Happy Organized New Year!

It's that crazy time of year again- the urge to clean, organize, and purge is upon us. We start out every January, especially since Phee was born, vowing to clean out, declutter, and really choose what is useful to keep and what is just hanging around the house because it might be useful one day, eventually, if I get around to this or that project.

from Home Storage Solutions

A few weeks ago I found this awesome printable list of week-by-week cleaning and organizing. It covers the whole house and it sounded like a pretty thorough and useful list. We're still in the process of tackling the first week's goal: kitchen counters and sink. I did get some things cleaned up, moved around, and set aside for Goodwill earlier this week. We just have a few more random things to return to their homes and then we're ready for next week's task. And we have a little more counter space!

I'm also buckling down on the meal planning again, too. We plan every week, but December was so crazy that the menu often got tossed for convenience or for last minute plans. All fun, yes, but it's time to get back on track! I love using this sheet to plan out whole days instead of just dinners.

from Better Homes and Gardens

A friend of mine shared this great week at a peek printable a few months ago. I absolutely love it. We have our regular full calendar in the kitchen. This sheet, while a little redundant, hangs on the fridge with Phee's weekly lunch menu. It's at eye level, too, so I see it all the time and can reference just the week at hand quickly, instead of the entire calendar. Dinners are listed right there on the fridge. And, there's space for things that need to be done during the week which is quite useful for Doug and I to keep up with.

If you're itching to get yourself and your house cleaned up after the holiday and decluttered for the coming year, check these out!

What's your favorite way to tackle the big cleaning and organizing projects after the holidays?

Playing with Chores

Phee is a great helper around the house. She likes to be included and help with everything we're working on. It isn't always easy, of course, but it's fun for her.

There are all sorts of little chores she does now around the house: unloading silverware from the dishwasher, folding towels and napkins, putting groceries away, emptying trash cans. One of the very first things she ever helped with was dishes. I washed and she rinsed right next to me, standing on her little footstool.

It was a bit messier than I had anticipated. But, she was so thrilled to be helping that I finally quit worrying about all the water and just let her get on with it. She played and played, making up stories, swirling and dumping water.

It was interesting to watch her problem solve when she tried stacking up the rinsed dishes to dry. Everything doesn't always fit where you want it to go!

In the end, she was so proud of herself. She was helping, she was learning, she was a part of the household. Her sense of accomplishment and that fierce independence was so much fun to see. I just needed to let go a little bit and drop my expectations about how the task should be done. How it was done didn't matter. The process was the important part.

That's always the important part: the learning and growing. Sometimes it's me watching her grow, sometimes it's me figuring things out thanks to her actions or words. Kids are very good at keeping you busy with self-examination, deep thoughts about life, and wonder at their wisdom.

Kids are also adept at reminding you that everything is a game and can be played through. Even chores.

What sorts of chores do your kids do around the house? Do you let them finish chores their own way?

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Recycled bulk food storage

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links.

Today we're Cleaning a Thing for the Play in May challenge. I have lots to clean. My floors, lots of closets, Phee's room, the front flower bed. Am I working on any of that? Nope, I'm cleaning fun things, like the basket of bulk snacks we have.

We shop at a co-op and get lots of dried fruit and nuts for snacks, mostly for Doug to take to work. I don't always (okay rarely. whatever.) remember to take containers to the co-op so we end up with lots of baggies of stuff. I got tired of digging through them and how messy they looked heaped in a little plastic bin in the cupboard.

So, I dug some canning jars out of the closet. I poked around looking for some other suitable containers and found these two glass juice bottles I'd been hanging onto. Then, I found this awesome little bin at the Container Store. (Similar storage bin here.)

Another score? Chalkboard labels in the Target dollar bin. I'd been holding on to those for a while, too, and they turned out to be perfect for this project. Easy to swap out and then I don't forget which kind of snacks we have at any given time. And yes, I forget which is a pecan and which is an almond sometimes. I don't eat any of these.

I picked some scrapbook paper that I liked and used that on top of the canning jars. Then I dug out an acrylic paint that matched and painted the two juice bottle lids. Add a couple coats modge podge or spray them with a sealer after the paint dries to keep the paint from chipping or scratching off.

That's it. A simple solution for storing your bulk snacks and keeping the containers organized. This would work for more than bulk snacks, too. Lots of kids snacks in various boxes in the pantry? Empty them into some jars. You can label them, the kids can see what each snack is, and you can see how much you have left and when it's time to add something to the grocery list.

What kind of system do you use for storing all your snacks? 

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Link up and see what the rest of the Play in May group is cleaning this weekend. Surely, we all have something to clean, right?

Linked up at Simply Gloria, Just Us Four, Bloom Designs, Heather's French Press, The Recipe Critic, Nancherrow.

New this month: Homemade shower cleaner

Please note that LiRB uses Amazon Affiliate links

Well, I promise I've actually been sticking with the "new this month" projects, even if I can't remember to write them up! This month, I tried a cleaning idea instead of a kitchen idea, and I'm so glad I did.

I've seen this shower cleaner on Pinterest a number of times. I always thought it was a great idea, but just hadn't ever given it a try. Well, let me tell you, it definitely works. And it's ridiculously simple.

All you need is a soap dispensing dish scrubber, Dawn, and vinegar. Really, that's it. There are different kinds of scrubbers out there, and I chose to go with one that had a softer, sponge like top instead of the bristly brush kind.

Fill the dispenser with nearly even amounts of Dawn and vinegar and shake to combine. I filled the dispenser a little more than halfway with vinegar. You may need to add a little more vinegar after a few uses.

Be careful when you fill it up. Add the Dawn first, as it's much less likely to leak out the sponge part of the scrubber. I found that out the hard way. So, dish soap then vinegar.

I've been using this in the shower for about six weeks now. I only scrub after every two or three showers and it is definitely keeping the shower tile and floor sparkly clean. It's easy to do and only takes a couple extra minutes. Plus, you're already in the shower, so it's not extra time you have to set aside for cleaning. That's a win in my book.

Have you tried any cleaning recipes or tricks you've found on Pinterest? I'd love to find some more good ones!


Linked up at Julie is Coco and Cocoa.

My Green Kitchen

We try to be ecologically conscious in our house.  Most of the time we're successful.  We've eliminated a lot of extra things, we try to limit our purchase of plastic items, we shop locally, we conserve where we can, and reuse and recycle a lot of things.  We've also tried to eliminate a lot of chemicals from the house, primarily in our cleaning supplies.  It seems a big chunk of our efforts have been concentrated in the kitchen.  Here are some of my favorite tips and items to help green your kitchen. (Note: this post has been updated from a post written in 2012.)

I tried to make dishwasher detergent a few times with different recipes.  I never had any success.  Sometimes it just didn't clean well; sometimes it left a film on the dishes.  I tried and have stuck with the Seventh Generation Dish Packs which work very well for us. I've been happy since making that switch. 

In the kitchen, another favorite is Skoy cloths.  I found these amazing little cloths when we stopped using paper towels.  They're biodegradable and compostable and best of all, washable.  I originally got 2 packages 3 or 4 years ago, and while they're finally getting icky now, I haven't gotten any new ones so far.  They are extremely absorbent and we use them for everything from spills in the kitchen to household cleaning.  We'll be tossing these into the compost bin soon and buying some new ones and I'm looking forward to stocking up for all the little toddler messes Phee makes.

Speaking of compost, I have the most adorable rooster compost container on the kitchen counter.  We have two different compost barrels in our backyard and we rotate them every year.  We were using a large old coffee container as a counter top compost pail, but I got this rooster as a gift for Christmas a couple years ago and I love it (it matches my rooster themed kitchen!).  If you're thinking of composting, even on a small scale, I recommend getting a counter top compost pail.  It's less trips to the big bin and easy for collecting little scraps throughout the day.  Plus, you can get them with filters which eliminate any odors that might cause problems.

One of the best eco solutions I've come across is a crocheted sweeper/mop cover.  These fit over a Swiffer mop or sweeper and eliminate all the waste associated with Swiffer cleaning cloths.  I have two and I love them.  I can still use the simple Swiffer stick mop which I had hanging around the house anyway.  These are washable and I was able to get them in a fun pink/white/purple yarn.  I use a spray bottle with floor cleaner (vinegar and water) to mop the floors.  An ingenious solution to messy mops that are always kind of ratty and gross.

When Phee was younger, we had lots of little messes to clean up and no where was as messy as the dinner table.  To eliminate using a lot of baby wipes or the dishrag to clean Phee up after a meal, I cut up a bunch of  old white t-shirts to make little cleaning cloths.  I kept them in a jar on the kitchen counter and could just grab and wet one as needed to clean Phee up.  A simple solution using things we already had on hand.

There are so many other things I could add, like making your own cleaners, but these really are my favorite solutions to some of our challenges in achieving a greener house.  I'm sure you've got lots of different things you use or do around your house.  What items have you found that really help green your cleaning and your house? 

Some links are Amazon affiliate links.  

Linked up at Just Us Four, The Grant Life, Nancherrow, Bloom Designs, Nessa Makes, Heather's French Press, The Recipe Critic, Yesterfood.

Is your iPhone out of memory?

This isn't the usual type of tip that I share, but it seems to be a very useful bit of information.  I have an iPhone 4S and it's fantastic.  I use it for a lot of things and a couple months ago, I was getting the 'no more memory for photos' message.  And this at just 200 photos or so, when I could usually carry almost 1000 before having to transfer them off the phone. I found that some iPhone using friends were running into the same issue.

So, I started deleting some of my rarely used apps.  But that didn't help.  I cleared out a bunch of apps that Phee doesn't use very much or has outgrown.  Still getting the 'no more room' message.

I dug around some more, looked to see which apps were taking up the most space, played around with some others and finally found the culprit.  And a solution!

Clear the cache in your Pinterest app!  For me, it was that simple.  I use Pinterest almost exclusively on my phone.  And it shows in the cache.  When I discovered this, my cache was 4GB.

So, here's how you fix it.

1. Open your Pinterest app and click on the person tab at the bottom.
2. Click on the settings gear in the top left corner.
3. Click on Account settings.
4. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of your Account settings page.
5. Clear all three caches.

That's it.  It's that simple.  If your cache is huge, like mine was, it will probably take a very long time to clear.  I actually forced it to stop a couple times and cleared it out in chunks.

There are a few other apps that have browsing history or caches to clear as well.  Be sure to check your settings and clear out what you can from time to time.  Also, if you have the Kindle app, double check how many books you actually have on your device.  If you delete the ones you don't actually need on your device, you can free up some space that way, too.

So, go clear out and start taking photos again!

DIY foaming hand soap

You've probably seen this tip floating around the internet somewhere.  But, I wanted to share it with you because it really is awesome.

We like foaming hand soap.  It's just fun.  Even more so for Phee than for us.  It seems so silly to buy bottle after bottle of it, though, when it's primarily water.  And, after using both regular and foaming soap, I prefer the foaming because it doesn't have that heavy, greasy feeling that a blob of regular soap has.

A year or two ago I saw a post on Money Saving Mom that said you could diy foaming hand soap once you have the emptied dispenser.  I finally gave it a try about a year ago and lo and behold it works!  It's a great, simple, money saving tip.

I prefer the Method hand soap.  It has some great scents and it's planet and people friendly.  Refilling really is as simple as squirting some regular hand soap into the empty foaming dispenser and then filling the rest with water.  I don't measure, but if I had to guess, I probably use a couple teaspoons of soap per refill.  The ratio is always a bit different, but overall it's using less soap while still giving us clean hands.

You can find good sales and Target coupons for the Method cleaning items sometimes.  I stock up when I can and one bottle of regular hand soap lasts us quite a while as a refill for two foaming dispensers.  Try it!  You won't be disappointed.

 What's your preference when it comes to hand soap in the kitchen or bathroom?

Window washer activity

Phee goes to a music class every week and thoroughly enjoys it. In the waiting area, there are books, toys and some musical instruments. There are also very large picture windows that all the kids are drawn to. A little window washing station is set up with spray bottles full of water, squeegees, and rags. It's super cute and it's just about the only thing Phee with play with while she's waiting for class.

The great thing about this activity- it's simple and inexpensive. And if your child is really into it like mine is, then your window will be fairly well cleaned.

Get a small spray bottle and fill it with water. Grab some old rags or washcloths. We use some of the old cloth baby wipes for this activity. They're very soft and don't leave fibers behind. If you have a squeegee or want to get one, add that to the mix, too. Find a little handled basket or canvas tote bag and load it up with the window cleaning activity.

I pull up the blinds in the living room and Phee goes to town on the front window and the big sliding glass doors. The windows might not be expertly cleaned, but she rinses off her own hand prints. And she's occupied for 15-20 minutes when I need to get something done. A winning activity in my book!

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