Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Flies and Vinegar Re-purposed

Because of our wonderful party on Saturday, we have had a gazillion flies in our house. I've been keeping the swatter close, and my girls have been rooting me on or trying to get the flies themselves. However, it's still been disturbing to hear Saige regularly announce, "I kill 'dem, I kill 'dem. I wanna turn!" Even though I know she's talking about flies, I catch myself wanting to make a new word up for what we are actually doing to those dang flies.

Speaking of flies and the party, I wanted to chat a little about vinegar today. You know the saying that says you can "attract more flies with honey than vinegar". And sometimes, you have to take that saying literally instead of relationally. Well, in our house we don't want to attract flies. So, what do we need? Vinegar! I am not saying that if you spray vinegar around your house that the flies will magically disappear, but if you use the vinegar to clean up crumbs and stickiness, less flies will be attracted to your house! What I mean is: for a lot of my cleaning, I use vinegar water. I have a squirt bottle that I put 1 part vinegar and 2 parts water in. And then I use it to clean and disinfect my kitchen counter tops, clean cabinets, wipe of the floors and anything else you might regularly do with a cleaning product. This way, I know there aren't a bunch of extra chemicals being sprayed all over my house. Just another bonus!
My Fancy Cleaning Bottle
 But wait, there's more....

I use vinegar for all kinds of things! Not just for cleaning. I also put some in my spaghetti sauce every time I make spaghetti. You can use regular old vinegar, or apple cider vinegar. Did you know that vinegar is really good for you? Some people drink apple cider vinegar straight for health purposes. (I tried it once and almost lost my lunch.) But, instead of drinking it straight, I just sneak it into my cooking whenever I can, and it tastes awesome! I made my spaghetti sauce from scratch tonight. But even if I have a store bought sauce, I still add it!


Vinegar is also good for taking away a sunburn! When either me or one of my family members get one, I just soak a paper towel in some vinegar and lay it right on the burn until the skin is sopping wet. If you let that air dry, it dries quickly, the burn turns to a tan and doesn't sting anymore. With my fair skin, I've had to use this trick a few times. I love it. (It helps if you don't mind the smell of vinegar. I certainly don't mind it.) It took awhile, but now even my husband is a believer in this vinegar trick!

Anyway, I know there are a ton more uses for this wonderful stuff, but I don't want to give away all my secrets in one post! Plus, I'd love it if you shared your secrets with me. We can compare notes.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today. I appreciate it!
Blessings, Amber

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