Spring Cleaning Day 4

I know that everyone has an off day or two, but I am really really REALLY bad about this whole spring cleaning thing. It seems like stuff keeps getting in the way of actually doing anything and then in the way of actually posting about it.

In my defense though, I have two young kids that like to "help" and a close friend just had her baby today after 3 weeks of fake outs. I know those are just excuses, but I thought they were pretty good ones!

Anyway, here's a recap of what I've done so far:
    •    Clean the cabinets faces
    •    Clean the stove hood filter
    •    Clean under the high chairs
    •    Clean the fridge water dispenser
    •    Clean the garbage disposal
    •    Steam mop the floor
    •    Clean the ceiling fans in 2 bedrooms
    •    Clean the baseboards in the kitchen and dining room

• Clean out the pantry and wipe the shelves
• Clean out/organize the cabinets in the kitchen and wipe the shelves/drawers
• Clean out/organize the freezer
• Clean out/organize the fridge

I don't know why the bullets won't match up. That annoys me too!

Now, here's what I was able to accomplish this weekend to add to the list:

• Cleaned/organized the tops of the dressers in the master bedroom. These tend to be junk catch-alls for my husband and I, so they were pretty piled up with receipts, ticket stubs, change and about 500 tubes of chap stick.
• Cleaned the bathrooms, which means mirrors, tubs, toielets, floors, etc. I went through the medicine cabinet and threw out all of the expired medicines and I also went through my extra supplies to donate anything that was unopened and probably not in risk of being used anytime soon (or ever). I threw a little vinegar and baking soda down the drains to keep them clear as well.
• Did some spring cleaning outside. We picked up old brush/debris from storms and burned it, then used some leftover lumber to create a raised bed frame for strawberries and herbs around our back deck. I need to have dirt brought in to fill it, but it's a good start! The outside stuff we got done in a day.

Today, I made a list of everything that I would like to get done for my "spring cleaning" so I can easily reference it. I find that when I get in the mood to clean, I can't think of a good place to start, then I get overwhelmed and the ambition slowly trickles away. We'll see if the list helps! I organized it by room, so I can focus on completing one room at a time.

Spring Cleaning Day 3

So I haven't gotten much done the last couple of days. I had to take my youngest to the doctor today while it snowed, do a little grocery shopping and run other errands. On top of that, I have been getting quite a few writing orders, which has left little time to do more than the standard day-to-day cleaning.

Anyway, I did manage to sneak in a little Spring Cleaning this morning so I can at least say that I'm "caught up"... mostly. I basically did my list from the other day, minus a couple of items.

Here's what I did:

• Clean out the pantry and wipe the shelves
• Clean out/organize the cabinets in the kitchen and wipe the shelves/drawers
• Clean out/organize the freezer
• Clean out/organize the fridge

Cleaning the fridge and freezer turned out to be larger projects than I had anticipated. The freezer was almost impossible to clean without removing shelves and letting them warm up first. My fridge and freezer weren't horribly gross, it just took longer than I thought it would to really go through everything, look at expiration dates and take the shelves out to wash. No big deal, but when you're short on time everything adds up.

So, in the spirit of keeping this brief and giving myself some much needed time today to get a little work done, I'll be off. I don't have another list of things to tackle, so we'll have to wing it tomorrow.

Spring Cleaning - Day 2

Tomorrow is the first official day of Spring and mother nature is sure sending winter out with a bang. She's delivering us here in the Northeast one final winter storm complete with snow, rain, ice and cool temperatures. Lovely.

The foul weather always makes me less eager to clean, so today will be a challenge. I thought it might be useful to post my goals before I tackle them to give myself the inspiration I need to continue...

Without further adieu, here's what I *hope* to get done today:

• Clean out the pantry and wipe the shelves
• Clean out/organize the cabinets in the kitchen and wipe the shelves/drawers. Wash the utensil tray in the dish washer. Wash kitchen towels that need washing along with the kitchen curtains.
• Clean out/organize the freezer
• Clean out/organize the fridge

While looking at the kitchen I also decided that I need a cork board for the kids' artwork somewhere, though that may potentially land in the hallway since my kitchen is small and one wall is taken up with a window.

 In case you missed yesterday's post, here's what a more ambitious version of myself was able to tackle:
    •    Clean the cabinets faces
    •    Clean the stove hood filter
    •    Clean under the high chairs
    •    Clean the fridge water dispenser
    •    Clean the garbage disposal
    •    Steam mop the floor
    •    Clean the ceiling fans in 2 bedrooms
    •    Clean the baseboards in the kitchen and dining room

You can find yesterday's post here.

Spring Cleaning

It's that time of year again when the weather starts to warm up... then it cools off... snows a little... and then warms back up again before repeating the whole screwy process again. That's right folks, it's spring time in New England and with that it's also time to start thinking about spring cleaning.

Now, I'm not one to spring clean. Every year I think about spring cleaning and then I never really do it. For the last five years I've either been recovering from child birth or throwing up from being pregnant or recovering from some other birthing-related ailment. You get the point. Spring cleaning hasn't really been a priority compared to getting better and keeping the kiddlets alive, fed and relatively clean.

This year though, my spawn are to the point where they are less likely to accidentally kill themselves and club uterus isn't booking any more parties for the time being. That gives this mama the unique opportunity to actually do a little more than *think* about spring cleaning. I can actually attempt it.

Today seemed like a good day to give it a go. The masses were heading to the grocery stores to stock up on milk, bread, eggs and toilet paper ahead of the snow storm so they can make french toast and go number 2 in the event of a power outage. I stayed home, laughed at the traffic, and then dove into this spring cleaning thing.

First, I decided I shouldn't do it all at once. No, cleaning like that is for fools or really ambitious people that don't have any kids. Since we are having our house appraised tomorrow (yes, in the Snowpocalypse), I decided to go ahead and do the regular getting-ready-for-company routine first. After that, I could focus on some more detailed cleaning.

Here's what I did for Day 1 of my "Spring Cleaning" routine that will probably last about a week:

• Clean the cabinets - I did the regular cleaning of the face of the cabinets, but first I tried this de-gunker that I saw on Pinterest. It basically consists of equal parts baking soda and vegetable oil that is then scrubbed in with a toothbrush around the handles of the cabinets where oily hand-grime accumulates. It actually DOES work and fairly well. However, the residue it leaves behind is almost as bad as the oily gunk that was there in the first place. So, if you attempt this, do the handle portion first and THEN use your regular cleaner to clean the entire cabinet as you normally would.
• Clean the stove hood filter - This was crazy easy because well, I don't use the fan or light when I cook. It was just average-bad, nothing a little Lysol and some hot water couldn't handle.
• Clean under the high chairs - OMG Yuck!!  I don't know how my kids weigh as much as they do. They are both in booster seats and it would appear that 99% of their food just travels under the booster seat where it gathers in the natural butt-dip of the chair to form this weird alien-like creature that is as hard as a rock and hairier than a Yeti. Fricken disgusting. Lysol, Lysol, more Lysol and a butter knife. It's still partially there. I gave up once the gag reflex started to kick in. Oh, and I did try a little baking soda on it, but it fizzed. That scared me.
• Clean the fridge water dispenser - I wasn't planning on doing this, but I got a glass of water and noticed a spot.. then another... and another and well my mind started going horrible places and I imagined getting the plague or ebola from the water dispenser and it was all over after that. I sprayed it good with Lysol, then decided that was probably a bad idea, so I cleaned it all with a soapy sponge then went back with some vinegar because... well, why not? The results? I think I'll replace the water line because there is no hope for the end of that thing. In the meantime I'll be drinking bottled water.
• Clean the garbage disposal - This is super easy. Throw a few ice cubes down it and grate them up, then chase them with some baking soda, vinegar and boiling water. DONE!
• Steam mop the floor -  I got myself a steam mop for Christmas during a black Friday sale and although I love it, it's pretty impractical for everyday use. For starters, the pads get dirty really quickly in a household with 2 toddlers, so you have to stop and wash them and by the time they're dry you're pretty much out of the cleaning mode, so it gets stored for 2 months and you repeat the cycle all over again, but hopefully having done a different section of floor the second time around. Today, I basically just continued that cycle, but I worked in the kitchen.
• Clean the ceiling fans in 2 bedrooms - Ok, so we have 5 ceiling fans in my house and I cleaned 2 of them. That doesn't sound very impressive, but I'm not very tall so I could only reach the 2 in the old part of the house that has lower ceilings. That's OK though because those fans are the oldest ones and they were exposed to a lot of dust during the remodel. I cleaned them with Lysol (how did you know??) and then ran back over them with a dryer sheet to get the last bits of dust and leave a nice smelling freshness behind.
• Clean the baseboards in the kitchen and dining room - While I was on my dryer sheet kick I decided to clean the baseboards. Use a dryer sheet to do this and you will be amazed. They are like baseboard ninjas that just scoop up all the nasty dust and stuff. Be sure you do this BEFORE you sweep and mop in case some dust gets free. I didn't do it before hand and I wound up having to sweep again around the edges.

So that's all I did today. I also spent some time cleaning my husband's fish tank and treating the fake plants because he has black beard algae growing in there. YUCK! I'll make another post on that if it works...

Final Sears Update (Hopefully)

Finally, after months of phone calls, hang-ups and online rants via the Sears Facebook page, those SOB's have finally fixed my snow blower. Am I happy? Hardly.

For starters it took so much effort to get them to just send someone out to fix it. Realistically it should have taken 1 phone call. However, it took much more than just 1 phone call, it took dozens of phone calls. Dozens of, "I'm sorry, but..." and, "I understand your frustration, but...".

No Sears, you failed. You didn't understand my frustration and you still don't.

I spent a lot of money on that snow blower and honestly, it shouldn't have been so hard to get a tech out to fix it. Not to mention that the first time he came out it was basically to just scratch his head and tell me it's broken and that they should have replaced it. I got that, thanks, but Sears is run by a bunch of a-holes that won't replace anything. So then he ordered parts because apparently aside from duct tape, they don't carry much on those repair vans.

The parts were delivered to my door via UPS. The only thing I liked about that was that if the tech couldn't come back out I could have installed them myself.

Then the tech came during a snow storm that dropped 17 inches of snow. I must say that the other 99% of Sears employees probably would have just cancelled, so Mike, thank you.

After all the parts were installed the snow blower sounded horrible, but at least it ran. That's a start I guess. Unfortunately, I can almost see it dying in my shed over the summer. It really sounded bad, like it wanted to die. It really did and several times it almost DID stop working while we were battling the never-ending 2-day snow storm.

My plan is to buy a new snow blower from another company this fall and sell the Sears one on Craigslist. It's too nerve wracking to think that it could just die at any moment when I need it the most. I've had some bad times with that snow blower and I'm ready to break up with it.

No more Craftsman piece of junk snow blower. No more Sears. No more horrible customer service that makes everyone that works at Bank of America look like a ray of sunshine on a warm spring day shining down on an adorable newborn puppy.

Seriously, that's how bad Sears is. I hate the company. Their products suck and I can't wait until they go out of business, which they will for the reasons listed previously.

Bye bye Sears. Crawl back into the cesspool you came out of.