WFMW: cleaning tools

We are almost done! I don't know who's more excited, me or the girls. :) I only have the master suite left to do. I always leave this for last, but some years I peter out before I get to my room, so I am determined to get my room deep cleaned this year! But not today. Or tomorrow either - we have places to be in the morning. We need a day off anyway. :)

But while I am on this cleaning kick, I thought I would talk about a couple of cleaning tools that I have in my house. One I highly recommend, and one I do not. First, I'll start with the "not."

A couple of years ago I bought one of those Scunci Steam cleaners at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I had a coupon, and I was desperate for some way to clean my shower. So I thought I'd give this a try. It does work, it does put out steam. However, it did nothing for the hard water stains in the shower. :( It is useful for a couple of things, so I bring it out once or twice a year to clean the dishwasher seals and hinges and the joint where the kitchen sink faucet meets the sink. It gets more gunk out of there than I ever knew was in there. It's also good for the electric can opener. Other than that, it collect dust on top of my deep freeze the rest of the year.

I did take it to Dallas with me last year to help my MIL remove a wallpaper border from her kitchen. If the border is applied with the self-adhesive paste on many borders (you know, the kind you just wet and apply), than it would work great. Unfortunately, my MIL's border had been applied (by the previous owner) with wallpaper paste, and I thought we'd need a jack hammer to get the stuff off.

Over all, just come borrow mine, don't spend the money.

Second however, is the Swiffer Duster with Extendable Handle. This is not the flat dusting sheet that can also go on the Swiffer broom, but is more like an old fashioned feather duster. Except, of course, that the heads are disposable, and the handle extends a long way. I don't use this for my routine cleaning every week - I try to stay away from disposable products for that. However, I have found nothing that can beat it for dusting things high (ceiling fan blades, window sills ABOVE my front door, picture frames up very high, the tops of door bell box, the light globes in the halls, etc.) or in awkward places (the chandeliers over my two-story entry way and stairs, the speakers hanging from the ceiling, the back of the entertainment center, behind appliances, etc.). Great, inexpensive tool for those jobs!

WFMW: baking powder

If the brand of baking powder you buy doesn't come with a built in leveler like some do, you can make your own! When you open a new container of baking powder, use a knife to cut the protecting seal all the across the center, and then tear off only half of it. This still leaves you plenty of room to get a measuring spoon in there, plus something to level the spoon off with as you bring out the spoon.

In case anyone needed a picture to visualize this, I took a picture of my current baking powder container, much to the amusement of my children, who could not imagine why I would do such a crazy thing. I love these huge containers of baking powder from Sam's because, did I mention that I bake? A LOT! Works for me!

WFMW: shopping list

If you have a store that you go to regularly and that you usually get basically the same items from each time, try typing up a shopping list in Word or Excel or some such program. I do this for Sam's Club. Type in the item (if you are very organized you can group like items together or group them as they are arranged in the store. Unfortunately, Sam's plays musical aisles so much, the latter is not an option for me). Then print it out when it is time to go to that store. Then either write a check mark beside each item needed, or the number needed. And you are out the door.

This helps me remember what I should be getting, and saves time writing out a shopping list. It is also convenient for my husband if he, wonderful man that he is, does the Sam's shopping for me! Works for me!

WFMW: dryer sheets

I admit, I thought I was the only one who did this until last month's Whole Hearted Mother's conference when we talked about laundry issues in one of our gab sessions. But I have a tip that will save you roughly half the money you spend on dryer sheets: tear them in half and use one sheet for two loads.

I know that may sound silly, but when you have a larger family, that means more laundry, and little things start to add up. I got the idea when I would take used dryer sheets out of a newly dried load, and it would still be a little stiff, like it still had some life in it. So since the loads didn't seem to need the whole sheet, I started tearing them in half. I tried it on all loads, and now I do it with everything except the load that has my husband's black dress socks. They are just too static-y without a full sheet.

Click here for other ideas for dryer sheets.

WFMW: Library Elf

I know many families, and homeschooling families in particular love the library. Our family goes once a week, and not just to pick up books about Greece or Rome, but also because the girls and I love to read. I do buy a great many books for school, but we also supplement with library books.

Between the history books for 2-3 children, science books, literature books, plus what the girls call "fun books" - this is anything that is not assigned for school, although they do sometimes read "school books" for fun, plus my books (family, homemaking, biographies, history, as well as novels), we have MANY books checked out of the library at one time. We have an entire shelf in our front room that is the home of our library books when not being read. Kelly calls it "The Smith Branch of the San Antonio Library." Kora and I both have library cards, and between the two we usually have 40-60 books checked out at one time. Keeping up with them all used to be a nightmare until I discovered Library Elf.

This is a website that has partnered up with many libraries across the nation, thankfully including the San Antonio library system. It is a free service in which they send you emails reminding you of upcoming due books, any over due books, alerts you to any books that are ready to be picked up after you have placed them on hold. You enter all the library cards your family has, and it sends you one email for all of them. You also get to control the settings of how often you receive the emails, how many days prior to the due date, etc.

Before I signed up with Elf over a year ago, we had library fines on a regular (as in monthly) basis. These have virtually been eliminated (leaving me more money to BUY books!) since then. I now get an email the day before I go to the library with a complete list of everything due the next day. This allows me to make sure everything gets turned in on time, or rechecked. This is has been a lifesaver for me! My husband likes the drastic reduction in fines as well.

So if you utilize the library, DON'T leave home without Library Elf!

WFMW: dry milk

One of the best money saving tips I ever received was to use dry milk in all my baking and cooking. I use it is muffins, pancakes, waffles, soups, breads, desserts, gravy, hot chocolate, etc. With regular milk at over $3 a gallon, who can afford to cook with it? And it really isn't that much less convenient than pouring from the carton.

But it can save you in other areas as well. For instance, instead of buying canned evaporated milk, try this tip that I use frequently:

mix equal parts dry milk and water; stir or shake vigorously. Use in any recipe calling for evaporated milk.

Costs just pennies! Did I ever mention I love dry milk? Not to drink of course, but if you use milk for cooking and baking, you can bring down the milk bill using the dry stuff. I even use dry buttermilk for all my buttermilk baking - yum!

I also have a recipe for sweetened condensed milk, but I have never personally used it, so I cannot vouch for it, nor have I figured out the cost versus buying a can. But I figure anything that saves me a trip to the grocery store is a money saver right there.

1 C instant non fat dry milk solids
2/3 C sugar
1/3 C boiling water
3T butter

Combine all ingredients in an electric blender (or pour in a bowl and use an electric mixer). Process until smooth. Store in refrigerator until needed (and refrigerate any leftovers as well).

If you've ever used this one, please comment and let us know how it works.

WFMW: the shower floor

I spent quite a while yesterday afternoon while the girls were down for their reading/nap time cleaning the shower in the master bath. This is hands down my least favorite cleaning chore in the whole house. No matter that the water softener has made the job somewhat easier, I still hate it. But, last year I found a product that makes part of the job so much easier.

The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is a WONDER on the textured floor of my shower. I prefer the heavy duty version for this particular task to the standard eraser, but either works. Not even bleach gel could get the floor of my shower back to its original whiteness, but this eraser does! Just wet it and use good ol' fashioned elbow grease. The dirt et. al. just comes up off that textured stuff like, well, like pencil erased off paper. Then just rinse the debris away, and voila! A shiny white shower floor.

Now if I could only find something that worked that well and that smell-free on the rest of the shower! The stuff I use on the water spots requires us to run the vent for the rest of the day.

Oh, and I did discover a good book on tape helps the job go alot faster.

Caveat: There have been reports of children harming themselves with these erasers, thinking they are ordinary sponges. But there are chemicals in them. So while my kids do alot of the cleaning around here, these little jewels stay up out of their reach. So if you take my advice on these, please be careful with them around the kiddos.

Works for Me Wednesday, er, uh, Thursday

I just do not seem to be able to post on Wednesdays. On Wednesdays, the girls and I have our weekly history discussion, and I get them started on their writing assignment for the week, plus I'm getting ready for an early dinner so we can make it to Bible Study. I'm also baking something to take to Bible study and it's my laundry day. So I think I'm either going to have to give up WFMW, or type it in ahead of time and wait to publish until Wednesday.

But I'm going to write out my helpful hint anyway. I make breakfast for my family every morning. I can count the times they've had cereal for breakfast in the last couple of years on one hand. We have several reasons for doing this, but usually I get asked, "How?" The secret is preparing the night before.

Many pancake and waffle recipes can be made up the night before and stored in the fridge. Just use a whisk to give it a stir while the griddle/iron is preheating.

Make homemade muffins with the ease of a mix: mix up all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Cover and leave on counter. In a smaller bowl, mix up the wet ingredients: the milk, eggs, oil or applesauce (I always do half and half - cuts the fat in half without changing the texture as using all applesauce does), honey, whatever is called for. Cover and put in the fridge. I even get out the muffin tins and my muffin scoop and leave them out. Then in the morning, all I have to do is dump the bowl of wet ingredients into the dry, stir, and start scooping into the tins. And I usually do this at about 5:15 am, so believe me when I say that this requires no brain power to do in the morning. :)

There are also many breakfast casseroles that are made the night before and have to be refrigerated overnight. Sometimes I'll make a coffee cake the night before as well. I also mix up my can of orange juice the night before as well.

With a little bit of planning the day before, the morning can go so much more smoothly. If you have any hints or tips for breakfasts, please post a comment and share with us!

Works for Me Wednesday

I have to share what my husband got for me for Christmas. I haven't had a food processor in over 12 years, and that one was a piece of junk. But with a larger family, more cooking, and bulk shopping I have been wanting one of these for a long time. And I LOVE how this one is designed. It has a very wide feeding tube, so you don't have to chop the food before putting it in. This one is a Cuisinart 11 Cup Capacity and it is working great. It shreds a 5 pound block of cheese in less than a minute. The other day I cooked several chicken breasts and used the knife blade to chop them up into various sizes for several different meals. It also has a dough knife and function that I haven't used yet, but I can't wait to try it out. So if you are in the market for one I highly recommend this one.

And we ordered our camera today - and finally joined the 21st century! No more advantix for us! Should be here next week, so we should have lots of pics of little girls soon!