Discussion: Your Best (and Easiest) Housecleaning Tips

This month we've been talking a lot about Spring Cleaning.  That term can mean different things to different people, but I think we will all agree that

We want our houses/apartments/homes to be clean and we want to exert the least amount of effort possible to do it.

So how exactly do you do that?

I would love to know your tips and tricks to housecleaning using the least amount of energy possible.

Leave me a comment on here or on my Facebook page with your best cleaning tip.  

I'll compile them all together and post it for you next week.
There's no point in keeping great wisdom to ourselves, is there?

I'm participating in a Group Writing Project through the Problogger site.  Feel free to go check out other discussion posts as well.

Pinteresting Pins: Magic Eraser & a Baking Soda Trial

Time to test out more fun things I found over on Pinterest.

Shockingly enough, Pinterest is good for more than just finding yummy food.  Did you know that?
There are all sorts of great time-saving and sanity-saving tips on there.  I created a great little board called "Frugal Household Ideas."  Go, check it out.  There are lots of great (cheap) household tips that should make your life easier.

I looked over what I had pinned to see what would be most useful to me right now and this pin stuck out at me: All the uses for Magic Erasers that you didn't know about.  I always keep Magic Erasers on hand, but, I have to admit, I pretty much only use them to clean walls and trim.  I guess I never knew there were other things to clean with them (hence the pin title "all the uses for Magic Erasers that you didn't know about").

When you visit the website, you will see an incredibly long list of uses in the post, as well as 240 comments that include more uses (and a very detailed conversation about what the Magic Eraser is actually made of, in case you are interested).  Obviously, I couldn't try out every use on the list, so I picked out a few that intrigued me and went to work.

Here's my list and the results:

• Inside the oven door - On the actual metal, it cleaned great. On the Glass? Not so much. I tried Windex Multi-Surface Cleaner and a regular sponge on the glass and it was so much better.

• Dried paint on door hinges - The Magic Eraser did not clean this at all, not even one little smudge came off.
• Agitator in washing machine - It's crazy that this was on the list because mine has been dirty forever and it never even crossed my mind that you could clean it!  Maybe I'm really the one who's crazy.  Anyway...this was a score!  It cleaned that agitator beautifully and so quick and easy.

• Stained caulking around sink - It really didn't do anything for my stained caulking, but maybe it depends on the type of stain?
• Bathtub floor - The thought behind this is that the sponge cleans with micro-abrasion (kind of like the micro-dermabrasion you can use for your skin).  It actually gets the dirt clean by taking off a tiny layer of whatever surface you are cleaning.  So those little micro thingies are supposed to get into the spaces on the rough bathtub floor and get them all clean.  Guess what?  It didn't work. AT. ALL.  But since I was in the bathtub cleaning anyway, I decided to try it out on the stubborn ring around the tub.  It worked very well.  Just scraped that sucker right off.

My last experiment was with the grout on the kitchen floor.  The Magic Eraser article claimed that it could clean grout and mine really need cleaning. So I did a little experiment.  It just so happened that I had pinned another tip about how to make your own grout cleaner. (Direct link if you don't have Pinterest.)  I decided to clean some of my floor with the homemade baking soda and water grout cleaner from that pin and some of it with the Magic Eraser to see which cleaned better.

Definitely the baking soda and water cleaned better than the Magic Eraser.  The Magic Eraser did get the grout cleaner than it was before, but not shockingly clean.

While the baking soda paste got the grout clean, it was a complete mess to use.  The directions said to "let it dwell for 10 minutes" then to "rinse clean."  I'm not really sure what it means to "let it dwell for 10 minutes" so I just let it sit there.  But the hard part?  "Rinse clean." How do you get a bunch of wet baking soda off of your kitchen floor without making a huge mess?  You just don't, that's how.  I cleaned it all with a sponge...twice.  Then I mopped...three times.  Guess what?  The floor is still gritty with baking soda.

The moral of the story is: I still haven't found a grout cleaner that I like, but, hey, if you want to clean your washing machine's agitator...the Magic Eraser is the way to go!

Have you found any great uses for the Magic Eraser?  How about grout cleaner?  Know any good ways to clean that?

Spring Cleaning: Week 1

I am following Money Saving Mom this month in the 30-day house cleaning challenge in an attempt to clean up my house (it really needs it).  You can follow my progress all week through Instagram (#cleanin30), Twitter (#cleanin30) or Facebook.  You can also join in the challenge fun.  Download the 31 Day House Cleaning Guide that we are following and you, too, can have a sparkling, or at least somewhat cleaner, house.

After reading back over this, I can't believe I'm going to show these pictures on the Internet.  I'm going to loose my rock star organizing status and let you guys see how my house really looks most of the time!  Just don't think too badly of me, OK?

Day 1: Surface clean kitchen and living room

Day 1 started with Munchkin #1 throwing up in the middle of the night and all morning long.  Needless to say, surface cleaning was not high on my priority list.  Keeping up with sick person laundry and cleaning floors from where said sick person got sick, was much more urgent.  So I did Day 1 on Day 2 and it was all good.  The world didn't stop turning or anything.

I didn't have the energy to tackle both rooms in one day, so I just worked on the kitchen.  Here's how it was to begin with.  I'm almost embarrassed to show these pictures.  It was b.a.d.

Before the clean up - counter clutter galore!

I tackled the clutter, put things back where they belonged, sorted through lots of school papers and mail and, finally, got the counters cleared off. I even got the kids in on the action (what better way to spend Spring Break, right?).  They sorted through their school papers.  Anything with a clean white back gets put into the recycled printer paper pile.  All others get thrown away.

My sorting helper.
Getting to use a staple remover adds to the fun!

Then there were these:

While I love all my reusable grocery bags and my 31 totes, finding places to store them all is tricky.  Then I remembered one of my favorite tricks - command hooks on the inside of a closet door.  Ta-da!

Here's Day 1 before and after:

Before - Yikes!

After - Ah! I can see the counters again.

Day 2: Clean bathrooms

This one was much easier for me.  I had bathroom cleaning on my list anyway due to the second child in 2 weeks being sick.  Everything needed disinfecting with bleach.  I cleaned 4 sinks (I left Julie's sink for her to clean since it's one of her weekly chores), 3 toilets and 1 germy tile floor (we're talking on hands and knees with bleach wipes scrubbing all over the floor - fun times).  I decided to leave the tub and shower for another day because I like to procrastinate like that when it comes to cleaning.

I didn't take a "before" picture because, well, you can't see germs, so I thought there was no point.  But here is the "after" picture in the kids' bathroom.

Clean and germ-free, we hope.

Day 3: Surface clean bedrooms

I decided to tackle one corner in my bedroom that has been frustrating me for months.  Way back in January when we had lots of snow, Tim set up a little office area in the bedroom so he could work from home for several days.  And it never got put away.  And more stuff got added.  And I couldn't get into my closet without moving out the table every time, which was annoying.  Day 3's task was the perfect reason to clear it all up.  The task technically meant to clean all the bedrooms but the kids clean their bedrooms once a week for chore money, and I wouldn't want to take away their opportunity to earn, now would I.

Cleaning up involved listing several things on our local Facebook yard sale to get them out of the house (selling them all today - yay!), folding lots of laundry, putting wayward tools back in the tool cabinet and finally doing a Pinterest project that I will tell you all about next week.

Here's the "before" and "after" shots:

Before - I think junk just attracts more junk.

After - Yay!  There really is a floor there and I can get into my closet again.

Day 4: Surface clean an extra room

I really wanted to pick the den as my extra room, but our den is huge and it's hugely cluttered so I decided to pick one corner of my den.  Cheating?  Maybe a little bit, but if I try to clean too much and get overwhelmed then I end up just stopping.  So a little is better than nothing.

This project was a combination of my kids cleaning up the Lego/train table, Tim taking down the clothes racks I used to prepare for the consignment sale and me cleaning up where an end table used to be.

The before and after:

Before - Sigh!  So much straightening needed.

After - Maybe they can actually play Legos on the table now.
Just a thought...

Day 5: Surface clean the living room

This was a speedy cleaning day.  I'm getting ready to go relax with some high school friends for the weekend.  Luckily, the task for the day is to clean the living room and it wasn't too bad (surprising, I know).

Here's the before and after:

Before - mainly Easter basket things to put away and a few toys on the floor.

After - fresh and clean.

Now it's your turn.  Tell me which rooms you've cleaned this week.

The Gratitude Project

My one word for this year is Gratitude, being thankful to God for all he has given me.  Join me in the Gratitude Project every Thursday.  I list what I'm thankful for and you tell me what you're thankful for.

After taking a few Thursdays off during March, I'm back with the Gratitude Project.  Those last 2 weeks in March were super busy and I have to admit, I completely forgot about this.  But I'm back now.  I can be grateful for renewed memories (wink!).

I'm also excited and grateful to announce that this is my 500th post!  I've been blogging since Sept 2009 and the frequency of my posts has varied greatly over the years.  But I'm proud of this blog project of mine and of it's longevity.  I've got great plans in the near future for Stay in the Car Mom and I can't wait to reveal it all to you.

I'd like to take a moment and thank all of you, my readers.  I'm always amazed when someone tells me they read my blog.  I write because I enjoy it and because I want to document our lives, but it's extra special to me when people are interested in the things I write and when they faithfully read my posts.  For that I want to say that I'm truly grateful to you.

Now it's your turn.  I'd love for you to leave me a comment with your name and one thing you are grateful for.  It's quick and easy, I promise!

Spring Cleaning: Join in the Challenge

I read a lot of blogs and I get a feel for what's going down in the blogsphere (at least the little section of it that I read).  And right now the trend is Spring Cleaning.  It's no wonder though.  The long, cold winter is almost done and people want to wipe it away and start the warm months with bright, clean houses.  I understand.  I want a clean house too.

What's the best way to Spring clean a house?
I sure don't know the answer to that.  You could say that I'm a little bit challenged in the housekeeping department.  I mean, I want my house to be clean, but I don't want to have to be the one to clean it.  (That's what I had kids for, right? Um, I mean, no, of course that's not why.)

But...my house really does need some help.  After a rough Fall and Winter physically, I feel like I'm finally in a position to spend a few minutes on Spring cleaning each day.  Now, I can't go wild or anything, but a few minutes will be OK for me and will be great for my house.

After looking around at several blogs that I frequent, I decided to join up with Money Saving Mom's 30 Day House Cleaning Challenge.  Each day in April, she posts a new cleaning challenge.  She'll tell us at 9 AM what to clean and then post a followup post at 6 PM to show how it went in her house.  The party continues all day on Facebook (Money Saving Mom's page), Twitter (#cleanin30) and Instagram (#cleanin30).

I'm going to be posting before and after pictures all day on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.  Be sure to follow me to see all the great cleaning success (and maybe some failures) that I have this month.  I'll also do a once a week summary post so all you non-social-media folks can join in the fun too.

Leave me a comment if you plan to do Spring cleaning this month!!  What part of your house needs cleaning the most?

March Books

These are the books that I've read in March, my "other" books.  Feel free to read the list of 12 books that I'm planning to read in 2013.  You can also see all the books I've read this year and find links to their reviews on my Pinterest page.

March was a much slower reading month than January or February, but that's OK.  The books I read this month were a little longer and I needed to "simmer" over them for a while.  In total, I only read 3 books in March.  I've reviewed Dirty God here.

Remember this picture?  Those were the books I planned to read this month.  (Don't know what I'm talking about?  Join me on Instagram to be kept in the loop.)  Yeah, I only read one of those books.  Oh well, they are still on my list for April.

So here are the other 2 books that I've read this month.

Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

Update: Oops, I forgot to tell where I got these great books.  I found this one in a bookstore as we were killing time before dinner one night (those bookstores with train tables are great!).  My wonderful husband bought it for me.

Synopsis:  Two of the world's most successful bloggers walk you through how to start and run a money-making blog.  From choosing a blog, choosing the platform on which to host it, promoting it and learning how to earn revenue, the authors give you detailed instructions for every step of the way.

My Thoughts:  This is an absolute must-read for everyone who wants to blog for income.  I learned things such as how to build a "sticky" blog community and how to effectively use social media to promote my blog.  The fact that the authors run a successful, very lucrative blog at problogger.net is just icing on the top.  After reading the book, I visited the site and it's like I get an encore of the book every day.  That in itself is incredibly useful to me.

Although I wish the book had gone more in depth about some things like SEO (search engine optimization), it did give me a great deal of information about many things in relation to my blog that I had never thought about before.  It will take me a while to process it all.  I'm sure Problogger will be a resource that I refer back to quite often in the future.

All Things New by Lynn Austin

Update:  Since I'm a huge Lynn Austin fan and this was her new book, my mom bought it for me and gave it to me as a Christmas gift.  I just wish I hadn't waited 2 months to read it.

Synopsis: The Civil War has just ended and the Weatherly family is trying to figure out how to live this new life they find themselves in.  In Antebellum times, they had owned a prosperous cotton plantation in Virginia complete with dinner parties, carriage rides and the most valuable asset of all...slaves.  Now, Phillip, the owner of the plantation, as well as the head of the Weatherly family, is dead and their slaves have been freed by their former enemy, the dreaded Yankees.  Can young Josephine, her mother Eugenia and their former slave, Lizzy, all figure out how to survive?

My Thoughts:  Lynn Austin is one of my favorite authors and once again, she does not disappoint.  Every character in this book is so well-rounded and complex.  Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the three women: Josephine, Eugenia and Lizzy.  You get one view of a character from outside of them and a completely different view of that character when you gets to live in her shoes for a chapter or two.  What might look like one motive to one person becomes a completely different motive when viewed from the other side.  Lynn Austin does a great job with that.

I also love that this story looks at an aspect of the Civil War not often talked about in books - the Reconstruction. It's great that the North won and that slavery was abolished but when Southerners were sent home to figure out how to survive in a new normal that they knew nothing about, then you start to feel for them and empathize with their plight.  You get new insight into why the Civil War was fought in the first place and why the South felt like it couldn't survive without slavery.

But the best part of the book?  The hope that is present throughout it all.  Hope just emanates from the lives of all three women, hope that the future will be better than the present. If you love historical fiction, than you will love this book.

I've read 3 books in March.  That brings my total up to 16 books for the year.  I'm well on my way to reaching my 40 book goal.  See all the books I've read on my Pinterest page.

Happy Easter!

It was a rainy Easter around here but we managed to have some fun anyway.

Somehow the Easter bunny forgot to come by our house Saturday night. I can't imagine how that could have happened!  Luckily, I talked to the him early Sunday morning and he assured me that if I asked the kids to stay in their rooms, he would make a special delivery to their Easter baskets right away.

Then it was church time.  Celebrating Resurrection Sunday at church is one of the highlights of my year.  We also love getting new clothes and looking our best to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord.

 

And one of my favorites of the day...Julie's awesome hair.  I took ideas from several different blog posts.  This is a combination of neverending braids and a rosette flower bun.  What do you think?

After church, it was off to my parent's house for lunch and an egg hunt.

Last stop of the day was Tim's parents' house.  We had a turkey dinner and even more Easter basket treats. Growing up I didn't live close to my extended family.  I am so glad my children get to live close to lots of their family and that we get to celebrate with everyone on holidays.

How was your Easter?  Did you get to celebrate with family?