Random cleaning tips

• Blood stains on cloth: Soak stained area in hydrogen peroxide as soon as possible; rinse completely with cold water (and I do mean completely, or the stain will reappear on a different part of your garment). You can also just rinse with cold water, but this takes longer and doesn’t work as well.

Edited 9/14 to add: I have been advised that the peroxide will bleach colored garments. I should have figured that one out, but have mostly tested on white or undergarments and so it  just didn’t occur to me. My apologies!

• Wine or berry stains on cloth: Place garment in sink or basin; I find it helps to position the stained area over a small bowl. Pour boiling water over stain from a height. Reposition garment and repeat as needed; rinse completely before washing (again, you don’t want to move your stain, you want to remove it). I know the boiling water is counter intuitive, but it really does work.
• Pencil marks on the wall: Scrub with a damp sponge or rag dipped into dry baking soda. Afterward you’ll probably want to wipe down the walls with a mild cleaner to remove the residue. . .and vacuum or sweep up the crumbs of soda on the floor.

Summer projects

As scribbled by me, on our way to Texas back in May. . .

• Plan 2009-10 school year: Procrastinated until August, but I finally did it.
• —– —–: This is a gift project; progress has been made this summer although not as much as I had hoped. The next step depends on help from someone else, so I’m stuck.
• Maintain gardens: The weeds got the best of me but I did keep my hanging baskets watered and lovely for about 2/3 of the summer.
• Kitchen curtains: DONE! Finally! Yea! Thanks for your help in June, Dad & Mom! The one over the sink only has three “swags” which I think looks better, but I haven’t found my round tuit for altering this one.

• Give away stuff: Girl clothes sent to Elephant’s Child’s Child. Toys and adult clothes (including maternity & nursing <sniff>) taken to local clothing bank, except for the wooden kitchen which is at the thrift shop waiting for a buyer. Baby clothes are still in my sewing room, but one closed bin is better than four overflowing. I’m hoping to find a crisis pregnancy center that can use them.

I also accomplished some things not on the original list–and came to terms with the fact that some things will just have to wait for next summer, such as that new quilt for our bed. For now, I need to focus on that new school year. . .starting bright and (maybe) early tomorrow morning!

The Hidden Art of Homemaking

I wish I could “require” Edith Schaeffer’s excellent book to be read by every young woman. I recently finished rereading this book after rediscovering it on my shelves. Although I absorbed the general ideas of this book by observing Mimi and Mom in their roles as homemaker, Mrs. Schaeffer makes a clear case for how and why the hidden arts should be developed. While it is written in a way so as to benefit men or women in all stages and walks of life, its message is much needed by the young women who have been trained to think that a salary gives value to work and that being a homemaker is a lazy (or boring) choice. In the author’s own words:

I would define ‘hidden art’ as the art found in the ordinary areas of everyday life. Each person has, I believe, some talent which is unfulfilled in some hidden area of his being–a talent which could be expressed and developed.

The meat of the book is divided into chapters based on different areas such as music, flowers, writing, food, and so forth. It has inspired me to re-examine the way I go about my daily homemaking duties, both in considering the worth of seemingly menial tasks done well as well as in looking for little ways to enrich our lives.

Wordless Wednesday

A woman’s work

Cook. Eat. Wash. Repeat.

Wordless Wednesday

Motivation

I recently discovered the Motivated Moms chore planning system (thanks Adria!). I do pretty well remembering most of my daily tasks, but I seem to need someone (or something) to remind me of the less frequent but still regular tasks. I’ve been on and off the Fly Lady list more times than I can remember. . .I get frustrated with the amount of time she spends talking about dealing with clutter (not an issue for me) and further frustrated by all the emails cluttering my inbox. I have made my own to do lists, but making a new list never seems to be on the list.

Enter Motivated Moms. They offer an ebook ($8.00) with 2009 daily checklists in various formats (weekly or daily, whole or half page, with or without Bible readings). You can see samples of each format before buying; I chose the whole page weekly with Bible readings. The left column has a list of daily tasks with seven boxes to check off for each (seven Bible readings are at the bottom left); the right side is divided up by days with about a half dozen tasks per day (less on weekends). It’s easy enough to skip tasks that don’t apply (feed pets), delegate tasks that belong to the minions munchkins (take out trash), and leave tasks for the next round if I ran out of time (clean kitchen light fixture) or did them recently (mend clothes).

I’ve accomplished quite a bit this week just because it motivates me to check it off the list! If you are a fellow list junkie in need of a little help, check it out.

Tranquility

For the first time in my married life, I can honestly say I love spending time in my bedroom! It will never make the pages of BH&G, but it is the peaceful haven I have always wanted. These pictures were taken last summer, before we had to set up the portable crib in our room for Baby Boy’s naps. . .so it is now a little crowded but it is still a pleasant, relaxing room.

No, it is not always this tidy, although I try my best (the top of the dresser is a “hot spot” for Larry). This is the quilt Mom made for our wedding gift; the blue is now sadly faded (that outer border used to be navy). I would like to make a new quilt but it isn’t high on my sewing list.

I love having all the pictures on my dressing table, and now that it is cold at night Larry’s fan has been put away. I would like to make valances for the windows, but that will probably wait until I decide on colors for a new quilt.

When less is more. . .

Personal economy is always a delicate balance of resources: time, energy, money, space. And while the current recycling mantra may be Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, I find that seems to reflect a rather vague and sometimes impossible communal goal. For example:

Reduce is a rather lofty idea, when so many goods are over-packaged. I recently purchased some software; a single cd in its case was the only thing inside the pretty cardboard box, which was then shipped to me in a large priority mail box. Toys can break in less time than it took to free them from their package.

Reuse is do-able in some cases, but it seems contradictory to re-use a plastic shopping bag that carried home the toaster which can’t be repaired when it stops working after a few years of service. Thankfully clerks are no longer looking for barcodes on my cloth shopping bags, but Baby Boy’s cloth diapers are often seen as quaintly retro and no one wants to even consider the fact that there are reusable options for feminine hygiene.

Recycle seems to be the magic-button answer to the problems of a disposable world. And perhaps it is a great concept. . .where it’s available. After several years of curbside recycling for a half dozen items (and drop-off recycling for many more), we’ve moved to an area with no recycling within a reasonable driving area. The sudden increase in our garbage really opened my eyes to how often things are over-packaged or cannot be reused.

And so it is that I find the World War II slogan of Use it up, wear it out, make it do (or do without!) to be a much more helpful guide in developing my personal sense of economy.

Use it up even if I would rather toss it in favor of something different. My body lotion comes in tubes; when they seem to be empty, I cut them open and can reach enough lotion to stay moisturized for the rest of the week. In the kitchen, sour milk takes the place of yogurt or buttermilk.

Wear it out means that as sad as our couch looks, it’s not going anywhere. It’s stood up to this many years of boy-abuse, and it can handle more without affecting its usefulness for seating. While our Pfaltzgraff pattern was available, we occasionally picked up new plates to replace the ones that were broken. It’s been discontinued, but we’ll continue to use our dishes for as long as we have enough to all eat at the same time.

Make it do promotes more creativity than starting afresh. I’ve still got the same kitchen curtains I made over 10 years ago, even though they’ve been remade for different kitchen windows as we’ve moved. I haven’t hung them here yet, but they are waiting in my sewing room for inspiration on how to remake them for this kitchen.

Or do without is not a popular concept in our instant gratification world. I keep a running wish list of things I think I might like; it’s amazing how many I find myself crossing off the list without actually acquiring them. Sometimes I find a substitute but other times I realize I simply don’t want or need the item as much as I thought.

This post is not meant to be an exhaustive list of ways to make the best of limited resources, and I know many of my readers may be giggling at my sometimes lame attempts at frugality. However, I do hope it will help you to consider your own personal economy in light of how to make the most of what you have!

Clean sheet day!

Ahhh. . .I love going to bed on Saturday night. (And no, that is not enough sheets for a family of 8: while I wash our sheets weekly on orders from Larry’s allergist, the kids’ sheets are washed every other week. This week it was the Downstairs Boys’ turn, aka Drama Boy, Boy Genius, & Bouncy Boy.)