Going "Green"

Now that Jonathan is crawling around, my conscience has turned to more "kid" friendly and "environmentally" friendly cleaning products. I have been pondering this for a while, and decided that I would make the change for the health of my family and if it helps out the planet? Why not? My friend told me that she uses vinegar to clean her wood floors. I thought to myself..."Vinegar can actually be useful? AND kid/environment friendly?", so I gave it a try today. I dug around my house looking for some vinegar. One always has a random bottle in their cupboard, that you buy thinking that "someday" you will need it. Well..today was the day. I dusted it off and got to work scrubbing my floors. It seemed to work pretty well, except that it has a NASTY smell. I kept thinking that it would die out a little, but it continues to live on. You really notice it as you walk out and come back inside. Pee-uu! If this is what environmentally friendly smells like? NO thanks. I decided to go online, and do some research on vinegar. Why on earth would anyone want to keep using this stuff, when it makes your house smell like a truck load of rotten cole slaw has been dumped in your living room? One thing I read said, "Don't worry about your house smelling like vinegar, the smell goes away after it dries.." yeah right, It's been 7 hours now, and it still stinks. And then I read on and learned a valuable word. A word that made the whole universe come back into alignment. What is this word? Dilute... Use 1/4 cup vinegar to 1 gallon water when cleaning vinyl floors. Oh. That would have been helpful. Didn't think about diluting the gallon of vinegar. Dilute. One word, that makes all the difference.