A Laundry Gem

Lately my towels and the boys fleecy footy pajamas have come out of the dryer with a funk. I'm like, "What the?!" So I googled (my go to) and this is what I found:

Top 10 Time Saving MacGyver  Style Cleaning Tricks

I am going to try this this morning and I'll let you all know. Anyone done something like this before?

Dusting Duel

Whoa! Not done after all. I just remembered a conversation Adam and I had over the weekend. He bought himself a new feather duster recently and I was like, HUH? He reminded me that I had thrown away his old duster several years ago, and he was always annoyed (or did he say destroyed?), so he bought a new one. Here's where we differ on dusting: I say you have to dust with a rag and polish because it wipes the dust away and gets rid of it. He says there's no such thing as getting rid of dust, that the dust will always be back, so it doesn't matter if you just sweep it into the air or not. I know that dust always comes back, duh, but my theory is that it comes back much later if you wipe it and it comes back much sooner if you just flick it around with the feather duster. Jury? Settle this.

And now I will attend to my children who could be drowning in the bathtub for all I know.

Your Tools?

Sick of me yet? I am on a roll with these posts. But after this, I will be done.

I wanted to know about your tried and true cleaning tools. What do you swear by? For example, my cleaning world changed considerably when I started using microfiber cloths. I use them to mop my floor (on my hands and knees, whilst dreaming of owning a kitchen steam mop) and they seem to pick up every little piece of dirt. I use them with just a touch of water to wipe down the fingerprints on my TV screen. I use them to do deep cleaning on the kitchen countertops, because, again, those microfibers don't miss a speck. What cleaning tools make your life easier and cleaner?

Kitchen Toys

So, it's post-breakfast, and my kids are playing happily on the kitchen floor while I type this at the kitchen table. They are playing on the floor with toys from a bottom kitchen drawer that they can reach and unload everyday. Sometimes I think it is genius to have toys in the kitchen. And sometimes they are the bane of my existence. Because now the children have run off to do other things, and the toys remain scattered all over the floor. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so I'm stepping over tiny toys all freaking day.

The point of this post is to ask you: Do you have toy policies or rules? Do you keep toys in weird places?

Haunted by Laundry Germs

Happy Monday! Today is my big laundry day. I chose this day after a lady in my old ward (with 5 kids and tons more laundry than I have) said she gets all her laundry cleaned and folded on Mondays because "everybody hates Mondays anyway, so why not just get a huge, undesirable task out of the way" or something to that effect. Embrace the crappiness of Mondays, I guess?

Anyway, I can't stop thinking about something pertaining to laundry. I was Googling who knows what about a month ago and came across an article that said something like this: You can never know if the germs in your dirty clothes have been killed because who knows if the water gets hot enough or even if your dryer gets hot enough. It has haunted me ever since. Who knows? Who knows???? I thought I was washing my clothes and therefore they were coming out clean. Simple as that. I have been laundering a lot of throw-up covered clothes lately, and WHO KNOWS if they are actually clean and germ-free? I dry my clothes on medium heat because I'm pretty sure the high heat setting on our ghetto, old dryer was leaving burn marks on my clothes. What's a mom to do if all the bodily fluids on her family's clothes are still hanging out in the fibers and we are essentially wearing all the junk that we were trying to get rid of? Become racked with torment and confusion??!!

Has anyone else researched this more and know better than me? How can I get germ-free clothes? Because I can't wash everything in hot water ... some clothes require cold or warm. You know? Also, do you have a big laundry day, or do you do it throughout the week? (I actually have the big laundry day and then do little batches throughout the week as needed.)

Housekeeping

It's a pun, get it? Housekeeping, you know like getting business done and Housekeeping as in cleaning, eh? eh? Ok. I'm done. Anyway, please forgive my lack of organization from last week. Please notice the #s below your pics. Tuesday you'll get another form to submit your numbers again. That alone is motivating me to do at least one thing so my number will change. Also, there is a new page up on the right. It's for those doing the "cleaning helpers" portion of this challenge. So hop it tonight or tomorrow, because Amanda is offering to help Tuesday morning and no one should miss that. Instructions are on the page itself. Thanks again for all the great posts. If anyone wants to offer motivation this week, I could use it. I reached my mini peak and need to rev up to the next one. Cheers.

Deep cleaning tip

I know spring cleaning is about DEEP cleaning for a lot of you. I'm not into that at all but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. My Mom is a little lady so moving a heavy appliance is not on her to-do list but you still have to clean under/behind there right? So this is what she does. An old tube sock turned inside-out and slid onto a yard stick will do the trick. Swoosh that puppy around under and behind your appliance and you'll be good to go (no chiropractor needed) all that nastiness will stick to the sock and the rest you can sweep out from under with the yard stick and collect it that way.