Cleaning the house usually leaves me awash with guilt over the potentially toxic products I’m using -- which means I’m a sucker for anything that says it biodegrades, or is safe for the environment, or doesn’t murder baby seals. But I’ve also got to keep my eye on my family’s budget, which often leaves me standing in the cleaning-products aisle of Whole Foods glaring at the various products and wondering which, if any, are actually doing any good.
 
This is why I listened carefully to a recent radio show about the Federal Trade Commission’s revamping of their Green Guides -- which left things as clear as (organic) mud.
 
If you’re wondering how trustworthy the environmental claims of your cleaning products are, here’s what I found out after a little digging.

It's easy to love a house with lots of natural light, so I find myself drawn to rooms with large scale windows. Here in France, we're renting a gorgeous farmhouse in the countryside, and the room we spend the most time in is the room with the biggest windows. Of course!

This roundup of beautifully designed sun rooms will make you want to knock down a few walls and make a cozy, sunny spot of your very own.

My husband knows that before we make any major home purchase, there are two things I’m going to need: My drawer full of Bed, Bath & Beyond 20 percent off coupons, and my back-issues of Consumer Reports. My mom may not have taught me to keep the house clean or separate my laundry -- she’d rather be writing ... and who can blame her? -- but she did teach me to stretch my pennies 'til Abraham Lincoln looks like Gumby.
 
Consumer Reports is a non-profit organization that tests household products and rates them by durability and whether they’re worth the money you pay for them. They don't take ads, and they don’t care if companies get mad at them. So when it’s time to buy a vacuum cleaner and you want to know if Dyson really never loses suction, Consumer Reports is your impartial third-party, removing the hype from the infomercials.
 
And today (July 5, until 3 a.m. EST on July 6), they’re free.

Nothing warms my geeky little heart more than the new issues of Consumer Reports. In the July issue, they looked at laundry pre-treatments and mentioned all the different stains they tried each product on – which made me wonder: What stains are bad enough to make the experts use them as examples?

And, you know, I have this great job that lets me be a nosy-noodle, so I called right over to CR and talked to Pat Slaven, the chemist who works as a scientist of stain removal. Seriously, that’s a job! Tell your daughters!

She unlocked the secrets of stains for me, which in turn gave me magic mom-style knowledge. These are the most stubborn stains -- and why:

Maybe it is on your favorite, go-to white button-down, the one that goes with everything. Or perhaps it is on that great long tunic t-shirt that looks awesome with your skinny jeans. It is definitely on your husband's undershirts. Yup, I'm talking the yellow armpit stain. Some are a faint tinge, some are as yellow as a sunflower, others are yellow and, sadly, crunchy. It is a part of wardrobe life, a part of what happens when you wear that beloved white shirt a few too many times.

Don't be ashamed, it happens to all of us. But it doesn't have to! There are some tricks to get those yellow beacons of old sweat out of there as well as how to not let them creep into your drawers to begin with!  

There are a few things in life that are just perfection -- your child's laugh, the smell of toast, and John Powell's soundtrack to How to Train Your Dragon make that list. Climbing into bed with freshly laundered sheets is another. Sadly, in my house, that perfect sheet scenario doesn't happen as often as it probably should. How often do you change your sheets?

A recent study asked people across the U.S. the same question. They broke it down into categories: every 1-5 days, every 6-10 days, every 11-20 days, or after 21 days or more. What category do you fall into ... and would you admit it?

I love Project Runway. I adore a good clean kitchen. Put the two together and it's like finding the perfect shoes for that cute wrap dress you just got. Well, girls, we got lucky! Project Runway winner and fabu designer Christian Siriano has designed some sponges that will make doing dishes all that more fashionable ... or at least a little fashionable.

That's right -- Christian Siriano teamed up with O-Cel-O to create some non-scratch sponges that bring a bit of style to the suds in your sink. They are based on his Spring 2011 collection.

Who would buy these, you may ask? Me! Just wait 'til you see them ... they're fierce!

Laundry. For some, it's the bane of their existence. Others love the feeling of completion, upon washing, drying, and folding a load or two of laundry. No matter what team you're on, doing laundry takes a certain amount of time, usually an hour or two, if not more.

But hold the bleach, ladies! There is a new washing machine by Russell Hobbs that has a 12-minute cycle. I kid you not. Let me type it again. A 12-minute cycle. One of the 14 cycles on this new machine washes not-too-dirty clothes in less than the amount of time it takes my kid to put on her socks. I guess there are two nozzles that jet-propel water and soap into your clothes, which makes to go uber-fast ... I kinda don’t care how it does it because it does it in 12 minutes! Be still my laundry-doing heart!

As I did the happy dance around my living room, 12 things every mom will love about this 12-minute washing machine popped into the ol' noggin: