Swiffer Madness

Love the Swifter dusters but hate the price and waste?

Replace them with used dryer sheets!

A used dryer sheet is perfect for dusting knick-knacks, getting dust off the TV (and reducing it’s static keeping it dust free for longer), and for dusting wood.

Used dryer sheets also are magic on soap scum around the rim of your tub.

Stitch two dryer sheets together and use it on your floor, with your Swifter “broom.”

I’m off on vacation until mid week next week, so happy cleaning!

The Funky Washer

Have a washer that smells like an old tent? Accidentally forget to put laundry in the dryer? There’s nothing worse than the smell of a funky washer or a funky load of laundry!

To get the funk out of a forgotton load in the wash, rewash it using your detergent and a shot of vinegar (how much depends on what’s in there… A load of towels will need a lot of vinegar, while a load of sheets probably not). When the cycle is done, put it through rinse again, using HOT water, and chuck it IMMEDIATELY in the dryer.

To de-funkify your washer, spray it down with vinegar, put it through the rinse cycle with 2 towels, and then leave your lid open to air-dry!

In fact, the Stepford Wife always has her washer lid open when it’s not in use to prevent funky washer smells.

The product “Simple Green” also is a wonder against the funky washer.

Remember! NEVER mix bleach with vinegar. That makes for a funky and toxic washer!

Freezer Pleaser Meals

Picture it… It’s been a crazy day. You’ve been stretched to your breaking point, you’re tired, you’re disheveled, you’re maybe even a little (dare I say it?) crabby. Then, begins the question “What’s for dinner?” That nightly song, sung by the hungry mouths all expecting to pile around the dinner table. But you can’t think of cooking… Do they not know what kind of day you’ve had?! So, you drag yourself to the phone, order the nearest, fastest, take out, and have your dinner brought in little greasy boxes by a shady person that you can’t believe you just told where you live. Several hours later, takeout boxes overflowing from your garbage, you sit down trying to digest the expensive brick that was passed off as edible food, feeling the remorse of giving in to the worst of demons… The takeout monster.

Ladies of Stepford, I’d like to introduce to you the Freezer Pleaser, a fantastic culinary insurance policy for when things go wrong. It’s the superhero in your kitchen arsenal! It defeats hunger! It saves you from post-takeout guilt! It protects the George Washington’s in your wallet! With the unwrapping of foil and the turn of an oven dial (or push of the microwave button) you watch as a food that once resided next to your ice tray turns into a home-cooked meal… And only you know the humble beginnings of this miracle meal. Magically, on your table with almost no effort is a meal that you can be proud of, no heavy stomach, no diet breaking, and best of all, no directing perfect strangers how to get to your house. 

Of course, the powers of the Freezer Pleaser aren’t limited to your kitchen table, oh no. They can save you from the takeout monster at work, they can give you ready-made meals for long trips, they can even be used in such emergencies as potlucks and last minute parties (because that happens all the time...). The Freezer Pleaser is the miracle working best friend of the Stepford Wife.  Now, this Stepford Wife tries to make at least one Freezer Pleaser every other week in the summer, and every week in the winter.

So what exactly makes a Freezer Pleaser? Well, any food properly stored and frozen could be a Freezer Pleaser, but of course, some foods make better Freezer Pleasers than others. Chicken, ground beef and pork, sausage, kielbasa all make good Freezer Pleasers, as do most meats that are shredded (think pot roast) and/or cut into small and even pieces. Veges like tomatoes, corn, carrots, peas and beans, and the like do real well, while veges like squash and pumpkin and the pulpier, starchy veges do well only when they’re in mashed form. Most non-citrus fruits do well, especially berries. Milk-based meals do well, but only if they’re heated in the oven, and the lower fat the milk, the better it will reheat. Cream-based sauces, because of the high fat content, they run a larger risk of spoiling and/or not reheating, so I stay away from creams (but “Cream of” soups do very well). Cheese and cheese sauces do *not* reheat well at all, and egg-based foods like quiche tend to be very rubbery (I tend to think anybody who says quiche freezes well is a fibber, or they’re used to improperly cooked eggs!). If rice and noodles freeze well is a source of heavy debate amongst us Freezer Pleaser ladies. Some say yes, some say no. I personally think rice doesn’t do well unless it’s part of a soup or broth-based casserole or sauce, and pasta works only if it’s fresh pasta… Not hard pasta in a box.

Here’s a list of Freezer Pleaser meals that are *always* in my freezer:

Chili
Split Pea Soup
Spaghetti (sauce only)
Shepherd’s Pie
Mashed Potatoes
Chicken and Dumplings
Waffles
Biscuits and/or breadsticks
Green Bean Casserole
Bread and Sausage Stuffing

This week, I used a new recipe, Chicken Pot Pie, using ready-made Pillsbury Pie Crusts (Stepford Wife or not, I can’t master pie crusts) with a basic white sauce base, chicken, corn, carrots, green beans, and potatoes. The recipe made two pies, one went into the fridge for dinner, the other was sliced up, wrapped in plastic wrap (to prevent surface freezer burn), then tinfoil (to protect from overall freezer burn), and put in Tupperware (think an easy easily grab-and-go for going to work). One of the slices I put into a divided Tupperware dish, along with mashed potatoes, a biscuit, and corn salad for a home-made “TV dinner!” 

To get more ideas of what to serve, the proper care and feeding of Freezer Pleasers, and how to bring them to life again on your table, keep your eyes on me. You never know what I’ll pop out with.

Tuesday - Bathroom Cleaning Day Quick Tip

It doesn’t take expensive chemicals to get your can all sparkling clean…

Put about half a can of soda (that’s right, regular old cola) in the toilet, mixed with a splash of bleach. Let it soak while you freshen yourself up, scrub with your toilet brush all the way up to the rim and flush!

Voila! A sparkling clean toilet you could let your dog drink out of! Ok, maybe not, but you still have a lovely clean toilet.

Welcome to my Space on the Internet

So I suppose you're wondering... Who is this woman? Is she for real? Who the heck does she think she is?

Well, I'm horrible at managing my home, absolutely horrible. I never threw anything away, never could part with anything that went through my front door, and I could never clean what I had, and any and all cleaning was emotionally exhausting. I lost two of the rooms in my house to wall-to-wall mess, and I haven't even claimed them yet. All guests had to give a weeks notice before coming to visit, and housekeeping was an all-day rescue mission.

I decided to take action.

Slowly but surely, I reclaimed my house. It came so gradually, I hardly saw it coming. But my house... Was clean. Soon, everything in my life straightened up around it, and now my family and house and career are flourishing. The change was so dramatic that family and friends who've known me these many years wondered what the heck could have happened to turn me from a total mess, to a Clean Queen. Convinced that if I could do it, others could do it, I decided to take my method to the web, sharing what all I knew and all I do to keep my house running smoothly.

Thus started "The Stepford Wife's Guide to Home Management." Am I really a Stepford Wife? No, of course not. The title of this blog was made with tongue firmly planted in cheek. A poke at myself, and a poke at the people who think that clean houses and home management binders are the tools of the Stepford Wife... An opinion I used to hold until I realized that a home management binder was my lifeline to managing my OCD.

So now my house is clean, two rooms that were lost to clutter are starting to return to their former states of managed messiness, evolving slowly to a place of actual cleanliness, planned menus remove stress and mean good dinners on the table every night, there's a freezer full of freezer pleaser meals, and I am living in a home that is not so disastrous as to prevent me from actually relaxing.

I firmly believe if I can manage all of this, you can too... And step-by-step, I'll show you how I did it. :)

Until next time!