10 Quick Spring Cleaning Tips

10 Simple Spring Cleaning Tips

It’s about that time of year to begin thinking about Spring cleaning! 

122
It is so much more fun to decorate a clean house, which is why I enjoy cleaning and organizing. It’s impossible to put a decorating “bandage” over a messy house.  The messes will always glare brighter than a new thrift store candlestick.

Before you do any Spring decorating this year, check out these 10 Simple Spring Cleaning Tips…

1. Formulate A Plan & Set Reasonable Goals

Jot down the areas of your home that you need to clean, come up with a plan and be sure to budget in time for distractions so you won’t get discouraged after just a few hours cleaning.  In essence, make a reasonable plan of attack that has at least a 98% chance of being accomplished! 

2. Check For Cleaning Supplies

There is nothing more frustrating than to start a project {or Spring cleaning} only to find that you’re out of supplies.  I’m on a chemical reduction kick, so when we moved, I got rid of THREE boxes of chemically-laden cleaning supplies.  White vinegar, baking soda and Thieves Cleaner are among my favorite household cleaning aids.

3.  Involve Your Children {or work while the littles are napping!}

I loved having small tasks to accomplish when I was growing up.  Crank up some music and get busy cleaning!

4. Tackle One Area At A Time

It’s exciting to get started cleaning and I sometimes tend to get distracted with various projects throughout the house.  But, I’ve found that it’s incredibly helpful and sanity-saving to work on one area at a time.  Inadvertently, piles of stuff will migrate to other rooms in your house, but those can be tackled when you get to them.

5.  De~clutter Before Cleaning

It is frustrating to be ready to dust an area only to realize that you have to move 15 knick-knacks, 10 pieces of junk mail, broken crayons and wadded up kleenexes before you can get started.   Save yourself a headache and get rid of the garbage and extraneous clutter before cleaning!

6. Use Bins To Organize The “Get-Rid-Of” Stuff

Instead of just dividing up things into separate piles that will likely get knocked over or mixed up, use plastic bins to keep them organized. I like having a bin for garage sale items, items to donate, garbage and things that need to be returned to others. 

7.  Open The Windows For Fresh Air

I love filling my lungs with fresh country air.  I can do without the man-ur-e smell, but I love Spring air {minus the pollen, of course}.  After being shut up inside for months, it is so refreshing to open the windows and have fresh air flowing through the house.

8. Clean Each Room From Top To Bottom

Let gravity make your job easier by working with it!  Start at the ceiling by dusting the ceiling fan or light fixture then get all the “webbys” off the crown molding.  Work your way down the walls, over the furniture, all the way to the baseboards and flooring.

9.  Change Up Your Accessories For A New Look

I don’t know about you, but I like to change up my accessories a little bit for each season. I’m not talking about redecorating necessarily, but just freshening up things.  Since it’s Spring, try switching out heavy, darker items out with lighter and brighter accessories!

10  Design A Daily Cleaning Schedule

After all your hard work is done and your house looks like a magazine cover {not really!}, make sure that you have a good cleaning schedule in place.  Whether you need to make one from scratch or update the one you have, set small daily tasks that will help keep your house in order until next Spring…or until you decide to deep clean your house again!

Cleaning Your Mattress

Considering the fact we spend nearly one-third of our lives sleeping on a mattress, you’d think mattress maintenance would be a bigger priority for the clean freaks in all of us. It’s not like there’s a zipper and you can simply unzip the cover and throw it into the washing machine. Once we pull all the sheets off, we tend to turn a blind eye to whatever nastiness might live atop the mattress itself.

You’re about to learn a whole lot more about your beloved mattress, and how to keep it clean and fresh using safe, natural, and simple techniques. Mattresses can harbor spills, stains, dirt, dust, dust mites and worse — so, maintaining a clean mattress is important for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that your partially clothed body is lying on top of it with only a sheet separating you.

The tip I love the most is how to deodorize your mattress by sifting baking soda over top. Baking soda and a few drops of essential oils make the perfect natural deodorizers, so a combination will help neutralize any odors. Other tips in this video include how to vacuum a mattress to remove dust and debris, removing the “protein” stains that typically end up on your mattress, and turning/flipping your mattress so it will wear evenly.

Please enjoy these helpful tips, and SHARE them with your friends on Facebook.

7 Ways to Get More From Your Bible Time

Do you ever feel like you're not getting enough out of your time in the Word? Or have you ever read a Bible passage and walked away thinking, "That's great, but I don't really know how to apply that to my life"? Or perhaps you've decided to spend a certain amount of time studying the Bible every day... but the time ticks by at a snail's pace.

That's frustrating, but Bible study doesn't have to be grueling, complicated, or boring. In fact, God has given us everything we need to understand His Word and apply it to our lives. Here are 7 tips that will help you get more out of your Bible study:

1. Start with the Right Motivation

There are lots of bad reasons to study the Bible. You can do it to make yourself feel better, to try to impress God, or to guilt your spouse into reading it. Those are all bad choices.

The Bible was written to teach us who God is so that we will love Him and worship Him more. Bible knowledge without heart transformation is pointless, and love without understanding is misguided. We are to love God with all our hearts AND our minds (Luke 10:27). When we study the Bible with this motivation, we will come away transformed men and women.

2. Pick a Time and Place that Works for You

Okay, so this tip isn't exactly ground-breaking, but it's easy to think that "quiet time" has to happen first thing in the morning. And while that's a great time for many people, it's highly impractical for others. Throw out the expectation that your time with God needs to look a certain way, and do what works for you in this season of life.

If you're a night owl, find a cozy spot in your home, grab a cup of tea and your Bible, and spend time with God after everyone else has gone to sleep. If you're a young mom, look for little windows of time to read or listen to the Bible while you're nursing your baby, driving around town, or putting the little ones down for a nap. A mom of seven recently shared how she uses little breaks in her day to open the Bible instead of her phone. It works!

3. Jot Down What You're Learning

Like anything good in life, rich Bible study requires effort and work. Sure, there are plenty of "aha" moments that come from simply reading a Bible verse. But although the Bible is simple enough for a child to understand, it's rich enough to provide fresh insights every time you read it, no matter how many times you've read the same passage before.

When you sit down with a Bible passage, try writing down your observations in a notebook. Like a journalist, ask the 5 W's and write down whatever jumps out to you first. Then dig deeper and look for repeated words or phrases, comparisons/contrasts, key verses, or other connections. Jot these down and then step back and ask, "What is the main point this passage is making?" Look at both the forest and the trees. There's beauty in both.

4. Use Online Study Tools

We're blessed to live in an age when information is at our fingertips. After you've studied the passage on your own, check out what others have said about it. You can find online commentaries, dictionaries, maps, and other study helps to deepen your Bible study. And best of all, most of them are free.

5. Follow Your Learning Style

While an academic approach to Bible study is extremely helpful, it's not the only way to interact with Scripture. Take your study deeper by finding creative ways to use your natural learning style.

Are you a visual learner? Try drawing, doodling, or hand lettering what you're reading. You can find lots of inspiration from other Bible journalers, and you can even buy a Bible with extra large margins made just for this method of study.

If you're an auditory learner, try reading a passage out loud, listening to the Bible on CD, or making up songs that incorporate the central truth of the passage you're reading.

And if you're a kinesthetic learner, get up and move! There's no rule that says learning must take place while seated at a desk. Try reading the Sermon on the Mount outside, pair your Bible study with a prayer walk, or even recreate scenes with your children or spouse, either acting them out or using playdough.

6. Team Up With a Buddy

It's amazing how different things stand out to different people even when they read the same passage.

Find a friend to study the Bible with, and share with one another what you've learned and how it's shaping your view and love for God. Come up with creative ways to apply what you're learning, and follow up to see if each of you has done what you said you would do. If you can't find someone to study with you, there are plenty of online Bible study communities you can join.

7. Find Scripture to Inspire You

If you're still unmotivated to study the Scripture, read what the Bible says about the Bible. Seriously. It doesn't sound terribly exciting, but once you discover what God promises about His Word, you'll want to drop everything and dig deep into the Bible. It's that incredible.

Pick one of these 7 tips to implement today. Before you know it, you'll be discovering amazing truths in your personal Bible study you didn't even know were there.

Teach Reading to a Child Who Hates To Read

If your child hates to read you have come to the right place! Reading is so important, but you already know that, which is why you are reading this post.

Did you know that you should read with your child for 20 minutes every night?  Yep!  20 minutes. 

However… what do you do if you child doesn’t want to read?  What do you do if they whine, cry or complain about it?  

What to do if your child hates to read: 

• Play the tickle monster.  When your child doesn't want to read, I tell him that for every page he/she would read, you will tickle them.   It works like a charm!   
• Take your child to pick out their own book at the library.  Do not make an suggestions and offer no judgement.  Let your child read it when he wants to and where he wants to.  Total freedom.
• Slowly adjust their taste in reading to harder books, once they get into really reading.
• “We had a problem with my kindergartener too, so I let her loose in the library.  My husband was mortified by the amount of princesses per page on the books that she picked!  She is in 3rd grade now, and we think she reads too much! She reads everywhere, no matter where she goes she has a book with her. Well, and her screen time is very-very limited…. ” ~Romashka Lana
• Choose different books and find out which one interests your child.
• Get them their own library card.
• Read in front of your child – magazines, recipes, books, articles – it doesn’t matter as long as they see you reading.
• Have a DEAR night.  Drop Everything And Read for 20 minutes every night.  The whole family participates.
• Print this reading log and let your child fill it out.  Reward him at the end of it with a new book to keep.
• Read to them.  If you don’t have time one night, let them get onto StoryLineOnline, a free site where actors & actresses read books to your child (the pictures come to life, too).  Starfall.com is another one that I used when I taught.
• Let them stay up later, but ONLY to read.  
• Play games, like Sight Word Bingo.
• Label things around the house.
• Re-read books to your child and let your child re-read them to you.  This helps with their comprehension (how well they understood and remember what they read) and their fluency (how quickly they can read it), as well as simply helping with word recognition.
• Try not to correct every mistake.  This not only makes your child lose confidence, but it slows his fluency.  Your child should be able to figure out that the word was wrong by the end of the sentence, because it doesn’t make sense.
  Example:  If it says “The pig played in the mud” and your child says “The pig pallyied in the mud”, he will probably pause after reading it, realizing that what he just said makes no sense.  You can step in at that time and offer some guidance.
• If your child is missing more than one word per sentence, the book is too hard.  Suggest a different book.
• Scale way back on electronics and soon a book will become a welcomed form of entertainment.
• Be sure to have your child’s eyes checked.  
• Find books with not too many words per page.  It seems silly, I know, but it seems to overwhelm the discouraged reader.   Work up to these types of books, with more words and sentences, but start small.
• “Try starting a mother/daughter or mother/son book club. I started one with my older daughter during her Kindergarten year (age 5) , and the group stayed together until they started high school this year (she’s now 15)! I truly believe reading a book at the same time as some other close friends helped her develop a LOVE of reading. Our group met every other month (we kept it realistic with other commitments!) and I absolutely loved having the opportunity to read along with her well beyond the toddler years! Our discussions were great and very eye opening about what was going on with our girls lives at each stage of their life. I also have a 7 year old (2nd grade) and I started a book club with her and her friends too. I already see the passion she has for reading and I hope it continues like it did with her big sis.” ~Carolyn Robinson
• Try team-reading where you read a page and he can read a page.  We do this with paragraphs, too.
• If your child loves baking, have him read recipes.  If he collects baseball cards, have him read the backs of the cards.
• Make new bookmarks for his favorite books.
• Ask family members to write easy letters and send it in the mail to your child.  It will be a welcomed form of reading, just to find out what they had to say.
• Turn on the closed captioning on your television.  My friend’s mom was blind, so they had it on constantly.  He said that he was reading at a very early age because of the closed captioning that was on all of his favorite shows.

Make a Non Toxic Cleaning Cleaning Kit

Most modern synthetic cleaning products are based on age-old formulas using natural ingredients that were passed down through the generations because the chemistry was right. Going back to the original naturally derived ingredients is a way to make cleaning products that work, don’t pollute and save you money. Most are found in your kitchen cupboards. Mix and match with well-chosen and environmentally friendly green cleaning products found in health food stores, and you can easily and simply transform your home into a non-toxic and healthy haven.

Non-toxic cleaning can give you a deep feeling of gratification in knowing that your family’s health is protected, and that your home is a place for your bodies to rest and recuperate rather than promote harm.

Making your own nontoxic cleaning kit will take you no time at all with these simple, straightforward directions, and with this kit you will be supplied with enough cleaning product for months of cleaning.

As an added bonus, ounce for ounce homemade cleaning formulas cost about one-tenth the price of their commercial counterpart—and that includes costly, but worthwhile essential oils

, and concentrated, all-purpose detergents for homemade recipes.

SUPPLIES
Baking soda
Washing soda
White distilled vinegar
A good liquid soap or detergent
Tea tree oil
6 clean spray bottles
2 glass jars

CREAMY SOFT SCRUBBER

Simply pour about 1/2 cup of baking soda into a bowl, and add enough liquid detergent to make a texture like frosting. Scoop the mixture onto a sponge, and wash the surface. This is the perfect recipe for cleaning the bathtub because it rinses easily and doesn’t leave grit.

Note: Add 1 teaspoon of vegetable glycerin to the mixture and store in a sealed glass jar, to keep the product moist. Otherwise just make as much as you need at a time.

ALL-PURPOSE SPRAY CLEANER

1/2 teaspoon washing soda
A dab of liquid soap
2 cups hot tap water

Combine the ingredients in a spray bottle and shake until the washing soda has dissolved. Apply and wipe off with a sponge or rag.

FURNITURE POLISH

1/2 teaspoon oil, such as olive (or jojoba, a liquid wax)
1/4 cup vinegar or fresh lemon juice
Mix the ingredients in a glass jar. Dab a soft rag into the solution and wipe onto wood surfaces. Cover the glass jar and store indefinitely.

Tea Tree Treasure

Nothing natural works for mold and mildew as well as this spray. I’ve used it successfully on a moldy ceiling from a leaking roof, on a musty bureau, a musty rug, and a moldy shower curtain. Tea tree oil is expensive, but a little goes a very long way. Note that the smell of tea tree oil is very strong, but it will dissipate in a few days.

2 teaspoons tea tree oil
2 cups water

Combine in a spray bottle, shake to blend, and spray on problem areas. Do not rinse. Makes two cups.

Vinegar Spray

Straight vinegar reportedly kills 82 percent of mold. Pour some white distilled vinegar straight into a spray bottle, spray on the moldy area, and let set without rinsing if you can put up with the smell. It will dissipate in a few hours.

Odors ....and how to get rid of them....

Odors

Dishwasher
A dishwasher can be cleaned with household vinegar or citric acid powder. Pour a gallon of vinegar in the bottom, let set for an hour or so, then run the washer through a full cycle. Citric acid powder will also help remove hard-water buildup. Add a half-cup of powder and run the dishwasher. If there’s still an unpleasant odor coming from inside, examine the drain hose to see if it’s crimped and check the bottom for bits of food or gunk. After checking, if the odor it still strong, call a plumber because it might be a possible hazardous plumbing problem, like sewer gas, that needs to be remedied,

Mothball
This strong odor, in furniture or clothing, can be taken care of with a lot of air circulation. If it’s in clothing, hang garments outside in fresh air to let the smell dissipate. Wash garments alone with washing soda or baking soda, added to the regular amount of detergent. If the odor is inside a chest of drawers or a cedar chest, you must air out the drawers too and then lightly sand the inside and vacuum up the shavings. Stuff the drawers with newspapers to help absorb the odors. Wipe the inside with a cloth lightly dampened with household vinegar and let air-dry.

Smoke
If clothing smells smoky, put it out in the fresh air. Many fabric-odor sprays do a good job, particularly on winter coats and heavy sweaters. Of course, normal laundering can remove the odor. But if there has been a fire, and the smoke smell is awful, locate a dry cleaner that has an ozone cleaner and that should do the trick.

Foot/Shoe
As long as foot odor is not a medical condition, try these hints: Wash your feet and dry them thoroughly. Spritz feet with deodorant before putting on socks. Apply antibacterial soap or soak your feet in vinegar for five minutes every night to help. Airing out shoes in between wearing, and pouring a bit baking soda inside, will help neutralize odors.

Cleaning with Microfiber Cloths

Uses for Microfiber Cloths
To help make cleaning easier, manufacturers have introduced wonderful new cleaning products and equipment. I love microfiber cloths because they are so handy and do a great cleaning job. Try these hints for using them around the house:

Auto
Keep several microfiber cloths underneath the front seat of your vehicle. Use them to dust off the dashboard, radio and steering wheel.

Bathroom, KitchenStore a couple of microfiber cloths in these locations because they will clean and shine the chrome, spiff up mirrors and are great for wiping off the sink. When the cloths become dirty, toss them into the washing machine.

Pets
Freshen up your dog by lightly dampening a microfiber cloth with water and wiping over its fur. If your cat or dog needs to get the gunk out of its eyes, a microfiber cloth will do the job nicely. And if your pet gets a dirty beard after eating, the cloth will remove that food crud.
Plants
To take dust off live or artificial leaves, lightly dampen a microfiber cloth and wipe over the leaves. This will also add a bit of moisture to the real plants too.

HIGH TECH

Computer
Pet hair, dust, ashes from smoking can migrate into your computer and clog the open holes. Use the hose attachment of your vacuum to remove pet hair and dust from the back of your computer. Clean the monitor case with a slightly damp microfiber cloth. Be sure to also dust the power cords, floor and area around the computer, printer and fax machine too.

Cell Phone
Wipe the handset surface with a dampened microfiber cloth to eliminate fingerprints and dust. But if it’s still sticky, mix one cup of water with one drop of mild detergent to wipe off and then rinse area (not the screen) with a clean dampened cloth. Don’t spray anything into the handset or keys.

Digital Camera
To remove dust, grime and fingerprints, wipe the outside with a microfiber cloth and then carefully swipe over the lens. For a thorough cleaning, take to a professional or use commercial wipes.

Music Players
Wipe the outside with a slightly damp microfiber cloth to clean, but don’t let moisture seep into openings. Do not use alcohol or solvents on this equipment.

Plasma Screens
First, unplug the power cord. Lift off fingerprints or dust by wiping screen with a microfiber cloth. Use it to clean the remote control too. NEVER apply any solvent on the screen. Lightly vacuum the vents on the rear panel occasionally.