Our Beginning with Green Living

My second child was 4 months old, in the ER examination room, struggling to breathe.  My husband was in denial when they decided to admit her.  "I think they are short patients and drumming up business.  She doesn't need to be admitted," he told me.  I was so very sad.  I couldn't believe we were doing this again.  My firstborn's short life had been filled with hospital stays, lots of prescriptions, and many allergies.

At four months old my daughter's entire body was covered in bumps (eczema) and a few places were constantly scabbing over and bloody.  She refluxed constantly and was a very unhappy baby.  She had several loose bowel movements a day that poured out of her diaper and burned her bottom.  She had open sores on her bottom too.  I changed her sheets numerous times a day due to the diaper leaks.  Now she was being hospitalized with asthma. 

We already had a medical baseline allowance with our electric company because of the constant use of the nebulizer for my son (up to 7 times a day for both Pulmicort and Albuterol).  The doctor said it was a lifetime condition when she signed the baseline allowance form and checked the lifetime (no need to be renewed) box.  The medicines and mainstream medical approaches did nothing to help my son get better.  We just spent a lot of time with the nebulizer and he suffered the side affects from the medicines.  I had always listened to and followed the advice of my mainstream doctors so I had felt hopeless that their solution wasn't working.
Recently, however, I had been able to stop all my son's asthma meds by putting him on a diet free from his food intolerances and by giving him supplements to support his immune system.  A specialist had done blood tests to tell me what foods to eliminate and what supplements to give based on his allergy panel and blood work showing vitamin and mineral deficiencies.  I had also been starting to research how to make our home environment and food as non toxic as possible.  Finally something was helping my son get stronger and healthier!

When they released my daughter from the hospital the next afternoon, with several prescriptions and a nebulizer, I knew what I was going to do.  I promised myself I would use the nebulizer IF she started wheezing again but would first try and prevent wheezing with the same protocol I had used for my son.  And she hasn't needed a nebulizer since that hospital stay at 4 months!  No meds.  No wheezing! 

It has been a long journey, but now, just finishing her Kindergarten year, she is a happy, healthy girl who was recently awarded an academic excellence medal at her school's award ceremony.

This blog will discuss the many things we are committed to, as a family, to be as healthy as we can be!  Healing comes from God and I believe with all my heart He is the reason for the healing I've seen in my children's lives.  That being said, He has used some interesting methods to bring that healing about:)  I am committed to praying and asking God to guide us each day.  You may be surprised when you read where that has taken us.

How I Got Here...A Dirty Chair and a Smart Husband

People have been telling me that I should start a blog.  I never thought I should, however, because most of the things they thought I should post about (our green journey and discoveries) were all created or discovered by someone else.  But yesterday, my wonderful husband thrilled me by cleaning our dirty, leather bar stools (which were uncleanable!!) with a creation of vinegar and baking soda paste.  And I thought--I need to start a blog.  Because this kind of thing happens all the time and it may help someone else.  And that would be cool.  So here is my first entry:

Our kids eat at least one meal a day at matching bar stools in our kitchen.  These bar stools are white leather (I know, bad decision) and have gotten filthy.  And I faithfully try to clean them with whatever is in my homemade cleaner arsenal.  Because the kids are going to be sitting on them, touching them with their fingers, and then touching their food and probably their mouths.  So I wouldn't use anything toxic to clean them  (But I did try Windex in a moment of weakness and then wiped it down with water afterwards).  Long story short--nothing has worked.  Probably 7 different cleaners and the bar stools looked yucky and I thought probably the white paint on the leather had worn away and maybe they had to have this look forever.  Unless I used leather polish which wasn't going to happen.

Tim poured baking soda in a canning jar and added vinegar.  Luckily it was in the sink because it did that "volcano" thing and poured out foam a bit.  He mixed it and added baking soda until it was a honey consistency.  Then he poured some of the liquid/paste on the chair and used an old sponge to rub it around.  Very quickly, without much effort, the dirt lifted away.  I wish I would have taken a before picture but I didn't got the blog idea until he started cleaning.

Here is during:

And here is after:

Once they dried they had a bit of a gritty residue but that easily wiped off with a rag.  I am thrilled!

He has also used this cleaner to get dirt stains off the floor in our shower.  These stains were there when we moved into the house and I tried all sorts of things--even scrubbing with bleach, which I don't keep in the house anymore.  Nothing worked until this applied with a scrub brush.  It is crazy to me what you can do with cheap, safe ingredients.  Works on the kitchen sink's stains too!

Moneysaver:  I buy my vinegar and baking soda at Costco in huge containers.

Next time I'll talk about how I became an accidental green mama!