Have you ever woke up early in the morning with a huge to do list and think to yourself, Only if there was more time in the day? I am a new mom and I am just starting to realize that keeping the home clean is a full time job in itself. So lets add it to the long list of full time jobs I have; babysitter (MOM), housekeeper, cook, entertainer, etc. I can go on and on. So, how do all of these Super moms work their magic? Sadly, I cannot answer that, but I do know the BIG SECRET. You have to develop a routine that works for you and your lifestyle. Whether it be take out the trash can, scrub the showers in the bathroom till they sparkle, sweep/mop/vacuum floors, unload/load the dishwasher, do laundry, etc there are so many things that a stay at home mom needs to take care of. Granted I have a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) so that makes things a little bit harder for me to accomplish, since I only have one working arm. Get a clean house everyday. That’s how I was raised and I kind of expect that from myself nowadays. I have been away from home since I was 19 and away at college. I have never really been a dirty person. Kind of cluttered but not dirty. I had to learn some tricks of the trade, so to speak, to help me not be a nasty/dirty person. I have a few pointers of things I do that make life so much easier on me. Like with all cleaning tasks organization is key.
For starters, I make my bed everyday. I do this because my bedroom just feels cleaner to me when I do make it before I do anything else. If I don’t make it (which doesn’t happen a lot, but it does happen.) and it is time to go to sleep it is just awkward getting into bed for my husband and I. This is because we are just not even sure where everything goes. When we lay down to go to sleep at night we have to make sure all of the sheets are straight. Otherwise we have a problem.
The dishwasher utensil slots has 6 slots in it (at least mine does, modify this trick if your washer doesn’t have 6 slots.) I pre-organize my utensils so that each slot only has 1 or 2 types of utensils in them. Meaning I have one slot for the big spoons (tablespoon size) one slot for the small spoons (teaspoon size) that follows the big spoons. Then I have big forks in one slot with little forks in the one after. Then comes the knife slot in which all knives go into, meaning, dinner knife’s and steak knife’s. Then the last slot is the kitchen utensils slot. Things like spatulas or wooden spoons/forks go into that one. I do this so the utensils are easy to put away in the utensil mold. Just organize your dishwasher. The bowls are all in one spot at the top of my dishwasher; the plates are all on the bottom.
Every Tuesday is called, Toilet Tuesdays in my home, I scrub my toilets each Tuesday, because I use to not scrub my toilets that often at the apartment my husband and I use to live in. Probably like once every 2 weeks or so I would scrub them. Granted our toilets were not shining their brightest ever when we lived there. When we moved into our new house with its newer toilets I said to myself “a dirty toilet will not be happening in this house” So I made up Toilet Tuesdays where I scrub our toilets scrub them with a Pummie stick Which by the way, is the best invention for cleaning toilets. Seriously, I can scrub my toilet with the wand a million times and it won’t come clean, but with a Pummie stick, just a little scrubbing and it looks brand new it is also pretty cheap. Our toilets still look brand newish after living here for almost 2 years.
Everyone knows that laundry never ends and most people dread it. I however, think laundry is an ok thing to do. I mean you make your family’s clothes smell nice and clean and you get any stain out which is awesome. To get any and all stains out I use a cheap trick. No, it is not vinegar and baking soda. It is called SoilLove from the 99 cents only store. It seriously is the best stuff. I got strawberry on a new white shirt I had just gotten and didn’t think it would come out, but Soilove got it out. Soilove is kind of a family known secret.
Also to make doing laundry easier on me I don’t only have just 1 hamper. No, I have 4 and that makes it easier on me to do laundry. I have a hamper that I put all of our whites in, I have a hamper for color clothes, I have a hamper dedicated to towels and washcloths, and I have one for all of Liam’s clothes.
Another cheap trick I use to get my sink and bathtub/shower clean is I use Ajax. I just have to lightly dust the mixture onto the area I want clean (usually porcelain) get it a little bit wet and then I can start scrubbing. It helps get off grime, water stains and any other sort of marks.
To clean the kitchen counters and my table I have gotten a little obsessed with DoTerra oils. My moms cousin is a big wig in the DoTerra world, as is my aunt. So I guess you can say that Doterra oils runs in my genes. I just add 2 tablespoons of OnGuard oil to 24 oz. water and it becomes an awesome disinfectant and it is actually safe to use around my son.
My home usually ALWAYS smells good. This is because In my coma my nose became more keen to scents. I could spot a smoker from down the hall. My family always jokes about how the doctors and nurses before they entered my room they would ask for a mint/gum or some perfume. I have a Scentsy burner because my aunt sells Scentsy so she hooked me up with one, but I burn Wal Mart scents. I do this because 1. It is cheaper ($2.00) for a a thing of 9 squares 2. Wal Mart’s are every where and easily accessible and I don’t live in the same state as my aunt so that makes it bit tricky to get the Scentsy products. I’m currently burning, There’s No Place Like Home, because it has some cinnamon in it and cinnamon scents are my husbands favorite. My personal favorite is, Cherry Berry. I could burn that scent all day everyday and usually I do. I always say that a nice smelling house seems more clean than a gross smelling one.
Now, I use my dishwasher for a lot of things to be washed but any big pots or pans I hand wash. Which is not always easy for me because of my limited mobility. Sometimes you need to scrap something that is on your dishes off with a plastic scrubber, whether it be because the material is sensitive to use wire scrubbers, but that is all you have. I use to have a plastic scrapper but I think I lost it during the move. So my solution for this when I need to scrap something off of a dirty dish is I just use the sink plug because it is hard plastic and it works like a charm getting off those food particles.
When you have a VERY mobile toddler like I do, who gets into anything and everything. Most mom’s I know have to go through babies unrolling the toilet paper at some point in time. I have had to go through this too. To some extent. I have found a solution that has worked for me thanks to Joe. You see Joe has a cat in his shop. He told me that to keep the cat from unrolling the toilet paper he doesn’t put the toilet paper roll facing over. He puts it under. Well You see I was thinking toddlers are somewhat like a cat in the fact that they don’t know what they are doing. Liam hasn’t tryed to unroll the toilet paper ever since I changed the way my toilet paper goes.
Wow! Mom did rub off on you!