Central Florida Green Guide

The founder of this site envisions a comprehensive website for holistic-minded, eco-conscious families who are interested in natural living.  The goal is to create a source of reviews by local parents (not just links) for those who are trying to find alternative care practitioners, natural childbirth information, nontoxic pest control, natural housekeeping services, organic foods, and more. 

Visitors to our site will be encouraged to share their comments as well, hopefully resulting in a valuable resource for our local “green” community (specifically families with children). If you are interested in becoming a writer for this site, please see the writers’ guidelines and contact Jan Zeiger for more information. Want to chat with others who are interested in green living? Check out our new forum.

Just here to read?  Check out the latest posts as well as the archives to see what our writers are up to and be sure to check back often for reviews of the best holistic resources in Central Florida. 

Meet the Green Guide Contributors:

Jan, the founder/editor of the Central Florida Green Guide, is a former public school teacher who is now a homeschooling mom. She strives to live naturally–especially when it comes to parenting her two young children. In addition to her work as a homeschool evaluator, Jan is an educational consultant with Usborne Books.  Hands on Homeschooling, Jan’s latest project, is a site for local homeschooling families that is modeled after the Central FL Green Guide. Learn more about this crunchy WAHM by visiting her website.

Kristy is mom to Dax and in her journey entitled “motherhood” she has begun to look at the world a bit differently.  Since her sweet boy is now part of this planet she’s been researching to find healthier ways to do things and live a life of less impact. In a city that is less than “crunchy” it has been an adventure.  She hopes to share some of what she’s learned both here and at her store Wee Willie Winks where she offers cloth diapers and other earth/child friendly parenting solutions. She also “Delivers the Scoop on Cloth Diapering” on her multi-author blog Cloth Diaper News.

Jenny is a kooky, crunchy, unschooling mom to two amazing children. A long time ago, in a world far, far way, she was a theatre major, then a people-pleasing corporate marketer, but can now be found playing Fairy Godmother in repeat performances in her living room. She also makes a mean costume out of copy paper and brads. Jenny has an opinion about everything, views life through rose-colored glasses, and can be rather long-winded. Visit her at her occasionally updated website to learn more.

Gretchen  is a 34 year old stay-at-home mom, a Certified Health Educator and Wellness Coach. She believes a plant based diet is healing, therapeutic, and the best diet for preventing or reversing disease. She is passionate about educating families about plant based diets, exercise, and stress reduction.  She enjoys practicing Ashtanga Yoga, spinning, experimenting with Vegan cooking, Juicing, Sprouting, and feeding her family as wide of a variety possible of raw organic fruits and vegetables each day. 

Jill enjoys spending her days being a helpmate to her husband and raising her three children. She holds two bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Biology. Some of her favorite hobbies are gardening, playing the piano and cooking. Her family are the humans to Lucy, the rescued dog, Smokey, the rescued cat and soon to be humans of a flock of chickens, too!

Michelle lives in Orlando with her husband and baby daughter.  She is passionate about pregnancy, birth, and motherhood.  She is a doula, lactation counselor, and Itsy Bitsy Yoga instructor.  You can also find her doing henna at various events.  She is a conscious and spiritual being.  Her dedication to spiritual evolvement led her to become an Avatar Master through which she is helping to create an “enlightened planetary civilization”. 

Heidi, wife to Richard and stay-at-home mom to Abigail. She is expecting her long awaited second child in december. Heidi does everything in life as naturally as possible, and someday hopes to own a store that carries all of the natural things she uses on an everyday basis. Heidi enjoys cooking, sewing, spending time with her family, and hopes to one day be certified in homeopathy, as an herbalist, and also as a midwife.

Cat is heavily involved in her volunteer work most of the time. She devotes herself to “good, green things” and expresses her “eco-spirit” as Chair of the Green Team at the First Unitarian Church of Orlando, occassionally teaches Sunday school, and teaches an organic children’s gardening class once a week. (greenteam @ orlandouu.org) Her quieter, semi-anon, more low-key online persona at our ‘zine is her way to relax. In her personal garden/food diary, “White Plate Harvest” she gets to pursue her square foot gardening, vegan cookery, crafting, and natural housekeeping experiments!

Julianne works as a Life Coach and Reiki Teacher, from the comfort of her home, with the goal of bringing full alignment and balance to her clients’ lives.  During her journey through law school and legal career she discovered what it meant to live in alignment and how much better it felt when she did.  Through Reiki and a lot of self evaluation she discovered that living in alignment meant so much more than having a career you love.  Julianne continues to discover new ways to live naturally and in balance with the earth!   To learn more about Julianne and her work you can check out her website.

Lisa is the President and RN Health Educator of Health and Safety Training, a company that provides CPR, First Aid, Pet First Aid and other health and safety educational courses.  She also manages her home in partnership with her husband Jack, homeschools her two children, and enjoys her 3 cats, 1 dog, 3 ferrets, 3 turtles, and 2 hamsters!  Cooking a whole foods diet for her family and pets is one of her passions - finding interesting vegetarian recipes is another.  She enjoys reading, art, travel, cooking, learning new ways to contribute to the health and well being of our planet, and teaching people valuable skills.