Convenience Cleaning

I know many of you are sufficiently virtuous to be immune to the Clorox wipe/Swiffer phenomenon, while others of you are insufficiency neurotic to be upset by it. Many of you, however, are like me: you love this stuff, but can't really get behind it. I go through periods of green kitchen obsession during which I just can't ignore the fact that they are toxic, non-biodegradable, gratuitously disposable, and just really excessive. Method does have a biodegradable version, but they're not as effective as they could be, and they're still, you know, a disposable product where none is needed.

I found many, many complex directions online for making your own disposable wipes. I finally decided, however, that mine needn't actually be disposable. I do like having something at the ready, no spray bottle necessary, pre-moistened and all. But I discovered that my scrap basket could furnish some delightful little cleansing cloths, trimmed with pinking shears to keep the fray down. I wet them with all purpose spray and keep them in a jar. I pull one out each morning, wipe down the bathroom, and toss it in the hamper. Or at least I do that during the weeks when I'm actually following my cleaning regime.
You can do the same general kind of thing with your Swiffer, using the Swiffer cloths as a pattern. Cut several rectangles from microfiber or terrycloth and store them wet in a jar, or just spritz the floor with all purpose spray as you run over it. Method also has its Omop, which is basically a swiffer but with a microfiber pad that velcros on and that you can rinse out in the sink and eventually throw in the washer.

And I get to make it all smell like peppermint with a little essential oil.

Loose on the Follow Through

It's the middle of July... So much for May being housekeeping month. My attitude toward cleaning was reflected in this project of mine; I have the best of intentions, but when I lose interest, I give it up altogether.

But I cleaned the kitchen today, and have had a renewal of enthusiasm; I'm back to it and would like to discuss cleaning products with you all. I'm on a constant search for the perfect products. My qualifications are as follows:

1. I'm not happy if I can't eat all the cleaning products in the house. I'm a total toxiphobe. It's really important to me that if the cats lick out the toilet after I'm done cleaning it, they won't foam at the mouth and die.

2. This happily corresponds with general greenness. I'd like my products to be low impact on the environment as well.

3. I can't smell much, but for some reason I can smell many cleansing products. So, since I'm having an olfactory experience, I want it to be positive.

4. It'd also be nice if they were effective.

I keep jars of scented baking soda in each quadrant of the house and use it for cleaning almost everything, from the dishwasher to the rugs to my hair. I'm pretty convinced all one really needs for cleaning is baking soda and a good all-purpose spray, with vinegar for serious disinfecting.

I would really like to make an all-purpose cleanser myself. That way I really know what's in it, can control the scent, and put it in a pretty container. Plus it's so empowering to permanently cross something off the "Stuff We Buy at Target" list. I have plenty of recipes, but honestly I have a real problem with the scent of vinegar. I'm in search of the perfect non-vinegar based all-purpose spray recipe, so if any of you have one, let me know. In the meantime, the photo above is of some scented vinegars curing...

And I'm still buying my spray at the store. I've done a lot of research on Method and Mrs. Meyers. They seem a little too good to be true, but everything I've found suggests they're actually quite environmentally sound and safe. And they sure do smell good. They produce a lot of unnecessary products with quite a bit of packaging, but if you are going to buy a counter-cleansing wipe, Method's are a lot sounder than Clorox's.

So please, dear friends, I know many of you are sounder cleaners than I. Anybody have the secret key to the perfect all-purpose spray?

Baby Gifties

My sweet sister-in-law, Emily, lives on a farm in rural Alabama with horses, pigs, goats, chickens, moonshine, and antique tractors; the whole nine yards. And she's busy brewing a baby boy, to be born before fall. She pointed out some fabrics she liked a few months back when we were all visiting Spokane, and I snapped them up and just completed a little layette for nephew-to-be.
These onesies were very simple and satisfying; I cut the images out of the fabric Emily chose, glued them down with fabric glue to prevent excessive fraying, and when they dried I machine-sewed them for strength. I pick up second-hand onesies for a dollar at resale stores around here for this purpose, and made them in all different sizes, with different farm animals.
I used the same fabric for this, my favorite of these projects. It's a changing pad to stow in the diaper bag. Unrolled it looks like this:It's soft, cushy, waterproof, and rolls up little. I'm so pleased with the design!

These flannel receiving blankets edged with quilting cotton are one of my favorite easy baby gifts. In this case, it's three different John Deere prints. I actually keep yards and yards of flannel on hand to make these with. I buy five or ten yards whenever I end up with a coupon for a single cut.
And finally, I made three sweet little flannel burp cloths and a waterproof pouch to keep them in. I bought the waterproof fabric on etsy to line the changing pad with, and it's great. Very satisfyingly orange, and just seems like twill on the outside. I don't know what it's made out of. It was a cut somebody had lying around and decided to sell.

I'm pleased with these collection of gifts, and can't wait to try out variations. So gentle readers: have babies.

Back, With a Mustache

Yes, it's been a very long time. I've been traveling most recently, but really it's not excuse. I do mean to return to blogging. I've been encouraged by all you dear friends who have contacted me over email; I had no idea my readership was bigger than the five people who comment. I'm excited to find that it is.

The mustaches: totally ripped off from etsy. But awesome. I made them out of reinforced felt and glued popsicle sticks onto them. Real popsicle sticks. I made Scott eat a bunch of popsicles. They were a gift for Josh for his birthday. He does have a mustache of his own, mind you, but it seemed like options would be nice.

Here's everyone looking a bit dodgy.

And Mary looking entirely sinister. It's amazing what the right facial hair will do.

I intend to make some more of these for the children on my Christmas list. Excellent stocking stuffers!

Happy Father's Day!

My wonderful father is an explorer, a naturalist, a writer, an artist, a story teller, and one of the most creative people I know.

Scott and I walked through the house, photographing just a few of the lovely objects my father has created for us, like this table, destined eventually for the living room, currently holding a few little starts from my mother on the front porch. The sticks leaning against it are his doing too, left behind after a visit, the sort of interesting detritus he sheds.
The spoons he carved some years ago, during his spoon-carving phase. They are one of my favorite things. There is much power in knowing that the simplest objects of every day life were created by the hands of someone you love. My father taught me the magic in forming relationships to the things in our lives, and also in the little leap of faith it takes to attempt to create these things, practical things, ourselves. It is so meaningful to make a spoon, a bowl, something useful, something you can't really live without. This kind of simple self-sufficiency is so often forgotten, and enriches our human experience if we remember to develop it. I also learned from my father how to make a stew out of bees if I am lost in the wilderness. I prefer the spoon carving, though I haven't actually tried either.
And then there are the spirit-objects, which fall from his fingers like flowers in the fairy tales. These two masks were gifts to Scott a few years ago, and are among the most treasured belongings we have. A Pan-like dancing philosopher, and Scott's favorite, a wind-god.


To my chagrin I couldn't find any of his beautiful boxes in our house. One gets lost in their tiny mystical detail. Broken and lost objects come together to reveal their strange affinities, to show off the new hidden worlds created. I don't have any on hand. Because they are fragile, ephemera, with a tendency to last only so long. That is something my father taught me too: to value the making, the process, the risk of creation, to ignore practical concerns if they in any way confound creativity.

He taught me to be scrappy, inventive, tough, and resourceful, to believe in magic, and to be unafraid to create structurally unsound objects. To see the endless potential in the things other people overlook, to pull things out of dumpsters, that a few hours in the freezer purifies almost anything, to save the tiny bones of smashed creatures, and to climb over the fence at the zoo for the really good feathers. He taught me to ignore boundaries with deep sensitivity, and to see all the world as an invitation to create and to play. He gave me language which is for both of us the first and deepest and hardest medium, and he taught me also to never confine myself to the arts I succeed easily in.

When I asked him a month ago if he happened to have a round table top no more than three feet across that I could have, he magically produced one from the basement. That's the kind of dad he is. Thank you, Daddy, for all the building and the playing and most of all for the wisdom about living you have shared with me. And the endless love.

A Letter To My BFF

Dear Mary (FMC),

I already have.

But.

Once you told me that your extraordinary mother said that when she looked at you and your siblings she saw you simultaneously at all the ages you had been. When she spoke to you at thirty, she spoke also to a twelve year old you, and that seventeen year old and three year old, and perhaps a projected future you that she saw glimmerings of as well.

And so it is when I think of your hair. I see with equal clarity the surprising purity of your blond when we met fifteen years ago, blond all the way down your back to the abrupt edge that the man at the UFO museum said identified you as an East Coaster, blond, though you said the Portland water made it green, for years until after a ballgown-wearing party you cut it off and wore it like straw for awhile, and then intermediate years when the hemline of your hair dipped and withdrew gently, a quiet breathing, until you put on a red wig and met your future husband; then your hair turned red all of a sudden and stayed for years, and twisty hot curlers appeared in our lives for the first time; at your wedding the slant across your forehead; and then the lightening again, the paling of red toward blond; and I left you there, a little bit of bang cut when I saw you last I know, but the color, the length, a little indistinct.

So my dear friend, it happens that I'm not positive about the look of your hair. But let's say it is due to such sweet familiarity. And I'll bet you're not sure about mine either. How good it is to love.

Here you are, and Josh:
And here you are, pictured with a gigantic allergen:

And here, my artistic interpretation of you being bowled over by kitty allergies:
Love to you.

The Blossom of Someone Else's Labor

Hello peonies! You all were right: the ant covered buds were peonies indeed. The most histrionic of flowers. They're so marvelously overblown, so slutty, really. I am enjoying them a great deal, in all their mauve splendor. I am finding that whoever planted the garden here really went for shades of pink and purple.

The hydrangea:
The camelia:
The roses:

I am personally a red and orange kind of person, with a little blue. Poppies and bachelor's buttons! Begonia and lobelia! Geranium and lithadora!

However, when blessed with a harvest like this, I might come around.