Day 26: Thanks for sharing!

A follower of this blog (who happens to be my very delightful sister-in-law!) was recently inspired by my post about the plastic lid rebellion! AND she used a nice, simple little trick: rather than put her plastic lids in a wire holder, she put them all in a large bowl!

Here are her words: "I didn't get the wire rack for two reasons...A) I'm cheap and B) the Tupperware is in one of the top cabinets so I wouldn't have been able to reach the rack :) Darn!"

No worries! Tidiness can be accomplished without spending a dime! Here is proof: some photos of her results!


Thanks for sharing your accomplishment! May your lids stay put and your cabinet remain organized!


Now, THAT's neat!

Day 25:Another product fav -- carpet freshener

I forgot to mention the other day when I blogged about vacuuming that I LOVE Glade carpet and room deodorizer. No, the makers of Glade did not pay me to say that. I am offering FREE opinions on all the products I list on my blog! (Why? So maybe you, too, can enjoy some great cleaning products!)

At any rate, I love Glade because it smells SO clean and fresh. I am using the "Clean Linen" scent right now, and it's so amazing! Just sprinkle the powder on the carpet, and let it sit for a while as you tidy up something else. Then vacuum it all up!

Ta-da: a super-fresh-smelling house!

This is definitely a MUST when you have pets. Or, at least, it's a must when you have pets like mine - weirdo dogs who like to rub their food-covered faces and other "random stinky parts" on the floor! EEEW.

And what's also great about the carpet and room deodorizer: you don't have to use it every time you vacuum, and you still get the fresh-smelling benefits! The scent lingers a bit in the vacuum, so whenever you run it around the house, the scent is kind of "reactivated!" That is a great, quick tip (neat freak cheat sheet!) if you don't have time to sprinkle, wait and vacuum.... or if you just don't have any more carpet and room deodorizer on hand!

Now, THAT's neat!

Day 23&24: Some thoughts on neatness

I thought I'd share a few fun quotes about being tidy and organized... or not! :) Enjoy!

• One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. ~ A. A. Milne
• A place for everything, and everything in its place. ~ Mary Isabella Beeton
• I think housework is the reason most women go to the office. ~Heloise Cruse
• Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. Like beams in a house or bones to a body, so is order to all things. ~ Robert Southey
• I'm not going to vacuum until Sears makes one you can ride on. ~Roseanne Barr
• One who wants to keep their yard tidy does not reserve a plot for the weeds. ~ proverb
• Good order is the foundation of all good things. ~ Edmund Burke
• If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, then what is the significance of a clean desk? ~ Dr. Laurence Peter
• Cleanliness is next to impossible. ~Author Unknown
• Cat's aren't clean; they're just covered with cat spit." ~ Anonymous
• Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. ~Phyllis Diller
• Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don't do it. ~Author Unknown
• I am thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home.... I am thankful for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means my loved ones are nearby. ~Nancie J. Carmody
• My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance. ~Author Unknown
• Please don't feed the dust bunnies. ~Author Unknown

Now, THAT's neat!

Day 22: Think INSIDE the box

My newborn son got some really neat baby gifts and several fun toys for Christmas. Of course, he was only 3-days old at the time, so I just stuck them all in his room.

On the floor.

I figured I would deal with them later. (I was a bit too tired to worry about that, for some reason!)


Being obsessed with organization, though, I had to tackle this problem. Simple solution: I bought a few chocolate-brown canvas boxes to match the colors in his room.


Then I simply unwrapped all the toys, put them in one box and placed it on the floor, and I put the other miscellaneous items in the other box and placed it on the night table.

Instant organization!



(That's why I love baskets and boxes and use them in just about every room in my house!)

Now, THAT's neat!

Day 20&21: Vacuuming sucks

We've already established the fact that I am a neat freak. So I'm sure it won't come as a surprise to you that I vacuum once or twice every week. Minimum. Of course, I don't think that vacuuming this much is all that uncommon. (Y'all probably vacuum at least that much. Right?) But, there are some people who ask me why I do it so often.

"The house is so clean!" they say. "Why do you always vacuum so much!"

My husband is one of these people.

But I know my efforts are not in vain. And I wanted to prove it to him... and to you!

So I set up a little experiment:
Here is a "before shot" of the empty vacuum container* where all the dirt, dust and debris is captured so you can dump it out in the trash.


You can see that it's quite empty. I even rinsed it out a bit so I could start out with a completely clean slate.

Then I vacuumed the master bedroom and 2 large area rugs. That's it! (The rest of the main floor is hardwood.)

And THIS is the "after shot," showing what the container looked like when I was done! EEEEWWY!


Remember: I vacuum once or twice every week. Now, the container is not completely full, but it had quite a lump of gunk in it. And this is just 4 or 5 days worth of dirt! Can you imagine what it would look like if I didn't vacuum so regularly!?!? *(((shudder)))*


Now, THAT's neat!



* In case you want to know, I have a Bissell Lift Off Revolution Pet vacuum. I purchased it 1 1/2 years ago from Kohl's.... and I LOVE it!

Day 19: The Plastic Lid Rebellion

There are days when I want to throw out every single plastic storage container I currently own. They seem to multiply whenever I start to run out of storage space, and they disappear whenever I need them. It never fails: as soon as I finish scooping leftover beef stew into the perfect-sized container, I start a mad hunt for the lid that fits. And, of course, that lid has absconded with other much-needed and often-used lids. Never to be found again. I liken the situation to socks. Somehow between wearing the socks on my feet and pairing them up when they're dry... they vanish into thin air. (Maybe the pairless socks are hanging out somewhere with the containerless lids?!?)

At any rate, since "kitchen" seems to be the room that needs the most organization, according to the majority of people who took my little survey, I have tackled another common kitchen problem: plastic lids. I used to keep them in a drawer, conveniently located underneath the cabinet where their counterparts were stored. But the lids would get warped and bent... and stuck.... which made them even MORE warped and bent.... and stuck. And, of course, you'd have to remove just about every lid from the drawer to find the ONE that matched whatever container you happened to choose.



So I bought a wire holder that attaches to a cabinet door (or a regular door; i.e. the pantry door). My husband had to round up some smaller screws (since the ones it came with would have gone straight through the cabinet door to the other side -- oopsie!), but it didn't take much effort to get it in the right place.



Then I stuck the majority of the plastic lids in there, where they seem to be nicely organized. I don't know yet if I am a big fan of this contraption, however. I guess it gets most of the lids out of the way. But I'm not sure if it a BIG enough improvement to the tidiness and efficiency of the storage process.



Oh, well! We shall see! Perhaps I'll do a follow-up and let you know. (Like a "2 months later" update to see if I've ripped it off the door and thrown it out the window!)

Now, THAT's neat!

Day 17&18: A Simple Fix For Scrunchie Insanity

My daughter has about 18,000 hair scrunchies. You know, those stretchy, circular hair thingies made out of material and/or ribbons? Ok. It's not 18,000, exactly. But she has a LOT of them. And they take up an entire drawer and create quite a mess.

SO... I did a really simple fix for this. Have an empty paper towel roll? You do? Well, there you go. It's fixed! :)


Just put the scrunchies on the paper towel tube, and voila!


Tidy scrunchies!


You can just stick the entire contraption in the drawer, and it stays neat for whenever you use them. (Of course, I advise keeping the most "popular" scrunchies toward either end of the tube, that way it's easier to get to them! Otherwise, you may spend some time pulling them all off to get the one you want!)




Now, THAT's neat!