A Change of Perspective

When I started this blog I really felt that I had some tips to share with the world on keeping your house clean. So many things have changed since I started, I had my fourth child and we moved from a 2200 sq. ft condo to a 2700 sq. foot house with a yard. I've started to craft more, play more, sleep a bit more ;), I'm down to one child at home for most of the day and I refuse to use my "me time" while he naps cleaning, except for Mondays when I clean the house. I like to use that time to nap myself, bake, cook, read, sew, do a project, catch up with a friend, scrapbook, paint my nails, etc. Something that I enjoy and makes me a better wife and mother because I took care of myself. I know that sounds selfish but when I'm happy everyone is happier.
As far as cleaning goes I've made an elaborate chore/reward chart for the kids. The 12, 9, and 6, year old are perfectly capable of helping out around the house and it's important for them to learn the value of hard work. For example my nine year old wants $50 dollar ugly shoes. She is earning every last cent for those shoes because I'm hoping that she will learn the value of a dollar and she won't want to spend it all on ugly shoes!
So, the house isn't perfect, it's still quite clean and most of the time pretty straight but I've learned to let some things go until I can get to them. Like when the milk is sticking to the shelf every time I go to pull it out I know it's time to clean out the fridge. I still would encourage anyone out there to keep there house clean, but to live more and clean less. And for pete's sake clean the garbage can cupboard once in awhile so when your friends go to throw away garbage it's not revolting!!! :0)
The End

Simple Genius

This idea may have been used in households all over the world, but I came up with it on my very own and was oh so very proud and excited! (Not to sound too prideful or anything) The other day I made faux buffalo wings which involved chicken and oil. Which means oil splattered everywhere! I tried my usual windex to clean up on our glass top stove, but it smeared it around more than cleaned it up. Then a commercial came to my mind about dish soap cutting the grease, so that is what I did. I got out my handy dandy (My toddler loves Blues Clues!) dish soap scrubbing brush and scrubbed the stove top. Worked like a charm! While I was down there I noticed grease splatter and the walls, with a bit more elbow grease the walls are clean too!

I GIVE UP! Let the good times roll!!!

Summer is officially here in my corner of the world and as a result I have full time kids making full time messes. Yesterday, after putting the baby down for a nap I spent a good 30 minutes, vacuuming, steam mopping, cleaning the hard water and dirt off the outside of the sliding glass doors, and cleaning the hand prints, and baby prints off the inside of the sliding glass door. Then I sent the older kids outside for some much needed fresh air and fun in the sun. I went upstairs to finish the straightening and get ready for the day. As I came downstairs what did I see? One of my daughters squirting the doors, over, and over with her squirt gun. Then later that afternoon all of them completely ignored me and came inside dragging their wet and grassy feet over my freshly steam mopped tile! That did it, I spent most of the day grumpy about the whole thing. Today I realize I have two choices:

1. Do I yell at the kids all summer to keep the house clean?

2. do I do my best to straighten, keep to my weekly cleaning and call it good.

They make the choice for me, #2 it is. Wish me luck, because this super clean Mommy and her not so clean children need it!

Hard Water?

Do you have hard water stains on your faucet like me? This is after I had cleaned half of the faucet with a lemon! Worked like a charm! I just used half of a lemon as my cleaner and scrubber, some elbow grease and...

Ta Da! A beautiful, shiny, hard water stain free faucet.

Stainless Steel Woes?

For the first time in my life I have stainless steel appliances. At first I had a love/hate relationship with them. Love the shine, the measured water feature on the fridge and a dishwasher that works really, really good. Hate the drips, fingerprints, spots...get the picture? I tried Windex, because what doesn't Windex clean? The answer: Stainless steel. It cleans it, but leaves horrible streaks. I was on the hunt for a streak free cleaner and I found it! Baby Oil! Okay, it doesn't actually clean, but it polishes my stainless beautifully! First, clean with the Windex, then put some baby oil on a white wash cloth, {a little goes a long way} then polish away. Ta Da! Gorgeous streak free, fingerprint free, spot free stainless. Until someone walks by and touches it of course. But the oil lasts awhile so it isn't hard to polish it with a dry cloth as needed.

My First Junk Drawer

When I was moving in I had all this left over "stuff." Stuff that used to be in three different places in our other place. This is the stuff that doesn't quite have a home, stuff that I need regularly and sometimes in a hurry, like band aids, lip gloss, lotion, and tape. All these things can most likely be found in other place in my home as well. But random things like the felt pads to go on the bottom of the chairs, extra elastics to protect long hair from syrup in hair, all these things also go in the junk drawer. Occasionally I'll open it up and think "I really need to get this organized," but most of the time I just love it! It's so convenient.

Garages

Right now I have belongings in two garages. The garage at our old place has the leftover stuff stacked in a corner, but it is garbage free and has been swept out. We really need to get the rest of the stuff out of there, but we can't until the garage at our new place gets a major overhaul. It is a disaster area! Every time I move the garage is the last place to get organized, out of sight, out of mind I guess. But it isn't really out of sight, I go in there a million times a day to get in and out of the car. Thankfully the forecast is for sunshine on Saturday and we can tackle the garage and get some order! We have plans to put in some shelving, stack all the holiday bins together in order, take my little sisters stuff down to my older sisters house who has more storage room, (she doesn't know this, but I don't think she reads this very often!) figure out a way to organize the shoes so the shoe-death-trap at the bottom of the garage stairs disappears, and if I can get my dear husband to organize his tools a miracle will truly have occurred! I will post the after pictures, because there must be an after, I can't live like this!!!