi will one day have all her teeth and I won’t get to write the new tooth dates in her baby book.  (I have nothing to say about the socks, though… they really are a thorn in my side!)  I learned my lesson with Liam to not wish away time or complain about the hardships… I hated how hard nursing was for me, I hated how I felt, I hated everything about it… and then one day, without getting to make the choice myself, it was gone.  It may seem dramatic, but that was a turning point.  I learned that I had to foster contentment and develop the fortitude if I was going to get to be that mother I dreamed of being.  Every time I start to slip, I remind myself that today is all I have to work with and it can either be beautiful , or it can be a wasted square on my calendar.

How about you?  How do you cultivate contentment in your life?

April’s first goals

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Oh hello.  It’s Monday again.  Do you have any major plans for this week?  Or goals?  I had 3 appointments today and I’m wishing they were all I had scheduled for the week.  Alas, life goes on and my calendar is pretty full.  BUT, the weather is supposed to be nice this week, so I’m hoping so get the kids outside and burn some energy this week.  Matt actually cut the grass last night for the first time this year.  On April 1st.  It almost seemed like a joke to have such long, unruly grass in April.

This week’s goals:

  • Continue getting up at 6am to exercise and do research while the house is quiet.
  • Prep some good snack ideas for the kids.  Both of them are getting up earlier so the stretches between meals somehow are longer… I’m beginning to feel badly about the amount of graham crackers they’ve eaten.
  • Finalize the menu and plans for Sylvi’s birthday party next weekend!!!
  • Clean and declutter master bedroom (Anyone else find that the parents’ room winds up being a dumping ground for household clutter?).
  • Work on my book review of the Non Toxic Avenger for the blog.
I’m hoping to get a few extras accomplished and do some freezer cooking because the week after Easter, Matt is supposed to get vacation time and he’ll be home working on the fence.  Our backyard is large, but somehow no one can stay within it’s boundaries.  This also includes the deer who helped themselves to my hydrangeas.  I’m super excited to get my garden planted… the last thing I want is my entire crop of Royal Burgundy green beans to become a snack for someone other than me!

Just because the label is green…

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A few weeks ago, I was wandering the Home Depot and found a bin filled with water sample kits.  I’ve been interested in finding out what our water quality is for a while.  First of all, I’ve always thought it tasted a bit funky and but then, while reading through the Non Toxic Avenger, I put it on the list of things to do.  I grabbed up one of the packets, filled it with water, filled out the paperwork and popped it in the mail.  Based on the information included, I was excited to know what was in my water and had a whole blog post planned on the results.

Last week, I got a phone call from the company asking to set up a more detailed test at my home.  It was specificed that it was a testing session and that I’d have a printout of the results to go over.  I could hardly wait.  And then, the man arrived and I knew I had just been spoofed.  For the next hour and a half, I watched the man run tests on my water and talk about his company’s product.  I was annoyed that instead of testing, it was a hard sales call and I was going to be wasting my time.

Now, I know the water here isn’t the greatest, but I don’t want a biased company to come in and tell me that.  I was under the impression that this was an independent testing company.  I like independent.  I like unbiased.  And I don’t want someone to go on and on about how amazing his company’s product is… while not really being an expert on water content.  It’s not that I got spoofed into signing up for this testing, it’s that when I asked the man who was taking up most of my kitchen with his equipment the specifics on the filtering, he couldn’t answer them.  And what was worse, when I told him point blank in the middle of his blabbering about the “tests” that I used to be a Biologist and that I work for an off shoot of the EDF, so he didn’t need to keep assuring me of the importance of all he was doing he completely changed his tune.

From then on, I was annoyed.  Angry even.  Everything the man said was “green” in nature.  He deliberately tried to appeal to me from that angle and even when I told him I wasn’t interested (I hadn’t planned on spending $4000 that night and wasn’t about to jump into something without a second opinion.) he started in on the perks of the offer.  He offered me a special deal with “organic” cleaning products.  After the fact, I told Matt that I’ve been “green” for years and I’d never seen those products listed on any of the reputable lists.  None of them were sulfate free.  None of them were actually certified… they were “natural”.  And natural doesn’t actually mean yuck free.

At the end of his time, the salesman left in a big huff.  I was polite, but I told him I wasn’t convinced by the “green” factor of his company.  He threw a hissy fit and told me he didn’t understand why someone who was “so concerned about health and keeping toxins of her home” wasn’t convinced of the need to clean up my water.  The thing is, if you want to sell me something, don’t treat me like an idiot and try to scare me into believing in your products with stats that are almost 5 years old.  Telling me that you are an environmentally friendly company is fine, but I want proof.  It’s frustrated me for years that “green” is often more trendy than it is real and honestly, trying to paint something green as the grass isn’t going to make me pull out my check book any faster.

I’m back to the drawing board with the plans to get things in this house tested for toxins.  I have to do some research and find someone to do the testing.  And I’d like to get my own body tested for toxins.  However, the next time, I won’t fall for a bin of tests at a hardware store.