Cleaning Solution

I got a great recipe from my pastor's wife Rachel. No, this post is not about to solve the recurring "what's for dinner?" question, but it's pretty helpful all the same.

When we got Jonathan, I started thinking about all the chemicals I cleaned the house with. Especially the bathroom. And I realized that I wasn't comfortable using any of my usual cleaners around him. So I started looking for cleaning solutions that didn't scare me. Rachel volunteered her cleaning recipe, and I fell in love. Well, maybe not in love, but I sure do like it. I pretty much use it for everything (except dusting and glass) now. Bathrooms, kitchen, floors, even scrubbing the grime off my kitchen cabinets is less of a drag. I still keep toilet bowl cleaner, windex, scrubbing bubbles, for occasional use, but this has become my primary cleaner of choice.

I know several people have asked for the recipe, and I can't keep up with who I've passed it out to, so I'm posting it below. Amounts and proportions are kind of estimates, so be warned:

3 cups hot water
1 oz vinegar
2 tsp Borax
3-4 drops Tea Tree essential oil (this has anitbacterial properties)
3-4 drops essential oil (this is optional, it just makes it smell prettier)

Mix it all together in a spray bottle, and you're in business! The essential oils can be a bit pricey in comparison to the other ingredients, but they last close to forever, since you use so little at a time. A couple shopping tips: I could only find the essential oils at the CS HEB, and my spray bottle is from the garden department at Walmart.

Anyway, I hope that gets the recipe out to everyone who still wanted it. Now I have this itch to go clean something...

Clean Sweep

A few months ago, I was feeling totally overwhelmed by trying to get , much less keep, my house clean. My house felt so dirty, that when I finally had a few minutes in which to clean, I didn't even know where to start, and ended up cleaning nothing. Brilliant, right? Needless to say, my house was only getting dirtier, making the task seem that much more overwhelming.

Finally it ocurred to me to make a weekly cleaning schedule. Keeping in mind our weekly activities, I assigned each room a day to be cleaned. For example, the youth group comes over to our house on Wednesday nights. Instead of scheduling the den for a Tuesday night cleaning, to try and clean it up for them (trust me, they don't notice) I scheduled the den for Wednesday night. With a dozen youth running in and out of our house, a lot of dirt gets tracked into our den. So I sweep and dust that night, after they leave. Of course, most people like to clean before they have people over, so if you regularly have visitors, schedule to clean the rooms they'll see and use on days right before they come over. That way you have less last-minute cleaning to do, and you'll feel less frazzled by the time your company arrives.

I wish I could tell you that no dust has sat on any horizontal surface for longer than 6 days since I started this schedule. But I can't. But at least I know that if I get a few minutes tonight after we put the Little Guy to bed, I'll have a clean...(checking schedule)...Master Bath.