In non-citrus news, I won a blog award yesterday! It was a complete surprise to find a lovely letter in my inbox saying that I was part of Mom.me’s Top 50 Favorite Design and DIY Mom Bloggers. What a huge honor to be recognized among these talented mamas!

And now we return to your regularly scheduled citrus programming …

While watching the boys play outside this weekend, my friend Sasha noticed our fledgling orange tree was producing quite a few little oranges. She explained that with the recent rain and because it’s still rooting, it has been confused into producing the fruit out of season. She suggested cutting them off so it would be able to put all it’s little tree energy into growing big and strong. It will also produce better the next year if we pruned it now.

Then she mentioned I could make citrus cleaner with the small, still-green oranges if I didn’t want to just throw them out. Yes please!

By the way, the orange tree was a housewarming present from my gal pal Ashby, who complemented it with a six pack of Blue Moon. Pretty much a perfect Florida housewarming gift, if you ask me.

So this is how Sasha and I made vinegar cleaner infused with citrus oil. Pretty simple.

Tools needed

• oranges (or lemons)
• white vinegar
• water
• large bowl
• knife
• strainer
• spray bottle

How to make your own citrus cleaner

1. Cut oranges in half.
2. Put the oranges (or just the peels if they’re large) in a large bowl and cover them with white vinegar.
3. Soak them overnight, though you can soak them up to two weeks to make it more potent.
4. Strain the vinegar from the citrus.
5.Mix half water and half citrus vinegar in a spray bottle.

Citrus oil aids cleaning by breaking down oils and sticky surfaces. Works for me! It’s fine to use around the kids and smells better than straight vinegar and water too.