"Greening" our household

Clearly, I've turned a corner with blog posting and I've decided to write a bit about lots of random things, as opposed to just longer, kid-milestone posts.  Those will continue to come, but they don't always provide the full picture of our family life that I envision for this blog.  It's "The Family G," after all--all of us!  :)

On to the topic of the day:  there are thousands of blogs and websites and lists out there for people who are working, step-by-step, to rid their homes of strange chemicals with 21-letter names and petroleum origins.  We're one of those families, but I don't want to write one of those blogs.  It's been a project that's been going on for a few months, and I thought it might be time to put up another post about my progress, because it's a little thing of which I'm sort of proud.

(There are various "Dirty Dozen" lists of chemicals to try to avoid, but I've been focusing on household and cosmetic products, because our family's food consumption is pretty un-processed and clean, largely thanks to efforts Brian has made over the years.  That was his contribution, and this is mine.)

Here's what I've done:

• Fragrance-free, basic detergents for laundry and dishes (Method and 7th Generation, usually).
• Mrs. Meyers cleaning stuff for the house.  I re-fill old spray bottles with a mix of concentrated cleaning stuff and water.
• Shea butter (pure, a jar of it that's hard when it's cool and softens with heat) for lotion.  I use almond oil for this, too.
• Oil to clean my face (castor/jojoba blend).  I've been giving the Oil Cleansing Method a try.
• Unscented or plant-based scents for all the kids' lotions and shampoos and stuff.

Here's where I still have some trouble:

• Paper products like T.P. and napkins and stuff.  It's so hard for me to spend so much more money on items like this.  I've switched to kitchen/dish cloths rather than using a lot of paper towel, but the toilet paper and napkins are still lousy and cheap, rather than the greener stuff.
• There's still a lot of plastic.  It gets recycled when it's empty, but still.  :(

I went through our cabinets recently and got rid of the old bottles of Johnson & Johnson or Bath & Body Works (among others) that have gone unused; the pile of bottles to go into recycling was quite satisfying to look at!  :)

Here's the website I use for my shopping:  http://www.goodguide.com/

I know I have blog readers out there who make similar (and often much greener) choices with your shopping lists, and so perhaps this is largely a "hey, I'm working on it, you guys!" sort of post.  :)