I was not a neat and tidy child. Or teen. Or twenty-something. But when I moved out to room with my sister, I became a bit of a neat freak. I did minimalism before it was a thing, before anyone worried about their feng or their shui. When I was 28, everything I owned still fit in the back of a pick-up truck. It's not hard being a neat freak when there isn't much to freak out over.
Then came marriage and stuff. And more stuff. And various moves to various sized places, from a tiny one bedroom to places with a bit more room for dust bunnies to multiply. But still I kept the dirt and dust and dingy windows under control.
But now I'm dealing with three distinct factors that are making keeping a neat and clean house a bit harder.
- We have the biggest yard we have ever had, and since we are mortgage payers and not renters, we are supposed to be grownups and take care of it. It's almost 1/3 of an acre and there is not one sprinkler or nary a drip system in sight, and let's face it, Sacramento is a desert from May to November.
- I'm not getting any younger. There, I said it. I realized last weekend, when we went away for four nights, that I was looking forward to giving my hands a rest as much as I was looking forward to seeing Washington DC.
- Our furry little pup has three goals in life: Be adorable. Kill vermin. Shed fur. She does all of them very well.
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| She brings the paper. She doesn't do windows. |
The other factor in my thinking way too much about cleaning lately is my desire to get our house more in line with our diet, which is as organic and healthy as possible. Munching on kale while an untold number of chemicals waft thru the air seems to defeat the purpose a bit, so I set out to gather all our cleaning supplies in one place. I thought I could get a good idea of what we had so I could know what natural DIY products I could make without a bunch of repeats.
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| Yikes! We had a lot more than I imagined. The dog will never ever run out of Windex at this rate. |
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| Madame Curie started out making toilet bowl cleaner. I have that on good authority. |
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| It didn't take off because it had some branding issues. |
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| Rag sorting, it's not for the faint of heart. |
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| That's right, label that homemade laundry soap as Laundry Soap. Because a large bag of powdered substance sitting on top of the washing machine smelling like soap could be so many things. |
Most of the recipes I got were from a book called Clean My Space, which has also given me lots of ideas on how to give my hands a break without having to leave town. It seems as if all you really need to clean house is water, vinegar and microfiber cloths. I hope now that I know how to clean more efficiently the house will shine, the car will sparkle and the clothes will iron themselves. And that will all happen as soon as our dog is done with the windows. Using only water, vinegar and microfiber, of course.
Homemade Laundry Detergent
3 bars Fels-Naptha laundry bar soap
1 box Borax
1 box baking soda
1 box washing soda
These are all items you walk right past in the regular grocery store, right there near the regular people laundry detergent. They are not razzle dazzle, they are just there on the shelf, ho hum. These products are so absolutely tickled when a person as cool as you buys them. They start humming with joy.
To make this stuff, you either grate the bars of soap in a cheese grater (I apologize to your hands) or you throw the bars in your blender or food processor, after you have chopped them into large chunks. Then just mix that up with the rest of the ingredients in a very large container. It smells good, it works great and you only need 2 Tablespoons per load. Some nifty people on Pinterest add a few other ingredients, and then put their laundry powder in a pretty glass container with a lovely metal scoop. I actually just eye-balled the ingredients, kinda, sorta, I used just one bar of the soap, threw it all in a zip lock with a plastic spoon and that was that. But every time I walk by that bag I know I made it, and that's an even better feeling than clean windows.
