Vinegar saved my Keurig

So the other day I went to make a cup of coffee in my Keurig. It was the Dunkin Donuts Mocha Mint coffee that I had just bought and I was so looking forward to it.  I stepped away for a minute while it brewed and to my surprise when i returned the cup was only about a quarter of the way full.  Hmm. That's odd, I thought.  So I refilled the chamber with water and tried to rebrew, but again only a trckle of water came through. Oh no, I thought.  My Keurig is done for.  I decided to google "Keurig not brewing" and was directed to the Keurig site on how to maintain your brewer.  Well, we all KNOW we should clean our coffee makers every once in a while, but do we do it? No.  It recommended trying to descale the brewer with white vinegar.  Worth a a try so I found the vinegar (out in the laundry room, of course) and brewed 10oz of vinegar.  And then another 10oz.  After the third round the brewer started to get back to a normal liquid flow.  SWEET.  I repeated it a few more times and then rinsed with several rounds of water to remove the vinegar.  Now my brewer is pretty much back to normal and I am a happy caffeinated camper once again.  PS. I used the hot vinegar to clean and deoderize my kitchen sink. I dumped a bunch of baking soda in the sink (epecially down into the disposal) and the poured the hot vinegar over it.

Review - EcoNuts Multi-Surface Cleaner

Over the past few years I've been trying to "green my cleaning" by incorporating more natural cleaners in my house. I felt this was especially important when the babies came so as to limit their exposure to toxic chemicals.   I have been wiping down the kids' high chair seats every day (sometimes twice a day) and figured that any residue from a traditional cleaner might get on the hands/food that touches their high chairs.   One product I was dying to try was the multi-surface cleaner from EcoNuts. I have heard really good things about EcoNuts soap nuts (also on my list to try) so I thought their multi-surface cleaner would be a good thing to try out.  Here is what EcoNuts says about their cleaner on their website:

The ultimate in non-toxic liquid surface cleaners!

Safe to use around children and pets, and packaged in an aluminum bottle with our low-flow spray trigger (saves you money!).
This lightweight and compact 10oz bottle will clean everything in your kitchen and bathroom and leave it fresh-smelling. No gloves, goggles, or face mask required to block those awful chemical fumes!

The formula is based on our Eco Nuts and other botanical extracts. It is phosphate-free, sulfate-free, ammonia free and alcohol Free.

It works on tile, metal, stone, porcelain enamel, chrome, laminate, quartz composites and other non-porous surfaces.

Use in conjunction with our Clean-All powder to power through tough messes.

When I got it i thought that it had an interesting spray nozzle and was a good size although pretty expensive as far as cleaners go at 7$ for 10oz (for comparison, Windex multisurface cleaner is about 4.50$ for 26oz.)  As soon as I sprayed it, I was immediately put off.  WOW it smells like vinegar - a LOT.  Not even close to "fresh-smelling" as they claim in their ad.  I don't care how "natural" it is - if it smells awful I am not going to use it.  I cleaned some mirrors to see how it did as a cleaner and it's fine.  I decided that i could use it on outside tasks like cleaning my car windshield and the outside of glass windows but i will not be using it in the house.  I've only seen a few reviews of this product online and no-one has mentioned how much it stinks so I don't know if I got a bad bottle or if I am crazy, but this stuff stinks.  And that's just my opinion.