Testing: Vinegar and Borax Bathroom Cleaning

Here we go again. I must say though, the bathrooms are getting much more attention as of late with my little experiments.  This time on trial, 1 part vinegar, 4 parts borax, making a paste.  First of all, I'm a ditz and mixed 1 cup borax, 1 cup vinegar and while it occurred to me this seemed unlikely to make a paste I figured I'd give it a try.  When it didn't I went back to the find the recipe and realized my mistake.  I had to add another 3 cups borax which actually turned out well as I used it all.  This was my starting point.

Yes, I know, it's still all stained.  

 And here, my darling husband just got doused in transmission fluid or some sort of gunk and didn't realize it. We had to throw his jeans away and it left the bathtub coated with this sludgy junk that smelled awful!





















And below is those pesky bathtub rings that the last homemade cleaner left on.  I should also note here that I tried the vinegar and generic dish soap with the same smelly, rather dismal results.

 So now I donned my rubber gloves, mushed and mixed my concoction and smeared it all over everything.  This was a challenge as I couldn't get the toilet to cooperate with my efforts to get rid of the water in the bowl and had to call hubby in for reinforcements.  I did manage to get it to not fill all the way and in the process found the likely culprit for the mineral stains.  The back of the toilet was AWFUL!  So, here is a few pictures of fixtures coated in their cleaning paste.

Then I left the room to watch a top gear with hubby.  The smell was very very mild compared to the other cleaner so evacuating the house wasn't necessary.  I returned about a half hour later with a sponge and started rubbing away.  It was a little bit of elbow grease but more rubbing than scrubbing. This was the end result of the sink and tub.

Not to shabby.  You'll notice the amazing lack of ring around the bathtub.  Shiny and nice smelling. Now, I have to admit here I cheated a bit.  While the toilet was clean and shiny the stains didn't fully come off, even with scrubbing and a magic eraser, and that pesky deposit in the corner of the bathtub also took some extra attention.  I located my trusty ole pumice stone and did away with those mineral deposits.  When I have more time and less people using the toilet I'll try the denture cleaner for the water portion of the toilet as I didn't really want to "go there". Here is the end result of my bathroom cleaning for the day.

So there you have it. Finally a bathroom cleaner that lived up to expectation.  While I was hoping it would get rid of the mineral deposits on the toilet I wasn't surprised it didn't.  I've tried all sorts of products to remove those, even iron off, to no avail. Didn't take but 5 minutes with a pumice stone. Silly me.  Smell was gone, both from the nasty grease stuff and the cleaning product and I didn't feel like I was dying while rubbing away at it.  I'd give this one an A for a regular bathroom cleaning product, even if your regular bathroom cleanings end up being every few weeks.  Happy cleaning!

Testing: Baking soda to clean oven glass

I really wanted to try some of the other bathroom cleaners but totally spaced on some of the ingredients. So today, something I do have. Baking soda.  I recently read a post where a fellow blogger said she noticed her stove was icky and used her "go to" cleaner: baking soda.  The end result was a pretty, shiny, perfect looking glass window to her oven stove.  Awesome I thought.  This is what mine currently looks like. 

So, apparently I think to clean the glass on the oven about as often as it occurs to me to vacuum behind the dryer.  With much anticipation I unwrapped a new sponge and covered window in baking soda.  After a bit of scrubbing I thought perhaps adding some liquid dish soap would help start to dissolve the grease and let the baking soda do it's work.

The results were rather underwhelming, at best.  I'm now determined to have a clean oven glass door. I grab my trusty standby tool.

It's eco friendly, cost effective and works really well. The downside, you can cut yourself, take off coating if there is any and scratch things if you aren't careful. Use at your own risk.  After five minutes of careful work with my trusty razor this is what I had.

Yea, much more gratifying.  Finishing up this is what I had.

I did go back over it with the baking soda and sponge but the kids were getting hungry and the little voices ringing in my ears made me forget to take the final picture.  It took a TON of elbow grease to get even the last part off.  I was getting worried I'd break the oven door off the hinges.  And this was only the small upper oven! So, another underwhelming home cleaning products. Oh, and there is also a residue from the baking soda, so if you still decide to use it after my experience my advice is this: rinse well and don't plan on doing it after an arm workout. 

Cleaning the bathroom shelf & 30 second pickup.

Exciting, I know.  Oh well, it give me something to look back on.  And it's been bugging me for a while now. First, the beginning.

Yikes, I know. First things first, clear it off.  I like to put things in a box or bin as I'm clearing so I don't spend a ton of time chasing things around on the floor or fishing them out of the catch in the drain. This is what we have when that is done.

 The shelf is breathing a sigh of relief. I wiped down everything with the baby wipe and proceeded to put everything in their proper places. 

Does anyone else having something like this laying around?  I bought it looking for a non-toxic deodorant that worked and it didn't.  Now what do I do with it?  For now my natural remedies bin is empty so I'm going to throw it in there.  I'll probably chuck it when I go through those bins or maybe look for some other alternative use for it.  Sorry, bunny trail there.

After everything is put away this is what I have left (notice the I also emptied the garbage):

Suddenly there is room!  I'm leaving the basket to toss my jewelry in at night so I can put it away with the light on in the morning.  I'm terrible at going to bed at the same time as hubby.

I put it all back and this is what I have. 

Ahhh....much better. As a side note, I think this warning label is hilarious and have left it on.

As I left the bathroom feeling all accomplished I noticed this:

30 seconds and a baby wipe later I had this:

And two little areas are clean!  Go me!  I'll just pretend I don't notice everything else for five minutes.  

Hall Closet/Pantry Revamp

What do you do when you have no pantry?  You turn the coat closet into one of course.  Ok, maybe it's just me, but that is how I've used that closet since we moved in.  It has really deep shelves though so my cans were constantly getting lost in the back, toppled over, and generally were a disaster.  My solution, move the back of each shelf up about an inch and put the shelves a little closer together making my own version of those cool can storage systems. You will also want to add a strip of wood at the front so all of your cans don't roll to the floor. I added the over the door thing for the box storage and put my dry beans and pastas in the baskets in the bottom. I also use one of those nifty wine holding bags from Fred Meyer to hold my italian soda flavorings. I completed this a while ago, but thought I would share in case anyone would enjoy a similar system.  And best yet, it's free/cheap and easy! Here is the end result.

And it's been about a year and it still looks about the same. Yeah! I found something that works for me long term.  :)

Testing: Homemade bathroom cleaner

I must confess I actually did this a few days ago, but I wanted to share.  I tested one of the recipes for homemade bathroom cleaner consisting of 2 cups vinegar heated on the stove (our microwave has been broken for...oh...9 months) with 2 T cornstarch and 4 T dawn dish soap.  My standard is scrubbing bubbles which allows me to wipe the three weeks of grime away without much work.  I know, terrible.

So, this was an easy recipe to make. I did one on the stove heating the vinegar...you need to mix the cornstarch first while it's cold...a lesson I learned the hard way.  Moved it to a spray bottle and added the dish soap and shook it up.  So far, so good.  Smell was vinegarry but not too terrible.  Here is the starting point on the bathroom.  For the faint of heart, look away.

Before you have a heart attack about the sink, it looks like this every day even after I wash it thanks to children who love the mud. And I did finally empty the garbage...which looks like that every three days thanks to allergies. Moving on.  I sprayed the bathroom down with the mixture. Wow....if I ever wanted to chemically remove the hair from my nostrils and any that might possibly be down my throat that would be the way to do it.  We eventually vacated the house to the park while it sat for an hour.  Somehow spraying it around was even worse than boiling it.

I came home and began to work on wiping down the bathrooms.  They were still burning strong smelling which was made even more unpleasant by the fact I had to stay in there a while scrubbing on the various fixtures.  No easy wipe it off was happening here.  It did look more white than I think it does after Scrubbing Bubbles, but it certainly didn't get everything off.  The smell also lingered all night long.  If I was doing the mad dash cleaning before a party I would probably call the event off due to being horrified by the smell, which if you know me is saying a lot. Here's the outcome:

Overall, I'm giving this a D.  I did work mostly, but took a lot of elbow grease, was somewhat inconvenient to make and smelled terrible.  Really, it was awful.  If it wasn't for that I would have given it better marks but I can't believe someone hasn't mentioned this before when suggesting it.  Truly awful.

Help! My Life has gotten out of control.

So, again it's been a loooooooong time between posts and I've decided to use my blog now for strictly selfish reasons.  I am going to keep myself accountable with it.  If I don't post three times a week I will not get my mocha.  Yes, I'm sure that will do it.  What will I be posting about?  I'm glad you asked...or I asked.  Anyhow, here's the topics.

I will posts pictures, steps and progress of areas of my home that have gotten out of control and what I've done to fix them.  I must warn you though, I do not live in the world of the neat freaks, the city dwellers, the organized.  My life is crazy, messy and chaotic.  Keep a bucket handy on some posts if grime and clutter makes you nauseous.  I'd like to belive I'm not the only one out there having this problem. Where I am probably weird is I still invite people over, even when my house looks like the pre-cursor to a hoarding show.  Along the way I'll be trying out new products, home made products that are said to work as well as store bought products and organizational techniques and items.  I'll give you all the gory details as I go.  Hopefully someone will enjoy some benefit of the frightening state I've allowed my home to get to. 

I also hope to try and review "healthy" meals.  In this category I'll also be sharing my shopping trips, yard sale finds and generally logging the good and bad ways I spend my money.  Eeek!  Accountability is terrifying.  Also creative ways to re-purpose things and generally do my best to keep us in the green....or get us there. If I actually find a way to make money I'll share this also.

As before I'll be sharing insights as I see fit, but I hope to put the rubber to the road and actually practice motherhood, wifedom, believer, and animal caretaker the way I think I should but always am too something to actually do.  Sort of a "what did I do to be a better person this week" category.  As a side note, my hubby got a ticket today and I didn't scold.  I'm calling that my betterment for the week. 

So basically, my life has gone running off like a crazy horse and I'm determined to grab the reigns again.  Will I control everything?  Umm, no, I have three spirited children, a spirited husband, a house and yard full of critters so that just isn't possible. I'd at least like to have a hand in the steering again though, for those things that I can do that can make a difference.  That is the goal.

Parenting is a Skill

Since it's been a year since my last posting I figured I'd better post another to be able to say I blog.  *grin*  And since a huge portion of my friends and family have recently become or are about to become parents I thought I'd give my two cents of sense.  My first bit of advice, parenting is a skill, not an innate ability.  Like all skills, it requires first doing then practicing.  You can't know how to do something without actually doing it. Which is why most experts are to be disregarded.

Now, what are the practical ways to acquire the skills as a parent?  First we have to identify what skills do you need as a parent.  In my opinion, parenting takes love, peace, energy, endurance, creativity, confidence, authority, direction, knowledge, humor, support and faith.  You may groan and think, "I don't have all those skills." Great! That means you have some of them. And because they are skills you can learn the rest.  God gave us pliable hearts and minds. Unless your heart and your mind are so rigid you cannot tolerate the thought of change there is hope to progress.  And your children will benefit from watching your growth also.

Let's take a look at these one at a time.  I want you to think after each section and keep of list of things that you can do to develop these skills.  Label them with different colored highlighters if you have them based on their difficulty: easy-things you can reasonably do on any given day and are comfortable with, difficult-things that are rather impractical on a day to day basis or that make you squirm a bit, wow! that's progress-things that you can't imagine being able to do but would love to. When you get these you'll really know you've come far. And you will.  Pick two easy and one difficult thing to do each day.  If you get one done smile and know you're progressing.  If you get two done, do a dance.  If you get all three done throw a mini party. You're doing awesome!

Love is the first skill we need as parents to raise our children.  "Love is a skill?" you say.  There is that deep love that you know is there for your children. But being loving, acting in love, and seeing kids through loves eyes are a skill.  Just like when you marry someone and don't feel "in love" always, loving your children will not always be easy.  They are frequently not very lovable.  The best place to start here is with prayer and reading the Bible. We have the perfect model of loving imperfect children in God.  He provides, guides, disciplines, and smiles at His children every day.  Whenever we feel frustrated with our children continually doing the same thing wrong it helps to look at the children of Israel and how God loved them even when they failed and rebelled again and again.  And even God got angry.  So, start with prayer and Bible reading as goals until they are habit.  Stash a Bible in the bathroom since sometimes that may be the only time you have to yourself to read....if you're lucky.  :)  Another way to develop love for your children is to take time to write your children's good qualities and special moments with them.  Have these handy for the bad days to read through.  Also holding, hugging, kissing, and any skin to skin contact increases our feelings of closeness with our children, and them to us.  God made us to reach out and touch, we feel closer and calmer when we are hugged.  When it is those close to us it physically and mentally strengthens our bonds to our children.  Of course nothing inappropriate, but if you never touch your children neither of you will FEEL loved or loving. It also means making time to not be with your children. It's hard to feel loving to someone you can't ever get away from.  Believe me, I know this one. A goal can be to have the time you need away from your child or children without feeling guilty.  The time you have without them is a time to develop your love for them.  Even if it is a walk around the block or a grocery trip alone, try to find some time each day sans kiddos. Again, this is a goal to strive for that may not be practical for some, so put it in the difficult category. While some people have a huge support system to where they have too much time away from their children, I think most parents have the reverse and need to learn to accept and enjoy these times. 

I need to stop there for today as my kiddos need my time now.  God bless and remember, guilt over things that aren't sin are not of God.  He want's us to keep moving forward, not to somehow skip to the end.  We only fail if we fall and don't get up again.