Check out this info from Kitchen Stewardship (where Katie references an article from Natural News) :

Sodium lauryl sulfate did not start off as a detergent that was meant for use in consumer products. It was initially sold as an industrial strength detergent primarily used for heavy duty cleaners and degreasers. It is now found in products which are in close and frequent contact with human skin. The reason it is used in so many products today is that consumers have come to expect abundant lather in products that are supposed to cleanse in some way. It is one of the most largely manufactured chemicals in the United States since many companies use it as a cheap lathering agent.

The other reasons listed for sodium lauryl sulfate’s transgressions include:

1. irritates and dries out skin
2. allows toxins to penetrate
3. is toxic
4. erodes eyes, gums, and hair follicles (yep, gum disease from toothpaste and hair loss from shampoo…makes sense, right?)

So, because of these concerns, we have switched to natural body washes, and I make our own toothpaste. But I haven’t been really happy with the alternatives- the natural body washes were more expensive, even with buying them through our natural foods co-op. Plus they didn’t smell as fragrant, and of course, didn’t have the great lather we were used to. So I began thinking of alternatives.

I looked up how to make your own body wash, and it is pretty common sense: grate a bar of soap in some hot water, mix and pour into your bottle.

I have not dived into soap making yet, because to be honest, the lye part of the process scares me, so I used 2 soaps: a piece of Zum Bar soap I got from our local grocery store. (They sell in bulk in the natural section, or you can purchase regular bars). I love that they are a a local company, and their soaps are so fragrant, I actually associate the smell with health food stores)

Katie also had a bar of lavender goats milk soap she hadn’t used yet that a homeschooling friend made. She makes a wonderful variety of soaps, we even gave them as Christmas gifts last year. Her company is called Red Shed Soap company. I used this to make Katie’s body wash.

According to the recipe, for 3 ounces of soap, (grated) **you can add 1 cup of hot water. I think you can add more than that, as ours gelled up to a really thick consistency. I am happy to be saving some money, at least half off of what I was paying for body wash. And I know we are using less because of the better foaming.  Plus, I dilute it by 90 percent and use it in a foaming pump for a hand soap, so that saves even more! (Make sure you use hot water so the soap dissolves well, or it may clog your pump)

Over all I am really pleased with the ease of the process and the results. Really fragrant, body wash with great lathering at a much cheaper price. You will definitely notice a difference even in the way your skin feels. My husband said it first you might think it feels dry, but we all agree now that it just feels DIFFERENT, not dry.

Let me know if you give it a try!

** Remember the old Salad Shooter? I will never be without one in my kitchen. I use it to grate cheese (straight into freezer bags, and freeze), and I use it to grate the soap for this recipe too.

I was super excited to see this post on Crunchy Betty about making your own furniture polish, especially since I had the ingredients and could make some RIGHT AWAY! So I mixed up a batch and used it on the furniture in the living room. (Note: I actually used more olive oil than is called for, when my batch first cooled it was a little too firm for my liking. I just re-melted and used more olive oil.)

I was not impressed with the results right away. As much as I rubbed, the furniture still looked a little cloudy and streaky. I decided to wait a little while and see if things soaked in a little bit. And boy did they! My coffee and sofa tables have never gleamed like they do now!

So today, I decided to get my high chair and give it a good rub down and see if I could breathe some life into it. It took me about 20 minutes to rub it by hand into all the little nooks and crannies, and then rub it down with a micro fiber cloth, but I am super happy with the results!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       (before and after cell phone pics)

I look forward to adding this polish to my cleaning arsenal, and giving all our wood furniture a good polish every six months or so. Be sure to pop over to Crunchy Betty and grab the recipe, and check out her amazing results with her wooden bowls!

Here is a great website that lists a total of 5 foods that you can re-grow, I bet there are others too. Green onions are next on my list to try.  5 Foods

So I started going back in our photos to see if we had any good ones from this date. I realized that Feb/March are traditionally lean months for photo taking in the Wright home. I was reminded that this date is the birthday of a family friend who has gone to be with the Lord. And that we have been sick with colds on this date before.

And I re-discovered this:

On this date in 2009, I took Katie’s 11 year portraits. And while this is not the pose I chose to send to family and friends,  if I had it to do over again, I would. This is why I never delete photos- I never know how the passage of time (and technological advances) will effect how I look at my photos.

I don’t have a lot of memories of 2nd grade, but there is one that stands out to me. My teacher made green pancakes for us on St Patrick’s Day, in an electric skillet. So, years ago I thought it would be a fun thing to do for Katie, and then I thought, why not pink pancakes for Valentine’s Day?  We have had some fun with the colored pancake idea through the years. We have also done blue muffins for when her cousin Eli was born   And YES, I know food coloring is bad for us,

Now I have to tell you, as much I loved my second grade teacher, the recipe I am about to share with you is LIGHT YEARS better than a mix from a box. Do you like light fluffy pancakes with a delicate, crispy exterior? Then you are in for a treat.

My friend Darcy introduced me to the wonders of Alton Brown. We watched a couple of episodes of Good Eats online and Shane really liked his geeky science personality, Well, Alton’s pancake recipe is what I am going to share with you here today. The batter is almost a chocolate mousse consistency, and it is really my go to recipe for pancakes. (His waffle recipe is to die for too!)

This recipe makes a triple batch of the dry ingredients, you can save the remainder in a canister for next time. Click on the link below to check it out.

Alton Brown Pancake recipe

I do not subscribe to the theory that if something is natural it is worth paying more money. That actually irritates me a great deal. If you know me at all, you know that I enjoy things that are natural and inexpensive. If I can make it myself, even better.

So over the years, I have tried several different “recipes” for making my own natural, inexpensive dishwasher detergent. I have tried using borax and washing soda . Besides the fact it didn’t work well long term, I am no longer comfortable using borax in our home, especially on our dishes. I have even tried using my beloved soap nuts. But nothing worked well long term. However, I really wanted to get away from all of the phosphates and chlorine in traditional detergents,  so after reading about it on several other blogs, I finally bit the bullet and tried Biokleen Automatic Dish Powder about a year ago.

The health food store where I purchased my first container was having a sale, but still, there was some sticker shock! (Currently $11.73 on Amazon) But I figured I could try using less than the recommended amount (always a good practice with anything- cleaners, medication, etc.) We started out using 1 tbs of powder, which is half the recommended amount. We now use 1/2 tbs and are still REALLY happy with how well this works for us. Now in the interest of full disclosure, our dishes are rinsed pretty well before being put in the dishwasher, but I have read on other sites about people that have great results without rinsing.

Still, is it worth paying almost TWELVE dollars for dish soap? YES- because we use so little, we can make 1 container last almost 4 months! (I know this because I am a total geek and wrote the date we began our last container on the side). We started our current container October 19th, and we have about 4-5 more loads left.

So, I can totally justify making this switch. Not only is it SO MUCH BETTER for our health, our budget doesn’t suffer either.

It’s the first of the month, and that means it’s time to get last month’s photos backed up. Let me show you what this process looks like for me:

1. Get all photos off every memory card (including my husband and I’s phones).

2. Download them to a folder labeled with the month and year on my computer’s hard drive.

3. Tag them with keywords according to people in the photo, events, and activities.  i.e.  Katie, birthday, CoCo Key Water Park.

4.  Rate the best photos for the month to go into rotation on my digital frame.

5.  Burn the entire months photos with keywords and ratings to a DVD.

6.  Back the same photos up to a off site location. I really like Flickr.

7. LASTLY, once each of these steps is complete, format your cards and start taking photos in the new month.

I know this seems like a lot, but if you get in the habit of adding keywords each time you get photos off your memory card (which I hope is several times through out the month), the process is much quicker.

Another tip is to set your photos to burn to DVD, or upload to a backup site during a time you will be away from your computer.

Over the past few years, our family has been eating fewer processed foods, preferring to eat things that are made from scratch with natural ingredients. Pardon the pun, but it is a process, and one that I think should be taken slowly.

The slow approach is best for a couple of reasons. Even though I have a very “all or nothing” personality, I do acknowledge that when changes are made over a period of time, you are more likely to stick with those changes, and it will be easier to get others on board as well. Everything in moderation!

As you make slow changes, you can learn about WHY you are choosing  to do things like replace soda with tea or kombucha,  eat organic apples instead of ones sprayed with pesticides, and the benefits it will have on your health. It is really important that you research from multiple sources,  and understand for yourself, instead of just taking someone else recommendation.

Lastly, it just makes financial sense to change slowly. Sadly, in America, it is much cheaper to eat  chemically processed junk food, than to eat a real nourishing diet.

I will not promise you  that if you make these changes, you will instantly feel like a million bucks, or you will lose a ton of weight. But I can share with you, that when I slip up, and I have even small amounts of certain foods (non dairy whipped topping or  eat a cupcake with shortening based frosting, or meat that has fillers) my body within minutes reacts and I get a headache and don’t feel well.  So I know that even the small changes we have made are positive ones, and my body is taking notice.

To help those of you who may be interested in moving your family away from processed foods, I offer you the following 14 step plan by Lisa Leake. I saw her article in the Miami Herald posted on Facebook, and there are some wonderful baby steps you can take each week to remove processed foods from your families diet.You can read the entire article HERE

You should also check out Lisa’s blog, 100 Days of Real Food.  It is a wonderful source of real, nourishing food recipes and ideas. There is also information about  100 days of real food on a budget.

For now, here are the 14 weekly steps. I would love to hear from you if your family is going to give it a try, so please leave me a comment below.

- Week 1 (this week): Eat two fruits and/or vegetables with every single meal.

- Week 2: Only drink beverages without refined or artificial sweeteners.

- Week 3: Eat meat that’s been locally raised and limit consumption to
3 4 servings throughout the week.

- Week 4: Avoid both fast food and deep-fried foods.

- Week 5: Try two new whole foods you’ve never had before.

- Week 6: Avoid low-fat, lite and nonfat food products.

- Week 7: All grains consumed must be 100-percent whole grain.

- Week 8: Stop eating when you feel full.

- Week 9: Avoid foods with refined or artificial sweeteners.

- Week 10: Avoid foods with refined or hydrogenated oils.

- Week 11: Eat at least one locally grown or raised food at each meal.

- Week 12: Avoid all sweeteners even if they are natural.

- Week 13: Avoid foods with artificial additives and colors.

- Week 14: No foods out of a package with more than 5 ingredients.

Be sure to check out the link above for more info on the newest class, and then have some fun looking around the site, or maybe signing up for a free webinar.

****Please note: GNOWFGLINS logo used with permission, the only affiliation I have with GNOWFGLINS is that I am a very happy eCourse member  ****

I added (2) 6.5 oz cans of peanuts, a few raw almonds,  2 tbs coconut oil, and 4 tbs raw local honey and let the Ninja do its magic.

But, I really should have used the smaller food processor bowl, as the peanuts on the bottom got blended well, but I was having to scrape the sides constantly.

So I transferred the mixture over, added a bit more coconut oil, and processed it some more. And this is the end result:

I am not a true fan of peanut butter, but this is pretty good stuff. I think it may even be worthy of the strawberry jam my cousin sent for Christmas,

Now go enjoy some peanut butter (high fructose corn syrup free of course,