Kitchen Cleaning MADE EASY!

Is your house a place of peace for you or does the clutter and all the cleaning that is left undone make you anxious, embarrassed, overwhelmed, and defeated?  If someone called and you needed to be ready to entertain in 1 hour or less, could you do it without having a panic attack?

I LOVE to have people over to visit and hang out.  My mind is cluttered enough with thoughts of kids, #hotfarmerhubbie, business, community and life that if my house is cluttered or unkempt I can get some serious anxious feelings and begin the negative self talk.  Also it causes major distraction for me trying to work from home.

As a mom of 5 kids, that we had in 7 years, yes on purpose, I HAD TO transform my old ways of keeping up a house before kids to something more systematic and routine with the small amount of time I had daily.

After reading  “ Large Family Logistics “ by: Kim Brenneman it gave me some great ideas on how to break up things in our household management that would give me back time and some peace of mind.

For our house I split the rooms up so I was only cleaning 1 room for about 30-45 min a day!  If I miss a day because of life, I know I can just do it the next week on that day.

Thursdays is kitchen

For me this looks like

* put away everything that doesn’t go in the kitchen

* take everything off counter and wipe them down with my DIY Thieves spray

* Spray and wipe down the outsides of all appliances and the inside of the microwave

* wash windows if grubby

* dust

* water my plants

* scrub out kitchen sink with baking soda plus capful of Thieves cleaner, 1-2 drops lemon essential oil

* vacuum the floor, I don’t sweep much because this just throws dust back into the air my vacuum has a floor setting.

* mop with my norwex mop or I LOVE the spin mop, using a cap full of Thieves cleaner, dash of vinegar, few drops of Lemon essential oil

If I turn on some music and put my phone in the other room or on DO NOT DISTURB and stay focused I can knock this out in 45 min to an hour.  Create a playlist that motivates you. The kitchen is my most time consuming room so I place it later in the week when I’m caught up with the computer work and errands etc.

Other options for your kitchen day

* clean out fridge, maybe 1x a month

* light fixtures or ceiling fans

* pick 3-5 cabinets to wipe the front off every week

* pick 1 drawer to de-clutter and clean out a week

As my kids have matured and now range 5-12 years old I created a family notebook that lists step by step cleaning each room.  They can pull out the laminated paper and follow it to complete whichever room they are responsible for. You can also check them off with dry erase marker.

I refuse to be the maid for my children and they are required to help because they live here and need to take some pride in their home and their personal living spaces.  We are called to be a good steward of our blessings and this includes our home and its contents.

Hope this helps you get to pondering a more daily house cleaning routine.  It has been fantastic for us!

You will find that if you do this small change of cleaning 1 room in more detail daily this will free up time in other areas and once it becomes habit you’ll find it easier to manage other areas of the home and life.

I am very particular about the cleaning and body products in our home.  They need to work, have ZERO dyes or fake fragrance (gives me awful headaches).  I have done research for us and changed a little over the years but the following are what stay around consistently.   I also take into consideration our carbon footprint as a big family we obviously would tend to have more waste.  So our products when going down the drain need to be more Earth friendly and not corrosive.

Young Living Thieves Household cleaner– is concentrated and used for ALL THINGS

I create my own all surface spray using these bottles
Lemon Essential oil from Young Living

Norwex rags
Vinegar
Baking soda
Better Life is a great company
Biokleen is also a great company

Share if you think this type of plan would work for your house and why or why not?

Here is a FREE PDF of what our cleaning looks like step by step that my kids follow. Use it to create your own.


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DIY Foaming Face & Body Wash For Pre-Teen Son



Pre-teen and teen boys, they stink literally!  My son’s feet have been wretched for several years and every here and there I have a DIY purification spray for his shoes that we give them a good spray over.  In this season of 7th grade 2020, wearing a mask to school all day, hormones and this week starting wrestling practice his face in particular but his whole body is in need of a special mix to tackle the yuck that comes with all the before mentioned issues.

For years I have been very picky about what we are putting on our body in regards to lotions, soaps, washes, etc.  Organic and Natural products from the store and even from my favorite Young Living can be a little pricy for a family of any size especially when you are suppling for a crew of 7.  5 of these 7 people still have issues with the more will do more thought process (like overusing my expensive products or wasting) So over the years I’ve found many good DIY recipes that work great.  I can’t recall where this one came from but I’ll tell you I did not create it!  I have tweaked it some as needed and based on the time of year, I’ll explain later.

Here is the PDF version so you can just print it off.  I keep all my DIY’s in a 3 ring notebook in plastic covers just like my food recipes.   The recipe below contains links to where you can find  the ingredients (click the word highlighted in blue)

Foaming Face & Body Wash:

**Add ingredients in the order listed. Stir gently. Castile soap and honey will cause mixture to look cloudy.  Pour the mixture into your foaming soap dispenser.

1 or 2 pumps when washing as it is very concentrated. Discard contents after 1 month (I’ve kept longer and it’s been fine) or if you notice any unfavorable changes.  Mixture will separate so give a little shake before each use.

NOTE: Combination can be adjusted based on your skin.  Drier skin may need less castile/ more water and or oil.  Or in summer months we tend to be more oily and dirty, add more castile soap.

This pairs great with a body scrub 1 time a week to help exfoliate the dead skin cells.

Many of the “ingredients” like castile soap and jojoba can be used in other DIY recipes, including foaming hand soap.  The essential oils will last years, but once you get in the groove they will be used up long before that.

Really this can be used for anyone not just stinky growing boys.  In the summer sometimes I use it on my body because just being outside more, sweating, dirt build up and my arms, chest and upper back will break out.

You don’t need an expense formula from the store or an infomercial to have great looking skin!  It’s also important to remember our food and water intake makes a huge difference.  Dairy is a big culprit that contributes to acne and of course sugar.  So along with a great recipe like the one above, ditching a few foods may be beneficial.   Our rule around here is to give the food changes 2-3 weeks and see what’s going on with the body then.

Let me know if you tried this and what you thought!

Stay well- Hannah

FREE Tea-Tree-Foaming-Face-Wash-PrintableDownload