Cleanliness

Spring Cleaning Tips for Mom eBook Review

Description: This eBook is filled with all the information necessary to help you organize and spring clean major rooms in your home. With information such as how to get started, what items you need, how to organize your cleaning to save you both time and money this eBook tells it all. This handy guide even includes a cleaning supply list, a room by room checklist and much more.

Review: When Spring arrives at my house it’s definitely a breath of fresh air. Flowers blooming, birds chirping and the warm sunshine always make the winter seem worthwhile. As a mother, wife and just all around caretaker of my home I needed to find a way to accomplish my spring cleaning quick and easy so that I could enjoy being outside a little more. This eBook gave me exactly what I needed and more.

Spring cleaning takes a lot of elbow grease, time and sometimes money. Finding a way to organize this task to make it more bearable was at the top of my list. Susanne’s eBook spelled it all out for me. It gave me hope that I could finally enjoy this spring and still be able bringing that breath of fresh spring air into my home.

This eBook is a very simple guide on how to spring clean your home and keep it that way all year long. The introduction explains the three basic steps to spring cleaning. These steps also known as deep cleaning, organization and maintenance are the basis on how to save you time, money and that elbow grease while still enjoying a clean fresh home.

Susanne walks you through each room and explains why it is important to follow the steps. With her cleaning tips you not only get the spring cleaning accomplished but you learn ways to maintain that spring clean breath of fresh air all year long.

Included in this eBook are printable lists such as a cleaning supply list and a room by room checklist that has been broken down to include all the majors rooms in your home. These lists are the handiest things I have ever come across. All I have to do is go through each list, starting with the supplies and before I know it I have everything completed and ready for the next time around.

If you’re looking for help when it comes to spring cleaning I recommend this Spring Cleaning Tips for Mom. Read it, follow it and then pat yourself on the back for finding just the right tool to make your spring a real breath of fresh air to savor all year long. Click here to order today!

Cleanliness

E-Book Spring Cleaning Tips For Mom

Winter has kept your family bundled up indoors for several long months and now that spring is just around the corner, it is time to breathe new life and energy into your home!

De-cluttering your home and giving it a thorough spring cleaning is the first step to welcome spring. Not only can clutter build up during the winter, but so can bacteria and other harmful things.

To stay healthy and happy, it’s important to perform a thorough cleaning at least once per year. Spring is the perfect time to take on such a task.

Spring Cleaning Is A Huge Job -
How Can You Make It Easier??

Cleanliness

Household Cleaning Mixtures

Our bodies are our temple. As such it is a sacred place. But, on a daily basis we are polluting our systems with the chemicals we use in our home and on our jobs. While it is eco-friendly, using cleaning products made from all natural ingredients will also detoxify your home and your bodily temple.

Homemade cleaners are not hard to make. Where do you think the idea for many of the modern cleaning products came from? It is a matter of science at work. Something that is acidic will eat away at whatever is on a surface. It could be paint or dirt. Since we are talking about cleaning products, we’ll go with dirt.

Gritty, abrasive substances will clean and remove dirt from the surface as well as cracks and crevices. Store bought cleaners have other components besides the main cleaning ingredients. Companies come up with substances that will eat away the dirt and soap scum but also burn your mucous membranes and make you cough.

We often have the ingredients for our homemade cleaning solutions right under our noses. They are effective and they cost less than more commercial brands. Your primary investment will be in spray bottles to hold your cleaners but those will pay for themselves with frequent use. Most of these are nothing new and you may have seen your mother or grandmother use them once upon a time.

Household Cleaning Mixtures

· Baking soda and vinegar – unclog a drain (can use Alka-Seltzer instead of baking soda)

· Ammonia and water – clean windows

· Water and herbal essential oils – air fresheners

· Vinegar and cornstarch-clean windows

· Lemons – cuts grease

· Borax and washing soda – clothes washing powder

· Hydrogen peroxide – disinfectant and a bleach

· Citrus essential oils and water – disinfectant, cuts through grease, cleans wood flooring

Homemade cleaning mixtures can be mixed in small batches and remade when needed. Even kids can help you clean when using products that are safe for you and the environment. Still, use your cleaning products in a well-ventilated environment.

Household cleaners are an economical way to keep your house germ free and smelling wonderful. Essential oils can be purchased online or from a store that sells herbal preparations. You’ll want to be sure that the only ingredient in the bottle is the oil.

See how quickly the air in your home becomes easier to breath. With a good scrub brush, cloth, and rag, you can use these products effectively all over the house. If you could use better products that are cost effective, why not create a few at home?

Cleanliness

Time Management for Parents

For new parents, they face a common dilemma of making that much needed transition. If you do have work, you also need to juggle that along with your priorities in the family. You can probably easily manage the time at the office but the real challenge lies in organizing your household such as sending or picking the kids up at school, preparing dinner, or cleaning up the house. If not managed well, these tasks can prove stressful.

When you have kids for the first time, it is only natural to suffer from jitters especially with a new setup. However, the solution to this is simple. You just have to cope with your situation since it is only through experience that you’d be able to find a better approach to family life. But here are proven and trusted solutions that any parent might find useful.

Setting Priorities

Learning how to properly set priorities is among the most important skill that every parent, whether new or not, must practice especially for the working ones. The key here is to recognize the difference in schedule as compared to when you were on your own now that you have your kids as your main obligation. Then, you can make the appropriate changes.

You must be able to determine which is your top priority: is it your kids or your work? You have to remember that your decisions have trade-offs, therefore you would have to identify which of them has the least trade-off.

An additional tip that you can employ, you can also try setting up a “to-do” list for your set of activities within a day. That way, you can easily update what priorities you need to focus one.

Delegating other Duties

When it comes to work at home, it is usually the wives’ responsibility to handle them. However, wives must not carry the sole burden of looking after the entire house. Instead, you can delegate other duties to your husband so you can have equal share of the workload at home.

If your husband is not acquainted with domestic chores, this is the best time to get him started. You can divide the chores at home such as washing the dishes, doing the laundry, or cleaning up the house. If not, then you can have him take care of the kids while you finish up on some chores. More than being able to accomplish the chores faster, it forms a bond and creates a healthier working relationship between both of you as parents.

If your kids are old enough, you can even ask them to help you out with the tasks at home. You can start with training them to fix their beds or clean up their rooms, as well as putting their dirty clothes into the laundry basket. Aside from the help they can provide you in maintaining your home, it also teaches them how to be responsible.

Planning out in Advance what you have to do

For mothers, it is best to plan ahead what you have set out to do for the following day. Among these things is creating a menu ahead of time. Therefore, when it is time to prepare lunch or dinner for the family, you already have an idea what to cook for them.

By creating a weekly menu, you increase your efficiency. After all, who has the time and energy to spend wondering about what to cook for dinner after an exhausting day at the office?

Delegate Proper Time for Shopping

When it comes to going out with your family, you need to also plan ahead your itinerary. This will help you prepare the things you will bring with you ahead and figure out if you have missed anything. Enough preparation will ensure that you will have all the things you need for this day off with the family.

As for shopping, there are a few simple tips that any mother would find useful. Shopping at the grocery usually takes a lot of time. Hence, you need to produce a list of the essential items you need to pick up. Not only will this help make shopping faster, but will also make sure that you do not forget anything. Or else you would eat up more time since you have to return to get the items you’ve missed.

For parents, time management usually entails mere common sense. And when you have properly set your priorities, you are good to go.

Cleanliness

Help! My Work Space is a Disaster Area!

This week is Smarter Office Organization Week and do I have a doozie for you! Now, in my defense, for the last 4 months, I have been working 18 hour days and haven’t had a minute for myself much less a minute to clean and organize my office/studio.   But now, things are slowing down some and I have a chance to look at this messy room in disgust.

It’s time to get it clean and organized so I can feel peaceful and productive again.  Now the major problem with me is I can organize just fine. Maintaining is another matter. I would love some tips on how to maintain my work space after it’s cleaned and organized. And I wouldn’t mind orhanizing tips too.  I’m always collecting new tidbits in orgainzing hoping maybe I’ll find the magic bullet that will click for me. Or at least make things easier.

I have the added incentive of having my dad’s beautiful roll top desk sitting in the middle of my living room, just waiting for it’s new home in my office.

I’ll go ahead and list some of my tips.

• When cleaning, leave a basket by the door to put things that need to go to other rooms.
• Have a box for things that need to be given away and a trash bag for trash. I also have a basket for things that I don’t know what to do with yet.
• Have “stations” for things. For example, I have a station where I pack my orders, a station where I do the finishing, etc.
• Try to clean up every night before you leave your office for the day. This is hard for me as I often have ongoing projects that really can’t be put away. But if I clean up what I can, it makes things much smoother the next day.

Ok, so please don’t think less of me. Here are the pictures of my room that looks like a tornado hit it:

Cleanliness

Cleaning and Organizing Go Hand-in-Hand

The New Year will soon be here.  People usually think of things they want to do differently in the future, so they make New Year’s resolutions.  Getting organized is often one of those resolutions.  Cleaning and organizing go hand-in-hand, so begin thinking about what you want to accomplish next year.

Clutter can easily take over your life if you let it.  When there is more than one person in a home, that compounds the amount of clutter you can accumulate.  Think about how your life will change when the clutter is gone – you’re able to clean your home without moving stacks of papers, and the whole atmosphere will be more peaceful.

Getting rid of clutter is important for a number of reasons.  Clutter eats at your time because you can’t find what you need, it causes stress among your family members, and you may even feel ashamed to let friends or family come and visit.  Any one of these reasons may be enough to lead you to start purging your home of the clutter that’s dragging you down.

De-cluttering your home makes organization easier.  Start by going through your home and taking things you don’t use, don’t love, or which need repairs, and put them in bags or boxes.  This will begin the de-cluttering process, but don’t stop there.

After you have gotten rid of the initial clutter, you can take more time making decisions about other items in your home.  Clothing, books, magazines, music, knick-knacks, tools, and other items that aren’t being used or have been outgrown are fair game.  Of course, you may have disagreements about some items, but hold your ground for the sake of your home.

Go to each room of your home with a laundry basket.  Take everything that doesn’t belong in each room and put those items in the correct place.  Remove the papers from the counter top, desktop, and wherever you’ve been hiding them.  Put all of the papers in a box so you can file them later, and then don’t forget to do it.

Use containers to corral small items in kitchen drawers, cabinets, the bathroom cabinet, and in your desk.  Silverware, spices and flavorings, medicines, pens, pencils, and paperclips can all be bothersome if they’re allowed to remain free, so organizing them and putting them in containers is a great idea.

Maybe you’re having problems letting go of things.  Call in the reinforcements!  Ask a friend who isn’t emotionally attached to them to come and help you make decisions.  If the de-cluttering isn’t the problem but cleaning is, you may consider saving up to hire a maid service to help.

Cleaning and organizing go hand in hand when you’re trying to get your home in order.  Do what you can to get rid of things you no longer need, organize what’s left, and then clean up.  Before too long you’ll find your house is a joy to live in.

Cleanliness

Basic H

With the whole world turning “greener” it’s time to start thinking about our part. One of the most harmful things we are doing to ourselves and the earth would actually be using harsh cleaning supplies. I know I’ve been cleaning and all of a sudden I’ve realized that the cleaners were burning my lungs. If it was doing this to me as an adult what was it doing to my children and animals?

I found out that the chemicals that were burning my lungs where not leaving the air when I was done cleaning, they where staying in the air for days, weeks, forever considering I was cleaning on a daily basis. After walking in on my one year old daughter spraying a green cleaner in her face I decided we where not going to risk her spraying something harmful at herself or somebody else.

I started looking around for a different cleaner/cleaners to use when cleaning my house, everything needed to go, but what do I buy to replace it all? It took several days of research for me to finally find something that worked for me. Going to the store and buying $3-$4 a bottle “green” cleaners that had a cleaner for the kitchen, for glass, for the bathroom, for this, for that just wasn’t going to do it for me. Even with coupons I would still be paying an arm and a leg for products that didn’t work as well as the commercial heavy duty burn your lungs cleaners. So what do you do? You keep looking until you find what you are looking for.

My purpose in writing this actually has nothing to do with going green, but because I’ve found a cleaning product that works better, is safe, is green, and is truly FRUGAL! I don’t want to keep this little secret to myself.

I came across a cleaner called Basic H and it is produced by Shaklee. Basic H is a highly concentrated cleaner that you dilute. A 16 ounce bottle diluted makes an amazing 48 gallons of cleaner! The cost for a bottle of Basic H is around $20 which includes shipping. Of course if you make a bigger purchase product is cheaper because shipping would be adjusted, but even at $20 a bottle of Basic H is completely worth the money.

What’s even better about Basic H is that it completely replaces a large majority of your household cleaners. You can adjust concentration and it can do any job. It can be used as a window and glass cleaner, a surface cleaner or a heavy duty cleaner, and it does an awesome job.

One last thing that I appreciate about Basic H is the fact that it is completely safe. This is exactly what their caution on the bottle says:

Just to be safe CAUTION: Concentrate may cause eye irritation. Avoid eye and prolonged skin contact. Wash thoroughly after handling, contains surfactants. FOR EYES: Flush with water for 10-15 minutes. If irritation persists contact Physician. KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDRED.

I don’t know how many of you have a glass top stoves, but those of you who do know how much of a pain they are to keep clean. Part of my daily routine with 9 people was to clean the stove, and it took a good 30 minutes, a mere forever when you have screaming children running under your feet. Now that I have started using Basic H cleaning my stove has become a breeze! I have a 32oz spray bottle which that I fill with water and at ½ teaspoon of Basic H. I spray the stove just enough to get the surface wet and then I let it sit for a couple minutes. I then go over the surface with a razor blade and wipe the stove top clean. It’s amazing how well Basic H works.

I would like to take just a minute to look at the price difference when using Basic H. If you use one bottle and have it shipped to your door for simplicity sake we are going to say it is $20. The actual cost for the Basic H is $12.15 shipping was around $8. So for $20 dollars you are getting 16oz of concentrate, ¼ teaspoon will make 16oz of basic cleaner which can be used for almost anything (appliances, counters, walls, stainless steel). At this concentration I can make 384 sixteen ounce bottles of all purpose cleaner.

Think about this for a minute 384 bottles of cleaner at even 50 cents (rock bottom price for cleaners with coupons, sales and rebates) is still $194. If you paid $2 per bottle, which is the minimum store price, you are looking at over $700 dollars savings when you buy Basic H. You can make higher concentration solutions of Basic H, but 1 ounce in ½ gallon of water will clean driveways, grills, engine grease, and pots and pans. This is also averaged out by the lower concentration glass and mirror cleaner which takes only 1-2 drops in 16 ounces water.

So if you are looking for a cheap, green way to clean you home and keep it safe from harmful chemicals then look no further than Shaklee’s Basic H. In their own words:

An unbelievable 48 gallons of super-safe, really powerful grease-busting clean come out this one little bottle. We challenge you to use it up any time soon. Basic H literally gives you a thousand ways to try. Some suggestions: Spilled milk, Bug guts on the window, Barbecue grill grunge. That’s three down. Only 997 uses to go.

Clean Credentials: Nontoxic, Natural, Superconcentrated, Biodegradable surfactants, No Phosphates.

If you can’t tell, I’m excited about Basic H!