The bug finally hit me.....

The bug finally hit me.....the spring cleaning bug. I was wandering online and came across a site for making organic stuff to clean your house with and this woman said use olive oil and lemon juice to polish your furniture. I didn't like her amts tho and like always tweaked it to what I like.

I often buy essential oils to keep around the house for healing and cleaning. Tea tree and grapefruit seed extract are great for bathrooms. Lavender in water is awesome for linens and helps you sleep. But I mix orange oil with my baking soda to clean my kitchen counters and my ceramic topped stove. Its not abrasive like other cleaners and the orange oil helps kill germs. Baking soda helps neutralize odors too.

So today I decided to try a tiny bit of olive oil and some orange oil to polish my oak table with. I loved it! It cleans it really good and leaves a nice shine. But all I have here is extra virgin olive oil and I sure didn't want to use that to clean with. Its too expensive but I did want to use a natural oil. I remembered some sesame oil I bought from an herb place on sale. I ordered it thinking it was a good deal and also thought it was toasted sesame oil. I was wrong..... I like toasted for cooking and oriental dishes. This wasn't so I didn't know what to do with it. I put it on the shelf in my garage.

Today I remembered I had that. Its a nice neutral oil, its organic and its just sitting there. That woman's recipe said to use lemon juice. Well right now I have a ton of Meyer lemons begging to be used for something, on my tree outside. So I picked a few and made my own polish. I used the juice of 1 lemon, strained, added some orange essential oil too....maybe half tsp. and added sesame oil. I whisked it all together but didn't like that it was so waterery. I wanted a creamy polish, sort of like a creamy salad dressing. So I did what I used to do in the restaurant when I made mayonnaise. I just kept adding oil till it got to the consistency I liked. This used about 1/3 of a 16oz. bottle.

I think from now on Ill be making my own polish. Its safer, healthier and uses stuff I have on hand. You don't have to add the essential oil if you don't want too. I buy my essential oils in bulk on Ebay tho. They last a very long time kept in a dark place. I remembered I had some fragrance oils too. And so I decided to make some potpourri to put around the house.

This house has been stinky winter stale. I haven't been inspired to do a darn thing around here. I remember one day last week my bf opened the windows and aired the house out and I felt better. I also remembered that I always had seasonal potpourris around that I make myself. Ive just stopped doing all that cuz of this move. And so today I decided ,screw the moving I'm gonna still live in my house. I buy in bulk those crystals that you add water too, for houseplants. You know those that hold alot to keep watering your plants when you forget? I add liquid potpourri or fragrance oils or essential oils to water and pour it over a tsp. or so of those crystals. I keep adding till the crystals are big and have absorbed about all they can. Then I put spoonfuls in covered pretty containers to put around the house.

When I want the house to smell fresh I just take the covers off awhile and let the fragrance wander thru the house. Right now my senses are overwhelmed tho lol. Ive been busy polishing and the crystals were busy absorbing and that fragrance (rose with a touch of orange) has taken over the house! And so I stopped cleaning to put that stuff in containers before the scent kills me here lolol. But at least now the house smells nice and I'm inspired to do my spring cleaning.