Legacy Of Clean Product Review

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Ali

I’ve been trying to make the switch over to more natural cleaning products for a while and trying to replace them with more natural options, but hadn’t really found what I was looking for until recently. My friend Rhiannon told me about her Amway “Legacy of Clean” products and I was really interested in trying them out. She sent me a box of stuff to sample and I am totally sold. They make their cleaning products out of safe, effective ingredients and unlike many of the ‘green’ products I’ve tried they actually do a good job! I’ve tried several ‘green cleaners’ and ended up needing to put twice as much elbow grease into it just to get the same result as I’ve been getting with the Legacy of Clean products, and it does it all without the nasty harmful stuff that makes your lungs hurt when you inhale any of it on accident.

As their website puts it- “LEGACY OF CLEAN family-friendly, planet-positive products are sustainable, featuring naturally derived ingredients for better cleaning results – and concentrated formulas. So rest assured, while you’re making things cleaner, safer, and brighter at home, you’re doing the same for the planet with LEGACY OF CLEAN laundry and cleaning products.”

Kitchen/All Purpose Wipes: They are good for smaller messes, and I found that I could even give it a quick rinse and reuse it- they smell nice, too! I found them to work really well around the stove where it ends up being a bit greasy- the citrus cuts through the grease and it got a lot of nasty stuff off of the stove-fan (yeah, I forgot to clean it for a while. Ew.) But my favorite use for them so far is in the bathroom too, I don’t mind using something disposable on things like the toilet where I can wipe it down and then just throw it away! (Especially while we were potty training…. yeah.) And now I’m gonna show you my shoes. Just what you expected, right? Well, this was literally a 10 second wipe down of my Converse.

Not too shabby, eh? I was impressed- worked better on it than a Magic Eraser!

Kitchen Spray Cleaner: This may be my favorite product of the Legacy of Clean line- and doesn’t leave a gross residue after you wipe it up like most cleaning sprays I’ve tried. Like the wipes, they work really well on cutting grease, and also just do a really good job of getting your counters and sink really clean and don’t smell toxic and nasty.

Scrub Buds: These are fantastic for pots and pans! And the best part- they don’t rust like steel wool does, and they do a really good job of getting really cooked on gunk off of things like my cast iron enamel cookware. And apparently, if you have a dishwasher, you can clean them in there- handy, huh?

Dish Drops Soap: A fantastic accompaniment to the Scrub Buds- a nice, sudsy soap that cuts through grease well and also rinses super clean so you don’t get spots on glassware. Also, it’s super easy on your skin and has aloe vera in it, which is great- my skin needs all the help it can get these days, especially in the winter!

Laundry Detergent: I’m kind of picky about my laundry detergent, since we do cloth diapering (Well, did until we potty trained last month, and we are planning on cloth diapering again when little girl makes her appearance) and I don’t like to use stuff with scents and such that cause buildup in cloth. We’ve been using it for about a month and I have absolutely no complaints! (We had been using Charlie’s Soap before) Sam’s clothes get pretty gross (being a 2 yr old boy and all) and the color-safe bleach in the SA8 Supreme detergent does a great job of getting the grime out of his clothes.

Bathroom Spray Cleaner: A great alternative to bathroom cleaners, without all of the nasty fumes- works great with soap scum and hard water film (We have horribly hard water here in Moscow, so this has been great in the shower!) and it’s super affordable- which is great because I find myself cleaning the bathroom a lot more often because this stuff smells great (citrusy!).

Whew, sorry- that was a bit word heavy! Basically, I am really impressed- and honestly with green cleaners I tend to have a bit of skepticism, so I was definitely surprised at how much I liked them. And it doesn’t hurt that I really like their packaging. I am a total sucker for good logos and nice looking packaging. If you want to order any of the Legacy of Clean products (which, you definitely should), just click on through to here and get some!

*All opinions here are my own. I was provided with Amway cleaning products to review and to test, but all opinions are my own and I do not promote products that I do not personally use or believe in!*

Photo Friday.

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Ali

Just a few snapshots from around the house today. It’s quiet in here right now, Sam is down for his afternoon nap, I’m sitting drinking some coffee, and the house is mostly clean.

I’m trying to take advantage of the quiet that nap time brings, knowing full well that in 80 days (give or take a few) we’ll have another little person around here who probably won’t be napping at the same time and my free-time will be significantly shorter than it is now.

I’m feeling mostly prepared. She has some clothing, a bed, diapers, swaddling blankets, so I guess we’re just about set. We still have all of Sam’s newborn stuff in the garage (swing, toys, etc) and I’ve been working on a few sweaters, since it’ll still be fairly chilly upon her arrival, but I am ready to do this thing! Sleep is becoming difficult, tossing and turning a lot at night trying to find a comfortable position, but she is really active from about 4-6am.

But since the house is so nice and quiet for now, I think I’ll lay myself down and see if I can sneak in a little catnap, while the sun is streaming in through the windows!

My hair, my boys and some slippers, oh and one more thing….

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Ali

So I decided to dye my hair red for Christmas. It took three tries to get it actually red, apparently my hair is stubborn or something.

Also, Paul let me sleep in this morning (UNTIL 9AM! Woo!) And when I woke up I came out into the living room to this.

Is that not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life? I’m pretty sure it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I like these boys.

Also, Sam is pretty darn good at roadtripping (We just got back from Tacoma on Saturday night)

I love how he crosses his legs in his carseat. I am biased, I know, but come on, how cute is he? He also got an awesome table from Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Carrie for Christmas and it’s pretty much his favorite thing.

He likes to push it up against the piano and play some tunes for us. Usually while wiggling his booty in the air.

And some Christmas knits, as promised! I made felted slippers for all of Paul’s sisters!

And, drumroll, please….. I’ve got a job! A full time one, at that, starting on Monday morning, so I’m going to have to take a break from custom knitting, at least until I get my footing with my new job. I’m sad, but I know that it’ll be a big relief for me to not have to worry about knitting deadlines while working full time and trying to be a good mother and wife. I’ll be sure to let you know once I am ready to take on more knitting projects for other people, but for now I think I’m just going to have to cut cold-turkey! I’ll still be knitting for myself and for Sam, so Knittybutton will (hopefully) still stay somewhat relevant!

I’m really excited about this new step in our lives and hoping it will be good for everyone and that the transition won’t be too hard on Sam. He hasn’t been with babysitters much, so this will be a bit of a new thing for Sam. But he is pretty good at adapting, so I’m sure he’ll be great getting to hang out with his buddy all day. But not gonna lie, I’m a bit nervous! I haven’t worked a ‘real job’ since I was pregnant with Sam, so this could be interesting, but I’ll be glad to have insurance again after a long time without it!

And I’m sure this will make my New Years Resolutions a bit harder (be better about meal planning and cutting out processed foods). Although, come to think of it, maybe not sitting around the house all day will make my constant snacking habit easier to kick!

Any New Year Resolutions on your end?

Fall

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Ali

It’s fall. And it’s cold. And we’ve got gourds and pumpkins decorating the living room. I love fall decor! And I also love our new (to us) blue piano.

We just got back from Tacoma last night. My dad, Erika and I worked out a surprise for my mom and we managed to pull it off! It’s not easy keeping secrets from my mother! We had a great surprise birthday party for her, thrown by my dad and my aunts and we all had a blast being able to celebrate her 50th together!

Quick note, if you’d like to place a Christmas order, please do so soon. I have limited space this year due to some large custom orders- so I may run out of room sooner than normal.

Christmas Decor

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Ali

We’ve got all the Christmas decorations up now!

We’ve got the perfect little 3 foot tree! It’s quite adorable!

“The stockings were hung from the ship’s wheel with care…” Pretty sure that’s not how the words go, but hey, we don’t have a mantel!

But here are our real stockings-

Sam really likes Christmas lights. We can set him in his bouncy chair in front of the tree for several minutes before he gets bored!

Well, he thinks it’s fun and then all the sudden I get this face staring up at me:

Then we find a new activity. Like sleeping!

Have you guys all decorated for Christmas? I just love how good the house smells with this tree up! Yum!

Nursery Update

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Ali

When my mom was here she hung the mobile above the crib! It looks so great.

Didn’t my cousin Sarah do such a great job making it? SO ADORABLE!

Also, my mom brought a painting that my sister Erika made for me to match the nursery!

I love how the baby’s little corner is coming together so nicely! I think it’s just adorable.

And if you wanna see how well Togglebuttons is growing these days, well here you go:

37 Weeks and 3 days. And my belly is getting pretty tight.

Oh, and whooaaa buddy. I thought I had some yucky stretch marks before, but this last week they have taken on a whole new (awful) look. They’re spreading like wildfire. Yikes, guys, yikes. It’s a small price to pay for a big and healthy baby, but yuck. They are not doing great things for my self esteem. Also, sorry about the crappy/grainy pictures. I was too impatient to wait til it was light out again to take pictures… or have Paul take them for me. Also, last night I had my first honest-to-goodness pregnancy craving. I needed those crappy little powdered donuts in a bad way. I have been pretty good about pregnancy cravings, but Paul had just left to go run an errand and I called him (before he had even gotten out of our parking lot) and begged him to pick me up some. So, I sat on the couch eating those while writing this blog post.

Well, I’ve got my 37 1/2 week check tomorrow, and we will see if this guy has made any progress, or if he’ll be staying in there for a few more weeks! Luckily the weather has cooled down a bit this week, so it hasn’t been too miserable being hugely pregnant, although it looks like this weekend it’ll be pretty toasty again. Well, it stays nice and cool on my couch with the fan blowing on me, so if you need me, you’ll know where to find me…

Nursery Bedding

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Ali

So, for my baby shower present we got the cutest bedding for Togglebuttons Nursery from my mom. I absolutely adore it.

Isn’t it the cutest, EVER?

My sister Erika is actually the one that found it for me. And I instantly fell in love with it. And I think it’s gender neutral enough to use for other future children, girl or boy.

Togglebuttons little buddies are already in the crib waiting for him! Now all we need is a baby!

It even has a cute little dust-ruffle, in my favorite color of green! Ok, now that I am looking at these pictures, I realized I probably should have ironed them before taking pictures and posting them all over the internet… (sorry mom)

Now I just need to get something to hang his cute new elephant mobile on! (If anyone has any great ideas on how to attach it to the crib, I’d love to hear them. You can see a picture of the mobile hanging to the right, just behind me (it’s hanging from the light fixture) in this picture.)

Stolen Flowers

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Ali

So, we’ve got a few abandoned apartment buildings in our complex. We call them the Chernobyl apartments because they’re completely desolate, empty and boarded up. It’s kind of creepy, there’s these empty playgrounds that have that yellow “Caution” tape all around them. Anyway, several of them have these wildflower/weeds growing around them, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to grab a few of them since these apartments are so hidden and no one else was enjoying them.

Anyone have any idea what these flowers are? (Thanks, Lyn! They’re Columbines, for those of you who wanna know!)

I am pretty sure these are just weeds, but they looked cool.

They reminded me of snowflakes!

They add a nice little pop of color to my kitchen!

Also, wanna see how big Togglebuttons is getting?

Whew! 30 weeks and a few days. He’s getting really big in there. He’s decided that his favorite place to be is curled up in a ball right up on the right side of my ribcage, and then once he’s up there he likes to dance around and poke me with his tiny little fists and kick my stomach with his itty bitty feet. Yesterday he did such a ridiculous somersault in my belly that he actually made me throw up! It felt like he was launching off of my stomach and it was like being punched in the stomach REALLY hard. But other than that, all is going well! He’s over 3 pounds now (whoa!) and as active as can be. 10 more weeks (give or take a few weeks…) We can’t wait to meet you, little boy!

Procrastination by Blogging.

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Ali

So I am procrastinating on all of the things I need to do today, like go to the grocery store, finish the dishes, fold my laundry, and clean the living room by blogging. I don’t even really have much to say today, except for the fact that I’ve got this long list of things that need to be done and I just don’t want to do them right now, because I am being lazy and would rather watch old reruns of TV shows on my computer than get off my rear-end and actually do a little work around the house.That sink is calling to me, but I am ignoring it for now to say hello to all you guys out there.

In baby news, I felt the baby move for the first time and that was really exciting. Paul can’t feel it yet, but I am sure that it won’t be too long before he can. I’ve started having Braxton Hicks contractions and it’s not a lot of fun, kind of painful and crampy. The only time they’ve been happening is during/after a long shift at work when I’ve been standing for 7-8 hours, and as long as I am not on my feet for that long they don’t bother me, so I quit my job, (more time to knit, right?) my last day is on Saturday. I feel like such a loser, getting them to hire me and then quitting on them 3 months later. Whoops? Sorry dudes. But the Nurse Practitioner at my OB’s office said it was probably a good idea to take it easy, especially since my pregnancy has been somewhat turbulent so far. Oh, and sorry for no 18 week picture yet, maybe later in the week when I am feeling put together or something? And when there is a clean spot in my house to take a picture in? Or maybe on a day when I remember to put makeup on. Yes, that will be it. I’ll take a picture tomorrow, since I need to actually look presentable for a social event anyway.

Ok, well, the kitchen has reached a state of disaster (meaning I want to go get a glass of grape juice, but we have no clean cups, so I actually gotta go do something about this situation.) Happy Tuesday, ya’ll.

A New Hat

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Ali

I just got in from shoveling our walkway, and whoa, I am exhausted! It decided to melt a little, snow some more, then freeze again, so it’s ice, layered with another coating of snow, then another layer of ice… a little frozen lasagna of winter. Lovely. Also, someone (uh, me) forgot to throw away all of the little pumpkins on our porch before we left for Texas, so I also had to wrestle those off the porch (they were frozen to the cement) and throw those away. It was kind of gross. Imagine me trying to wrestle a giant frozen pumpkin in the snow, I am sure the neighbors thought I was hilarious.

Anyway, all that to say, I had to go outside today to take pictures of a hat I made while I was in Texas, it’s for a Christmas present, so I won’t say who it is for, but I hope she’ll like it.

I really ought to just wait until Paul gets home to take these pictures for me, but until I learn better, you just get crappy self portraits.

I used the same amount of cast-ons, ribbing and increases as my Lemon Curd Slouch, but instead of making it slouchy I just started my decreases quite a bit sooner to make a tighter fitting beanie.

Oh, and it’s totally lovely out today. I mean, besides being freezing, but the skies were so nice and blue today, hadn’t seen the sky in a while, it was getting kind of depressing. It did melt some today so we got more icicles, which is always pretty.

Our poor other car is still stuck here until we can get it into the shop. (It’s throttle is frozen open, talk about scary times trying to start the car! Yikes. I about wet my pants.)

This is the view from my front porch. I KNOW, right?! Look at those pretty hills!

Mmm, frosty and beautiful.

I do like the snow, as long as the snow doesn’t end up all over the roads, making it hard for me to get around, then being unemployed is no fun.

I still have yet to go sledding or snowboarding, anyone in Moscow want to take me sledding?