Spic and Span? Cleaning Resolutions for Your Home

It’s time for a resolution! Or not. Whether you shun New Years’ resolutions or jump onto the resolution train, this time of year is a good time to plan for the next. Whether you call them resolutions or not, you might be thinking forward to what the new year will bring. If there’s one thing I’m fairly certain about, it’s that we’re not looking forward to more cleaning in 2013. What sorts of resolutions have I made in years gone by? 1. Do one thing a day. This resolution helped me in 2012, but I slid a little in the … Continue reading →

5 Exfoliants You Can Create at Home

For the luxury of a spa treatment without the expense, create your own formulas. Exfoliants are fun and a good party of any beauty treatment. They work by sloughing off dead skin cells that can make your skin dull or cause break outs. You can create your own scrub and experiment with different recipes until you get one that works perfectly for you. While not all of the ingredients listed below are all natural, you can feel confident about choosing ones that are, if that is a concern for you. You can also avoid any ingredients that may cause allergies. … Continue reading →

Cleaning Out the Car

You know that things are bad in your car when a ten-year-old complains that it is gross. We have had a couple of strange weeks, so my normal policy of having everyone grab at least three things that don’t belong each time they leave the car just wasn’t working. I hit the last straw yesterday when two things occurred: my daughter pulled out an old and yellowed cheese stick from behind a seat, and the carpooling kids didn’t want to put on their seat belts because they were afraid of all of the crumbs. “They are huge crumbs. It isn’t … Continue reading →

Get Beautiful with Petroleum Jelly

Petroleum jelly (Vaseline) has long been used as a beauty staple. Learn all of the different ways that you can put this product to use in your beauty routine and save money, not to mention space in your bathroom cabinet. Fix your eyebrows. Use a clean fingertip or a mascara wand to apply a tiny amount of petroleum jelly to your eyebrows in a sweeping motion. Start from the inside and go toward the outside in one moment. Instantly tamed brows are yours. Remove your eye makeup. Put some petroleum jelly on your eyelids and then wipe it off again … Continue reading →

Getting Ready for Spring Cleaning: What You’ll Need

Make your spring cleaning as painless as possible by being prepared. Here is what you will need to make your spring cleaning go smoothly. Attitude Having a positive outlook will go a long way to making spring cleaning something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Instead of focusing on the amount of work or the tedium of the job, instead concentrate on the results. Think about how good you will feel when the spring cleaning is completed. Visualize enjoying your favorite activities in your nice, clean and clutter free home. Build in some rewards to help reinforce … Continue reading →

Stain Beaters

Don’t throw away that clothing or linen item! Instead beat the stain and get it out with the following tricks and tips. With any stain, it is important to try to attack it as soon as possible after it happens. Stains can set in, especially if they have been through the dryer. Red Wine Stain First apply some salt to the stain. The salt will absorb some of the color. Next, place the item over a bowl or a sink and pour boiling water over the stain. After that, ou can launder the item as usual. Dirt Dirt stains are … Continue reading →

Spring Cleaning Checklist

Are you ready for spring cleaning? It is almost that time of year. Get a head start and make the process easier when you establish a spring cleaning checklist that works for you. Here is how to begin. The first thing you should do is to jot down a spring cleaning checklist by room. This will makes things easier on several levels. You can easily hand off a room to someone else, such as another member of your family or hired help. Having a room by room checklist will also ensure that the most important jobs get done and nothing … Continue reading →

Time to Clean the Bookshelves

If you raise a cloud of dust every time you pull a book off of your bookshelves, or if the shelves are sagging under the weight of the books that are overstuffed and piled out of place, then it might be time for you to clean the bookshelves. I’m taking on this project myself at home, mostly because I want to eliminate at least one of our existing bookshelves in the name of more space and a less cluttered office. I also want to eliminate the dust that tends to hide behind both the books and the bookcases. Because we … Continue reading →

Wash Me, Please

There I was down in the basement, picking up our new playroom yet again. The kids were upstairs in the living room playing a new dance game on the Wii. They were having a lot of fun, judging from the giggling and the various stomps and booms I was hearing through the basement ceiling. I admit that I had an ulterior motive for being down in the playroom–to identify some items that could get passed on to other kids. Every once in a while, I would climb the basement stairs and ask the kids, “Hey, can we donate item x?” … Continue reading →

Germs in the Laundry

Did you know that there were germs hiding in your laundry? These germs can make you and your family sick. Here is what to do about them. If you aren’t washing all of your laundry in hot water (and I certainly don’t), then you are not getting out all of the germs and bacteria that could be making your family ill. Laundry washed in cold or luck water only gets out about 80 percent of existing bacteria. Where is all of this bacteria coming from? There is bacteria living in dishcloths and kitchen towels, underwear and bath towels, among other … Continue reading →