LOVE this!

Imagine overnight company is coming in two hours...here's how to do a burst of cleaning. Hopefully it means the rest of the family is either helping or is out of the house somewhere!

Cosmetic Bag Clutter

I decided I was fed up with my cosmetic bag the other day (and yes, some of you will laugh at this because I probably own less makeup than the average woman). 

Before

Anyway, I don't spend a lot of money on beauty products, but one of the things I splurge on (with a 20% off coupon, of course) is mineral makeup. I am very fair-skinned and have found it to be nice and light with a more believable skin tone match than traditional foundations. The problem with this nice powder makeup is that it gets everywhere, creating a pale orange dust.

It was time.

To get everything clean, I emptied out the bag for a trip through the dishwasher. I do this often with things that might not hold up in the washer (great for baseball caps!) but I am also aware this can void the dishwasher warranty and potentially cause a fire hazard.

I also grabbed a microfiber towel and used it to wipe the dust off everything in the bag. Here's a picture of everything laid out before it was cleaned:

That lineup includes two caps that no longer have a pencil to cover, two pairs of tweezers (don't like the angled ones!) and scissors, and most embarrassing, a contact lens in package from two prescriptions ago.

After

I took a few things out of the bag that I only use on occasion--the nail scissors, double-sided tape, hand lotion--and put other things back where they belong (safety pins in the sewing kit, etc.). I still debate about putting my razor in the shower.

Aside from the dishwasher cycle and a little extra time for photography, this process really only took 10 minutes. And after about 10 days of telling myself this needed to happen, it's good to have it cleared off my mental list. And, just for fun, I took a few extra minutes to look at the over-the-counter medications in my medicine cabinet and ended up throwing about half of them away. One expired in 2007. Eeek!

What do you use every day that could handle a good cleaning?

A Cheap Motivational Device

Like many parents of toddlers, I've learned how useful timers can be. Something about that third party timekeeper makes life more fair and alternately speeds things up or encourages patience.

I'm in awe at how this device--which I used to think was merely intended for monitoring baked goods--can settle the score between siblings and make a game out of cleaning up.

Your timer doesn't have to be digital, or anything fancy, really. Oh how I loved winding these up and then forcing them down to zero to hear the ringing as a kid...over and over again.

You might not have kids in the house, but if you find yourself procrastinating, overwhelmed, or with a few idle minutes, I encourage you to "trick" yourself using a timer.

You see, we often over- or under-estimate the amount of time we need to do a project.

The other night I cleaned the bathroom (everything but the shower) while my husband was taking a shower and I was awaiting my turn. For some reason, this was a task that I'd been hemming and hawing about starting all week, but I finished it in the typical five-minute-guy-shower timeframe.

I've encouraged you before to try and time your weekly tasks so that you can better budget the time you spend on cleaning. But today I wonder what you could accomplish if you set the timer for 15 or 20 minutes, and tried to beat the clock. (That's why I like the constant tick-tick-tick of the dial timer.)

As you work, remember the left to right, up and down technique so you can stay as focused as possible. Good luck!

Unclog Your Sink, the Easy and Green Way

So, hubby and I have a chronic problem with our bathroom sink. Every few months the drain gets so sluggish that we have to take action.

I'm not entirely sure who or what to blame, but I imagine there is toothpaste and shaving cream residue mingling with the main culprit: hair.

I'm thrilled that there is a simple and inexpensive remedy to this. First, I unscrew the decorative part of the drain stopper, just so I can get a better look at what's happening. You may or may not be able to do this, depending on your sink. I use anything I can find that is long and skinny to fish out chunks. Sorry for the word picture, but I am sparing you and showing this on a clean sink! This last time, I just used q-tips to clean the opening. Hubby has a long wire that he sometimes uses (like a miniature pipe snake).

Once the visible buildup is cleared, I pour a small "mountain" of baking soda over the drain hole, maybe an inch high. Then, with exciting science class volcano action, I pour vinegar on top and watch the bubbles go to work. It sometimes takes four or five healthy pours of vinegar to fully rinse the baking soda down the drain. Once the foaming has stopped, follow with a full kettle of boiling water. By now, your sink should be draining rapidly.

A happy sink!

I love that this trick does virtually nothing to the water supply (the acid of the vinegar and the base of the baking soda cancel each other out) and is so stinking cheap! Neither can be said of the commercially available drain clearing products.