Category: Healthy Living

Yesterday My Hoover Twin Tank Steam Mop arrived by postal mail. Yeah!

Jennifer says: May 7, 2013 at 11:11 am (Edit)
I’m very interested in this! Possibly for my kitchen floors! I have been using mops – HATE them! I have used the Magic Eraser push mop thing – don’t really like that either! I have had the best luck getting down on my hands and knees and scrubbing it with the Magic Eraser and towel drying it as I go! BUT…that takes a LONG time…grrrr!
Jennifer recently posted..Several Recipes & Foods From The Weekend!

As I promised Jennifer in my comment section, I’ll be writing a “first impressions” review on the Hoover Steam Mop. I’m hoping to have it completed by this weekend. I’m conducting a few tests and I might even add some video footage of the steam mop in action. I do think this mop is great for someone who’s tired of scrubbing floors. Although I used a mop, I normally found the most effective cleaning was getting on my hands and knees and going to town. Now, I won’t have too unless I’m simply longing to do that and I really don’t think that’s going to happen!

My daughter loves this steam mop!

When I wrote about purchasing this mop a few days ago, I forgot to mention that mopping would be added  as one of my daughters chores. It’s not something she’ll be doing all the time, but when I don’t have time I’ll ask her to use the mop.  She’s heard me raving about this mop for a few days and she made sure to give me the You’re really crazy, mom look. She just couldn’t see why this was a breakthrough in my normal cleaning routine.

I purposely waited until I picked her up from school to start testing out the Hoover TwinTank Disinfecting Steam Mop. Well, she got really curious seeing all the steam and the ease of use and the obvious fun I was having with the steam mop.  She quickly pushed me to the side and started using it herself. She even redid the large kitchen floor that had already been clean. She told me she really loves the mop. She’s fascinated by all the steam it produces.

In our house we mainly have hardwood floors throughout the house; basement, main floor, and upstairs. However we have granite in the kitchen, dining room and entrance area. We have linoleum in one of the bathrooms.

Frustrated with some online reviews…

One of the frustrations I encountered when searching for reviews, outside of Amazon, were the amount of folks who got this product as a free gift. Apparently Hoover gave away a lot of these mops in exchange for people writing about this steam mop on their personal websites. Most of those reviews were posted on August 16 & 17, 2012.

Giving away products to consumers to review is fine, but If your calling yourself a product reviewer, I’m expecting that reviewer to give a thorough analysis of the product which means I want to hear the things you don’t like about the product. It makes sense to include the negatives also, right?   Since I got tired of wading through the pages of blogs that received this product from Hoover and not reading too much else besides a “glowing review” I went back to the Amazon website since I found thorough reviews there. I liked that many of the Amazon reviewers gave the pros and cons of this product. On a few of my personal sites I do receive products to reviews; not much and only for items that genuinely interest me. However,  I do take my time and write what I hope is a helpful review piece that includes things I dislike and what I wish they’d change.

Needs Improvement list for the Hoover Twin Tank Steam Mop

Regarding the Hoover Twin Tank Steam Mop, I do have a “needs improvement” list for this product and I’ll be sure to include that in my first impressions review, but overall I’m really impressed with this steam mop and I would purchase it again! The fact that I actually look forward to mopping is really saying something, because I really dislike that activity but do it weekly since I like a clean house.

As you can see, from the above picture, the Hoover steam mop doesn’t take up too much space. Which is perfect for us. It now has it’s home in one of our bathrooms.

Question:  Are there any cleaning gadgets you can’t live without?

 

Things don’t stay dirty in our house for long…

Clothes are washed a few times weekly.  I have daily/weekly household chores and my daughter has some chores also. She’s nine years old, she definitely old enough to have some tasks. Sure I stay busy with everything going on in my life, but I manage to squeeze in general household maintenance also. Items have their place and it’s not on the floor.

For the past few years I’ve casually looked at steam mops for hard floors. I’ve always been fascinated with steam for disinfecting purpose but didn’t get the urge to purchase one until about a week ago.

This morning I ordered the Hoover TwinTank Disinfecting Steam Mop. I ordered it from Amazon, so it should be here quickly. I must say that this will  be a step up from how I normally clean floors; using water as hot as I could stand and a mop to clean my hardwood floors. I like the fact that chemicals aren’t needed to ensure that the floors are sterilized.

If I do use a floor cleaner it’ll be a natural solution that I make myself. I will admit that mopping is one of my least favorite activities but it’s a must since some of the hardwood floors in our house receive a lot of activity. If I can make the mopping experience more enjoyable… well that’s a good thing. Based on the numerous reviews I’ve read about this particular floor steamer I don’t think I’ll be disappointed. Once It gets a full workout from me, I’ll post a review about it on Celebrate Life.

Most of the time I use stainless steel pitchers for the smoothies and juices I make…

But sometimes I find that (depending on what I toss into my juices/smoothies) that some of the ingredients can react with the metal. While I much prefer my stainless steel pitchers (I love the way stainless steel looks!) If I’m concerned about metal reaction I usually reach for one of my glass pitcher. The thing is, unlike my stainless steel pitchers none of my glass pitchers have tops. If I need a pitcher with a top,  I’ll pull out my lonely  plastic pitcher.

Yesterday is an excellent example… You remember that Mango green smoothie that I made? That was put into my plastic pitcher because it had a top, but I wasn’t thrilled about doing that. However since  I don’t like leaving my juices or smoothies ‘topless’ in the refrigerator into the plastic pitcher it went!

I’ve never been fond of plastic storage containers. I like the heaviness of metal/glass. Which is why you’ll find that all my food storage containers are made of glass. Initially I was concerned about breakage, but I’ve had my containers for over nine years and they haven’t broken yet.

 

Well guess what? I finally found a heavy duty glass pitchers (with tops) that I like! I should be receiving them sometime next week!

 

I’ll recycle my plastic pitcher by cutting a bit off the top and turning it into a storage container for some of my daughter’s crafts.

Yesterday evening I made a pitcher of a Mango green smoothie. My daughter liked it and consumed two cups of the smoothie over the next hour or so.

Although the smoothie was loaded with vegetables you couldn’t taste them because of the sweetness of the mangoes and other sweet fruits. My daughter and I both like vegetables so I make our own version of V8 juice (minus the high sodium and other additives that the body doesn’t really need.)

Mango Green Smoothie

1 medium sized mango

1 cup of ripe strawberries

2 celery stalks

1 cup of dark leafy greens (I used kale and spinach)

1 cup of ginger root tea

1 ripe banana

Unsweetened apple juice (to desired consistency)

I’m not sure the exact measurements. If you’ve read this site, Celebrate Life, or my much older site VM  for any length of time you might already know I don’t follow recipes. I create my own and rarely do I measure what I’m making.

Drinking instead of eating…

The past few days I’ve been only drinking liquids. I do this a few times yearly. I’m consuming about the same amount of calories as I would if I were eating solid foods, the only difference is that I’m blending or juicing. Even though I have a lot of energy (enough to blast through my intense workouts with no problems) I find that I have even more energy when I swap to liquids. There is a logical reasoning behind that and I’ll be sure to go into it in a later post, but now it’s time set the table for my daughter’s breakfast!

Yesterday, I made a juice blend of carrots, ginger, garlic, spinach and kale.

The carrots added sweetness to the blend and the ginger added a bit of spice (along with energy). Garlic was added since it’s great for the immune system (just like ginger.) Spinach and kale were added since they both have numerous vitamins and minerals. Vitamins A, C, and K are some of the numerous nutrients that can be found in Kale. Kale also contains lutein and zeaxanthin compounds which are excellent for eye health.

About seven years ago, my eye doctor commented on the improvement he saw in my eyes. The only difference, was I’d started juicing several times weekly.

I’m not much of a supplementation person, I find that I stay in “top shape” (not just my words but my health care providers also) by making correct health food choices, exercising, and handling issues I face in a non-stressful manner. When it comes to foods, I mainly eat whole foods. Which means, I stay as close to the natural food source as possible. Because of that,  you won’t see me purchasing too many processed foods or supplements. I figure I don’t need them if I’m making healthy whole food choices. It seems my health care provider agrees with me.

A quick and easy way to increase the amount of nutrients I consume is by juicing. I’m able to consume much larger quantities of nutrients than I’d ever be able to eat in one sitting. My Green Star juicer has a permanent stop on our kitchen counter top. The juicer cost me over $300, but was well worth the price I paid. I figured with a high quality juicer I most likely wouldn’t need a plethora of supplements, and I was right. In the late 1990s (a few years after being vegan) I did purchase supplements. Marketing is good for those products, but I was skeptical and after a lot of nutrition research I figured I most likely could get the same results simply by eating whole foods.  I was right.

Two days ago, I made a big batch of ginger tea and added it one of my Mason Jars that I normally use for canning.

Ginger has many benefits and is a natural energy booster.

I use ginger in numerous ways, but my favorite has to be drinking the blend. Sometimes I get a bit fancy and add mint, peppermint to the brew.  I drink it unsweetened but occasionally I’ll sweeten it with raw honey or stevia.

Ginger has many uses in our household… I brew it in a tea, juice it with my juicer,  toss chunks of it into my blender when I’m making smoothies and some of the smoothy ingredients get added to popsicle molds. The spiciness of the root adds a nice kick and gives a delightful jolt of energy! I never use artificial stimulants. There’s no need with ginger in the house.

I love seeing this, what a great way to bring fresh produce into the inner city.

I’ve met a lot of people that are trying to take back their communities. Each year we give away produce from our garden to those in need, it’s a great feeling and it provides them with fresh chemical free produce.  Depending on where you live, you might not have fresh produce available.

Occasionally I scout out grocery stores to see what they have on the shelves, I’ve noticed that in some stores fresh produce isn’t readily available.

Being an art lover you know I checked out the embroidery on one of his sleeves and the back of his denim jacket, love it! If you blink, you’ll miss it… 😉 I’m thinking this was a custom made jean jacket. You see the threads hanging from the jacket. Which makes me wonder, why in the world did the person leave those threads?