Rain, rain, go away! (in other words, take a hike, Ike!)

Well, for the past few days we've been having rain, and plenty of it! Chicagoland broke the previous record for inches of rain this weekend. There has been lots of flooding in the area, and I know of many people who had water in their basements--I'm one of them. For us, it was coming in through the walls, and in a couple of places it was seeping up through the basement floor tiles. And through the bricks in the fireplace. Luckily, we noticed it before it got deep, and I set to work with my handy shop vac and tons of towels. Of course Jon was out of town until Sunday afternoon, so I was on my own until then.

The rain barrel was overflowing right away, and since it's right next to the house, I had to reset the downspout to go back into the storm sewer. Once we get the water level down a bit in there, I'll put the down spout back to the barrel. It really helps that we connected it with a flexible "hose" that was pretty easy to maneuver back towards the sewer downspout.

The pond that had formed in our back yard is still sinking into the ground (although it stopped raining yesterday) and thus, into one wall crack in our basement. The crack is behind the built-in work bench, so it was hard to get to. When Jon got home, his engineering brain set in and he came up with a way to corral the water into a bucket using a cheap plastic dust pan that he screwed to a lower shelf board and braced against the wall--the water just slid down through the handle and into a bucket! The bucket needed to be emptied about every half hour, so I put a large, flat plastic box under it so we could get a few hours' sleep. It would be impossible to empty it, due to the shelf, but that's where the shop vac comes in. The leaks were on all four sides of the house, so I got a pretty good workout running between the puddles and dumping 10 gallons of water at a time down the basement sink. Not to mention hauling all the boxes that had gotten wet out to the garage to dry out before recycling them. I used to hoard boxes (ya' never know when you'll need a good box!), but now that I have the store, I have a steady supply of boxes--which I give away to anyone who needs them.

So now, I'm thinking I need to disinfect the whole basement, since I'm really allergic to mildew and mold. But what can I use that isn't chemical? Well, we all know that vinegar is a darn good cleaner/disinfectant, but do I want my basement to smell like vinegar? So I hit the internet good and hard today, and found several recipes for natural disinfectants. One said to add about 10 drops of essential oil to white distilled vinegar and that should take care of the smell. Another one said to use 1/2 teaspoon of tea tree oil & 2 cups of water--spray on and wipe off. The most intriguing, and complicated one was this:
2 cups water
1/4 cup vodka
1/4 tsp. tea tree oil
1/4 tsp. lime essential oil
1/4 tsp. grapefruit essential oil

I started to calculate the cost on that one (essential oils are kind of pricey) and then a searched for a pre-made natural disinfectant. There's one on the market called "Benefect" that is sold online at www.householdtraditions.com. It's $40 for one gallon. Back to the recipe. . .

I think I'll just use straight vinegar and follow it up with a good mopping with Mrs. Meyer's all purpose cleaner. It smells so good, that I'm sure the vinegar smell will disappear. And Aldi has vinegar for $.69.

Surprising Finds at Aldi

For those of you who know me well, it will come as no surprise that I am an Aldi shopper. It's cheap and it's near my house. And Aldi is one of the greenest stores I can think of--they don't throw away their boxes, they give them to customers to carry their food in. They encourage the reusing of their bags (or the bringing of your own) by charging you for them (they're quite high quality, too, so you would definitely not throw them out). They don't spend money on trendy displays or energy-hogging light fixtures.

Their food is very high quality, and they have a double guarantee--if you're not satisfied, they will refund your money, and replace your product. They have organic blue corn tortilla chips (the Fit and Active brand) that are low fat and delicious. Their higher-end pasta sauces have no weird ingredients or high fructose corn syrup. They have recently started carrying green tea in tea bags that have no metal--so you can just throw them on the compost pile without stabbing yourself trying to pry open the staples. They have whole grain breads. Their butter is cheap, and its ingredients are cream and salt. The cheese isn't bad either--they have a delightful Dill Havarti. It's really not that hard to find almost everything you need there, and they've recently increased their produce section to include a lot more fresh vegetables and fruits (mostly conventionally grown).

Other things to love:
Your car (or bike)is safe from wayward carts, because you "rent" a cart for a quarter, ensuring that people will return their carts to get their two bits back. It really is a model of a well-run store. They don't have nearly as many employees as most grocery stores, because they don't need them to wrangle carts, break down boxes, or straighten the displays. It takes a little getting used to, but the money you can save makes up for having to bag your own groceries--and let's face it. Sometimes it's better that way.