Ready for Springtime!

I am probably not the only person ready for this to happen. We were having beautiful weather here in the south and then yesterday it became cold. We got sleet and possible snow late last night. I am ready for spring to be here. I am ready to be able to open my windows and have fresh air blow through my home.
I took one step yesterday to bring fresh and airy to my home with it still being cold outside. I shampooed my living room carpet! Getting all of that dirt out and odors my carpet became light and fluffy. This resulted in light fresh air in the home. Following with this I have started doing the same to my furniture. Shampooing and cleaning the dirty out of my couch. It has even made my couch fluffy and soft from being just dirty and flat. It is a true lift of not only the air in the home, but also the lift of energy in our home. You walk in and you may see clutter from my children's few toys, but you see clean furniture and a nice fluffy soft inviting carpet that makes you want to just slide your shoes off and feel that softness on your bare feet. It is an awesome feeling.
My rave today is going to be over the Bissell ProHeat 2x Carpet/Upholstrey Cleaner. It is well worth the money. They also make one for cleaning up after Pets!

How to Clean your Stainless Steel sink

You know your stainless steel sink is clean when it shines. A shiny sink is like a smile when the sun reflects off of it. It is your kitchens way of showing it’s a happy kitchen. When your sink is clean and shiny it helps the rest of your kitchen and even home fall into place. You tend to want the rest of your home to be clean to compliment your shiny clean sink. To achieve this is simple.

Fill one sink at a time up with hot water. Add a small amount of bleach to the hot water and let it sit for an hour. Use tongs to pull the drain plug out when the hour is up. This not only helps break up anything that may be built up on the sinks surface but it also helps to clean your drains and deodorize them. You can scrub your sink with a cleaner once a week after doing this. Make sure your sink is rinsed out well with warm water and any cleaner residue or food particles is rinsed away.
Now take a cloth and wipe down your sink to dry it. This is where you put the shine to it. Take a glass and surface cleaner or even just a window cleaner will work like Windex or a home-made glass cleaner you may have made yourself. Spray your sink and faucet down with the cleaner. With a clean cloth wipe it down. I usually take a napkin and shine my faucet up after I do all of this. I “polish” it so to speak to make sure there is no streaks or water spots.

Some people like an added shine and a way to protect from water spots. The trick to this is car wax. It protects your sink the same way it does your car. Not to mention the longer lasting shine it adds. You can shine your sink with car wax once a week or less. This helps the water to roll off and not leave behind water spots or streaks after you have cleaned and shined it. The added bonus to all of this. It takes at the most 10 minutes to clean your sink like this after the initial soak.

A few reminders about caring for your stainless steel sink. Do not use anything abrasive on it. Stuff that can scratch your sink up are a big no. Do not use steel wool to clean your sink. Use a scrub brush that is not too stiff. Do not use real abrasive cleaners on your sink either. If you take good care of your sink it will look brand new every day.

Good Tuesday Morning!

Well it's just 2 more days till the big Turkey Day! If you need to do some last minute shopping now is the time. Last minute house cleaning as well. Do a mad dash today to get things picked up working at one thing at a time for 15 mins. Do somoe cleaning for a total of 45 minutes (the Flylady way) and then take a 15 minute break of whatever you want to do that does not involve cleaning so you don't burn yourself out fast. If you haven't taken your turkey's out to thaw yet do that now! It takes a turkey a few days to thaw out. Get your kitchen cleaned and prepared a head of time for the big cooking task you will be doing in it come Thanksgiving. Clean and disinfect counters, make sure all dishes and pans are clean. Clean your stove and oven and don't forget to sweep and mop. But first and foremost before you do anything in there "SHINE YOUR SINK". When you are cooking for the big dinner keep a sink of warm soapy water on one side and the other warm rinse water so you can wash as soon as you are done with it real quick so nothing sticks in case you need that same thing again to cook something else later on. Rinse it, dry it and put it away. This will also help keep clean up after everyone has eaten down. Also, just remember to smile and enjoy your time with your family. If you smile everyone else will smile and if something bad arises from it all just step back take a deep breath and relax. Gather yourself smile and laugh it off. Make the biggest funny about it that you can. Like if you burn something. "Oops. Hope you all like cajun style potatoes. haha" See easy as pumpkin pie. :-) Just remember if you can relax and go with it then your day will turn out great and your dinner even better because you have one thing to be thankful for and that is your familys

Favorite Tip...

I love receiving my email tips from Flylady every day. My favorite tip today is Declutter for 15 minutes. Beleive it or not this actually helps out a lot! Especially if you are like me and already pretty much have your whole house clean just some clutter that needs to be picked up and sorted when you can sit down and do it. I can Declutter my kitchen, dining room and living room in 15 minutes time. Another tip I will share that I picked up from Flylady.net is this. Take your laundry basket with you while you pick up your living room. Everything that does not belong in your living room put it in the laundry basket. When you are done and have it all picked up and your living room looking good just take the basket and walk into each room placing the items that belong in their places. This should take 5 minutes or less. You get your living room picked up and declutterd in 15 minutes and an addition 5 minutes things that were in the living room find their way back to their own rooms into their own places where they belong.