Simple Little Life
Growing up, I often stayed with my grandmother. I remember walking inside her house and it always smelling clean and fresh. Of course, she was a stay-at-home wife, mother, and grandmother, so she always stayed on top of the cleaning daily. She once told me she would work on a different room each day of the week and clean it from the ceiling down. Her house was always in perfect condition, ready for anyone to stop by for a visit and a strong cup of coffee. She always told me her job was to take care of her family and a clean house was a part of that.
“No one likes to live in filth,” she would say.
Her cleaning supplies were simple compared to what most of us use these days. She always had Tide powder detergent, bleach, concentrated Lysol in the brown bottle, Windex, vinegar, and baking soda on hand. I do not remember seeing any other cleaners, though she may have had them. She said Tide was the only detergent to use on clothes. It was expensive, but it cleaned nice and was easy on clothes. In the long run, a person would be saving money by not replacing their clothes so often. She would also pour a cap of the concentrated Lysol in with each load, claiming it helped with the smell and killed the germs on clothes.
When I got my own house, I always tried to keep the same products on hand so my house would smell as clean and inviting as my grandmother’s home always did. Unlike my grandmother, I have always had to work a regular job, and at times, my house looked a little crazy and very lived in. I am the mother of three kids who can produce tons of dirty clothes along with multiple messes on any given day of the week. I learned there were not enough hours in the day to get everything done. I turned to the more convenient products, which saved time but not money. With money being tight in my house, I would be forced to go with cheaper laundry detergents and cleaning products. I was so disappointed in how the discount products cleaned, and I would always end up going back to Tide and Lysol every time. You pay for what you get, I think. My neighbor told me about using Tide to clean her floors, and once she started using it, she never wanted to use anything else on her floors again. Hmmm...maybe my grandmother was on to something by only using Tide.
This weekend I tried the little trick my friend shared about using Tide detergent to clean her floors. Let me share what I did to get my sparkling fresh-smelling floors and cabinets. First, I filled my sink with hot water, as hot as I could stand it. Then I added a tablespoon of powered Tide detergent, two tablespoons of bleach and a tablespoon of blue Dawn liquid soap. I started using the solution on my cabinets first, using a cleaning rag, then I used a mop with the solution on the floors. Let us just say I absolutely loved the way my floors and cabinets turned out. The smell was amazing throughout my whole house, and it reminded me of my childhood spending time at my grandmother’s home.
If you have any tips or tricks you would like to share on cleaning or just simplifying your life, email me at publisher@thevindicator.com.