Today I am sharing my 3 best spring cleaning tips, that will hopefully make cleaning up your house a little easier.
Big thanks to our sponsor The Organized Home — if you’re looking to clean things up faster, grab that course!
In this episode
Cleaning products during pregnancy
The Saturday clean episode.
Other things that might interest you
Producer: Drew Erickson
Check out my other parenting podcasts:
Transcript
[00:00:00.000] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on Episode 184, we are talking about spring cleaning, so let’s untangle it and clean it and shine it.
[00:00:19.480] – Hilary Erickson
Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls Podcast: pregnancy and parenting untangled. There’s no right answer for every family, but on this show, we hope to give you some ideas to make life simpler at your house. Life’s tangled just like my hair.
[00:00:40.840] – Hilary Erickson
Spring cleaning. I was going to try and get an expert to come on this podcast to talk to me about cleaning. We have had my friend, Samantha, on to talk about cleaning products during pregnancy, which I’ll link to that episode in the show notes. It is super interesting. But I just thought, cleaning… I think we all are like, what are the cleaning tips? And every once in a while, I find one that I’m really amazed by. But today I want to give you my three best spring cleaning tips, and they are probably not going to be mind blowing, but maybe you’ll see that you’re the same as me, and maybe it’ll give you some ideas. I don’t know. Let’s get to it.
[00:01:13.530] – Hilary Erickson
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[00:01:43.380] – Hilary Erickson
Okay, my first tip is micro fiber cloths. I absolutely hate how they feel on my hands. I don’t know how it has all these little things that grab onto every little skin cell on my hands and clings to it. I hate them, but man, oh man, do they clean better. And I know a lot of people love to buy them from fancy cleaning supplies. I am telling you, if you have a Costco membership, they probably have something similar at Sam’s Club.
[00:02:04.980] – Hilary Erickson
There’s a giant bag of yellow micro fiber cloths from Costco. It’s so cheap and I love them and I don’t feel bad when they get bleached or whatever happens to them because they’re super cheap. They really do clean better. I don’t know why. That’s why I don’t have an expert on this podcast. They just clean better, I find. So microfiber cloth, if you hate how they’re feeling, you can always wear rubber gloves. But I also hate how rubber gloves feel. So I just like sojourn on. I just make it work for me. Are these blowing your mind yet?
[00:02:31.140] – Hilary Erickson
Number two, stop buying cleaning supplies. Okay, so we don’t buy a lot of cleaning supplies around our house. We have a few stuck at the back of the closet. We have goo gone because it can be helpful for specific things. We have some carpet cleaner. But in general, in our house, we are cleaning with homemade cleaning supplies. And then we went to my parents house and we were cleaning, and they only have store bought cleaning supplies, which is apparently what I grew up with.
[00:02:55.000] – Hilary Erickson
So I’ve clearly changed. But we were all dying from the fumes, dying. And then I really just didn’t feel like they cleaned any better. So if you’re big into buying your 409 or your scrubbing bubbles or something like that at the store, try the homemade cleaning things. We use one that has a little bit of vinegar and a tea two drops of dish soap into a cleaning bottle. You can look up recipes for this online. I think I have the vinegar one that I’ll link to. And then I found a great one about tide online where you put in a teaspoon of tide to a gallon of water and then you’re supposed to put in bleach if it’s bleach safe. But I usually don’t put in bleach because it can hurt my fiber glass shower bottom.
[00:03:37.020] – Hilary Erickson
So usually I find that this does okay without the bleach and then a drop of dish soap and boom, you’re ready to go. And those are the two we have in there. I use my cricket, guys, because I’m super crafty to label our bottles, vinegar, tide. I do have a window cleaner that I buy store bought. If you guys have a great homemade window cleaner that you like to make, tell me on Instagram. I would love to make my own. I just don’t. Anyway, we just have those in there. That’s what we use. They do a great job. Now, keep in mind, those two things do not disinfect. I did try my own alcohol based cleaner, but ultimately I think I like the pre moistened wipes. So if I actually have to disinfected, meaning I’ve spilled like Turkey juice all over the counter, I will use an antibacterial wipe for that.
[00:04:18.520] – Hilary Erickson
But other than that, I have a weakness for the foaming mirror cleaner. Does anybody love that? I get it at Costco. Love it. I don’t know. I just cleaned my microwave with front with it the other day and we have the buttons on the glass. Such a mistake. I absolutely love that glass cleaner. But otherwise, the fumes are crazy in some of these cleaners. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. I’m just so sensitive.
[00:04:39.590] – Hilary Erickson
Finally, tip number three, and this is a rough one. Get your kids to do it with you. Now, obviously, if you have a newborn baby, you can skip tip number three. But I think I envisioned, because this is how my mom did it, that my kids would go and clean a wall without me. And they, yes, will go and swipe a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser over that wall a couple of times and then be like, It’s done. And it’s not going to be done. So ultimately, I’ve decided that our entire family has to clean at the same time. Sometimes we’re not even in the same room. But in order to teach my kids to clean, I’ve had to clean with them. So we do Saturday clean every Saturday where we all clean together. I absolutely don’t love it. They absolutely don’t love it. But I think I’m teaching them to clean better. And sometimes we’re ending up having a good time together. Sometimes we’re not.
[00:05:27.800] – Hilary Erickson
But I think we all hope that we kids can get to a stage, and I think they can with routine jobs like cleaning the bathroom, stuff like that. But when you’re wanting to give them a spring cleaning job, something they haven’t done, or it takes a little bit more muscle or whatever, it’s just going to do you better if you can get in there and do it with them. Might not work all the time. Little kids love to come and clean with you.
[00:05:46.780] – Hilary Erickson
So if you can just keep them loving that for until 18 years, that’s all you need to do. Anyway, I don’t love that tip, but it’s something that I’ve just realized I need to do. So don’t get me wrong, though. Every minute that I’m spending cleaning with my kids, when we are all cleaning like bathrooms, cleaning the grout and stuff like that, I’m like, when am I getting a maid or housekeeper? I can’t. I cannot. But I can. Anyway, those are my spring cleaning tips. I hope nobody’s mind was blown by any of those. I would love to know what you thought of these tips. If you have any tips on your own, come find me over on Instagram or you can comment on the blog post at pullingcurls.com. I would love to hear what you guys think. Tell me, tell me, tell me.
[00:06:25.400] – Hilary Erickson
Don’t miss next week’s episode where we are talking about taking care of your bottom, a different spring cleaning, if you will. And then the week after that, we are talking about teaching reading, which is something I absolutely love to do. I think it’s a good one for anyone to do because I think we can all be better teachers of all those kids that are learning to read. Stay tuned for those. They are great episodes.
[00:06:43.710] – Hilary Erickson
Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. The Pulling Curls podcast grows when you share us on social media or leave a review. If you do, please tag us so that we can share and send you a virtual hug, which, frankly, is my favorite hugging. Until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.
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