Our attempts at a Green Life

Josh and I are making efforts to "Go Green" (you know...for the environment) in our lives. We've been slowing transitioning for the last year or so. Some of the best green advice I've heard is "do what you can, and don't feel guilty about the rest". I like this advice because we really could be doing more.  But the major changes we've made so far are:

We no longer use paper towels. We bought a huge pile of car rags and they work much better than paper towels. We probably use one a night to clean the counters, and then throw them into a little bin I keep under the sink. They get washed once a week

We no longer use tissues. This is a little more "extreme" but honestly, we love it. I cut up about a dozen old T-shirts into 12X12 squares that we're now using as tissues. We have a ton of them. They also go into the bin under the sink to get washed weekly. I never touch them after they're used, so it's not gross at all. They're so much more durable than regular tissue paper.

We don't use chemicals to clean. This has probably been going on the longest. We use vinegar and baking soda to clean the kitchen, carpets and walls. We mostly use the same solution in the bathroom, but I do use straight-up bleach sparingly in there (which is actually a naturally occurring ingredient, and breaks down without harming the environment).  Vinegar is pretty much a miracle liquid in my eyes. It's super cheap and will clean just as well as any all purpose cleaner. It's odorless when it dries and I think it is just fantastic.

We make our own laundry detergent. I've been making laundry soap using this recipe. I absolutely love it. I like the liquid soap better than dry recipes I've found (I think it works better if you're washing your clothes in cold water). It's odorless and my cloths just feel cleaner--there isn't a chemically smell or residue left on them at all. I'm in love.

Our newest thing is making our own dish detergent. I've hesitated to do this, because I've hear that homemade recipes can leave dishes pretty cloudy but I read up on different recipes online and finally ended up mixing up my own batch which looked like this:
4 packets of unsweetened lemonade (look for one with citric acid as the main ingredient).
1 cup of borax
1 cup of washing soda
1/2 cup of salt
We've only used it on a couple of loads of dishes so far, but I really like it. It gets them clean and it is SO CHEAP. I'm sure we'll continue making our own for years to come.

Our next endevour: Cloth diapering. I just cringe at the through of throwing away ten diapers a day. And I also hate the idea of chemicals getting on the baby's bottom. So cloth diapering is definitely for us. I'm sure I'll be updating more about it when the time comes.