Show Us Your LIfe - Cleaning Tips

I have been so bad about keeping up with Show Us Your Life Friday's. This week the topic is :Kelly's Korner: Show Us Your LIfe - Cleaning Tips. One thing I know and love is cleaning! I learned from the best. My mom. So I thought I would give you a quick rundown of what I clean everyday and some of my big cleaning tips (that you may already know). I am sure this will be extremely scatter brain so I apologize ahead of time.

Every single morning the first thing I do is make beds. Before I even brush my teeth. I make our bed and then I head straight to Aidan's and make his. On Friday morning I strip beds and clean the sheets. Every week. I usually have toys of Aidan's to collect after that. I knew I was going to be bad at this part of being a mom...I hate the toys everywhere. I try to keep them contained in baskets in his room, but he makes his way to every room in the house with them. If I didn't get them the night before I collect them and put them in his toy baskets.

After I make beds, I usually vacuum. I don't just vacuum the floors, I vacuum all of my baseboards and furniture. Twice a week I mop the floors. Usually on Monday after the weekend and then on Fridays before the weekend. **Cleaning Tip** If you are having streaking when washing your floors, use white vinegar. No, it doesn't smell nice but it's a natural cleaner and it doesn't cause streaking. It works especially well on high gloss would floors.

Before we go to bed every night, I neaten up the house. This means putting all pillows in their place on the sofa, unloading the dishwasher, picking up any pieces of clothing Aidan has left hanging around, I clean the litter box, wipe down all my counter tops and appliances, throw in a load of laundry and fold a load and put it away. I am sure there are other moms out there that agree this is such a good time to get so much done because your little one is asleep and you can devote 100% to getting stuff done.

I tried to only do laundry on Friday's but I was running out of clothes. Only me. Adam and Aidan have enough clothes to clothe a small country. So now, I just throw in a load every night before I go to bed, when I get up and when I am cooking dinner. I can't tell you the last time I saw the bottom of the hamper but I think (at least I hope) that's pretty normal for a mom.

*Cleaning tip* Pine Sol will get grease stains of clothes. Just a cap-ful should do it. This next one is a pretty well known cleaning tip, but hairspray gets pen out of clothing. I use to need that a lot when I was working. One of these days I should have my mom do a guest blog just on laundry. We call her the laundry queen. She can get ANY stain out!!!

Once a month I take my wood blinds down and wash them in the bath tub. I think because we live in a an older house, they collect dust faster but it seems like they are never clean. I don't do the whole house in a day but a room a day for a week. I have to hang them and wipe each blind so they don't get mold spots.

I dust weekly. I just go room by room. I also Windex all my mirrors and doors weekly. I clean my toilet and bathtub weekly too. If you haven't ever tried Zud on your bathtub you should. It's amazing. Just wet the tub and sprinkle on some Zud, it works wonders!!! The Mr. Clean Magic eraser is not something I thought I would buy in to but it really works!!!

My husband cannot understand how I clean as I cook. The dishes used to make dinner are done before the meal is. That way all I have to do is load the dishwasher after dinner. Well who am I kidding, the dishwasher is kind of Adam's thing. He never had one as a kid so he's making up for lost time. I find that keeps the kitchen so much cleaner.

Just an FYI...I love the natural Clorox cleaning products and Method cleaning products. So, I guess that's about it, if there was one TIP I would give you, it would be not do try and do everything at once. You will get overwhelmed. Try doing a room a day, or a specific thing everywhere one day (ie dust the whole house). Then by Friday, the whole house has been cleaned!!! xoxo