Favorite homemade cleaner

I will readily admit that I have spent hundreds, no thousands, of dollars in my lifetime on cleaning products that smell good, have pretty labels, look cool in addition to being very overpriced. They all contain propaganda in their labeling of one type or another. I won't go into detail on which brands were the most misleading and disappointing because I'd be typing for days and this is my birthday and I have other things to do. My quest to find an "all purpose" cleaner that works, is cheap and has a tolerable smell has been years long. I've had marginal success with laundry solutions of which I have settled on a rather strong mixture to combat the extremely high mineral and pollutant content of our water here in Las Vegas. I do like making my own and it's works better than any commercially available product but the cost is higher than your basic homemade version because I have to add oxyclean to get good results. It's a messy proposition so I tend to make massive batches to last 6 months or more.
My homemade stain remover isn't really homemade. It's actually Dawn dishwashing liquid. It does work better than anything else I've tried and I don't have to buy a special product for a single purpose. In our water climate, the mixture of Dawn and peroxide does nothing for armpit stains or yellowed whites as touted on Pinterest but it does remove spots of grease and makeup. I have found that a heavy concentration of super hot water, half a cup of Dawn and a cup of bleach removes some of the mineral buildup in white bath linens but you have to follow that up with a white vinegar rinse to remove the soap residue.
I have my own recipes for beauty products that I like very much and they are super cheap. Coconut oil is the best moisturizer if you apply it generously to wet skin right after showering. I don't add anything to it for fragrance because everything makes me sneeze or gives me hives. I buy powdered bentonite clay on Ebay from Michigan for my special weekly facial mask. I pulverize oatmeal in big batches for use in this mask as well as for bath soak and my waffle recipe. I use a teaspoon each of clay, oatmeal, wildflower honey and greek yogurt and add milk until I get a smooth pudding-like paste. I use a small natural bristle basting brush to spread it over my face, neck and chest. I use this once a week removing it with tepid water and resist the urge to apply moisturizer afterward because it's actually overkill. It provides intense soothing, moisturizing and nourishing support for my aging skin. I've perfected this mask through trial and error and found it to be the very best one yet. Been using it for about a year now.
I have come to love the vinegar and Listerine foot soak if for no other reason than it really does make callous management easier and it's the fastest way to conquer a toenail fungus (which I am prone to because I abused my toenails with acrylics for years). I add a little lavender Castille liquid soap for fragrance and to combat how drying it actually is for your skin. I then proceed to slather my feet with coconut oil and cover with large baggies for about 20 minutes. It all helps.
Now for my actual favorite homemade cleaning solution. I saved the best for last. Truly. I was searching for a way to clean my laminate flooring without leaving a streaky, sticky residue. I found a few recipes on Pinterest but the best one ended up being a combination of Pinterest recipes and manufacturers recommendations. Here it comes...Get yourself an empty gallon milk jug because you will want to have this on hand for frequent use. The original recipe called for equal parts water, white vinegar and rubbing alcohol with a squirt of lemon essential oil. That recipe was tweaked by manufactures that recommend a lower alcohol concentration and no essential oils but rather actual lemon juice. I've made this nine ways to Sunday and finally figured out the perfect balance to satisfy my multipurpose brain. Here you have my tried and tested result. To the gallon jug add the following items in no particular order: 2 quarts of water, 1 and 1/2 quart of white vinegar, 16 ounces of 70% isopropyl alcohol and one teaspoon of Dawn dish washing liquid. You can add half a cup of lemon juice from a bottle of concentrate but I don't think it works as well. Here is what I do for the lemon additive. I quarter two plumb fresh lemons and throw them in my Ninja blender and pulse it until the lemons are completely pureed. I have a permanent coffee filter that doesn't fit my cup at a time coffee maker that gets a workout as a strainer for lots of things but works exceptionally well for this. You can use a fine tea strainer too but you don't want any pulp to clog your sprayer. It takes a while for all the juices and oils from the lemon to strain through so be patient. I set mine in a large measuring cup held above the liquid line with a skewer and just let it drip for half an hour. I add this highly fragrant liquid to the rest of my ingredients in the gallon jug. Don't shake it up. Invert the jug a couple times and let it mix itself. Fill a spray bottle and get ready to be amazed with yourself. For floor cleaning, just use a Swiffer with the dry cloth. Spray floors in 3x3 foot sections and swipe until it starts to dry on it's own. No streaks, no residue and no grime left behind. Change your cloth as it gets soiled. I can usually get about 200 square feet out of each one but I'm combating the slobber monster Sully so you may use fewer. I keep a spray bottle full and a Swiffer handy just to keep up with the dog. Okay so now that you are thoroughly blown away, here is the most amazing things about this cleaning solution. It works fantastically on mirrors and windows or anything else that's glass. It's gentle enough for regular use on eye glasses with expensive coatings too. I use it to clean my stainless steel appliances because it removes greasy finger prints and films leaving nothing but shine behind. There are a myriad of uses for this cleaner because it's strong yet gentle and natural. The real kicker is that Dawn dish washing liquid repels insects like ants, spiders and other creepy crawlies. It also reduces fogging on bathroom mirrors and eye glasses. Most of the ingredients are in fact insect repellant so if you have children and pets, it's a much safer alternative to dangerous pesticides. It was never a consideration for me until we acquired Sully but now it's become paramount. You know how various objects in your house get touched repeatedly and you suddenly notice that they look like they've been on the front table of a kindergarten classroom? Like your printer, your cell phone, your computer desk, etc. Spray and wipe. Done. I bought a bundle of soft cotton diapers just for cleaning but you can use whatever fancy cloths you may have picked up for this purpose. Just a hint here: if you don't like the smell of lemons just use regular lemon juice from concentrate because it's less fragrant but you won't get the cleaning power that I get. Now off I go to enjoy the first day of my last year in the 40's...

Living on the edge...

Yeah yeah I know. It's been a really long time since I logged in, posted a blog and yada yada yada. I'm inconsistent. I've been immersed in school since October and I've been trying to balance life as a dog momma, a full time student and the only person interested in keeping us from starvation, or worse, being buried alive in our own stench. I had an epiphany of sorts early in the fall after a summer trip home to attend my sons wedding and meet my first grand child. We hadn't been back to Maine in almost two years and it was an eye opener. I'm still not sure whether it was the change of scenery and comparing the two very different lifestyles and surroundings or if things really had just deteriorated that much in our old home towns. I lived in the capitol of Augusta for ten years after growing up in rural northwestern Maine. It was shocking how run down and unkempt the area appears to be these days. Anywho, upon returning to Vegas and work, I felt sort of...um, depressed? I question that emotion or state of mind simply because I don't know if that's what I really felt. I felt isolated, discontent with my job(which wasn't a new feeling), generally out of sorts and I missed my family. I was in a state of despair over the fact that I finally have a grand child and will never get to see him grow up. He would never know me. I guess I felt a little desperate. Short of giving up everything we worked and sacrificed for here to move back to a climate and economy that was depressing in itself, I saw no real options. Neither of us were making the kind of money necessary to jet set back and forth between coasts and we couldn't be draining our savings. That's when I realized that I could do something about our dilemma. I could change careers! Sounded legit at the time. So I started my long journey of researching lucrative careers that offered high pay, flexible scheduling and lots of freedom. It took several weeks to finally settle on something that I started learning years before and gave up. In early October I purchased a self-paced Desktop and Mobile Web Developers course and quit my job. I punched a hole in my 401k to become a full time student and change my life. You can't get ahead without taking risks right? I know that I am a financial planners nightmare but it's my money, my life took a desperate turn and I needed to take my one chance at a new career that would give me what I want out of life.
I will just tell you right now that you should never ever believe what you read when you're on a website that is trying to sell you something. They are going to pad the facts, remove any negative(i.e. truthful) reviews and lead you to believe that this is your one stop shop for your educations needs. I definitely have lots of regrets and reservations about Ed2go these days but I am making the best of a bad situation. I am spending enormous amounts of time learning about each subject from online tutorials, websites that are generous enough to give free education and youtube. Where Gatlin Online Training has let me down, I refuse to be had.
Enough about that. Around the same time, my daughter started lamenting the situation with her former dog. She had given Sully(a magnificent and docile pure bred Rottweiler) up for adoption. She liked to call it foster care but, in reality, she knew she'd never be able to take him back in his lifetime. The woman who cared for him(I use that term very loosely) had contacted her to say she was getting a new puppy and was going to bring Sully to an animal shelter if she didn't take him back. In no position to do that, she asked if I would be willing to take him if she could get him to me. Of course I said yes. I sort of didn't think she'd really be able to do that but I had a special affection for Sully and thought he would be a great companion. Well, in late November I received and email with details about his arrival via United Petsafe.
Sully has become my best bud. He is so loving and easy going. He is also the slobberyest, sheddyest 100 lbs of dog you can imagine. It's a daily battle to keep from being overwhelmed with the mess he makes. I had many lovely months of hardly having to do anything to keep the house clean. And now there is life with the dog. I don't begrudge him his doggy manliness but...damn, there is hair and dried slobber in every single conceivable space in this house. There is a small corner off to the side of my work station that isn't really big enough for anything but he sticks his head in there and drools anyway. It's also the spot where large amounts of his cast off fur balls up. Some times I just live with the mess and quell my OCD with lots of coffee. Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in it.
It feels very strange and foreign to me to not have a job and to not even be looking. Sometimes I have a moment and think about that. I get so entrenched in course work and life that I forget that I don't have an income. I do miss money. But all this is for the best imaginable cause. At some point down the road I will be able to freelance and work from anywhere. My hubby will be able to give up his job and be my travel companion. As one may surmise, my goal isn't to find a job in my new career per se. It's to work on my own terms, taking on contract work. I am almost ready to start building websites so it won't be long before I can start building a portfolio. I have a few more weeks of PHP and then probably a month of XML before my actual paid course is complete. Then I need to get immersed in CMS and learn a few of the popular programs. I took a little hiatus during the holidays to learn Android app development but discovered that it's too much for me to handle right now.
Hubby will be rolling in shortly and I want to talk about homemade cleaning products so I will be up early tomorrow morning for that blog.