Updates from Haley Lorman

Cleaning. It has never been my strong suit and most definitely not what I’m known to be good at. 

When you come into my home, you usually see a home that has been played in by the kids, and cluttered with crafts and dirty dishes from the morning. Some may come in and see disorganization, others may come in and see it as a well loved and played in home. 

I feel it as both. Some days when I look around and see mess I think “my kids are happily playing, exploring and crafting and we are making healthy meals” other days I look around and feel anxious, I can hear my mom’s voice saying “doesn’t your home make you anxious?!” yes mom...it does some days..

But I’m far to busy to worry about the mess every single day. I have two young girls who love to play, love to explore and be outside. I work, I run a business, so my top priority is not cleaning. 

Growing up, my mom was a stay at home mom. There were 5 of us and times were different then. She used all the conventional products, she didn’t know the dangers of a lot of the items and often I would find myself putting different cleaners in the toilet to clean because I never really knew better. 

I struggled with headaches for as long as I can remember. It was a daily occurrence for me and I now know it was all environmental. The fumes from the cleaners, the cigarette smoke (like I said, a different time then) the candles and air fresheners.

I have always enjoyed DIY and crafts so once I moved out I started to make my own cleaners and laundry soap for the sake of saving money and because I knew it was something I could do. When I started to research making my own cleaning products I kept reading more and more about the dangers of chemical cleaners. It was really eye opening to me and I made a commitment to do better in my home when it came to the products I used daily. I also noticed the headaches weren't as often which was a major positive shift for myself.

What I did was for the most part, easy. 

Vinegar and baking soda were my main go tos for all purpose cleaning. Laundry soap was a concoction of borax, grated soap and washing soda. That was a bit more work but I felt good about my choices and it cost me pennies. 

When I had my first daughter, I felt confident with the products I was already using. I was glad that I had already made the transition to cleaner cleaning for our family. 

There was one moment that I was truly thankful when my daughter decided to drink from the spray mop in the kitchen. I was so thankful that there was only water and vinegar in there but the fear and anxiety ran through my mind after, thinking “what if that had been a harsh cleaner?”

The cleaner living continued after my second daughter,  you can read here why I feel strongly over the switch to toxic free laundry soap. But I still struggled with keeping the house organized and clean. 

I decided I needed a good kick in the butt, so I ran a challenge with a group of women. An ultimate cleaning party. I called it this because why can't we make cleaning fun? I had to commit to coming up with a plan that would be fun, encouraging and do-able. We focused on easy, yup..easy recipes to clean and organize every room in our home utilizing clean, plant based ingredients. You can check out our facebook community here!

Now this is the important piece. Clean products. We clean multiple surfaces a day and are around so many chemicals that the build up on our system can be detrimental to our health. 

I encourage you to take a moment to think about how you are feeling. Headaches, breathing issues, struggling with energy and motivation? A lot of these are affected by our daily use of products. 

It became my mission to educate others while helping them feel motivated and achieve these attainable cleaning goals. 

So I created a system to help create a routine, perfect for those moms who just can’t get all things done. Taking one room at a time and can be done month and month again without overwhelming or exhausting you.