Spring Cleaning

Spring is in the air here in the Midwest! Our lilac bushes and all the trees around us are budding (which aren’t very many, we live on the prairie). Soon we will be mowing our lawn, planting our corn, and burning our pastures. The cows in the neighbors pastures are calving and it smells like spring. Where we are from, Spring brings some unpredictable weather. We could have spring (60+ degrees) one day and winter is still lurking and could blow in a storm at any moment. We hold our breath most days hoping we can send the kids outside to play and go on a walk. We are under A LOT of mud and my white car is VERY brown. 

With spring comes a few things in my house. We start pulling up the summer clothes and putting away the winter clothes. With 4 kids hand me downs are a must and my storage room in my basement is filled with bins for sizes up to 14 boys and size 6 girls. I always hesitate to bring up the summer clothes and actually replace the winter clothes because consistently I do this and then we have a spring winter storm the next day. The other thing I start aching to do is some spring cleaning.

Over the years I have tried many cleaning methods and few have actually worked. Last December I tried a new cleaning method all together. The fly lady lays this out excellently on her website. She starts you off shining your sink. So I focused on this for the first few days. It was about all I could handle. The other thing she talks about is positive self talk. Your house didn’t get this way overnight and It won’t get clean overnight. But really once I talked positively to myself and started shining my sink it motivated me to keep going and my house has been cleaner than it has been in years. I think most of us moms are worn out. We clean and it seems to become destroyed as soon as we clean it. If this is you I highly recommend the flylady.net She has 31 baby steps and it seriously was a game changer.

All this to say life still throws curve balls. I was going along with a what I would say was a great looking house and bam on February 15th, I got the call that my mom, at age 58 passed away. This was extremely sudden as she was not sick. She did have heart disease but it seemed to be maintained. So what did I do? I left to travel to the east coast for the arrangements and all that goes with this. After a week and a half of being gone from home and now dealing with the grief I didn’t feel like keeping up with my cleaning methods. So I went back to “survival” mode, And have been surviving ever since. Fast forward to entering my house the other day and realizing there is an extreme stretch… YIKES!!! IT’S TIME FOR SOME SPRING CLEANING!!!!!!!

So ladies if you are in survival mode right now just making it and getting by. Know this you don’t have to stay like this forever and you probably won’t. Also don’t forget whatever mess your under you CAN eventually crawl out of it. Today is a good day to start. But man if your like me and life has just thrown a curve ball, give yourself some time to heal and get through the curve ball and then look at this post again when you feel like you can handle it. I don’t know about you but I am going over to

http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/

and finding her 31 day startup and I am starting today (and opening some windows) 😉 

Here are a few links to some helpful items for spring cleaning.

I like having a toilet bowl brush and all the cleaning supplies for each bathroom in the bathroom and this is one of the fly ladies suggestions

I love using Clorox wipes for my toilet. I do a “swish and swipe” daily to my toilet.

https://www.amazon.com/Clorox-Disinfecting-Wipes-Micro-Scrubbers-Crisp/dp/B01CJVPCO6/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=makingimperfe-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=864156e96d049eb308c70fd9a856c8a9&creativeASIN=B01CJVPCO6

I use microfiber clothes to clean my bathroom because I don’t want to use my nice norwex ones for the bathroom. I use one wet to wipe the mirror then a dry one to dry it off. Then I use the wet one for my sink and counter.

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Microfiber-Cleaning-Cloth-24-Pack/dp/B009FUF6DM/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=makingimperfe-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=5310ed00f086fe88af3743de97d1e6ff&creativeASIN=B009FUF6DM

I use theives cleaner from young living as my cleaner when I wipe the sink  and counter. I probably should use young living on my toilet too but I just like the idea of being able to throw the thing away I used to clean the toilet. 🙂

https://www.youngliving.com/vo/#/signup/new-start?sponsorid=3309476&enrollerid=3309476&isocountrycode=US&culture=en-US&type=member

Young living sells all kinds of great natural products. I love lemon oil for getting sticky stuff off anything. The other day I used it to remove some thing sticky off my fabric cutting board. It worked better than any other thing I have ever used before.

Some other things I love is my vacuum cleaner. It is a dyson. It has the best suction on a vacuum I have ever used. It is also VERY easy to unclog if like me you have huge chunks all over you floor.

https://www.amazon.com/Dyson-Animal-Upright-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B078VGCV9H/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=makingimperfe-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=320233a08ca28f3d9c15796c367e870f&creativeASIN=B078VGCV9H

I started with shining my sink but in order to do that I needed a dish pan under my sink for the dirty dishes that couldn’t go in the dishwasher yet. Here is one similar to what I have. I placed it under my sink and all the dishes I am done with go into this pan until I can load the dishwasher.

https://www.amazon.com/STERILITE-06578012-Sterilite-White-Dishpan/dp/B0039V2G5E/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=makingimperfe-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=faa15eb90076f8dcbcffbcde5155ddc6&creativeASIN=B0039V2G5E

I hope this helps you a little with some of your new cleaning regiment.

Signing off from one woman to another

Jenny Ren