Category: Parenting

Is Cleaning Bad For Your Health?

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog3 Comments

**This post does contain affiliate links for products and companies that we use.

If you’ve been following along with my blog you know that I have been making changes around the house. These changes have not only been with the decluttering but also many personal changes and changes to benefit my family.

One of the biggest things I have been implementing is to bring in more natural cleaners and products into our home and getting rid of those toxin filled cleaners that so many of us use everyday. There have been so many studies and articles, like this one here, that talk about just how dangerous these cleaners are. One of these articles, click here to read, even compared daily exposure to cleaners to being as harmful as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day!

Wow! That’s so crazy but it makes me glad that I’ve been making some of the changes that I have. I know that when three of my kids first came into my life they were all on allergy, asthma, and/or ADHD medications. I had even been instructed, by the caseworker, of what to do in case of an asthma attack as well. I was scared to death as I’ve never had a child with asthma. Fortunately we never had any asthma attacks and  within the first year or two they were all off of their medications and now they don’t take any medications on a regular basis.

It seemed that many of their allergy/asthma problems had come from cleaning, or the lack of cleaning in their previous home, and the chemicals in the products that they were being exposed too when the cleaning did happen. 

I know the use of essential oils has really helped out a lot here in our home as well. I love my Simply Earth subscription and I am constantly looking up and researching new uses for them and new recipes to use for my family and around the house. I’ve probably mentioned oils to all of my friends and family and I know some of them have started dabbling in the oils as well.

Y’all also know how much I love my cleaning and hygiene products that I get from Grove Collaborators and The Honest Company but money has been a bit tight here lately as I’ve had some doctor bills to pay off. I haven’t had a lot of extra money coming in either as I really haven’t felt much like blogging or promoting anything. So when a friend of mine told me about a shopping club that offers a 30-50% discount on supplies, that I am already buying, I was interested. When I found out that this company had over 400 all natural products, including essential oils, that are made right here in the USA I was really interested and decided to check it out.

I’m sure that I’ll be sharing some of these products with you all soon as I’ve placed my first order just today. I placed an order for the ‘customer favorites’ so I can get a variety of different products to try. I’m excited to see how these compare to what I’ve been using. Being able to make a ‘one stop shop’ was so convenient as well and if I like these products this will save me money in the future too. The company has been in business for over 30 years and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee or your money back. Can’t beat that. Not to mention that they also have several other ‘perks’ for preferred customers. (Right now, through June 30, 2018, I can help you sign up for only $1.00!)

Well, I’ve gotta go get some dinner started as the kids are starting to sound like ravenous T-Rexes and they are ready to eat just about anything in sight. I think we’ll be making some Oven Fried Chicken (not really healthy, I know), Vegetable Casserole, and maybe some ‘Smushed Taters‘ which is a new recipe I saw recently.

Hope you all are having a blessed day!

Almost Mid Year Progress

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

 

Hey y’all,  guess what day it is… just kidding! It is a Wednesday here and that means the middle of our week. It is June also so we are not quite but almost halfway through 2018! Crazy, right? Where has time gone? I am sitting here enjoying a rare quiet moment as the kids are still sleeping. So many things are going through my head and there is so much to do. I’ve got some Chocolate Chip Muffins in the oven for breakfast, a cup of coffee, and a couple of delicious cookies from last night sitting here with me.

I’ve spent the last few minutes trying to figure out why my mouse wasn’t working. It was turned on and the red light kept coming on but my laptop wasn’t responding at all. Hmmmm….. then I remembered that I had put the little do-hickey thingamabog, you know the USB thingy, into my old laptop when I was working on the newsletter for our square dance clubs… duh! Silly me, but now it’s where it needs to be and all is good.

Continue reading “Almost Mid Year Progress” →

Living Room Kleaning Missions: Weekly Wrap Up

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog4 Comments

Oh my what a week! We definitely didn’t make as much progress as I had thought we would but that’s ok. Our house and family has benefited from what we have done and it shows.

If you missed the mid week progress you can check it out here.

This post does contain a lot of screen shots from Pinterest. Feel free to check out my boards to find the links to these posts. There may also be a few affiliate links sprinkled throughout the post as well.

Day 3

Part of the lack of progress is my pure lack of motivation/laziness. Not to mention my recent obsession with Pinterest. If you follow me then you know what I’m talking about. So many ideas!

I am also a planner. I like to know what I’m doing, when I’m doing it, and how I’m doing it. When you have limited space (with a lot of stuff) it’s especially important when to think things through before rearranging and moving things around.

I’ve been obsessed with a couple of projects and I have a notebook full of ideas and sketches. A big part of the day was spent trying to figure out how to re-purpose some items we currently have into a new area. I’m hoping to be posting about this project in a few weeks. Continue reading “Living Room Kleaning Missions: Weekly Wrap Up” →

Finding My Motivation When The Pep Talks Don’t Work

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

It’s another semi gloomy day here. Yesterday I wrote a post about what we had accomplished last week. While I was happy with what we had accomplished I was hoping that we had been able to get more done but I just didn’t have the gumption to do anything more over the weekend.

Then comes this morning. I laid in bed trying to find some motivation but it just wasn’t coming. I really felt pretty lazy today and the kids did too so I let them sleep in a bit. I crawled back in bed after getting dressed which didn’t help my motivation at all.

Finally after trying to give myself some pep talks about how much better I’d feel once I got a couple things done I managed to roll out of bed and head to the kitchen. I made a cup of coffee and fixed everyone some French Toast for breakfast.

Then it was off to start on chores. I really didn’t feel like doing any of those either. I pulled out my phone and started checking off my tasks on my FlyLady app.

One of my first tasks was to do my morning reading. I’m not sure where or when I got this book but it has been very helpful for various situations that I have dealt with lately.

Then it was off to the bedroom to fix the bed and gather the dirty laundry that had accumulated over the weekend while I was sick. Immediately I felt defeated because of how my room looked.

Even though I had spent the better part of last week in this room it really didn’t look like it this morning. I spent about 10 minutes and had the room tidied back up and put away EVERYTHING that didn’t belong, including the vacuum cleaner.

This past month’s missions have been a big effort to get all like items together in the same area. This goal is still a work in progress but it is coming along and we are seeing some great results. Just realizing this was a bit of a motivator to get me up and going.

With a load of laundry in the wash I set about getting to the other items on the list like cleaning the bathroom. Boy did it need a good cleaning! I also filled the oil diffusers and that in itself improved a lot. By this time it was almost time for lunch which was some leftover hamburgers and pasta salad from yesterday.

I went ahead and put some chicken thighs and Italian dressing in the crockpot for dinner later. I pulled out a box of Success Quinoa I had received as a trial and pulled out some frozen rolls so they could rise. With dinner taken care of I set about taking care of some of the weekly and monthly tasks on my list like wiping out the fridge and microwave and then cleaning the AC filters.

My morning was gone and my list still had quite a bit of tasks to complete so I finished the most important ones and then off to tackle a couple of missions in the Main Room.

I still wasn’t completely motivated to tackle any new missions though so I took a quick break. The kids and I stepped out to the porch to feed the fish. We really do enjoy watching the fish and the turtles come up to nibble on the bread. After a few minutes I headed out to the wash shed to swap a load of laundry and then the rain started again.

Just a quick break was what I needed before starting in the Main Room.Instead of looking at the whole room, which serves as a living room/dining room/home school area/and more, I am going to break it down into smaller sections like I did with the kitchen. Hopefully that will help me get this room organized and more functional for us.

I also know that our upcoming project will help out with the way this room functions as well so just thinking about that does give me a little bit of the motivation I am so desperately needing. Check back in later this week for a review of the progress we’ve made and some of the activities we’ve done this week.

Praying you all have a blessed week!

My self pep talks may not have worked as well as I’d hoped but I did get up and get started. I really don’t know why this decluttering/cleaning has been so hard for me lately but I’m determined to get it done.

If something just doesn’t seem to motivate you then find a way to make it easier. Once you get started then you’ll feel better about finishing the task at hand.

Cabin Fever

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

WARNING: This post is probably one of my whiniest, depressing, and just gloomy posts ever!

I think we’ve all heard of Cabin Fever but maybe you haven’t really ever had to deal with it. I know the term gets thrown around here and there but actually experiencing it is no fun at all.  It is described as:

cab·in fe·ver

noun

NORTH AMERICANinformal
noun: cabin fever
  1. irritability, listlessness, and similar symptoms resulting from long confinement or isolation indoors during the winter.

Well, this past week and weekend I have had a horrible case of it even though winter has passed. (I’ve also come down with a bit of a cold after taking the boys to the doctor and I haven’t felt very well.) It has been raining, raining, and raining like crazy and we’ve been stuck in the house quite a bit.

Then when we do go out we are usually headed to a dance and dodging mud puddles with dance shoes and crinolines on is not a whole lot of fun.  (I don’t really know why it has been so bad right now as I’ve spent many a week or more snowed in when we lived up north and I don’t ever remember dealing with Cabin Fever to this extreme.) Continue reading “Cabin Fever” →