Bleachaphobia

Hi. I'm Angela Gifford, and I'm afraid of bleach. I don't keep it in my home. I don't use it. It irritates my skin, ruins my clothes, burns my eyes, gives me headaches, and makes everything smell like a swimming pool - which I don't tend to find to be a very homey smell.

So, when my son's science project listed bleach as a supply under "common household items", we had to go to the store. I was going to help my son use bleach to demonstrate a water purification system. LOL! Where are the eco friendly science projects, please? (My apologies to those who use bleach and believe it is good. Sales pitch: please visit http://www.saferforyourhome.com/ and then call me. End sales pitch. :D )

Against my better judgement, I decided that I might as well tackle some of those cleaning projects that maybe could benefit from bleach, but I don't buy it. You should have seen me decked out and ready to open it. You may have thought I worked for hazmat...lifting the seal with tweezers, etc.

So you can imagine my frustration to not see much of a difference from my efforts. I had to scrub just as hard as I do with my nice, safe, non-toxic cleaners for the same results. What is the point? It did however discolor my nice blue cleaning rag. When I got done, I realized, "What am I going to do with this nice cleaning rag? I can't put it in the laundry!" So I threw it away, and now I'm sure the inside of my trash can will be more sanitary.

I'm not sure what I accomplished this morning other than possibly permanently singeing the inside of my nasal passages and assuring myself that I'm not doing a half-baked job on my cleaning around here without bleach.

Riley was the first one up. I had done the cleaning downstairs, and when he came out of his room upstairs, his comment was, "WHOA! It smells like a swimming pool in here!" Which was soon followed by (after seeing his tub of clean clothes), "Mom, you always give me too much laundry!" Hee! Hee!

So we leave for Oregon today. We're not packed. I was up til about midnight tying up loose ends and awakened at 5:00 by our lovely resident packrat who decided to munch on the wall behind our bed for breakfast. After grumbling through my shower and bleach incident, I had to have a nice chunk of "face time." All better now. :D