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Citronella

September 23, 2007

I thought citronella was used only for candles to drive mosquitoes away. There are so many other uses which I discovered.

There was a time I was having problems with ants in my house since we leave a lot of snacks and chocolates on our tables or just in the kitchen or pantry. My cousin, Ana taught me a tip to get rid of those ants! She is such a great resource for household tips.

After thorough detergent cleaning, wipe all surfaces which are prone to crawling insects (mainly the kitchen and bathroom) with a cotton pad soaked in full strength citronella essential oil. Use a flat cotton pad over the cotton balls since it makes the most efficient use of a fairly expensive essential oil. Another way would be to dilute it in water as a spray, but, Ana recommends to use cotton in full strength.
After the area is thoroughly cleaned,put a cotton ball dabbed in citronella inside a small plastic container in the area. Do remember to keep the citronella away from any food which is not sealed tightly as your food might taste lemony or like citronella.

Citronella keeps away the flying insects to a limited degree, but, it really keeps away all sorts of crawling insects ( cockroaches and ants especially ) and the best part about it is that it is all natural and not harmful.

Available at Rustan’s Supermarket Fresh, Rockwell and Makati.

For more information, visit: http://www.manilaherbal.com/essential_citronella.htm

Benefits from Citronella

**This perfect plant for the tropics is a natural insect repellant that can keep household pests like mosquitos, cockroaches, ants and house lizards at bay. Public areas with the likes of public toilets and baths, hospitals, kitchens, stadiums and others are the perfect places to need this essential oil as cleaning agent.

**For household use a few drops of this essential oil in water to clean the floors, toilet bowls and kitchen sinks and bathroom and kitchen walls and ceiling and rooms of the house to keep ants, cockroaches and lizards away and to keep mosquitoes at bay.

**Its biodegradable and antiseptic property makes it an ecological substitute to chlorine as a swimming pool fungicide.

**Use a few drops in your laundry water to keep the moths from attacking clothes in the cabinets and those to be stored.

**This essential oil can be added to carrier oil in oil lamps to keep mosquitoes away in the outdoors or open places.

**It can also be placed in spray cans to scent the rooms, cars, office space and other spaces to keep it from mosquitoes.

**Most pet lovers dub a drop or two of this essential oil behind the ears of their pets to free them from fleas. Sometimes it is added to pet soaps and shampoos

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Household Tips, What's New at Rustan's

Neem Tree

August 22, 2007

Sharing a household tip from my cousin, Ana.

Use Neem tree leaves to avoid those insects in your stored rice. Just put it inside the rice container. It will not work if there are insects already in the rice. You have to put the leaves as soon as you remove it from the plastic bag and transfer to the container. Or if your container already has insects, you need to clean the rice and remove the insects and then put back into the container and add the leaves. 1 stem is good for around 25 kilos of rice.

It does not however work for japanese or calrose rice as it gives it a smell. So use it only for jasmine or local rice.

Neem trees are quite common in our country, so chances are you can find them easily.

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Household Tips

Getting Organized

May 16, 2007

My mission this year is to organize my things. I have been going to stores and looking at what items are available and have bought some already and started putting things in containers. I am obsessed with plastic containers and organizers… that whenever I see them in a store, I get so excited. Make Room is my first stop and if I can’t find them in Make Room,I go to Ace Hardware or Japan Home Center where everything is either P 55 or P 88.I am starting by disposing 80% of all the things that are stored that i do not need to make my task easier. As my cousin would say “keep it simple. if i don’t even remember an item or have not used it in more than two years or more, then, away it goes! we are lucky to live in a country where charities take almost everything, and, i try to spring clean often. one man’s trash is truly one man’s treasure, even a pair of pants or shoes is so treasured in a country such as ours.”
I have been taking my time and getting advice from friends and family to show me how they organize their homes. I actually invited myself over to my cousin’s apartment because I wanted her to show me how she organizes her things and this is what I learned from her. See how she organized her place and her valuable advice.

Getting organized will totally depend on one’s lifestyle so each one will have his/her own style as to which organizer to buy. I am finding out that it is not just a matter of buying the organizer but having a system as well as to how and where you will eventually put everything.

If all fails and I cannot figure out a system to get organized, I might give Kathleen Ong a call, She is a Professional Organizer and makes a living organizing people’s spaces.
Visit her site at http://www.rippleeffectorganizing.com/home.htm
Maybe if I am successful, I will have a part 2 and share how I accomplished my task

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Household Tips

Passion for garbage

March 22, 2007

I visited my cousin in her apartment last week and learned something which made me smile…& therefore worth sharing…
I stumbled into this container in her place with all these recyclables. What initially shocked me was to see how clean it was and to see even that tiny foil from the top of that yakult bottle. We all probably segregate our trash and help in our village’s initiatives but I have not met anyone who takes this initiative so seriously and with so much passion. She told me:

“I do it because it is my greatest fear to become a garbage scavenger. I really and truly feel for them, I see them all the time, and, imagine how hard it must be and I think that I know that it was a stroke of luck that put us in our families and not on the streets. moreover, fortunes can turn, and, who is to say that what I have now will be but temporary?”Whenever she throws her garbage, she makes sure that it is really garbage which no one should have to go through. She does not throw anything potentially dangerous which could harm someone, especially since scavengers hardly work with gloves or boots. Thus, all broken glass or medical sharps go into wrapped plastic bags to mark them as “dangerous.” Whatever she thinks could be useful to the scavenger, she has it washed and cleaned, and present it all in a clean plastic bag to the scavenger. She told me that when she got the information about the waste market, she just printed it and gave it to the family who benefits from her recyclables.“I do it really because if we can do our part to give someone dignity in a job which really has none, then, all well and good.”

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Household Tips