One Small Green Change 2013 Resolution Wrap Up

Happy New Year 2014!

I find that I’m better at keeping my New Years Resolutions if I make them when I need them instead of making up a resolution on New Year’s Eve for the sake of making a New Year’s resolution.

During 2013, I made one small green change each month. My changes weren’t necessarily Earth shattering or big. I focused on the small stuff. The easy stuff. The hey-I-should-probably-do-that stuff.

This way, I can evaluate whether it works for me or not. I'm more likely to keep monthly resolutions because some green changes are seasonal where I live. If you look at all of those little changes that became permanent, it can make a big, huge difference.

Here's the 2012 One Small Green Change New Year’s Resolution wrap up.

January

Easy Lavender Goat's Milk Soap

Tis the season to get gifting, fa-lalala-la-lala-la!

One of my favorite gifts to give (and get, if you are listening Santa,) is homemade soap. This year, I'm putting my lavender bushes to good use. I'm making quick and easy calming lavender soap to give as Christmas gift exchange/teacher/hostess gifts.

 Pin this post to Pinterest! Share it with your friends!

How to Make Lavender Soap

Do Clothing Designers Hate Women?

I am so upset on what was supposed to be a happy occasion. Husband took me to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for my birthday. I used the birthday card to visit since I haven't been there which is practically criminal considering I live in Ohio, have family we visit nearby, and I named a dog after inductee The Ramones song Blitzkrieg Bop.

If you follow @condoblues on Instagram you might have already seen this photo.

The Rock Hall part of the day was great. Husband and I appreciated how much space the museum devotes to the country, jazz, and blues legends that influenced and created what became rock and roll. Out of all of the museums I visited this one has the best soundtrack.

How to Make Halloween Zombie Skull Bath Bombs

Fall brings corn mazes, jumping in leaf piles, hay rides, and other good dirty fall fun.

Why not extend it into bath time and give your little monsters an incentive to scrub a dub dub in the tub with a Halloween bath bomb?

Don't worry, your tub won't really explode after you plunk them in water. We are making Halloween bath fizzies!

How to Make Exploding Skull Bath Bombs for Halloween

How to Deal with Allergy Face

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Zyrtec for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

My husband saw me leaning over my desk with my coffee mug pressed against my puffy left eye. "I didn't realize it was ragweed season yet, " he said.

"Yep," I replied.

I wake up most mornings during allergy season with puffy eyes and a hot mug of coffee next to my eye is the only thing I've found that makes it better. If I have to show my face in public, I wear sunglasses to avoid the "what happened to your FACE?!" questions until the Zyrtec kicks in. My introduction to Zyrtec was as a prescription, so I'm happy I can easily buy it over the counter now.

Looks like I am not alone in using the Allergy Face sunglasses trick.

Have You Tried Shaving Soap?

Husband has sensitive skin. Unfortunately the only type of shaving cream he can use is full of synthetic ingredients - because of course.

Husband could ditch the synthetic ingredients by growing out his beard and not shaving at all but I don't like to go through the bushes to get to the picnic, heh, heh.*smooooooch!*

How to Make Paprika and Poppy Seed Soap

Hi my name is Lisa and I am a soapaholic. I seriously love, love, love handmade soaps and lotions.

Since we are fans of hygiene, and I found a very past its prime bottle of poppy seeds in the back of the pantry, I thought I'd make myself a little Happy Mother's Day to me gift of poppy seed soap.

I also turned to my spice rack for non artificial soap dye. Paprika works for dying Easter eggs, let's see if it works for dying soap red (it does! The soap does not turn our skin colors either.)

How to Make Quick and Easy Paprika and Poppy Seed Soap - Artificial Dye Free!

Homemade Shaving Cream FAIL

I saw I had all of the ingredients to make the homemade shaving cream for sensitive skin post I pinned to my Pinterest boards (give me a follow, pretty please?) I also got Husband's OK to give it a try. He has sensitive skin and unfortunately the only type of shaving cream he can use is full of synthetic ingredients - natch. If this works for him, it is one less of the few synthetic ingredient things we have to deal with.

I heat and mix the ingredients together. My shaving cream looked more like thin soup than creamy shaving soap. I figure the next step in the blender will take care of that.

I grabbed an empty mason jar from the cupboard and filled it with the shaving cream, screwed the blender bottom onto the jar, and popped the lot onto the blender. I'm using a mason jar on my blender until I remember to order a replacement glass top for my blender. The glass blender pitcher broke when it flew out of the cabinet to attack me and fell to its death on the floor.  

A large mason jar fits on a blender in a pinch

Welcome to my Perfectly Designed, DIY’ed, Green, Frugal Home. That’s Not.

Let’s do a little pre holiday house tour!

This is my craft room/sewing room/guest room.

How do you see it?

Easy Citrus Basil Aloe Soap Tutorial

We used up the butter maple shea butter soap I made and colored with kitchen spices. A ton of people asked if the turmeric I used to color the soap turned our skin yellow. I’m happy to say, nope not a bit.

I have a bunch of  soap making supplies left from making my first batch of melt and pour soap. I also have some end of the season basil from our garden that doesn't taste that great in cooking. I put them together and made an orange citrus basil soap using an Aloe Vera vegan glycerin melt and pour soap base.

 Save this easy soap tutorial to your Pinterest boards for later! Share it with your friends!

The result is scrubby dubby good and something I plan to make now for holiday gifts later. Hint: Citrus Basil soap makes great stocking stuffers and teacher gifts!

How Make Aloe Soap

Do You Have an Emergency Weather Plan?

Last week as my next door neighbors and I were outside and commented how the beautiful clear blue sky, quickly turned into a gray-purple-puke colored Tornado Sky.

The winds kicked up unexpectedly, rain, thunder, and lightening pounded down. Over 300, 000 people in Ohio lost electricity as Mother Nature tossed around trees and power lines with the force of a full on toddler kicking and screaming mega meltdown.

Fortunately, we were one of the lucky few that had electricity. This is surprising because if there is a blackout, we are almost always in it. Often for several days at a time. 

We did not experience a tornado because even those some areas estimated 75+ mile an hour winds, there wasn't any rotation. The crazy, unexpected, snuck up on everyone including the weather service experts, was a derecho.

How to Remove Furniture Marks from Carpet

I borrowed a steam carpet cleaner to clean the wet and explosive surprises Blitzkrieg left in his wake on an hourly basis when he had a bladder infection due to the chemotherapy.

Fortunately, Blitzkrieg is now back to his fine and fluffy self. My carpeting is another story. I spent an entire afternoon steam cleaning pet stains on the carpeting by the front door. I couldn’t move on to the rest of the living room or house like I normally do. We lived with the living room in the kitchen for several days. And then our bedroom in the computer room. And then the computer room in our bedroom. And then the guest/sewing room in our bedroom.

This is about the time I was considering maid service.  Or a box of matches. 

How to Make Dandruff Shampoo

When I am stressed my rosacea kicks into overdrive. I am having dandruff issues too. I am sure both are related to riding the Blitzkrieg cancer go round.

I have a prescription to keep the rosacea in check. The itchy, flaky scalp is another story. As the day goes on the back of my head feels like it is on fire.

The tea tree shampoo my hairdresser suggested made it worse. Neither Husband nor I like the smell of tree tea oil either. FAIL.

The drugstore dandruff shampoo my doctor recommended takes care of the itch and fire. Unfortunately, that dandruff shampoo rates a 6 to 7 (Moderate to High Hazard) on the Skin Deep database and I'm not very comfortable with since we are  dealing with canine cancer. I don't want to add any more family members to the cancer club thankyouverymuch.

Riding the Cancer Go Round

Canine cancer goes round with ups and downs like a merry go round but it is not nearly as fun. 

Each week of treatment has downs as well as ups.

It is stupid of me to think chemotherapy is like taking an antibiotic for an infection. You’ll feel cruddy for a few days but during the rest of the course of treatment, you’ll feel so fine the doctors will remind you repeatedly to finish your meds.

Three weeks in I don’t’ think I’ve been living with this long enough or at its most severe to be feeling so up and down about the situation but I do.

Down
 The chemo days are rough because they have to sedate Blitzkrieg to do it because of his abuse issues. To this day, he goes berserk if you try to restrain him or wrap him in a towel. This makes Blitzkrieg a less than ideal patient because we never know if or what extent the reaction will be to exams, or shots, or a day long IV full of drugs blasted into his body.

Blitzkrieg was so zonked he fell asleep on the way home from the vet. The chemo upset his stomach so much he didn’t eat for three days.

Glitter Tennis Shoes

 For Valentines Day I got:

• A dozen sustainability grown roses 
• A half dozen Godiva dark chocolate covered strawberries as big as a baby’s fist 
• And a kidney stone 

That explains why I’ve been carrying this kidney infection around like luggage for the last month. It won’t be gone in time for my Blissdom conference trip.

 Boo.

Needless to say, preparing for this conference is a little difficult because I feel like I’ve been kicked in the kidneys all day every day.

On the upside, it has kept me from being too nervous about my Newcomer Community Leader duties and the session discussions I will be leading for the Food niche bloggers.

I'm trying to conserve my personal energy to try to be well enough to be at my very best for Blissdom. I don't want to let everyone down! To reduce my running around, I shopped my closet for clothes to wear to the conference.


I still needed some cute and comfortable shoes to wear because the Gaylord Opryrland Hotel is ginormous! It's about the same size as an airport terminal. I don’t want to relive last year’s blisterfest which left my feet covered in swag SpongeBob Squarepants band aids. Which I rocked, of course :)

My Top 10 Project Posts of 2011

Happy New Year! 2011 was a busy, busy blogging year. I went to my first Blissdom conference. This year I am going to be one of the Blissdom Newcomer Community Leaders! Please come! (More on that in a later post.)

I taught a great group of momand dad bloggers how to use tools at the Craftsman DIY Blogger Summit.

Richard from Craftsman, Primer Magazine, The Gadgeteer, Backpacking Dad, CC Chapman, Mom Start is hiding almost off screen), Wiskey in My Sippy Cup, Busy Dad Blog, and Attack of the Redneck Mommy.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday.

I shed my little girl sawdust and paint splattered armor.

I put on a confident and frilly woman’s dress. 

How Busy People Exetreme Coupon for Healthy Food

Now that I have a sorta extreme couponing system, I'm pretty lazy about devoting a zillion hours to couponing for healthy food.

Scratch that. I never devoted a zillion hours to couponing to begin with and I still end up saving around 50% on my purchases.

Just as before I started my couponing experiment, I continue to buy healthy food and products for my family.

Another reason I don't spend a lot time of on couponing and deal searching is there are many products I don't use or buy due to ingredients. My family tries to avoid high fat, high sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated oils in our food. I buy and cook with ingredient type foods, not junk food, or prepared foods. That reduces my coupon clipping and deal finding. However, I'm still able to reduce my grocery bill by 50%.

How to Make Lavender Essential Oil Extract

The mix of crisp morning air with an end note of the mid day heat to come makes morning my favorite time of day during the summer.

When I can, I grab a cup of coffee and sip it while I watch the bees enjoy the lavender in my flowerbeds.

It feels so decadent to start my Saturdays this way.

I wish I could enjoy my fresh lavender in the dead of winter too.

I can if I use my  fresh lavender to make lavender essential oil extract!

How to Make Lavender Oil Extract

One Small Green Change: Use SLS Free Toothpaste

A Chinese friend mentioned that they have toothpaste back home that prevents you from getting canker sores. Soon after I had that conversation, Rembrandt introduced their canker sore preventing toothpaste and gave out coupons so often it was like feeding stray cats. We tried Rembrandt and it reduced Huband’s canker sore outbreaks.YAY!

Of course you know what happened next. We were hooked on the toothpaste and Rembrandt stopping issuing coupons and the price went up. It’s now $7.00 a tube at CVS. Rembrandt is smaller than a conventional (and cheaper) tube of toothpaste. Yikes!

Since I don’t get canker sores from toothpaste like Husband,  he used the spendy toothpaste. I switched to Colgate. It’s cheaper and rates a 3 on Environmental Working Group Skin Deep database. A three - Moderate Hazard rating and below is my guideline when using Skin Deep as my shopping guide.(Your mileage may vary.)

We’ve been going merrily along with the his and hers toothpaste for quite awhile. It sure would be nice to have a cheaper option or at least some coupons for the stuff Husband uses.

I researched. I found that the Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) in our conventional toothpaste may be causing Husband’s canker sores, not the fluoride. As an experiment, Husband switched to Tom’s of Maine, a less expensive brand of SLS free toothpaste. He didn’t have an outbreak.