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Monday, April 23, 2007

Cleaning Tips

Just looking at the title of this post is making me laugh. Today my younger son (YS) woke up over an hour earlier than my older son (OS) because he's having teething pain. Why is that one time one of the boys sleeps late, the other one always gets up earlier than usual? After feeding him breakfast along with a little "Vitamin M" (Motrin), YS played for a little bit and then slept all morning. There went my plans for the Y because you just know that I was itching to go! No, I'm kidding. I also was exhausted from YS's battle with teething so I was glad to have an excuse. However, this left me with some unexpected time on my hands, because I really didn't have anything planned for today. In fact, my friend Betty invited the boys and I over for a fantastic dinner so I didn't even have to think about dinner.

In light of the fact that OS was clearly annoyed this morning that his dressing routine was disrupted due to all his clean underwear being in a heap on the workbench in the basement and not in his dresser, I decided that we would put away laundry. Just for the record, if I try really hard I just may be able to recall a time or two that we've had to go to the basement for clean laundry and it's never been a problem. However, like I said, my memory on the subject of laundry is a little hazy.

As I was putting away laundry, I was enjoying the clean smell. I know that sounds a little weird. That's when I remembered my "experiment". A while back, someone had told me that if you forget to take your clothes out of the washer and they start to smell, you can take a half cup of vinegar throw it the wash and then run the cycle. It gets rid of the smell and leaves your laundry smelling clean. While I pretend to be appalled at possibility that I would ever forget about laundry in the dryer, I secretly stored the information away for when the Big Giraffe forgot about it. O.K., I admit for when the Big Giraffe and I forgot about it!

Anyhow, sure enough it happened yesterday. I went downstairs to do a load of laundry and I found some wet laundry from two days prior. Since it didn't smell so great and it was "super load", I decided to go by the typical American philosophy that more is better and added a full cup of vinegar and ran the cycle. Yes, it really did work.

That leads me to my favorite vinegar cleaning tip. I really don't enjoy cleaning, but it's important to me that my house is in decent shape on a fairly regular basis. Today is not one of those days. However, the one thing that is always clean in my house is microwave. That gets cleaned at least once a week because it is so easy. You just take a mug or bowl of water (I add vinegar as a disinfectant although to disinfect a sponge all your have do is microwave it for a couple minutes and the heat kills everything) and microwave for a few minutes so that the water steams. This loosens all the crusted over stuff in the microwave. Let it sit so the steam has time to work. Then you just take a cloth, paper towel, etc. and wipe down the inside. If for some reason there's still some crusty stuff, just dip the cloth in the hot water and then scrub the crusty stuff. I also take the wet cloth and run it over the outside of the microwave. The best part is that I do this all during TV commercials during the evening. Microwaving the water is one commercial and cleaning the microwave is the next commercial. Oh yeah, if you're a friend of mine please don't ruin my good name by telling anyone we know that I'm giving cleaning tips on my blog!

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posted by Alex Elliot @ 9:11 PM   7 comments
7 Comments:

  • At 4/23/2007 10:01 PM, Blogger super des said…

    I love vinegar.
    It also works for cleaning shower curtains.

     

  • At 4/23/2007 11:54 PM, Blogger Suzanne said…

    Our apartment is a disaster area. I'm just saying.

     

  • At 4/24/2007 8:48 AM, Blogger Summer said…

    Hi Alex, can't wait to exchange blog posts with you. :)

     

  • At 4/24/2007 11:56 AM, Blogger Kate said…

    I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that forgets about laundry in the washer two days later!

     

  • At 4/24/2007 3:41 PM, Blogger Nancy said…

    I have a friend who turned me onto the power of vinegar - it's great for removing any kind of odor. Once I just put some in a bowl in my living room (which smelled from a certain throwing up incident) and within a few hours the smell was gone!

    Great tip about the microwave, too. I'll have to try that one. You're such a wealth of information!!

     

  • At 4/24/2007 7:52 PM, Blogger soccer mom in denial said…

    A few times a year our wet clothes have that, um, musky smell from being in the washer a few days. Opps. Thanks for the tip.

    And your cleaning tips are safe with me.

     

  • At 4/24/2007 8:51 PM, Blogger Cori said…

    Great smelly laundry tip Alex!

    Now how do I get it all done, folded and put away before I have to start all over again? Or should I even bother?

    We need a blogging mommy laundry carnival. I need more laundry tips!

    Oh yeah to answer your question, yes, I'm Canadian. :)

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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