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Category: Green Home & Garden

Aromatherapy and the Scents of the Season
Scent is such a simple way to elevate your everyday. Find out how you can get a Mrs Meyers holiday set of limited time, seasonally scented cleaning products for FREE.

This post contains affiliate links.

Science confirms that certain smells can trigger emotions and memories, and to me it seems like an obvious, common sense practice. Simply put: smelling things that we believe smell good, or that evoke good memories, makes us feel good. Feeling good staves off to some degree feelings of anxiety, stress and depression, which are all too easy to come by during the hustle bustle of the holiday season.

As a bit of anecdotal evidence, I’ll say that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and it has everything to do with the sensation of walking into a warm house that is absolutely filled to the brim with the smell of a million good things cooking. It’s the best feeling in the world. Thinking about it leads to me to another, similarly wonderful feeling, of entering a room with a freshly cut Christmas tree inside and breathing in the crisp scent of pine.

Scent is such a simple way to elevate your everyday, but because the smells of the holidays are so tied up in nostalgia the effect is that much more powerful.

I particularly like when my cleaning products, especially soaps, smell nice. That’s because every time I clean or soap up, I’m reminded of the Thich Nhat Hanh story of how doing dishes can be a mindfulness practice, a moment of zen, as you’re forced to live in that moment and experience dish washing.

All of this is my roundabout way of explaining (again!) why I love Mrs Meyers products so much. Most of the year, I use Basil dish soap and Rosemary laundry detergent, and it really, genuinely makes dish washing and hanging laundry out on the line an enjoyable experience for me. (I also buy the Rosemary hand soap, but I haven’t reached that level of mindfulness yet where washing hands is a transcendent moment. Washing hands is boring.)

I also love Grove Collaborative. They have a really impressive selection of natural and non-toxic household, health and beauty products with very competitive prices. It’s stuff I buy anyway— dish soap, laundry detergent, body soap, face wash, shaving cream, sponges, essential oils for the diffuser, you name it— only it’s my favorite brands without me having to go out of my way to find them.

The way it works is that you build yourself a virtual “pantry” of products, which ships once a month (you can change the date of shipment or skip a month if needed.) I get a reminder before shipment that a delivery is imminent, so I can go in and quickly remove items that we’re still good on or add things I need. Since I tend to forget to buy things like dish soap when I’m out, that’s a huge help for me— plus, with a VIP membership shipping is quick and free!

Grove Collaborative is constantly adding new items I’ve never seen sold before, and offering little bonus freebies that keep my love for them going after all this time. If you’ve never tried them before, this is a freebie you don’t want to miss.

Mrs Meyers has just released their limited-time seasonal scents: peppermint, orange clove, and Iowa pine. They are wonderful, and such a simple, little indulgence that sort of ushers in the holiday season for me. (The WHOLE holiday season. Let me bask in Thanksgiving before you start with the caroling, please.)

When you place your first order of $20 using my link through November 19th 9pm ET, you get to experience the magic of Mrs. Meyer’s for FREE with this Holiday Set from my friends at Grove Collaborative.
- Free Holiday Mrs. Meyer’s hand soap
- Free Holiday Mrs. Meyer’s dish soap
- Free Holiday Mrs. Meyer’s multi surface spray
- Free Grove seasonal kitchen towel
- Free Shipping & 60 Day VIP Trial
Existing customers get a free set of Grove walnut scrubber sponges. I love those, too, as much as you can really love a sponge.

With the VIP status: for 60 days, you’ll get free shipping, free gifts, price matching, exclusive sales and personal service.

I should warn you that last year, Mrs. Meyer’s seasonal scents sold out quickly. This offer is only available through November 19th or until the sets are gone, so don’t miss out! Here’s how it works:
1. Sign up for Grove Collaborative here. You will receive the Holiday Set for free when you sign up.
2. To receive this offer, your order needs to be a minimum of $20. Choose the combination of products and scents you love and receive your first box within a few days.
3. That’s it! Click Finish & Pay and place your order.
Enjoy the scents of the season and making new aromatherapy memories. 🙂
November 14, 2017
DIY Hedgehog Windowsill Planters

I took a deep breath and listened
to the old brag of my heart.

I am, I am, I am.

― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

I gave these nesting hedgehog measuring cups to Jeff for Christmas a few years back. It was one of my favorite finds ever.

I can’t remember now if the hedgehogs kicked it off, or if they were an escalation of nonsense already in progress, but Jeff now also owns a bunch of animal salt and pepper shakers— foxes, deer, birds, octopi, etc.— plus a tiny cream pitcher in the shape of a rabbit. Or maybe it’s a duck. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.

I first started buying them because they were cute, and I had to get him a present anyway for whatever gift giving occasion. And he wouldn’t use them. He’s afraid he’ll break one and the remaining one will be lonely.

So instead they’re lonely together, hanging out in the relative safety of a high shelf, and I buy new ones whenever I see them to add to the family. One day he will step back and accept he has turned into a weird collector of animal salt and pepper shakers and he will have no one to blame but himself.

Right after Christmas though, I suggested he drill some holes in the hedgehogs and use them as windowsill planters, and a brand new weird hobby was born.

The hedgehogs are ceramic and undeniably pretty delicate, so ok, maybe Jeff’s concern about them being chipped and broken with daily use was somewhat justified. In any case, he used a diamond drill bit to place the drainage holes on the undersides. Then we were off to all the area hardware stores to see what plants we could grow.

Indoor plants are, in general, a great idea, providing benefits both physical and mental. They can help alleviate stress, leading to lower blood pressure; they release oxygen and water vapor for easier breathing; and they can help clear your indoor air.

Cross-referencing NASA’s study on the best plants for improving air quality with sunlight requirements (we get very little direct sunlight) and lists of hard-to-kill greenery, we bought about a dozen plants as an experiment, which I’ll write up in the spring. (So far so good though; haven’t killed anything yet.)

There’s a shelf of distressed plants that can be had for a dollar or two, so we bought some of those even though they weren’t on my carefully curated list. We got all these for $2 total, breaking one pot up into two (the moss in the 1/4 cup is from our yard).

Succulents are outperformed by other plants for improving air quality. But, unlike most plants which only release oxygen during the day as a byproduct of photosynthesis, succulents release oxygen at night, so they’re a good choice for bedrooms. Allegedly they’ll adjust to low light situations and require very little care— I’ll have to report back to you on that. Remember, they were distressed to begin with and they were transplanted in winter.

In any case, I’m happy to see these guys out and about where we can enjoy them, and I’m trying to brainstorm ways to get their friends brought out to play.

We’re also on the lookout for more creative indoor planting inspiration, so let me know if you have any ideas!

March 8, 2017
Review: Green Chef Organic Meal Kit Subscription Service
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well,
if one has not dined well.

-Virginia Woolf

Waaaaaay back when I started blogging, I took part in a lot of food challenges. I meal planned. I kept the grocery budget way low. I cooked from scratch: breads, pastas, all manner of desserts. I ate local (within 100 miles) and some meals a week exclusively with foods from our farmers’ market. I went vegetarian. Much more recently, I’ve done a paleo challenge and the Whole 30 (twice).

That was while I was still primarily a stay at home mom with littles. Once I started working, the hours kept accumulating, and then the kids got older and I added part-time chauffeur and soccer mom to my workload. So my new favorite food challenge is trying out different meal kit subscription boxes.

Who should try a meal kit subscription plan?

If you’ve never tried one, these services create meal plans for the week, and then ship you exactly the ingredients you need to prepare those meals, along with detailed directions. It’s a perfect system if any of the following apply to you:
- You’re busy and don’t have the time to dedicate to planning out healthy meals and going to the grocery store.
- You’d like to try more adventurous meals but don’t keep a lot of food in your fridge and pantry outside your everyday staples.
- You’d like to involve your kids in the cooking process, perhaps to encourage them to try new foods.
- You’d like to cook more but don’t have a lot of experience.
- You have a tendency to optimistically buy healthy ingredients that then go bad before you get a chance to use them all.
- Using very fresh ingredients or supporting regional farms is important to you.
On the flip side, any meal subscription service is going to be more expensive than if you sat down and meal planned according to what’s in season and on sale. You are paying a premium for convenience; I’ll not pretend otherwise. But if you’re currently wasting food or eating out a fair amount or picking up a lot of stuff you don’t need at the store because you shop with a posse, the difference in cost week by week may be negligible. (Where you live and shop makes a difference too.)

Green Chef Review

As a Moms Meet blogger, I was invited to try out the family plan from Green Chef. (New customers get $50 off their first box with my affiliate link!) Green Chef is a USDA-certified organic meal kit delivery service; ingredients are pre-measured and largely prepped, including homemade sauces and marinades which come in great containers for reusing for packing hummus, guac or applesauce in lunchboxes.

There’s a lot of stuff in that box and everything was in excellent condition.

These were the ingredients for one of our meals; the labels are conveniently color coded to the recipe page, so you can make your kids take care of prep work.

This was a 40 minute meal, which brings me to another point: these are not necessarily super quick and easy meals. It’s not boxed mac and cheese. The meals were simple, but still involve chopping and cooking.

As I said earlier, this is particularly nice for those who aren’t very experienced cooks, as all the steps are laid out clearly for you. It’s also a stealthy way to make your kids spend time with you. Mine will generally help when I need it, albeit reluctantly, but they’re always more actively involved with a meal kit, because no one can resist dictating and double checking step by step directions.

Pan meatballs have always been hit or miss for me, but by following the directions exactly (meatball size, amount of oil, pan heat, cook time) I wound up with meatballs that weren’t blackened on the outside but were cooked all the way through. Yay!

The second meal involved salmon, which I can’t eat, so my brother and his family got to enjoy that one. NOTE: you CAN opt out of seafood or another protein when you subscribe to the Omnivore, Carnivore or Family Plan. I just didn’t have that option open to me as a tester.

It’s a shame, because it sure looked pretty.

Sidebar: my brother’s house has much better light than mine.

They also eat really early! Holy cow, dinner out of the oven at 4:54? I’d forgotten what it was like to have small kids. My kids are just getting home then, and that’s when they don’t have a game.

Their finished meal. I’d Instagram that:

The verdict:

Both our families have their picky eaters, who liked some aspects of the meal more than others (my nieces favored their potatoes over the salmon, the men in my family tried picking out mushrooms or kale but it was so incorporated they did wind up eating some). That’s to be expected when kids are trying new foods; it takes up to ten tries to develop a taste for savories, and meal kits are a fun way to deliver that exposure without a lot of food going to waste from the experiment.

Overall, the meals were well received! A little out of some people’s comfort zones, but enjoyable, and for the more developed palates pretty darn tasty and healthy. The orzo leftovers were even better the next day. Looking at the site, there are plenty of meals that would work out well for my family that we’ve never tried before. I’d just have to skip the seafood.

One thing to note: it seemed like salt and pepper were included in the directions way more than necessary. Keep a light hand with the salt, people. A little goes a long way.

The packaging:

I’m always overwhelmed by the amount of packaging in any of these meal subscription boxes. Good news though: all the materials Green Chef uses are either comprised of recycled materials or recyclable. In some cases, both. More details on Green Chef’s eco-friendly packaging here.

For smaller households:

Green Chef also offers a number of 2-person plans (3 dinners a week for 2 people).
- Omnivore: meat, seafood, and vegetarian dinners.
- Carnivore: Meat and seafood lovers, dig in. Every dinner includes a land or sea protein plus veggies.
- Gluten-Free: Always gluten-free and flavor-full, with meat, seafood, and vegetarian dinners.
- Vegetarian: More than just salads, every dinner makes veggies the star in unique, delicious ways.
- Paleo: Eat like an epicurean caveman. This paleo menu is rich in fresh produce and proteins.
- Vegan: Plant-based just got better. An innovative menu with natural, specialty ingredients.
Try Green Chef out! It’s fun, healthy, family time.

And don’t forget, you get $50 off your first box when you order through my affiliate link!

I received this product for free from Moms Meet (momsmeet.com), May Media Group LLC, who received it directly from the manufacturer. As a Moms Meet blogger, I agree to use this product and post my honest opinion on my blog. The opinions posted are my own.
March 5, 2017