cleaning |

I finished writing my book and sent it to my editor. In the meantime I finished reading the book I’d been waiting two years to read (Ken Follett’s Winter of the World–950+ pages). Now I’m in the In Between.

That place where I’m not yet ready to start writing the next book and I’m still involved in the lives of the people in the book I was reading and am not ready to give them up.

I’m not sure what to do with myself in the In Between. I”m a little lost because I always either have a book to read or a book to write and I’m usually torn between the two.

So I’m doing strange things, like dusting, and painting my nails, and cleaning the kitchen.

This In Between thing needs to end soon before my family gets used to a clean house.

What do you do when you find yourself with some spare time?

I learned two new things this past weekend that blew me away and gave me a new appreciation for Dawn dish soap.

1. I saw this on Pinterest and thought I’d give it a whirl because I’ve yet to find a really good shower cleaner. Until now. Here’s what you need:

1 cup Dawn dish soap

1 cup vinegar

Put in a spray bottle and shake. Spray it on your shower walls, let it sit an hour or two and wipe the walls down with a sponge.

OMGosh! This worked really well! The shower walls shone as well as the silver knobs.

2. I had two shirts that I didn’t wear all summer because they had oil stains on them. One from the Pam I was spraying while cooking dinner and the other when I dripped mayonnaise on it. I washed the shirts right away but the stains set so I hung the shirts in my closet where they stayed all summer. Why I didn’t throw them away, I don’t know. But one day I was thinking that Dawn is the grease fighter, why wouldn’t it get the grease out of my shirts? So I poured Dawn on the grease stains, let them sit, then washed them. For good measure I washed them twice without drying in between.

Guess what??? The grease stains came out and now I have two practically new shirts!

So what’s the best household cleaning tip you have? Please share.