Another Day of Pinterest Cleaning, Bathrooms, Stove Top

So, it takes me a while to get moving but I eventually did today...  I had a different agenda in my mind for what I wanted to get done today but sometimes I just have to do whatever happens.  My bathroom was in desperate need of a cleaning (and so is the bathroom in the basement, which someone is supposed to clean but conveniently has forgotten for the last six months...yeah it's gross, I usually get down there about once a month and clean it up so I really need to do that...).

On Pinterest I keep finding these great tips for cleaning and also for making cleaning products.  I tried cleaning the microfiber with rubbing alcohol and it worked magically!  Of course, my children have already spilled enough stuff on the recliner that when I clean the couches I will have to re clean the recliner, or at least re-spot clean it.  Anyway, I know it works and that's great for me.  Back to the bathroom.  I still have bathroom cleaner that we purchased and toilet bowl cleaner and Windex, and I don't like making stuff until I run out of other things but I did want to try out the tub and shower cleaner I found online.  And I figured while I was at it, I'll try cleaning the glass stove top because mine desperately needed it and other than a wipe down I haven't tried to really clean it.  Plus the other day I'm pretty sure I boiled over two pots, twice, so it really needed it.  (And by the way, the put a wooden spoon over a pot of boiling water and it won't boil over trick...only works sometimes, in my case only maybe 20% of the time so far). 

The first I wanted to try was cleaning the shower down with a fabric softener sheet.  First, I've been wanting to make my own but haven't got around to figuring out the sewing machine so that's on the back burner.  Which is really sad because I desperately want to make a baby blanket, which I have NO clue how, but I want to.  So, the pictures for the shower were not the greatest and when looking at them you can't really tell what they did, so I'm not even going to upload them, I'm just going to give my opinion.  The fabric softener well, it didn't really work.  I mean maybe if you're trying to combat soap scum and not hard water spots it'll work but it didnt' work on the hard water at all.  It left a residue on the shower that I had to wipe off with a rag. 

So, I moved on, to the 12 oz hot vinegar and the 12 oz Dawn Dish Soap.  Now this definitely made a huge difference.  I have started using vinegar anyway to clean my bathrooms, so this was the extra boost I guess it needed.  Plus it smelled way better than just vinegar water.  Now, it made everything really shiny and pretty much got rid of the hard water spots, HOWEVER, I kept having to go back and rinse the rag because it was really sudsy (obviously with all the Dawn dish soap).  Which, in turn, took twice as long because I had to go back and rinse the rag so often and wipe the shower again.   With all that, I will probably use it again, but only when the hard water gets as bad as it was.  I will probably just stick with vinegar water until then.  I will also probably not be able to use it regularly because I'll never be able to convince the other people in the house that clean the bathrooms the whole process of wiping, rinsing, wiping again.  So...like I said it'll be used when the hard water gets as bad as they did, but it won't be my everyday bathroom cleaner.  Also, I sort of wonder about what it'll happen when I take a shower, will the floor be super slippery from the soap?  And, lastly, it did leave a residue, albeit you couldn't really see it, but I could feel it.  I think if I had maybe wiped everything down with a paper town it would have went away, but that would have meant ANOTHER step in the process so I'll just let it be for now.

Also in the bathroom I soaked the shower head in vinegar/baking soda mixture.  A few weeks ago I had soaked it in vinegar because it was getting clogged and it worked fairly well, so this time I added the baking soda (which makes it bubbly) and I let it soak for probably an hour or so.

Here's before:

Here's after:

I'd say that was a pretty good success over all.  An hour or so after I took the bags off there seemed to be a little baking soda residue on it, but nothing that wouldn't have been fixed by just running the water for a minute. 

Now, onto the stove top.  I've never had a glass stove top before this house.  My parents always had gas ranges, and our last one was burners, not glass top.  It's supposed to be wiped down everyday (yeah, that doesn't usually happen) and no one really scrubs it but me.  I've used this amazing scrubber thing my husband's aunt makes and gives all of us at Christmas (however, I missed the last Christmas so I never got a new one).  I have no idea what it's made out of, but it doesn't scratch (I've used it on my glass shower doors before) and I can throw it in the dishwasher whenever it gets too yucky, I'm seriously sad I missed getting one or two this year.  But, I've never tried any "products" on it, so when I found the link for cleaning it I was pretty excited.  Here's what it looked like before (don't judge):

Now, it was super shiny but it definitely didn't clean as I had hoped.  There's a lot of burnt marks still on it.  I tried it again on the other front burner and had the exact same result.  And after about 15 minutes after everything dried up it looked like this:

Eek!  Sort of grossed me out more than the first picture, but I knew it wasn't really a big deal.  So, I grabbed my vinegar water, sprayed it down, put a little more baking soda on it and scrubbed it with the handy dandy homemade scouring pad and well, it wasn't much better than whatever else I did.  The hot soapy water was dirty when I was done and the rag was dirty when I rinsed it out, so it did clean SOMETHING, just not as good as I had hoped I suppose.

I did not put the "car wax" on it as another website had suggested to help "repel" the new stains, I'm just not sure how great of an idea this is.  Won't it like stink when it gets heated up?  But I would say it wasn't a complete fail but it wasn't a complete success either.

Those are my Pinterest Cleanings for today.  I want to try the one that I just found about how to get the white "hot plate" spots off of wood tables, she did do an update saying that not everyone was having success with it, but I'll try it.  I also still want to try the carpet cleaning, with the iron, yeah, maybe I'll get to that one this week.  However, I'm trying to remind myself that the daily cleaning tasks (laundry, vacuuming, dishes, etc) are just as important these days as "THE LIST!"  Because, let's be honest, you never know with my body when the baby decides it's time to make an appearance.  I've been talking to Kiwi about how I need to get Zoe's 2nd bday and Joshua's 13th bday parties out of the way, because if not I will sit in the hospital and worry about when I'm going to do it, and HOW I'm going to do it.  So, it's best to get those two things done before Kiwi makes an appearance.  Anytime after March 8th I feel okay about, that would be about 38 1/2 weeks, I think we can do that!!!  With all the cleaning I did today I am having an insane amount of Braxton Hicks and lower belly cramps (which honestly I attribute to the fact that my belly weighs a million pounds and I seriously need a belly bra to hold it up).

Here's to getting stuff done tomorrow.  I'm hoping the fridge, the basement bathroom and the kitchen floor desperately needs a mopping!  Oh and we have a pillow in our bedroom that's leaking stuffing I should probably take care of!  Oh the list, the never ending mommy list!







Lists, I love them

I absolutely love lists, I love making them, reading them and checking things off of them (did I already cover this area before?).  It's actually the checking things off that excites me most.  As a kid, we'd get off the school bus (that my mom drove) and she'd have a list of things there for us to do.  Now, me and my brother Travis would pick the easiest things and wait until about 10 minutes before her or my dad got home and sort of do them...sort of!  My sister would always end up with the hardest chore and she'd do it right away and then sit down to do her homework!  But my mom made lists, all the time! 

I also make lists all the time!  Lists of phone calls I need to make, lists of chores I need to do, lists of names I like, lists of things I want to buy but can't afford right now, lists of home improvements I want, lists of things I want my dad to build me..... lots of lists.  I try to use up one notebook before I start a new one, but sometimes that doesn't happen.  I'm a notebook freak as it is.  I have probably 3 or 4 boxes of journals, poems, notebooks, diaries and calendars from years pasts, they are pretty hilarious to read and I've thought a lot about sharing some of the terrible poems I've written as a pre teen and teenager and some of the journal entries.  Do you know I LIED to myself in my OWN journal?   Who does that?!?!?!  Anyway, I really wanted to be cooler than I was.....  But luckily I grew up to be 100% awesome, so it didn't really matter how cool I was in middle school/high school now did it??

So, I made a list about 2 weeks ago of the stuff I need to do before baby gets here.  Now, my husband likes to "make suggestions" for this list, and he thinks he's very good about being nonchalant about it, but he doesn't fool me, that's why we're married :)  But I add those things and they get a cute little question mark, which means, I don't really care if I get to it, but it's on the list...SEE it's on the list!   My aunt and I were talking today and had the funniest conversation about list.  She said her church had a guest speaker and he asks about making list.  THEN he said what I thought was my own little secret and apparently it's not!  He asked who ADDS things to their list AFTER they do it, just so they can mark it off??!! I totally did that yesterday!!  I thought I was the only crazy person who did such a thing, but apparently, I'm more normal that I think.  I scrubbed down our kitchen chairs...which Zoe is probably the most disgusting eater on the planet, so they really needed it, and it wasn't on my list, it should have been but it wasn't.  So, I added it, and proudly scratched through it (ONLY one line, I have to be able to read what it was I accomplished, there's NO scribbling on the list.)

Then, I realized that if for some reason my list gets messy, like I've started added bullets in the margins or it got doodled on by one of the kids, I have to rewrite it.  And I won't leave off the stuff I already accomplished, I will keep those on there and scratch through them!  And there's no numbering on the list, just because "sand and re stain the bar" is on the 4th line DOES NOT mean, it's number 4 on my list, and it does have a question mark behind it, so it's really no where near the top.  There is no order to the list, things get done in whatever order I feel like.   Numbering the list would probably throw my brain into complete chaos.  I don't like being told what to do, especially by some silly piece of paper that I myself wrote on.  Now, somethings make sense to do before other things, duh!  Like, I need to organize the linen closet before I can organize the laundry room.

Here's something silly I've come across.  I have about 7 1/2 weeks until my scheduled time to have this baby.  It is my hearts desire to keep this date, so I'm going to continue to believe it, but I will also be somewhat realistic with my birthing history and realize that this baby COULD come in 5 1/2 weeks, that's WAY sooner than 7 1/2 weeks.... So, I keep having these moments of "well, if I do THIS then I just have to do it AGAIN before the baby gets here."  How lame is that?!?!  Like wiping down doors and walls and light plates, I KNOW I will have to do this again before baby gets here, my children are dirty little humans, so....do I wait until it gets closer and then possibly not have enough time...or do I do it now and risk having to do it again?!?!  What a silly silly pickle!



I also have a few "sewing" things on my list, I don't exactly know how to sew.  I did sew about 5 inches of something the other day and now can't get the machine re threaded and when I thought I did it still wouldn't feed the fabric through...so.... I dont' know if those are fair things to have on the list, I can't exactly do them, but I want to....  I'm probably more forgiving on this list thing than I should be....

So, in conclusion, I love list.  I absolutely love them.  I'd love to post my entire list, but that would probably bore people, you don't want to know my list of chores do you?! 

Pinterest Cleaning Part 1

Pinterest is great, I don't care what anyone has to say about it.  I love it.  I have learned so much already.  Yes, I can google things but it's so great to get other people's opinions at the same time and sometimes from people I really trust, which I do not trust Google.

So, I have tried a couple recipes I found on there, Blueberry Cream Cheese Bread, which was DELICIOUS!  Super involved but delicious.  I also did a crock pot mac n cheese, it was pretty good.  A few days ago I tried the "Yellow Armpit Stain Remover" and with a little bit more effort than I hoped, it did help.  The shirt was not 100% white when done, but was a noticeable difference.  And these stains have been around for a while, so maybe if I had this a few months ago it would have worked perfectly.  AND my hydrogen peroxide was probably expired, so maybe if I had fresher stuff things would have worked more efficiently with less effort, so I will be using that one again.

Today, I tried the "Miracle Microfiber Cleaning Solution", which is basically spraying rubbing alcohol on it, scrubbing and that's well, about it.  I was a little skeptical at first, my couches and recliner are disgusting.  I had a manufacturer's warranty on them, including cleaning but I'm pretty sure it's expired and the cleaning stuff they sent me never worked, ever.  So I had pretty much given up.  And my carpet cleaner had an attachment, it claimed for furniture, but as the posting says water on microfiber, especially a lot of water is not a great idea, it can actually make a water mark.  So glad I didn't try that... 

So, I found all the rubbing alcohol we had and it wasn't much honestly, so I knew I'd only be able to do a small portion of something.  I picked the grossest part I could find.  Which, was our recliner.  Jeremy and I fight over it.  I think I actually bought it for him when I was a Sonic GM years ago but I love that chair.  I spent HOURS in it when I was nursing Zoe and will probably spend hours in it again with Kiwi.  I couldn't even begin to tell you the crap that is on this chair:

If I had to guess I would say soda, milk, water, tea, juice, possibly a little pee (not from me or Jeremy, duh), breast milk, who knows.  It's disgusting though, right?  I mean, how does it even get that bad (well mostly because I never clean it up as soon as I see it...).  So, I sprayed and wiped, well scrubbed and then did it again and probably a third time.  It was quite a bit of scrubbing but honestly after seeing the results it was so worth it...  I only had enough alcohol to do this front part of the seat as you can see right here, I was actually sad when I ran out, however the room did smell like rubbing alcohol for a while after that (you really have to saturate the fabric).  But the small spot I did resulted in THIS from my white cloth (HAS to be white):

That, my friend, is disgusting, for the small area I did!  Ewwwww!!  It even soaked through to the other side... 

Then, a few hours later, while I let it dry, which is actually dries pretty quickly, it's rubbing alcohol, it's the best part of it.  I actually did the yearly "file swap", which is such a long, drawn out process, but totally necessary and now I just have this huge piles of paperwork to shred, but I'm also glad it's done, it's one of my least favorite chores.  So, after a few hours, I looked over at my chair and was honestly shocked:

Can you believe it?  I'm cleaning my entire microfiber furniture as soon as I get some more rubbing alcohol.  Now I'm totally excited about doing more fun things I've learned on Pinterest.  I'm actually planning on making the homemade laundry detergent tomorrow and the homemade dryer sheets also.  (Which means I get to try to sew...haha).

New Year 2012

I guess I need to address the New Year.  Last year, obviously, I talked about my new journey to loss weight and just be healthier.  I gave myself a little over 5 months to loss 60 pounds (or as close to it as possible).  I fell very short of this goal BUT I did loss weight and that's the main point.   And had I not gotten pregnant I'm very confident I would have reached it at least by the end of the this last year.  However, now I'm pregnant, which I'm so happy about.  Last baby, last time putting my body through this, I know that sounds negative, but I don't really know what else to say about it.  I mean, my belly is being stretched to it's max, all my organs are being squished and kicked, my ciatic nerve freaks out on me, making my left leg go numb well pretty much whenever it wants, those sort of things.  Once I have this last baby I won't have to do that stuff again.  My doctor will only "allow" me to have one more csection (after this one), so IF a day comes that my sister would need a surogate we can bypass the tube tying and I can still help her out.  It's honestly the only way I'd have another baby after this one!

I have some ideas for goals for 2012.  With two little kids and a baby coming in March, I have to be a litttle liberal with myself as far as these goals go.  I can't expect to be able to do everything!  So I'm going to try to be optomistic but also keep a grasp on reality.

Having a csection means no exercising after baby for 8 - 10 weeks, and this time I really feel like I need to follow the doctors instructions.  I didn't exercise for a while after Zoe, well because she cried for 5 months straight, so there was no time, literally.  But I was told not to lift my son for 6 weeks, which I did, I was told not to drive for 2 weeks, lift laundry baskets for at least 2 weeks, climb stairs for at least 2 weeks and I did all of those pretty much a day or two after I got home from the hospital.  My step sons birthday was the day we got home from the hospital and between feedings (every 40 minutes) I made a huge pot of chili for his birthday, so yeah I wasn't very good at this listening to the doctor thing.  This time, I feel like, being my last time, I need to rest and take it easy and listen to the doctor so my body will heal REALLY well so I can put my body back in order.  I honestly think that my lack of listening is partially what caused my belly to be sooo bloated for a long time after Zoe and made it so much harder to loss the weight.   So, I think I need to take his advice seriously this time and really give my body the time to heal.  So that's sort of a goal, also I've gained 14 pounds so far, I have about 10 weeks left, I only want to gain 20 pounds, so.... gotta keep that in check!

Also, tomorrow is my last day drinking soda.  It just seems to be the right time for this.  I mean what if Zoe's colic was related to it?  I know it sounds far fetched, but it could be true.  And I cant' allow myself "one" soda a day, it just doesn't work for me.  It's like a smoker saying they'll only smoke one cigarette, eventually it'll become two, then more and more and more!  At least that's what happens with me.  I quit smoking cold turkey 7 1/2 years ago, so I'm just gonna quit cold turkey and move on.  It doesnt' mean I won't drink caffeine, as I'm planning on making tea and I do drink a cup of coffee here and there (drowned in creamer and sugar).   I just have to get rid of the soda, it's become gross to me, (although delicious), it's the habit that's gross, not the taste.

I also would like to get my little ones on a routine.  We have no routine, not AT ALL!  They go to bed whenever they want, sometimes 10/11 at night and then wake up whenever they want 9/10 the next morning.  Which, I do love the sleeping in, but there's no sleeping in after baby gets here.   And I'll need the other two in bed at a decent time so we can work on baby getting a night time routine.  So, we'll be working on that.  In the routine I'd like to incorporate some "school" stuff for Isaac.  He's so smart, well, they both are, so I'd like to get him better on his letters, numbers, ect, so when he does go to pre-school, hopefully next Fall, he doesn't feel like he can't do the same stuff as other kids who've been in pre-school.  He's so competitive, he'd lose it if someone could do it better than him. 

Also, I'd like to switch to mostly homemade cleaning products.  I do love my Lysol Antibacterial Kitchen spray!  So that might have to stay and I'm not doing it because I'm green or am worried about what my kids are being exposed to (even though I sort of am) the real reason is, I'm cheap!  And we're a single income family, so any dollar I can save, honestly the better!!!  I've actually started working on getting the "recipes" written out so I can put them in a recipe book and have them available (without opening my computer which always distracts me and then nothing gets done).