As I am typing this, I have been off work since Wednesday - and I have three more days before I go back to work. Needless to say, I've had to find something to do and so I have turned to housekeeping. It's funny, usually when I come across an area of the house that needs to be addressed, I make a mental note to get to it on the next weekend (which never seems to actually happen since I totally get sidetracked by something else that needs my attention immediately) - but now that I've got all this spare time, I am able to just dive right in and I have.....and I have the aching back to prove it.
It's actually kind of refreshing. Back when Man-Child was here, housekeeping was near impossible. As soon as it was clean or organized, he'd come home and chaos would immediately ensue. (Want to hear something funny? MC claims HE is the neatest between him and his roommate! Hahahahaha! Somehow I find that hard to believe, but he swears it's true.) Hubby actually isn't so bad, except for his habit of hiding clutter, so usually when everything is clean and where it needs to be it stays there, more or less.
So far I have organized my bathroom (no mean feat considering that nothing has really been properly organized in there since we moved in four years ago when we just dumped the boxes straight into the cabinets and drawers); my dresser (ditto with the dumping four years ago), have given the bedroom a MAJOR cleaning from top to bottom, have cleaned out the fridge and organized the pantry (this was huge project, since it involved moving all of this; most of which had migrated to my countertops from the dining room table! and making room in the pantry for it all, complete with baskets of his favorites, so he can just remove the basket and put it back without just throwing stuff back in the pantry willy-nilly).
In between the organizing and cleaning frenzy I have also been dealing with laundry. The never ending laundry. Throwing Thanksgiving into the mix only added to the laundry; what with Man Child bringing home EVERY. SINGLE. PIECE of clothing he owns to be washed, there was also the linens that needed to be dealt with.
We discovered just a few hours before our Thanksgiving guests were to arrive that some of our favorite tablecloths had old stains that had gone unnoticed last time they were washed and dried. Lovely. Needless to say, we used different tablecloths for Thanksgiving dinner.
After the festivities, I turned my attention to the old stains. Certain that they would NEVER come out. I mean, who knows how long these stains had been there? Who knew what caused the stains? And I knew that those stains had been set by the dryer a year ago or so, since that was the last time we'd used those particular linens.
Enter my two new favorite (old) products.
Yup. Old fashioned hydrogen peroxide and washing soda.
Let me tell you - this stuff kicks butt! Seriously. I have never seen a commercial "stain removal" product - including bleach - work as well as this; particularly on old, set in stains. After soaking all the tablecloths in this mixture (even the multi-colored tablecloth) for a few hours in hot water a couple of times and then washing (along with a dash of each, in addition to the detergent) the cloths are stain-free. AND the multicolored tablecloth shows no signs of fading or bleaching! Color me impressed. My question? How did I NOT know about this back when I was dealing with baby stains, toddler stains, kid stains and football stains? Because I'm here to tell you, Spray 'n Wash (my mother's favorite go-to laundry aid) did NOT help with the majority of those stains....much less stains of this caliber.
Upon doing further "research" (okay, okay! Hours spent browsing Pinterest.....), I have discovered many, many uses for these two super products and I can now state unequivocally that these two items will be staples in my house for years to come.
Now you really must excuse me, I need to go reorganize Hubby's closet, and the mudroom, and something really needs to be done about that hall closet.....OH, and somehow I need to find the time to rearrange the garage....if only to be able to access the Christmas decorations; otherwise we will have to decorate the ficus and have Christmas morning in the dining room. And nobody wants that. I know because I already asked. Something tells me that the heating pad is about to become my new best friend.
*This is NOT a sponsored post - I just wanted to share my great new discovery!
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