We have a very bad habit of allowing dirty dishes to pile up in my house at a very alarming rate. We eat, rinse and set down dishes on the counter next to the sink - pretty much so we can accumulate enough items to fill the washer. We could very well rinse and stick them in the washer right then but we are mostly too lazy for that bit. Neither one of us will get to this point unless we either ran out of spoons or we can’t stand the strange odor eminating from the pile any longer. Yes - something had to be done!

So a couple of weeks ago we started a different routine. After each meal rinse dishes and while still wet sprinkle some baking soda on the dishes and pile them.
The noticeable difference when we finally ran out of spoons was there was no foul smell!

So i went out and bought a big salt shaker filled it with baking soda and set it next to the kitchen sink for the sole purpose of sprinkling and deodarizing the dishes. I also notice that i don’t use as much dish washing detergent if i sprinkle baking soda on them prior to putting them in the dish washer. With less dish washing detergent used then less water is needed to wash dishes!

Occassionally we will forget the sprinkling part and not realize it until all the dishes are loaded in the dish washers. Not to worry, sprinkle them while in the washer, it doesn’t do quite as good a job but it will be better than nothing and will keep your washer clean too.

I use baking soda to clean the kitchen sink as well - it leaves it clean and shiny as stainless steel was intended to be.

As much as I really love this idea - mostly because i don’t like to deal with my junk mail - yuck i can’t stand junk mail, i don’t really think it will catch on. Earth class mail is essentially switching your snail mail to e-mail - sort of. The reason i doubt it’s potential is I don’t know too many people that are comfortable allowing someone else to handle their snail mail including yours truly. I would love to give it a try though but i would feel more reassured if i could hear from anyone out there that has used/is using this service? Care to chime in and tell us your experience or perhaps the experience of someone you know using it?

We moved into our new home 4 years ago and believe it or not i have never cleaned any of the windows. Yes i know - in a previous century i would be totally unworthy of the hefty bride price my husband would have paid!

Since my goal is to use non-toxic products none of the commercial glass cleaners would fit the bill. Most of them contain ammonia which not only makes me sneeze but would probably make my dogs sick since they love to lick the windows so much. They are also wax based which means they leave streaks on the glass as you clean.

So i did some web surfing and came across numerous suggestions to use club soda. Club soda is super cheap, much cheaper than any glass cleaner you will find the market. It is carbonated water with a little bit of sodium citrate. Apparently the sodium citrate softens the water and is the reason it does such a good job with the glass.

I filled a spray bottle with club soda, sprayed on the windows and wiped. It seemed to work best if i used two rags; one for the initial wet wipe and the other for drying up. I used an old cotton t-shirt that i cut up in pieces for my rags. I contemplated using old newspapers like we did on the farm as kids but i remember the smell of the runny toxic ink on the paper as we cleaned and decided to skip that bit.

Needless to say, my husband will not be demanding a re-negotiation on bride price as the windows are sparkling clean.

I have also used club soda to clean kitchen and bathroom sink knobs and it does a wonderful job there too.