ECO FRIENDLY CLOTHES DRYING

This post on eco friendly clothes drying is not about comparing Whirlpool to Maytag. It’s about the most energy efficient clothes dryer on the planet…the sun. To be sure, there are days when it’s raining or when fielding the latest health emergency or disaster around my house that I feel like dropping to my knees and sending up thanks to the Good Lord for my clothes dryer. But when I have time, I actually enjoy getting outdoors and communing with nature with a couple of clothespins stuck in my mouth.

When the weather is just right, laundry day is really not about saving the planet by practicing eco friendly clothes drying. Drying clothes in the sun is about a more easy, relaxed way of taking care of my family’s needs. You just can’t put an Energy Star rating on the anti-depressant benefits of stepping out the back door early in the morning knowing that later in the day you will fill your basket with fresh, sweet smelling clothes. On the rare day when the humidity is low, I can usually gather all three lines and have them folded and hung in the closets by lunch.

The only articles of clothing that I don’t like to line dry are our jeans. When hung on the clothesline to dry they feel too papery and rough and the worst case scenario is that I will have to iron them to remove wrinkles. Not having to heat up and use a steam iron makes the best case imaginable for shopping for the most energy efficient clothes dryer that is manmade!

IS ECO FRIENDLY CLOTHES DRYING FOR EVERYBODY?
Regardless of where you live, you can dry at least part of your laundry in an environmentally friendly fashion. It's true that you have to have a back yard of some size to handle a clothesline. But if you have a postage stamp sized yard, you can get a retractable or an umbrella clothesline. These compact clothes dryers are cheap as can be and may be the best choice for city dwellers. We live in the country and have a big yard so I have the old fashioned kind of clothesline like my grandmother had which was a monster sized eco friendly clothes dryer if one ever existed!


Speaking of my grandmother's clothesline, she had special boards to put under the lines at the halfway mark so that heavy items wouldn’t make the whole load sag to the ground. The vision in my mind of her sheets, towels and granddaddy’s work clothes blowing in the breeze are one of my favorite childhood memories long before the phrase, eco friendly, had ever been coined.

GO GREEN TIPS

GOING GREEN is not that hard. It's going green and STAYING green that's tough. I have some "GO GREEN TIPS" for homes and work that might help moms resist the urge to drift back into nasty environmentally UN friendly habits when stress on the job or in our daily lives makes going the extra mile for Mother Earth too time consuming or (horrors!) expensive.

Inside the home, there are two easy tips that if everybody would put to use would have a major impact on home energy savings and a reduction in our carbon footprint.

1. Wash your clothes in cold water

2. Stop the dishwasher before it goes into the dry cycle

You can manage either of these Go Green tips for your home by pushing a button!

That's the kind of energy saving, environmentally thing that is so very easy to do and if you're a busy mom, sometimes baby steps is the best we can do. The thing is that baby steps are just the beginning. I started out with the little things and then dedicated myself to learning and utilizing more green living practices along the way and that works for me! My current goal is to pass my desire to clean up the environment to my children so if you have some green parenting tips, please take a minute and share them.

How Often Should You Clean Your House

After seeing me cleaning window screens a newlywed neighbor asked me how often should you clean your house. I pondered the question a minute and realized that I couldn't give her an answer because I clean some parts of my house more often than others.

The young bride (read: novice housekeeper) may been more interested in conversation than a cleaning schedule but as this may be a topic that lots of young wives and mothers might be interested in I made the following list. Please remember that I don't claim to be an expert on homemaking plus I probably clean the dusty parts of our family's home more than the average person because my babies have such severe asthma and allergies.

In other words I don't know the answer to how often should you clean your house because your circumstances may be completely different from mine.

How often should you clean your air ducts?
I clean my heat and air ducts monthly using my crevice tool because I see them as a major contributor of dust particles. If you have a good air filter, you could probably get away with cleaning them at the start of each season or a couple of times a year and don't forget to use green house cleaners!


How often should you clean your bathroom?

As you probably know, we've been fighting MRSA (staph infection) in my house so I clean mine after each family member takes a bath.

If you have no such problem, you could probably get away with cleaning your bathroom once or twice a week. To make weekly bathroom cleaning easier:

• always crack a window or run the exhaust fan while showering to keep the bathroom from getting moldy
• wipe down the sides of the tub or shower walls using a squeegee. This is important because removing hard water stains from glass shower doors is a pain in the ass!
• toss the bar soap and use body wash
  pour a cup of vinegar into the toilet once a week and let sit over night to break down hard water stains

How often should you clean your carpet?

This question is a no-brainer for me because I don't have carpet. Allergies and carpet don't mix. I have no rugs that can't be washed. As for others, it's still an easy to answer question; once a year or when it looks nasty. In my personal opinion carpet is nasty all the time even when it looks clean. If you don't believe me, hang around and take a peek underneath next your old carpet pad next time you have new wall to wall carpet installed. If that doesn't make you want to tile your floors nothing will, my friend.

That's just hitting the high points but it should give you some idea of how often should you clean your house as well as easy ways to keep it looking good in between scrubbings.

The Extreme Germophobe

A friend just said that that dealing with MRSA has turned me into an extreme GERMAPHOBE! My response to this accusation was that I don't actually have germophobia which is condition that causes a person who is so obsessed with bacteria to sanitize their hourly but I do turn on water faucets with my elbow so I suppose one could call me a pseudo-germaphobe according to the definitions I've found in the dictionary.

The reason for her inaccurate remark was that I told her that I would never consider owning a jetted tub because unsanitary bathrooms are not an option for me. Cleaning and sanitizing a normal bathtub after two family members who have MRSA staph infections is quite challenging enough without having to worry about bacteria hiding deep within dark holes.

And don't tell me that this is not an issue because I once flipped the switch in a whirlpool bath at a luxurious bed and breakfast inn only to find black moldy flakes floating in my bath water. This was before I became the extreme germophobe that I am today or it probably would have cause a fainting spell.

Where I once lived for a soak in a Jacuzzi, I know know that without going the extra mile to disinfect it, a jetted tub is a haven for mold and bacteria. Those warm, damp pipes are a virtual playground for stuff that scares me silly.
A well maintained hot tub has enough chemicals to beat back the bacteria but bathtubs don't.

I learned how to clean a jetted tub in our previous home out of necessity but I truly never trusted it and while many say the way to do it is easy and inexpensive; I found that performing the procedure which involved Cascade dishwashing powder and bleach after each and every bath to be time consuming and to cost money that I didn't have to spend at the time not to mention that I find unnecessarily dumping more chemicals into the environment reprehensible.

Being the extreme germophobe and frugal mom that I have to be, please forgive me if whenever I see a jetted tub I look at it as extra work and a breeding ground for bacteria. I'm sorry if that rains on anyone's parade but when you are talking about avoiding contaminating yourselves and your kids with MRSA that could be life threatening whirlpool bathtubs are simply not worth it.
Oh yeah, and there's no way in hell that I would ever take a bath in a B&B, motel or even a 5 star hotel EVER!

And even when taking a shower I practice the following advice that my grandmother lived by way before staph came into my life:


An optimist cleans the bathtub after her bath.
A pessimist cleans the bathtub before her bath.
A lady cleans the bath tub both before and after her bath.

I hope that next time you visit that I have something more uplifting to talk about in the way of Family Recipes, Babies and Parenting Issues rather than ranting about that the reasons that I should not be classified as an extreme germophobe because I am told that dealing with a germaphobe is not fun... now imagine that!

OPINIONS ON HOUSEHOLD NECESSITIES POLL

I saw a story about how American families’ opinions of what they considered to be basic household necessities had change significantly since the year 2006. The report seemed to focus on appliances and a few h not so necessary household items atellite television and microwaves, not the bare essentials.

Some of the report’s findings were encouraging to me as they indicated a rise in green living practices. As an example, 16% (or somewhere close to that number) of the people polled said they didn’t’ consider clothes dryers to a necessity. This number is considerably higher than the number reported in 2006.

The most disturbing and probably misleading number was associated with dishwashers. The number of people who consider dishwashers to be unimportant rose significantly. People, the reason dishwashers have fallen off of the list of household necessities is not because of a rise in green living practices and above all it does not indicate that family members have suddenly taken a shine to washing and drying dishes the old fashioned way.

What this finding may indicate is the amount of junk and fast food that families are eating. If you shop for meals at the local drive-through restaurant, there’s no need to wash the dishes or the environmentally unfriendly Styrofoam containers. I admit to feeling a tingle of excitement over the number of moms hanging their organic cotton baby diapers on an outdoor clothesline, but the thought of losing the happy chuckle of the dishwasher filled with dirty dishes after a home cooked family dinner is disturbing.

Return to Oooh Baby Family, Parenting and Environmental Issues to see more opinionated rants and raves from Claire.

Three Year Olds and Church

Well, now I've been humbled before, but DH got it GOOD Wednesday night. I'm telling you he came in from work with his stinger out ready to scrap (verbally of course) with any and everybody.

The girls knew to give a wide berth to their ill tempered daddy. We didn't even make the mistake on this particular afternoon to say, "What's wrong?" Apparently kids learn from their mistakes. Once or twice a year this mood hits and in the past we asked...we quickly found out either we really don't care or we really don't want to know.

The evening moved forward and at 6:30pm we headed out to church leaving hubby and his snarky mood behind in the wake of three girls going for religious training. Classes let out and we congregated for a closing moment in the main sanctuary. At the end, the pastor always asks for prayer requests and lo and behold who raises her hand like a shot? My Cass and wouldn't you know it she was two rows in front of me out of reach and she PRETENDED to be out of earshot, too!

The pastor might have thought he was going to skim over her, but not my Cass! When he failed to acknowledge her raised hand, she called his name! OH LAWD!!! Right in the middle of church. I suppose he felt he had no choice but to call on her and he did so. She rang out clear as a bell that she wanted prayer for her daddy because he was acting UGLY! This child whom even I have trouble understanding at times spoke without so much as a lisp when telling off on one of her parents! Ouch!

Who am I to argue with success? When we got home he had calmed down and was darn near apologetic! Thank you Jesus!