Kids and chores

I started making my own household cleaners about a year ago. Since then I've had happy children cleaning walls, begging me for more things to clean. Okay, that's just the two year old. The older kids may not appreciate my green cleaning as much as I do, but I know their lungs are not getting filled with poisonous fumes and their skin irritated by noxious substances. When they're done cleaning the bathroom, it smells like peppermint. Nice!

My daughter went crazy with my bottle of all purpose spray the other day. We washed walls, the train table, her play kitchen. She tried to clean the furniture and the dog, too, but I quickly intervened.

I'm so cheap...

I asked my husband to make a cat scratching post. We used left-over carpet and lumber, and a friend gave us some firewood. Ta-da! No more kitten using my door frames to scratch on, and it didn't cost us a cent.

Lunches

At the start of the school year, I wisely decided against getting ordinary lunch boxes for the boys. They always seem to fall apart, they're hard to clean, and they often don't hold water bottles. Besides paper, though, what other options are there?

Lots, I discovered. For my kids, we went with a reusable insulated bag, steel water bottle (Kleen Kanteen brand is my favorite), insulated water bottle covers, and reusable bags sewn by me - stepmom extraordinaire, and reusable sandwich wraps, called wrap-n-mats. Wayne uses a thermos as well.

I can throw the bags and covers in the washing machine when they get dingy. The water bottles can be run in the dishwasher. There is no waste, and this stuff can all be used next year, and possibly even after that. The water bottles will keep for years and years.

I hope to decorate the bags with patches - we tried stickers this year and they fell off quickly. The boys don't seem to mind not having the plastic stuff. I'm saving money, trees, and landfill space. It's all good.