Adventures in Cleaning

I finally ran out of my BNC Miraclean. Again. Its my favorite cleaner (especially the rose EO scented one) so I use it all the time. But I ran out. Again. The coop is supposed to open any day now, so I guess I'll have to fend for myself in the meantime. I really wish I could remember how much I ordered last time. . . but this time, when I order, I'll post my order here so I can remember in 6 months what I ordered and figure out from there how much more I need to order.

Remembering my last experience making my own cleaning solution, I decided to experiment first this time, to make sure all the ingredients would play nicely together before I combined them in a spray bottle. Just so everyone knows, washing soda foams up when combined with vinegar and foams again each time its jostled just like baking soda does, so IMO its a bad idea to mix the 2 in a bottle of cleaning solution. Borax did fine, though -- no foaming at all -- so for this bottle of cleaning solution, I mixed some TTO, a bit of original Dawn dish soap (so that the TTO would play nicely with the water instead of just hanging out on top), 2 tbsp of borax, filled to 12 ounces with hot water, shook to combine then added 20 ounces of white vinegar. It seems to work fine. . . Everything I clean with it seems to get cleaner while my rag or sponge gets dirtier, which is the general idea of cleaning. . . Only problem I can see is it doesn't quite smell like roses. LOL. Not even close.

Today, I started my massive house cleaning project. I started upstairs and soon realised 2 things:

First, I will have to wait to wipe down the walls as I am out of magic erasers. I know, I know, not the greenest cleaning product and really I hate it as it shreds while I'm cleaning and I just think that's gross. I have to wipe the wall down with a wet rag when I'm done wiping it down with the magic eraser. But I have 3 kids -- 5.5, 2.5 and 1 -- and I just haven't found anything "green" that removes coloring from the wall like the magic eraser, so until I do. . .

And second, I will have to wait until I have cleaned out the garage and bought the new shelving units before I declutter and organize. Oh, I can place them back in their current places for now, but I was really planning on figuring out a more efficient way to organize our home and I can't do that until I have a staging area for the stuff that is being decluttered. It just takes up too much room to allow me to shuffle stuff and try out different organizational systems now.

I imagine being an Army wife will require me to stop being such a pack rat as we won't be able to take all of our stuff with us everywhere we go. And really, its not practical to keep everything that has sentimental value but isn't being used. Do I really need every picture Addy has ever drawn? How is that going to enrich our lives now? She doesn't even know I have them all, so its not like it makes her feel valued or special. I don't even know why I can't seem to throw them away. . . Just me being a silly sentimental mom, I guess. And that's just one example.

I am planning on having several garage sales while Joey is at basic to reduce the amount of stuff we have. It will make things much easier for us since he only has 2 days at home between basic and AIT. Not a lot of time to pack up a household. But I'm digressing.

Today, I cleaned the upstairs bedrooms. I wiped down the furniture with my new cleaning solution, I vaccuumed the floors and washed the linens. Joey did clothes and we put a bunch of them up. I even vaccuumed their stuffed animals. The girls are cleaning up their playroom now (that's their responsibility, although as part of this deep cleaning I will clean it, too) and their sheet protectors are in the wash, so we are going to have dinner and then enjoy some family time. Daddy is going to teach us farkle and then we are going to watch a movie while their sheet protectors are drying and sheets are washing and drying. See y'all later :)