On Friday, my daughter tried to be helpful. Unfortunately, she was helpful by cleaning the downstairs bathroom, the one that the cat uses. More on this later. Since finding out about my chemical contact and sinus allergies, we removed all allergenic cleaning products from our home, EXCEPT one. My husband felt it was very important […]
It all started with an experiment. My daughter was making soap with medieval ingredients. I had saved her some beef tallow and some bacon fat, and were planning to add olive oil and a bit of beeswax. We entered numbers into the soapcalc.net calculator, which calculates the amount of water and sodium hydroxide (lye) to use […]
For the past few months, I’ve been thinking about socks. I’ve been trying to get synthetics off my skin, and socks were a part of this process for which I couldn’t seem to find a good answer. Buy mass-produced, everyone-buys-them socks from a big-box retailer, and you’ll come home with a sock that’s probably about […]
It was with disgust one day that we found our cat had been peeing on a specific area of carpet. Carpets are hard to clean, and even harder if the urine gets into the padding underneath. Luckily, I had made a pet stain remover already, but we felt it was time to clean the whole […]
It’s Thanksgiving in Canada today, and that means no new blog post. To help tide you through, I’ve added an additional advanced usage tip to last Friday’s post on neti pots that I forgot to put into the original post. In this Friday’s post I will be sharing my recipes for carpet pretreater and carpet […]
The neti pot. Unsettling in theory, but very useful and effective in practice. Want to know why you might want to use a neti pot? How to use it? Some tips and tricks to make it more effective? Read on. What is a neti pot? A neti pot is a container into which you put […]
Continuing Friday’s review of free apps that help people with allergies, today I’m reviewing some of the apps I found that might help people with chemical and contact allergies, although many are also helpful for people who like to live in less chemically-polluted home environments. Eczema Tracker (http://eczematracker.com/) [iOS] [Android – Coming Soon] My Rating: […]
I found myself today searching for apps that might help me with my food intolerances. I have intolerances to even minute quantities of egg and dairy, and this makes everything food-related a bit more of a challenge, from my husband shopping for food for me to eating out, and even sometimes trying to figure out […]
We know that the developed world runs on consumerism. Companies employ people by providing a product or service. They make themselves relevant by continuing to update or improve that product or service to sell more. They employ people and pay these people wages, and these people again in turn buy more “stuff” and keep the […]
←Allergies Interfering with Life: Homeschooling Basics Part 1 – I try to provide a basic overview of homeschooling for those parents of allergic kids considering homeschooling to help mediate allergies. How do I know which curriculum to use? Curriculum choices will depend on your child’s age, learning style, and interests. One great thing about homeschooling is that […]
Recently there have been a large number of people asking questions about homeschooling. With the start of the new school year, children’s allergies are acting up, and those who can’t find a solution for the renewed school allergies are considering other options. Having homeschooled my own daughter for a year now, I’d like to provide […]
I was asked today to review the idea of using milk of magnesia in a roll-on bottle as a deodorant. Because I was asked to share the information more widely, I post it here for broader reading. After a bit of research, here are my thoughts: I hadn’t looked into milk of magnesia before, as […]
← Previous Post: Living with Bugs, Part 2 Bees Bees are helpful. They pollinate plants, allowing us to have the wide variety of fruits and vegetables we enjoy, some even make honey, and their populations are in decline. If there are bees settled in an inappropriate place, often the colony can be moved. Contact a beekeeper […]
I spoke on Friday about living with insect pests around my home, and which ones were helpful, indifferent, and harmful. While a slight change of attitude towards insects can help you live more comfortably with some of the denizens who inhabit the walls and floors of your home, today I talk about pesticide-free ways to […]
Every year when we go camping, we develop an uneasy relationship with bugs. Insects are everywhere in our world; there are far more of them than of us. Living in houses most of the time, we find ourselves further and further separated from the outdoor world of nature and bugs. Camping brings us right back […]
I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to adjust my clothing use and my wardrobe to reduce my allergic reactions. My daughter and husband can still wear polyester, even though my propylene glycol allergy means that polyester and possibly spandex are off the table for me. More than half […]
We’ve all seen the antibacterial designation on hand and dish soaps. You may even have seen the same on packages of shower curtain liners or athletic wear. But what does this mean? To the company who produced the product, it means that antimicrobial agents have been impregnated into the fibres or substance of the product […]
This week I finally had a breakthrough in a personal project on which I’ve been working. I am trying to complete a medieval alchemical separation process. The process historically required colophony in most instances, a substance to which I’m allergic. After months of trying to find a way, I have done it without using colophony. […]
I’ve been having odd allergy symptoms for a while now. It seems that soon after eating a certain grocery store crust (for making your own pizzas), eating certain gluten-free bakery cookies, and eating certain gluten-free hamburger buns from the same bakery I have horrible redness and itchiness around my mouth (outside my mouth, on the […]
For the past two weeks, I’ve been camping medieval-style. That’s 14 days of sleeping in a ger (a close relative of a yurt), trying to ignore bugs (all except the really big ones), no air conditioning when sometimes the humidex beat 106 degrees Fahrenheit (when even sweat had nowhere to go), walking everywhere, port-a-potties, and […]
Before I found out I had an allergy to isothiazolinones, I had a strange allergic episode. I was at work, and for multiple weeks straight, my eyes itched to badly that I was pulling out my eyelashes and my nose stuffed up enough to make me feel like I had the flu. The floor below […]
In all of my research into sustainable living, allergies, ethical companies, and the environment, I often find the best choice is to make things myself. Sometimes, though, that’s either unrealistic or impossible, and this is where I’ve found some really amazing things. Below are some of the favourites I’ve found so far: WeWood Watches Made […]
The concept of depression and anxiety disorders in modern society has been bothering me for a long time. I have so many friends who suffer from anxiety and depression issues, and I myself went through a horrible time when I was so anxious about going to work that I didn’t want to go to sleep […]
Today is a Civic Holiday in Canada, I will be releasing my next post Friday August 5th.