Day Three Hundred Eight: Organize Your Kitchen Cabinets

January always makes me want to get my house in order.  Right now, my kitchen cabinets are horrendous.  This is partly due to mediocre organization, and partly due to the fact that my one-year daughter thinks the cabinets are her own personal playground.  If the cabinets are her playground, the contents are a small stainless-steel toy store.  This is a photo of a fairly-organized cabinet, prior to toddler infestation.

I decided to take Martha's advice on Drawer Organization and install drawers and a lid organizer in my cabinets. This allows you to easily access those deep lower cabinets...without having to physically crawl inside.   My favorite store, the Container Store, sells these chrome roll-out drawers and lid holders.  This is my newly organized cabinet with drawers:

These drawers have been installed for a few days now.  I have to smile every time I open the cabinet.  It looks fabulous.  If you come over and all the doors of my cabinets are flung open, please don't question my sanity.  I'm simply reveling in my newfound cabinet organization.

p.s.  My daughter is in heaven.  Her favorite playground has new toys! At least the drawers make cleanup a cinch.

Day Two Hundred Fifty-Eight: Thanksgiving Turkey Napkins

We are headed out-of-town for Thanksgiving.  My husband's sweet sister is hosting so she'll be the one  slaving in the kitchen all day.  Frankly I feel a little useless.  And since I'm traveling across the country on Thanksgiving day, I can't even offer to bring anything.

Maybe I could fit a small bag of salad inside my carry-on.  

Just to get into the spirit of things though, I decided to try Martha's Turkey Napkin Fold.   It's a napkin! Shaped like a turkey!  How cute is that?  It's also pretty simple.  Don't get too excited though, and start planning your Thanksgiving table.

Each turkey takes three napkins to make.  So that's only 24 napkins for a table of eight people.

Not ridiculous at all.

Let me add that Martha's napkin fold looks like an anatomically correct bird.  Mine is more of an artistic representation:  

Thank goodness I'm not hosting Thanksgiving.

Day Two Hundred Forty-Seven: Fall Backwards Homekeeping

It's officially fall and that means time to whip out Martha's Fall Homekeeping list.  Apparently Miss Fall is a much less-demanding madam than Mrs. Spring...whose list is quite a bit longer.

Besides the obvious items (like switching out warm-weather bedding, clothing & rugs for cool-weather items), Martha also suggests one: clean gutters, outdoor furniture, scrub porch ceilings, walls, floors, decks, patios, the driveway, and walkways.

Wait:  the driveway?!?  Really?

Thankfully I don't have a proper driveway (thank you neighborhood alleyway), so I decided to scrub my porch yesterday.  I thought this would mean dusting some cobwebs and sweeping.  Little did I know the trim on my porch was covered in dirt and mildew:

:insert shudder:

To clean this mess, I had to make-friendly with the bleach, water and soap, which is quite a slippery combination.  I only fell once...and I'm pretty sure none of my neighbors noticed.

After expending much, much more elbow-grease than I was anticipating, my windows look like so:

:sigh of relief:

Unfortunately my gleaming white trim made the rockers on my front porch look pathetic, so I had to scrub those too.  Before:  

After:

Whew.  All done.  Now that it's all clean, I'm off to cast disapproving looks at people with dirty driveways.

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Nine: Appliance Manual for Dummies

Since we have three children we often utilize the services of a babysitter.  We will often feed our kids dinner and leave them with the babysitter and a bowl of popcorn watching the latest Disney movie.  The problem is only a Mensa member can operate our entertainment center, and we often return at night to our babysitter watching Cars on repeat.  So I decided to use Martha's idea of an Appliance Manual and make a manual for our entertainment center.  (Okay, so it's really just a sheet of paper, but there's a lot of information there.)  It's brilliant and I'm pretty sure a person of average intelligence can understand it.

Certainly the average babysitter.

 

Day Two Hundred Nine: Wheel of (Fortunately Easy) Cleaning

Fall Cleanup 2012 (Part II)

According to Martha, one should clean one's kitchen cabinets every week (MS Homekeeping Handbook, p. 42) and one's woodwork twice a year (MS Homekeeping Handbook, p. 544).  My schedule isn't quite so punctual.  I tend to complete this chore on more of an "as needed" basis, which boils down to whenever I get the enthusiasm to attack the chore, a.k.a. Not Often Enough.

Martha suggests using a soft, damp cloth or undiluted household cleaner for stronger stains.  I use these, which make the job easy:

 

They are brilliant and who doesn't love that bald guy?

I not only cleaned my cabinets, but also scrubbed the scuffs and fingerprints from the woodwork.  Note the before and after photos, which are really more impressive in person.  (Trust me.)
Before:

After:

 Before (Notice the coffee? tea? drips on the bottom of the cabinet):

 After:

Before (Grimy fingerprints): (The owners must have children.)

After:

I could give you a whole tour of the house, but really, it's not that exciting.  Except for me.  I'm stickin' ecstatic!!   :does a cartwheel:   My husband is out of town, but when he comes home I'm going to be showcasing my cleaning job like Vanna White.

Day Two Hundred Eight: Wall Washing Warning

Fall Cleanup 2012*  (Part One)

*Alternative title of this Blog entry and suggested campaign slogan.  For either side.  

When was the last time you vacuumed your walls?  That's not a typo and no, I have not lost my mind.  If you are anything like me, the answer is never.  I'm guessing that I'm probably in pretty good company since I've wracked my brain and cannot recall a single conversation with friends that included the phrase, "when I was vacuuming my walls..."

:thinking again:

Nope, never heard it.  That would have certainly got my attention.

Apparently, one is supposed to vacuum one's walls (and ceilings) once or twice a year.  (MS Homekeeping Handbook, p. 502.)  I'm way behind.  This is over and above dusting the cobwebs from the corners, too.

I noticed my walls on Saturday night after coming home from dinner out.  As I was walking upstairs, I noticed something on my wall.  Being much too tipsy tired to investigate at the time, I figured it was just a shadow cast by a streetlight.  I woke up the next morning and realized it was a very small dust bunny.

On my wall, people.

It was an eye-opener to say the least.  For a demonstration and your amusement, this is the Swiffer I used to wipe down my foyer.  I also vacuumed it but it's hard to take a photo of dirt in a vacuum.  (I imagine.  I didn't actually try.)

I'm pretty sure I have now eradicated all wall-dust-bunny refugees.  They are bad enough finding them under your bed...now on my walls too?

Be on the lookout.  I saw them headed your way.

Day One Hundred Ninety Five: Movin' On Up

For the last few years, I have been living my cosmetic life out of this adorable bag my sister-in-law bought for me:

Every morning, I would pull my makeup out of this bag, then put it back in when I was finished.  It occurred to me that I was living like a homeless person. (Albeit a stylish-preppy homeless person.)  I'm not sure why I kept doing this, when I have a perfectly good, and nearly empty, drawer available to me.

And so I moved in, Martha-style, with wooden Drawer Dividers.

 :Insert The Jeffersons theme song:

Day One Hundred Ninety Four: Fairly Smelly Fairy Tales

A Fairy Tale for you:

Once upon a time there was a New House.  In that New House lived a Leaky Sink.  The Leaky Sink made the Cabinet wet.  The Owner of the New House was so happy in the New House that she didn't notice the Leaky Sink or the Wet Cabinet.  That made the Leaky Sink and the Wet Cabinet sad.  One day the Owner discovered the Leaky Sink and fixed it.  She dried the Wet Cabinet and everyone was happy...except the Wet Cabinet...Because, after the Wet Cabinet dried, it started to smell musty.  The Owner noticed the musty smell and tried to fix it, but the Wet Cabinet still smelled musty. This made the Owner sad.

One day the Owner's Fairy Godmother, Martha Stewart, came to help.  She told the Owner how to clean the Wet Cabinet so the musty smell would go away.  Fairy Godmother Martha told the Owner to fill a container with vinegar, seal, then punch holes in the top.  She told her to put the container inside the Wet Cabinet overnight and the musty smell would go away.  The Owner did exactly what her Fairy Godmother told her to do, and when she woke up the next morning, the musty smell was gone.

THE END.

That was a true story.  No really, it was.

Day One Hundred and Eighty Two: Not-So-Funny Outtakes

Yesterday, when I was being pursued by a Ninja Samurai and a Magic Princess Pony (my two oldest children) and I dramatically fell to the ground in faux surrender (I was the fire-breathing dragon, natch), I noticed something.  As I lie there staring up at the ceiling mimicking (what I believe to be a rather good impersonation of) a slow and tragic fire-breathing-dragon death, I noticed my a.c. outtake vents are rather dusty.  The outtake vents are the ones in the ceiling where the hot/cold air comes out and heats/cools your room, generally improving your comfort level.  Chances are there is at least one in the room where you are sitting now.  Take a good look at it.  Is is clean or do you see some dust hiding there?

One of my vents:

:shudder:

I tried to remember when I last cleaned my vents and I couldn't....how often do those need to be cleaned anyway?  According to Martha's weekly homekeeping guide, you should clean vents every week. I sort of forgot about those vents up in the ceiling.  Oops.

As part of my War On Dust, I not only cleaned all my outtake vents, but I also changed my air filters.  I managed not to injure/kill myself by falling off the ladder in the process.

:hearing applause in my head:

Thank you. I'll be here all week.

Day Fifty Four: Wine, Dine and Dance

I love red wine.  I don't care that it will stain every surface, including your teeth, carpet and clothes, I'm going to serve it at a party.  One of the consequences of this attitude is that I often end up cleaning red wine stains from my carpet and clothes.  

After our Progressive Pedal Party on Saturday, I had a red wine stain to remove from my pants.  The cause of the spill was an enthusiastic dance partner who bumped into me :looking at you J.H.:, thereby spilling my wine on my pants. 

My very white pants.

Thankfully I have Martha on my side.  I already told you about her stain removal guide and how to be a Stain Houdini, but I think red wine deserves its own post.  

Martha has a litany of stain-removing techniques for my favorite grape beverage, but I think the best way to remove red wine stains from clothes is this: soak the spot with alcohol and flush with white wine vinegar.  It's like your own little miracle, especially when the stain is on a pair of white pants. 

Stained white pedal pushers:  (Get it?  Pedal pushers for a pedal party??) 

White pedal pushers after using Martha's technique.

Thanks to Martha, I won't have to give up drinking red wine, dancing, or doing both simultaneously.

Day Fifty: Don't Wash Your Cast Iron Pots

This morning I was loading my dishwasher and I found something shocking.  Someone had put my cast iron skillet....in. the. dishwasher.


:pause for dramatic effect:


Some of you may be wondering why I am so terribly concerned about my skillet being in the dishwasher. I am distraught because my cast iron skillet was almost washed.  One does not wash cast iron pots.  One cleans cast iron pots, but never ever with soap and never ever ever put it in your dishwasher.  It will rust.

I learned this lesson before I had ever even heard of Martha.  A little old Southern lady who taught finishing school imparted this wisdom on me:  "Nevah wash your cast iron, honey. You clean it, with sah-llt."

She was a wise lady.  Not everyone can turn "salt" into a two syllable word.

I didn't understand this wisdom at the time, mainly because I did not actually own any cast iron pots at the age of sixteen.  However, when my mother gave me a cast iron pot (about the same time she taught me to cook a chicken), she too imparted this same wisdom.  Never mind that two very wise women had given me the same tip, I had to double-check with Martha.

Martha says to clean a cast iron pot you should wipe with only hot water and never use detergent. If food is still stuck to the pan, scrub it with coarse salt, and wipe immediately with a clean cloth.  To read her complete instructions and all about seasoning a cast iron pot in the first place, see Housekeeping p. 68.

Dirty skillet with cleaning salt:

Scrubbing with salt:

Clean as a whistle:

....and nary a lick of soap was used.  Skillet saved.

Day Forty Eight: I'm Down With That

As I may have mentioned a few (hundred) times before, I have several kids. When we check on them before bed, they are sometimes turned completely around in the bed, toes on pillows, or sometimes curled up on a pillow like a puppy on a dog bed.

I believe this nocturnal activity is the culprit of my discovery this morning:  a sort of...damp...pillow.  I'm not sure if it has been drooled on or if someone didn't make it to the bathroom.

I'm fairly baffled.

What to do?  I think the pillow should be cleaned but it's a down-feather pillow.  I can't wash it, right?

:runs to check Martha:

Martha says I can!  Hurrah!  I thought I was going to have to toss it.

In Martha's Homekeeping book, she says you can wash down either by hand or in your front-loading washer. After it's clean, you can throw it in the dryer on low heat for a few hours until it's dry.  Check out Homekeeping, p. 387-388 for more info.

Now my pillow is clean...of whatever was on it.

I would post photos, but there's not much to see...except my relieved face.

Whew.

Day Forty: Stain Houdini

There are three things in life that are inevitable:  death, taxes and stains on my husband's clothes.  He's a stain magnet.  In fact, he can hardly wear a shirt for five minutes without getting something on it.  :certifiable fact:

Fortunately for this blog, he wore a new shirt and shorts today.  Within ten minutes both shirt and shorts had oil and grease on them.

Not oil and grease as in my-salad-dressing-just-landed-on-my-lap, or the cooking-oil-just-splattered-on-my-shirt, but honest to goodness oil and grease.

No, he is not a mechanic.  These stains came from walking within five feet of a bicycle.

With a stain-magnet like him, Martha's Stain removal guide  has become a dear friend.  I encourage you to print it off and hang it in your laundry room.  You may never actually use it, but it is reassuring.  Should you have a nasty stain on your hands, and feel like reprising your high school Chemistry final, you'll be ready.  Truly, it reads like a science experiment.  Armed with an eyedropper, a dull-egdged knife and petroleum jelly, you'll be amazed the stains you can vanquish.

You'll feel like a domestic Macgyver.

And so, with much enthusiasm, and very little confidence, I began to remove the stains from both pieces of clothing.

I first coated both stains with cornstarch:

Then blotted with acetone, a.k.a. fingernail polish remover.

Rinsed the stain with isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol)....

At this point, the stain is supposed to be pretty much gone, but my stain was still there.  My confidence in Martha was at an all-time low.  So I soaked it in an enzyme detergent for a few minutes and when I scrubbed it with a toothbrush....

Voila!  I'm like a Stain Houdini.

In closing I have two acknowledgments:

To Martha, I'm sorry for ever doubting you.

To my husband, when I said I'd never buy you new clothes again...I take it back.

Day Thirty-Seven: Conquering Mt. Laundry

Now that our out-of-town guests have departed, kids have returned to school, and husband has left for a business trip, I have loads of downtime in which to get the house back in order.  In fact, let me just put this box of bon-bons down and I'll be right with you.

First order of business: Conquering the mountain of laundry.

As ever, I look to Martha for support.

Although the chapter on Laundry Rooms in her Homekeeping book is quite long, Martha does not have a section on "How to Make the Laundry Wash and Fold Itself".  She does have sections on: Detergent vs. Soap, How to Dry Laundry, and How to Iron Ruffles.  I'm sure that's all very helpful to someone, but it's not helping me ascend Mt. Laundry. (Side note: Martha also has a lengthy section on Line Drying, including types of clotheslines and techniques.  Since I'm in no rush to look like the Beverly Hillbillies, I went ahead and skipped that section.  You, however, may be able to get away with it.)

If you are like me, sorting and throwing the clothes into the washer and dryer is not the problem.  It's what happens next.

Folding.

It's not that I can't fold laundry.  Last time I checked I did have both arms intact and operational. It's more that I lack the motivation to fold laundry.  Part of the problem is that the resulting piles of towels, shirts, etc isn't all that pretty. Every shirt is folded slightly differently, producing a lopsided pile of clothes.  I want my completed laundry to look perfectly folded and stacked:  like I walked into the Gap.

Towels are the biggest culprit.  You fold them and put them away, then you see them looking slightly untidy all week, until it's time to use them again.  Luckily, Martha tells us How to Fold A Towel.  (Homekeeping p. 413)

She starts with a reminder that there is a right and wrong way to fold a towel, "so that the edges are hidden and the towel looks fluffy and neat."  By this Martha insinuates that you've probably been doing it wrong, so you better go ahead and read on.

You should start by folding the towel in thirds lengthwise so that you have one heck of a skinny towel. (Martha alerts us that a towel hung over a towel rod should also be folded in this manner, in case you were wondering.)

 Next you should fold the towel into thirds: one-third from the top, then fold over onto the bottom third.  This may bamboozle some of you if you are very bad with fractions. If so, you can give that excuse to your guests when they arrive and your towels are in disarray.

:Guest opens bathroom cabinet, towels fall on her head:

You:   Sorry, I'm bad with fractions.

Guest:   Ah!  I understand.


While all of this towel-folding business was very enlightening, I must be off:  My trek up Mt. Laundry has hardly begin.  Wish me luck.


See Homekeeping, p. 361 et seq.

Day Thirty One: Six (More) Things to Do Every Day

Martha instructs us to complete six basic tasks every day to "keep chaos at bay":

1) Make the bed,
2) Manage clutter,
3) Sort the mail,
4) Clean as you cook,
5) Wipe spills when they are fresh, and
6) Sweep the kitchen floor.

Today I decided to put this into practice and see if I could, indeed, "keep chaos at bay".

1) Make the bed:  Done.  With the help of my lovely sister-in-law (who is visiting from out of town), I managed to make all five beds in a few minutes.  Never mind that this task was completed approximately five minutes before bedtime. 

2) Manage clutter:  I presided over all the clutter in my house today.  I told the toys to put themselves away and ordered the laundry to fold itself.  Of course, I had to do everything myself in the end.  You can't find any good help these days. 

3) Sort the mail:  Done. I get a ridiculous amount of mail every day.  In an effort to save myself from being crushed under an avalanche of mail, I resolved long ago to sort our mail every day into three piles:  Recycling, Bills and Catalogues.  Observation: the size of the Bills pile is directly proportionate to the size of the Catalogue pile.  

4) Clean as you cook:  Done.  If I didn't clean as I cooked I would probably never cook...the sheer number of dishes at the end of a meal can be completely overwhelming. :shudder:

5) Wipe spills when they are fresh:  Done.  When I knocked over that bottle of wine while cooking dinner, I wiped it up immediately and told my husband I used it for cooking. 

6) Sweep the kitchen floor:  Done.  Kitchen floor is food-, dirt- and toy-free.  Observation:  My children are messy eaters. While I may not be keeping chaos at bay by sweeping the floor, I'm definitely keeping the ants at bay.

Conclusion:   I'm not sure how any of these things "keeps chaos at bay". To me, chaos entails something more than dried food on the floor and a stack of mail next to your unmade bed. My house, however, is tidy and clean, and bedlam seems to have been averted for today.

Day Thirteen: Organize the Ones You Love

My husband possesses many talents:  He's a wiz with numbers.  He's handy.  He's not afraid to throw on an apron and make a mean dinner.  And if you want someone to spin you around the dance floor, he's your man.

He cannot, however, choose his own clothes (he's color blind), choose a decent greeting card (he once gave me a card addressed "to the man I love"), he cannot spell (he once wrote me a note addressing me as his "angle"), and he cannot organize.  Anything.  I asked him to organize some gardening supplies and this is the result:

Supplies.  In a box.

Also in the box were: 3 empty plastic bags, an old battery, an article on Peyton Manning and 2 Tootsie Pops.

The Gardening Box Issue came to a head when I was sent to the hardware store to buy some rubber hose washers.  Apparently, we were out of rubber hose washers and needed to stock up.  So, like a good wife, off to the hardware store I went...

After buying the washers, I went home to discover a cache of hose washers already in The Box.  It was like my husband was stockpiling the things in case there was a run on hose washers.  Panic in the streets!  Rubber Shortage!

I suspect he could not find all the hose washers hidden at the bottom of The Box.

Martha says we should organize small supplies into compartmentalized boxes, but cautions us to also buy something large enough for future acquisitions.  Accordingly, I set out to find an organizer for the contents of our Gardening Box.

What I bought is large enough to fit an infant or small animal:

I was worried that the tool box was a bit overkill for our meagre needs (after all, the contents were formally housed in a BOX) but after organizing the contents (and trashing the Tootsie Pops) we had just enough room.

I stopped just short of labeling all the different compartments...it is a manly toolbox after all...and I didn't want him to be teased by the other handy husbands on the block.

Despite his obvious organizing deficiencies, I think I'll be keeping my husband.

I tried to return him, but his mother wouldn't answer the door.

Day Twelve: Blacklisting Dirt

I don't know if it's this Martha project or if I'm naturally obsessive-compulsive, but I've become suspicious that my house is harboring all sorts of hidden dirt.  If Martha Stewart and Senator McCarthy had a child, it would be me:  rooting around the house in the middle of the night hoping to sneak up on some unsuspecting dust.

Just the other night I got up to use the bathroom and I started to check out my bathroom trashcan for cleanliness. After cleaning my kitchen trashcan I was concerned.

My suspicions have mostly been unfounded, but today I discovered something shocking in the most unsuspecting place.



Dum-
Dum-
Dum...



My washing machine.

This is the rubber seal of my front-loading washing machine, which one can (only) see if you happen to be squatted in front of the machine with your body twisted in a somewhat awkward position and your head halfway in the drum. (Prepare yourself. This is not for the weak at heart.)

Seriously, this so disgusting I was ready to call in a HazMat team.  So I was surprised when I found the topic covered in Martha's Homekeeping book with complete nonchalance.  She devotes two paragraphs to "Fighting Washer Mildew" and I never knew I was supposed to be cleaning my cleaning devices.

Fast-forward through me (in a very fetching pair of elbow-length rubber gloves) on my knees scrubbing this thing with half a bottle of bleach. Now my washing machine is mildew-free and I'm on the hunt for any more subversive dirt.

Watch out, dishwasher.  You're next.


MS Homekeeping, p. 368.

Day Nine: Friends Don't Let Friends Have Dirty Windows

A few weeks ago a kind friend shared the name of a window-cleaning company she recommended.  This fact alone would not be remarkable, but for the fact that the information was totally unsolicited by me.  The conversation went like this:

Me:    Hey, lady!  How's it going?

Her:    Great!  Been super busy...Listen, wanted to share with you the name of a window-cleaning company I just used.  They cleaned the windows inside and out and did a Super Job.

Me:    Er, thanks...I would love their number! 

Then I ran home to check my windows. 

I think she meant it innocently, but I started to wonder if my friend hadn't been staging an intervention. 

She was right to be concerned:  my windows were filthy.

Before:

Martha says you should clean your windows every Spring, so today was the day.  I hired someone to climb a 30 foot ladder to clean the outside (Mommy is afraid of heights!), but I cleaned the inside myself.

After:

Martha devotes five whole pages to the window cleaning process, but I will devote only five words: peer pressure isn't all bad. 

In fact, now that I am on the window-cleaning wagon, I think there is something we need to talk about....it's about your windows...

Day Eight: Weekly Homekeeping 101

I love lists.  I love to make them, brainstorm over them, and especially to check things off when they've been completed. (Simple pleasures, simple minds, folks.)

Martha loves lists too. Not that she's told me personally, but I can tell because she always provides us with lots of lists to help us along.

One of my favorite lists:  Homekeeping.

This Homekeeping List is even organized into weekly, monthly, and seasonal items.  Sure, you've heard of Spring cleaning, but have you met Fall cleaning???

In addition to lists, I love a clean house.  But I hate cleaning.  That's why I set aside a small portion of my childrens' inheritance each week to have my house cleaned by someone else.  These ladies do the tedious, time-consuming jobs like scrubbing the toilets, cleaning the oven, and mopping the floor. This means I have time to do those daily necessities like take a shower, feed my family and sleep.

Other than this visit from my housekeeper, my weekly cleaning list pretty much looks like this:






:insert cricket sounds:






Admittedly, I have little more than a passing acquaintance with the cleaning supplies under my sink...as in when they pass me on that conveyer belt at the store.

I am the person, however, who cleans the molding, touches up the paint, and dusts all those places that are forgotten. (And there are a lot.)  I am also the person who spends so much time picking up and putting away toys, clothes, books and mail that it could be considered a hobby.  

I thought my weekly cleaning chores were covered, but looking at Martha's Weekly Housekeeping has made me feel quite the slacker.  Sure, my kitchen surfaces are cleaned weekly, but when was the last time I flushed my drain with boiling water or cleaned the inside of my trash bin?

Now, I didn't get to do everything on the list, (after all it is a WEEKLY housekeeping list) but I did get to all those "other" items that one normal person might overlook.  Among the items I completed:   flushing the kitchen drain with boiling water,  disposing of evidence that there are children in the house (i.e. removing hand and nose prints from the glass doors and windows), and cleaning the inside and outside of our trash can.*  While one might not notice that the inside of my drains are clean, I can be proud that my stainless steel trash can sparkles like Elizabeth Taylor's diamonds.


*Side note:  While I have cleaned my trash can before, it has not been cleaned since The Perfect Storm of Cleaning hit our house in 2009.  Perfect Storm =  Spring Cleaning Time + expecting out of town guests + Nesting with second child.

For a list of all these Housekeeping items, see MS Homekeeping, Weekly Homekeeping p. 24.

Day Seven: Cleaning Silver for Lazy People

All this organizing in the dining room led me to a shocking discovery:  my silver is in an atrocious state.

If you are like me, all that silver I inherited from my grandmother bought sits most of the year in a drawer waiting for an occasion special enough to haul it out.  

The main reason it doesn't get used?  It has to be hand-washed.  How lazy are we, ladies?  I'm here to report:  pretty lazy.

Revelation:  Your silver can be Put. In. The. Dishwasher.  

:cue Hallelujah chorus:

You heard it here first. 

Martha says you can put your silver in the dishwasher as long as you use a small amount of gentle detergent, never wash it with stainless steel, then turn off the dry cycle and remove and dry immediately to avoid water spots. (MS Homekeeping Handbook, p 166).

Perfectly clean via the dishwasher.  You are welcome.