i heart vinegar and baking soda

i've posted about loving cleaning with vinegar and baking soda before but that doesn't mean that i clean as often as i should around here.  seeing cleaning tips pop up on pinterest reminds me of all the strange things in my house that i definitely don't even notice as NEEDING cleaning - such as the vent above my stove, for example.  i don't like to pin things that i know that i will probably never do so there aren't too many cleaning pins on there BUT here are two that i did this past week.

Citrus-infused Vinegar:  i've been on a grapefruit eating kick for a few months and will eat one every evening while i watch tv.  i came across this way to infuse vinegar with citrus peels and thought i'd try it out since i like to clean most things with vinegar but hate that lingering smell - especially after washing something big like the kitchen floor.  a few weeks ago, i put a couple grapefruits worth of peels into an old jar, filled it to the top with vinegar, and left it in my pantry.  i have to admit, i was a little nervous to open it today - it looked kind of gross.  but it just smelled like...citrus-y vinegar.  i poured it through a coffee filter and had a yellowish looking vinegar.  i re-read the blog post and saw that you dilute it 50-50 with water and i realized that i had really made so little - i was going to use it ALL for my floor washing! oh well - that was the main thing that i wanted to wash with it anyways.  on monday, i did.  it was great.  i smelled fine and while it seemed like it left a bit of film (not sticky but just not a smooth feel under my socks), tim said that he thought that was a vinegar thing - not a grapefruit vinegar thing.  i can't remember. either way - it seemed like a great cleaner and i will be trying this again.

my vinegar going through the coffee filter (i forgot to take a pic of the grapefruit in the jar!)

grapefruit vinegar!  (a terrible resemblance to pee...)

Cleaning your greasy stove hood filter: as soon as i saw this pin, i thought, "i've NEVER cleaned my stove hood filter!"  i immediately put a pot of water on the stove to boil and followed the directions on the site.  i probably had too much water in the pot or my pot wasn't big enough but as i added the baking soda (very very slowly in parts), it overflowed numerous times which was very annoying and a huge mess.  then, when i put my filter into the pot, not only did it overflow again, i couldn't get the whole filter cleaned in the pot size that i had!  augh.  think about these things before trying this.  haha.  i ended up putting the filter in the sink and pouring the remainder of my baking soda water OVER the filter and it worked just as great.  and now i have a very clean hood filter.  

whaaaat!?!

putting it in the sink to pour water over it

it worked!

but this is the mess it left!