Spring into Spring!

Say good by to winter (we hope!) and Spring into Spring with safety tips to keep you and your family safe, green solutions for everyday living and spring cleaning advice from professional organizer and 918moms.com blogger, Clear the Clutter.

Spring Break Safety

If you tweet and Facebook about your family's vacations, you may be rolling out the welcome map for thieves.

As people reveal their whereabouts on social networking sites, friends and the not-so-friendly elements, are taking notice. One example is a newly-launched website called  Please Rob Me. This website warns, " The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you're definitely not... home. So here we are; on one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home." 

Please Rob Me states the goal of the website is to "raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc. Because all this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information. "

Spring Cleaning 101 

By: 918moms.com Clear the Clutter blogger Michelle Lehman

“The National Soap and Detergent Association believes getting rid of clutter would eliminate 40 percent of the housework in the average home”! Need I say more!?!?

Certainly, there’s a lot to be said for the first spring cleaning. It’s a good time of year to start deep cleaning the dirt, dust and disorder that’s crept into your house over the winter. By doing a thorough clean once a year, no area of the home gets too out of whack that can’t be managed by your normal dusting, mopping, vacuuming and cleaning the mirrors. With the longer days brings a new burst of energy and raising our spirits for summer vacation.

Let’s start with the obvious clutter. Things which are just laying around, like magazines or newspapers, clothing on the floor, bills/paperwork, or things out of place are the easiest to tackle first. These are also the things that will make you feel the most out-of-sorts. Take the time to put these things in recycling bin, closets, files or trashcan. Now for everything else that is just lying around and is a permanent item or something I wish to keep, put it in its home.

With everything put away and the clutter gone from our homes…let’s start our spring cleaning madness! Let’s get crazy, are you ready for this!?!? I am thinking we should make a spring cleaning song here and we could all play it as we are cleaning our homes…American Idol anyone!?!? Or should we just go for a record deal!?!?

I know this is going to sound even crazier but let’s make this a family event! Pick this weekend or any other and gather the family for Spring Cleaning! As a reward you can order a pizza for dinner and maybe a little extra money for their piggy banks.

Before we gather the family for the fun weekend, take some time to analyze your home and make notes of the areas of concern or improvements for each room. Hopefully you have already “cleared the clutter” in your home so we are just focusing on the cleaning and organization of your home.

Work on one room at a time, even if you'll be doing similar chores like washing walls or vacuuming in several rooms. You'll get a greater feeling of accomplishment, and save steps. Put all your cleaning supplies, including dusting cloths and paper towels, into a bucket to carry from room to room. Give a specific job to each person so that as you move from room to room, everyone knows the game plan!

Now that the family got together for a fun weekend of spring cleaning, let’s find ways we can fix the problems before they reoccur again in each room. Ask yourself, do I need some sort of a tool for organization to help or is the problem a habit that just needs to be enforced? Keep in mind that the best organizing system of shelves, hooks, and baskets does no good if it isn’t utilized and you have cooperation from your family, you need to make sure everyone is on the same page or just threaten them with a “Monthly Weekend Cleaning”!!!

All rooms:
- Thoroughly dust and vacuum all surfaces, including baseboards and under furniture.
- Take down curtains and wash or send out for dry cleaning. Wash windowsills and blinds. I personally would leave washing windows for another fun weekend project or hire a window company to wash them. I hate washing windows!!!!
- Wash the walls. This is easy, if you use a sponge mop, a bucket of diluted all-purpose cleaning solution and start at the bottom and move up.
- Roll up area rugs and vacuum the floor beneath them; then vacuum both sides of the rug thoroughly.

Kitchen:
-Wipe tops of cabinets, fridge coils and appliances. If possible, move appliances out and clean or vacuum under them. Then thoroughly clean the interior of your refrigerator with baking soda and water, or use an all-purpose spray cleaner.
- Wash your dishwasher with a packet or two of Kool-Aid Lemonade to remove build-up. Make sure your dishwasher is empty.
- Scrub floor with an all-purpose cleaning solution and a scrub brush to get out ground-in grime.. Use tile cleaner to clean grout on ceramic tile and some stone floors.

Bathrooms:
- Scrub around faucets with bathroom cleaner and an old toothbrush to get rid of built-up soap scum. If mildew on tile is a problem, use the toothbrush and tile cleaner to get rid of it.
- Take down shower curtains and plastic liner and wash.

Bedrooms:
- Strip all the sheets, blankets, including bed-skirt, and wash. Flip your mattress and box spring and spray lightly with fabric freshener.
- I would add organize and clean out your closets and drawers but I know you already did that a couple of weeks ago when I suggested it, right?

Once you have all of the systems in place and everything has been cleaned from top to bottom you can implement your changes immediately. Force yourself to remember to put your keys in the new bowl, don’t just throw the mail on the counter, sort it and file your bills in one area, recycle the flyers and put the magazines in the basket so the mail does not pile up on the kitchen counters. Ask for your family’s help. If they see a magazine on the counter hopefully they will take the initiative to put it away in the basket for you. You may find that initially your family will find this whole new routine annoying and that is was easier to just drop things around the house but, once they get used to putting things away in the end they will prefer that knowing where things are is a lot better than wasting time hunting for the things all over the house. Be patient, it is not going to change overnight but you are well on your way to having an organized home!

Contact Organizing Solutions professional organizer, Michelle Lehman

Seeing Green

With an expanding cornucopia of sustainable building and remodeling options that marry "killer" looks with "killer" utility bills, Tulsans continue to seek green solutions to their energy needs, whether remodeling for pleasure or to age in place. The March issue of Tulsa People magazine unearths green solutions.