Kitchen Fresh-y

I've learned a new thing from my friend Lindsay.

Lindsay keeps her home so neat and clean. One thing she does; keeps one of her kitchen sinks about half full of water, cleaning solution and a rag. Anytime there is a spill, such as after breakfast, lunch or dinner, she can quickly wipe it clean. The cleaning solution keeps the kitchen smelling fresh as well. :)

The solution she uses is Pine Sol and water.

I'm basically using the home made cleaner that Dr Oz recommends for "chemical free" cleaning, but I increase the amounts because I'm using more water. (I really sort of eyeball it. lol). Here are the basic ingredients. These proportions below are for using in a spray bottle for household cleaning:

Mix together
1 tbsp of Borax powder (find it in the laundry aisle of your supermarket)
3 tbsps of white vinegar
2 cups of water
1 tablespoon of dish soap (I use a nicely scented dish soap like lavender, or Dr Bonner's pure castle liquid peppermint soap, that way I don't have to get the next ingredient!)
1 drop of essential oil such as peppermint for fragrance (optional)

Long night...What's That Smell???

It is always a long night for me when husband has to pull the all night-er at the hospital. For some reason I just can't sleep as well when he is not here.

He called me early this morning to bring him something he needed up to the office. He will be there to finish out his shift until about noon today. But when he called, he was so shaken.

Please pray for him. They received a young girl into the hospital that was about 9 yrs old. She looked almost exactly like our daughter. This girl was brought in because she was found unresponsive. She had been a healthy and happy little girl with no medical issues prior to this. The doctors were not able to revive her, and they are doing an autopsy on her to find out the cause of death. He does not talk with me at all about patients, but this one shook him up so much that he has been crying all morning in his office.

Sometimes he sees a lot of really hard stuff in the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit)

On a lighter note...for the past few days I've been asking everyone in our household, "What's that smell???"

There is something quite smelly to me in our kitchen area (I can even faintly smell it while sitting in our living room-but that is not saying much b/c our apartment is small)!

I've noticed it for a couple of days now. I seem to be the only person in our household who notices it!! It is a musty/moldy kind of stinky organic type smell. I've cleaned out the refrigerator since Christmas, so we are clear there. I looked under the sink to see if there was any kind of leak...clear there. It is driving me bonkers because I can definitely smell something!

We've had rain the past couple of days. Wonder if it is a leak somewhere, but I don't see any leaks in our ceiling.

Anyway, I hope I can figure this it out soon because this morning it seems worse. Ugh! The smell is making me sick! I'm just wondering if "Despero" has crawled off somewhere in the walls and died....EEEwwww! My son just came down, and he does not smell it. Then again, most of the time the men in my house don't smell the stink. hehe