Homemade Goo Gone

Mason jars are mad popular on Pinterest.

Seriously, if you've spent more than 5 minutes browsing through Pinterest, chances are—amid the mustaches, baby pictures, wedding photos, and Nutella recipes—you'll see at least 6 pins featuring Mason jars. 

I love them, too, because I think storing pantry staples and greens in a Mason jar is a much more attractive option than a frumpy zip-top bag or dirty Tupperware container. And when your pantry and fridge are attractive, doesn't that make cooking (and eating) more enjoyable? 

But we don't have room in our budget for a pallet (Ooh! Pallet crafts!) of Mason jars...especially when you can get the same thing (basically free) from your recycling bin. 

I have now saved about 5 glass containers that held everything from pasta sauce to maple syrup. The only problem is the labels. Not only do they look ugly, they keep you from seeing what's inside and mentally throw you off when trying to take "what should we make for dinner" inventory. 

The solution? Homemade Goo Gone!

Chicken Apple Sausage

I'm so proud of myself, guys. I developed this recipe on my very own!

It was inspired by a recent trip to Cape Cod. (Sandwich, Massachusetts, to be exact. Yes, that is the real name of the town.) A breakfast place we went to offered chicken apple sausage instead of regular sausage, which always thrills us. We LOVE sausage, but no longer eat pork. You wouldn't believe how few places have turkey or chicken sausage on the menu. Even Publix's chicken sausage is stuffed into a pork casing.

I came home from that trip with total culinary inspiration and whipped up a batch of chicken apple sausage patties for dinner the other night. I took one bite and was SO proud of myself!

Do DIY Cleaning Products Really Work?

I like to think I hit a healthy medium when it comes to being "green." I drive an SUV (not even a hybrid one), but I get on my husband's case a bit for wasting paper towels and foil. So when it comes to cleaning, I'm all about DIY cleaning products because they're cheap and the ingredients are readily available. The whole "non-toxic" thing is an added bonus. But more important to me is cleanliness. After all, if you're not getting your house clean, does it really matter how much money you're saving?

Somehow, I stumbled onto Melissa Maker's blog over at CleanMySpace.com. And lemme tell ya. This lady knows her stuff. She actually owns a cleaning company in Toronto, but decided to put her expertise on the web where everyone can benefit. I trusted the cleaning maven to tell me that DIY products were the bee's knees, but also wanted to try it out for myself.

DIY Laundry Detergent

I realize I'm probably the last Pinterester on the planet to tackle the project of making my own laundry detergent, but if you've ever researched it yourself, you'll forgive me. There are a TON of laundry detergent (sorry, laundry soap) recipes out there, and each of them had their pitfalls. I got so confused and frustrated over the couple of days (yes, days) it took me to sift through the information (and I'm still probably missing out on something). So, to make it easier on you, I broke down my search into manageable bites.

How to Create a Cleaning Schedule that Works for You

Now that I have a lot more free time on my hands and needing to be distracted from my internal monologue (that's another post for another day), I came up with my own little cleaning schedule. If you're a Pinterest addict like me, you'll have seen one or two of these. They're all different, but basically the idea is that every day you have a small list of things to clean in your house that allows you to cycle through a week or month and keep your house sparking and shiny.

These are great, but the problem I kept coming across was having the schedule not apply to my house. Besides, in a house with only two people, I found a lot of the "daily" tasks a little excessive. We don't need to vacuum every day or take out the trash every day. So I decided to make my own. I'll include my list below, but first I wanted to show you how to do your own. I found a ton of different cleaning schedules, but nothing with a tutorial.