A Day in the Life of a Once a Month Cleaner - Steady Mom

An excellent article full of very wise words. The last two paragraphs talk about freeing yourself from unrealistic expectations that no one asked you to do anyway and about not frittering away time on insignificant details.  Awesome wisdom imparted in those words and for the whole article click on the link. A Day in the Life of a Once a Month Cleaner - Steady Mom:

Some other wisdom from this blogger is:

•  My cleaning motto is "work smarter, not longer." I aim to focus on what matters - cleaning for order, peace, and hygiene. Anything else is an unnecessary distraction.
  
• I like cleaning what really needs to be cleaned. If I can see dirt and remove it, I feel I'm helping my family. But if I'm working on something just cleaned a few days ago, it seems a bit pointless.
•  If the cleaners could deep clean my whole house once a month, why couldn't I? Turns out I can, and I've been doing so for the past three months.
• Here’s how it works. I searched online for a traditional cleaning checklist (Here’s an example) and created my own based on our home and what needs to be done every four weeks.

• The focus for the rest of the month becomes keeping the house tidy and doing any essentials–wiping the bathroom or vacuuming the floor. It’s amazing how a tidy, uncluttered house can fool people into thinking it’s clean.
• Here are the benefits I’ve found in once-a-month cleaning.

• 1. It isn’t always on my mind.

  By cleaning every four weeks, I’m only deep cleaning my house 13 times a year–hooray for that!  
  

   My calendar lets me know exactly when the house will be clean again. Nothing hangs “undone” over my head.
  
  

  2. It reflects our family’s values and helps me combat perfectionism.

  I honestly don’t want to be remembered for having an immaculate house. 
  It also helps me combat perfectionism–by working this way I’m declaring that ‘this level of cleanliness is enough.’ I’m not striving for something that isn’t really important to me anyway.
  
  

  3. I’m cleaning when it really needs to be done.

  In the past, when I cleaned on a weekly basis, my rotation list would occasionally tell me to clean something that didn’t look dirty. I found it hard to get motivated.
• 'via Blog this'

Natural Kitchen Cleaners: What’s Under my Sink?

To help you get the bleach out of your kitchen, Katie from Kitchen Stewardship recommends two bottles and a box.   


I list here the tips that I feel will work best in our home.  Click on the title to go to the complete article.

Use white vinegar, 3% (regular pharmacy) hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda for pretty much every cleaning need in the kitchen.

1. Bottle one: a mixture of white vinegar and water, about ¼ cup vinegar to 32 oz. water
2. Bottle two: 50/50 hydrogen peroxide and water
   
   *This bottle needs to be opaque, or as close as you can get. Hydrogen peroxide breaks down with exposure to light.
   
   
3. The box: baking soda. I actually keep my baking soda for cleaning in a repurposed Parmesan cheese container (one of my many repurposing opportunities in the kitchen).

Added Bonus: All three are totally frugal, (some might even say cheap) homemade kitchen cleaners, especially if you buy a big jug of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide in bulk or somewhere like Save-a-Lot.

What to do with My Cleaners?

1. Sanitizing Countertops, Cutting Boards, and Utensils
Research shows that vinegar and hydrogen peroxide sprayed separately is “more effective at killing …Salmonella, Shigella, or E. coli bacteria than chlorine bleach or any commercially available kitchen cleaner.” I’ve seen this study quoted many, many places, but here’s the trick: the two solutions MUST be in separate containers and sprayed one after the other
If you really want to knock the little guys out (without choking on the fumes), use full strength. I always try to let stuff like this dry on the surface, because I believe that’s where most of the sanitizing action happens. It takes time to wage war on bacteria. When you’re talking stuff like fish and raw chicken, it’s worth the wait.
3. Cleaning the Outside Table
4. Washing Produce
The combo of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide is also a simple produce wash to make sure you’re not getting any field bacteria on your table with your 5-a-days. Just spray them separately and scrub away with your brush. And even if you don’t rinse it all off, you can eat without worry.
6. Scouring the Counters
Forget Comet. I’ll take plain old baking soda over a commercial scrubber every day. Use an old toothbrush and a sprinkle of baking soda, maybe a squirt of water (or one of the other bottles), and your countertops are GORgeous. You do need to rinse the baking soda well, or it will leave a gritty feel.
7. Scrubbing Grout
There’s a post in my draft folder for a day when everyone deserves a laugh entitled, “10 Reasons I Hate Tiled Countertops”, and grout is included in most of them. My grout is always stained, but hydrogen peroxide and baking soda does a decent job of getting rid of the coloring.

dirty little secret

 Click on the title for the complete post with more photos.  I'm going to try this on our sofa - it has really gotten filthy.

What you need:
Rubbing Alcohol
Dawn Liquid Dish Soap
Spray Bottle
Rag (s) 

What to do:
Mix equal parts of rubbing alcohol and dish soap together in spray bottle 
Spray a mist on your dirty carpet and let set for about 30 seconds or so
Rub the soiled area with the rag
If your carpet is heavily soiled, like mine was, you may need to spray again and rub.  I did this about four or five times!  If your rag gets super filthy, get a new one...trying to clean with a dirty rag is not effective!
The cleaner dries pretty quickly, but will leave a light smell of alcohol.  I vacuumed the carpet after cleaning and it took a lot of the smell away.

"

I Am So Excited

What am I so excited about?  About the opportunity to read this new ebook  about cleaning the Mary and the Martha way. The adorable Sarah Mae has prepared this teaching tool for our hearts and our homes.  I'd encourage everyone to head over to her website to get it right now.

It looks like she is hosting a challenge soon as well, so it is the perfect time to pick this book up!

Cleaning Calendar

Check out this cool thing, this will help me accomplish one or two of the things on my 101 in 1001 (2) list.

Cleaning Calendar

http://www.school4jesus.com/neat-way-to-organize-your-daily-and-seasonal-cleaning-schedule

Frugal Househould Tips

Repost from Amanda's Money Saving Tips For The Home

Frugal Househould Tips: "

There are so many frugal tips out there – it would take forever to compile all the ideas and suggestions into one place. I’ve tried many, but there are only a few that have stuck. A few that I thought was worth the extra time involved. Because time is money.

So I will share with you those frugal tips that we have been doing for quite awhile and works for me and the ones that we will likely continue.

Of course some of these tips could be completely eradicated by going “paperless.” But truth be told, I just like paper towels and swiffer cloths. I like paper plates and napkins. So for now, we’ll try to save money in other ways.

Swiffer Cloths

• Re-use your Swiffer cloth – We use one cloth to dust and to sweep the floors. After we dust, the cloth goes back under the kitchen sink until I need to swiffer the floor. We rarely use a new cloth to do the floors.
• Wait to clean up the “pile” – When you are done swiffering, rather than clean up your pile right away, store your swiffer and it’s pile in a little used, little seen corner. Then when there is a quick mess to swiffer up or you need to clean up after a meal, it will be ready to go and you’ll get more from the cloth. Some people can’t do this for various reasons, such as a pet or baby who wants to eat the “pile” or people who don’t have a secret place to store your swiffer pile. I suppose you could clean your pile and still save your cloth, but I found it to be a messy process.
• Make your own – We have homemade swiffer cloths to resort to when I am out of paper or when I want to shave some money off the grocery budget.
  
  You can make your own by using a swiffer cloth as a guide and cutting receiving blankets to the exact size. These make great back-ups. The only problem is they snag terribly when you hit an unknown wet spot in the floor. So be sure the floor is dry!

Swiffer Wet Jet

• Homemade cleaning fluid – Did you know you could re-use the bottle your Wet Jet uses!? You would have thought I had won the lottery when I discovered this.
  
  To refill the bottle: First, soak the Wet Jet bottle in boiling water for a few minutes. Then you’ll want to use a dish cloth to twist the cap off. Voila! Fill with the cleaning solution of your choice and reattach the lid!
  
  We use a cleaning solution of 1/2 vinegar and 1/2 water with 20 or so drops of GSE.

Laundry Detergent

• Buy off-brand – I know many people that make their own. And if it works for you, that’s great! It will save you some money for sure. But for me it was quite a hassle and I didn’t like the way it cleaned our clothes.
  
  I buy off brand detergent from our Dollar General store. Simple enough, huh? Then I spend a little extra money on stain treatments and only spend the extra money on treating clothes that have hard to get out stains. A bottle of stain remover lasts almost forever for us.

Dryer Sheets

• Cut your dryer sheets in 1/2 – I do this as soon as I open the box. I take a pair of heavy duty scissors and divide the sheets into 3 piles or so and cut, then I place them back in the box. Gets the job done and you get double your money back!

Dishwasher Detgergent

• Use less – According to the experts we have a tendency to use too much dishwasher detergent. Correct this little habit and I am certain you will notice a bottle can go a looooong way.

Hand Soap

• Use foaming soap dispensers – I have foaming hand dispensers in each bathroom and one in the kitchen. I have noticed that we use far less hand soap than we used to. Not aware that you’re going through the hand soap quickly? Then I suggest you follow your children and just watch them wash their hands. I was shocked to see how much hand soap our children pumped out!
• Make your own foaming soap – Fill each foam soap dispenser with 1 inch of regular hand soap and fill the rest with water.

Cleaning Solutions / Windex

• Make your own – We use a cleaning solution of 1/ 2 vinegar and 1/2 water sometimes with 20 or so drops of GSE. We use this to clean our floors, the bathrooms and kitchen, windows and mirrors.

Paper Towels

• Buy select a size – That’s pretty self explanatory! I personally like Sparkle paper towels. They are cheaper than Bounty and they hold up well and leave almost no lint behind.
• Store them elsewhere – Especially if you have children, you may want to make the paper towels less accessible than right beside the kitchen sink. I have often stopped my children and counted how many paper towels they pulled off just to dry their hands…let’s not go there ok? By making them less available hopefully you’ll use less!

Why Don't You...Use Tape To Clean Between Computer Keys!

Why Don't You...Use Tape To Clean Between Computer Keys!: "You know all the cookie crumbs dust between the keys of your computer keyboard? Kind of hard to get out of there...Use tape to pull all that stuff out of the crevices!

I read this then looked at my computer and thought ewwww - Jennifer you are brilliant and my computer keyboard thanks you.