Monday, August 16, 2010

This Might Seem Strange

*Note* I think I turned what was supposed to be a few sentences into several paragraphs, so if you want to skip right to the point, go down to the 5th paragraph. =]

In case I haven't already mentioned this a billion times, I'm vegetarian. Oh and I live in the south. You may ask how I get by each day with out being asked how I can live without bacon. Well, the answer is that I don't.

Ok, it's not that bad, but I do get many astonished looks down here. But, I digress. The reason for my none meat-eatingness is not about animals at all actually. I'm not in PETA. I'm not vegan. The fact is, I never liked meat that much in the first place.



One fateful day my junior year of high school, I just up and decided I wasn't going to eat meat anymore. I'd been wanting to try it for a long time so I finally took the chance. I never intended to keep it up, it was just supposed to be a 3 or 4 week deal. However, once I started I couldn't stop. You see, I'd been suffering several years with stomach pains and I had no idea what was causing them. I went to many doctors and none could figure out what the problem was. I had blood work done and several tests, but to no avail. I kept food journals and discovered it was not lactose-intolerance.


Well, after becoming vegetarian, those mysterious stomach pains completely vanished! Poof! Gone! I know that it seems odd, but that's the way it went down. So, I never ate meat again and I've been a pretty happy person. I know that it doesn't work for everyone and I actually don't usually recommend it to people because it's pretty hard to pick up at first. As in, I don't eat doritos all day and call myself vegetarian. I have to think about what I'm going to eat each day and make choices so that I can get all my vitamins in and get enough protein. But I do all that and it makes me happy.

I don't know why I felt compelled to give that whole backstory there, but I did... The real reason for this entry is to talk about a new cleaning method that I discovered and am amazed by. When people find out I'm vegetarian, they usually ask if I'm a hippie (or some question similar to that and yes, they are joking). No, I'm not a hippie, but in addition to my veggieness, I also recycle and I'm pretty into green cleaning products. Again, it works for me and it makes me happy. So for anyone up for a green cleaning tip, read on:

Ever since I got the house and therefore have been doing my own laundry, I have been using Seventh Generation laundry soap/detergent/whatever you want to call it. I absolutely love it and think it makes my clothes smell wonderful. I also use Seventh Generation products for cleaning my counters and Mrs. Meyers toilet cleaner for well, toilets. These products have served me very well, however, I hadn't found anything good for cleaning the tubs in the house. I'd tried one product and it worked ok. Actually it worked less than ok...


So today, I was fed up and just had to do something so I googled 'eco friendly tub cleaner' or something to that effect and I went to the first site that came up. The site told me that I could halve a lemon, put salt on it and rub it on the tub. I was kind of skeptical, but I always have lemons here and who doesn't have salt at their place? Soooo I gave it a go. And guess what guys.... It worked!!!


I rubbed the lemon around and everything came right off and then I just wiped it up afterward. I was pretty impressed by this revelation in cleaning and thought I would pass it on to you fine folks. If you already knew about this, then you should have already told me!

And I'm really not a hippie.

2 comments:

Susan R said...

I'm going to go try this right now. Even if I don't get the result you did, I know my tub will smell great. Who doesn't love the scent of lemons? Oddly enough, I used to eat salt and lemons as a snack growing up. I have no idea where or how that came to be.
So is Eric a vegetarian too? If not I would imagine that to be difficult.
I'm afraid I would be haunted by my ancestors if I tried to go vegetarian.....I come from a long line of cattle ranchers. I'll email you my leek and butternut soup recipe. It's sooooo good and I have to pat myself on the back because I came up with the recipe on my own.

Susan R said...

Sorry, I don't have your email address, I'll post it on my blog.