Confession: I Used Lysol

Remember back at the beginning of the year when I so boldly stated that I wanted our home to be chemical-free? That I was going to make my own cleaning products for our home? Remember that??

Well, I did it. For three months I was completely natural in my home. I made all my cleaning products- nary a chemical in sight. And you know what? My house looked like crap. It looked dirty. There's no way around it- I could not for the life of me find a 'natural' cleaning product that really did the job. That cleaned the messes left by two little boys, one grown boy, one (very clean and perfect) female and a cat.

We spent the entire winter being sick. Passed from one person to the next, we went through colds and flus followed up by colds and flus. It was a nightmare. I was disinfecting with vinegar and water. I was using baking soda scrubs. I spent hours looking up solutions on the internet. I squeezed lemons (fyi: when you clean with lemon juice it is very very sticky) and cooked up concoctions on my stovetop. I scrubbed and scoured and used all the 'extra elbow grease' that natural cleaning sites advised me was necessary. I did it. I tried.

But last week, I bought an industrial sized box of lysol wipes, because I just couldn't take it anymore. Nothing LOOKED clean. Nothing FELT clean. So I started wiping and de-germing and disinfecting...and my house looks better and feels cleaner and we seem (knock on wood) to have finally rid the household of the germs that took up residence all winter long.

I'm not done with natural cleaners. I actually really like my spray bottle of vinegar and water- it's perfect for a daily kitchen clean-up and bathroom shine. I use hot water and vinegar on my floors and they look fantastic. I don't even mind a squeeze of lemon here and there. But lysol wipes are back for those germy messes. And I bought some toilet bowl cleaner because I live in a house of boys who DESTROY the toilet on a regular basis. And I grabbed some bleach too.

I want my household to be as natural and healthy as possible- I truly truly do. I desire for my kids to be as healthy as possible and to grow up as free from harmful chemicals as I can. But at the same time, I need a clean house; baking soda paste and a scrub brush just were not cutting it, no matter how hard I tried.

So, I ask, how naturally do you clean? How can I balance the need for a clean household (not just a sparkly house but a literally CLEAN home) with the desire to be as chemical-free as possible? How do all you moms out there do it?