Heather Solos's Blog, page 11

Deep Clean Week 14: The Paperwork Pile Up

Welcome to the final week of the Deep Clean Project. This week’s task should not be too difficult unless you are like me and tend to let the papers pile up. Yes, I procrastinate.

I saved this one for last, on purpose. I find it satisfying to have a small project with a nice payoff. Yes, I look for the little dopamine kicks wherever I can find them.

Today, we’re going to work on getting rid of the existing paper and take a step toward preventing future pile-ups. (More will always show up, but we can reduce the overall amount.)

This week’s project requires either a shredder or a large trash bag for papers eventually destined for the shredder, your smartphone, and your computer if you prefer to work from that for some online tasks.

You will also need some patience.

Do a lap around your home and gather all of the paperwork wherever it accumulates and bring it to your work station.

If you have older children, now would be a good time to have them go through their book bags and/or desks to get rid of the papers they no longer need. If you have young children, I wouldn’t tackle both on this round unless your own pile is pretty small. Maybe wait for the rinse and repeat, or attack it piecemeal over the next few weeks.

Now that you have your pile. Take a quick look at each item. Is it a bill? Has it been paid? If it is a recurring bill, note the due date with a reminder in your calendar. Personally, I like to set my reminders five days prior to the due date, but that is just me. Look over the bill, does it offer the option to sign up for email reminders instead? If so, do that now. If the bill has not been paid, put it in a to be paid pile and set a reminder in your calendar.

Once I put our bills in the calendar and made specific dates to deal with them a habit, budgeting became a much simpler process, even with our household’s mix of traditional salary and other less predictable income.

Is it a paper that needs to be filed? File it now if you have a filing cabinet or document box or set it neatly aside if that’s on the to-be-purchased list.

If it’s a receipt for business purposes. Note it now in a spreadsheet and put it in an envelope labeled with the calendar month the purchase was made. You or your accountant will thank me around tax time. Let’s stop that mad rush and unorganized pile habit now.

Is it just trash with no personal information? Get rid of it, otherwise shred it or put it in the to be shred pile.

If it is a magazine that you mean to read and never do, go ahead and cancel the subscription. Some magazines let you do so online. If yours doesn’t and you have to call a customer service number during business hours, put a reminder in your phone with both the phone number and your account number in the reminder. It’ll save you time and make it easier to not ignore the reminder.

Junk mail? Get rid of it. Think about your habits, how can you make getting rid of junk mail a habit without it landing in a pile to be dealt with again? When you bring in the mail, resist the urge to put down the pile without removing the trash first. Maybe this means putting a small wastebasket close to the door you use or resisting the urge to get the mail when you first return from work and don’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with it. Perhaps it needs focused attention. Go inside, get settled, then make going out and retrieving the mail a specific trip, so it doesn’t get mixed into the shuffle.

Are you ready to tackle that pile? I am.

Do you need to Rinse and Repeat? Speaking for myself, we’ve got six kids, of course, we do. We live in a rinse and repeat cycle. (Some stages of life are just messier than others. They do pass, you aren’t doing anything wrong.) If you sign up for the rinse and repeat, you’ll start over at the beginning next Saturday at 8 Eastern. d

Deep Clean Week 13: Your Pantry and/or Food Storage

Everyone’s home is a little different. Some of you may be in a small space with very limited storage and have to get very creative when storing food in your home. Some of you may have a very large pantry. This is why I’m using the term food storage in addition to the term pantry. You might have a cupboard shelf or two, maybe you have taken over the linen closet. Growing up, we had a couple of shelves in our laundry room

Whatever the case, today we are going in to your food storage area(s) for three reasons:

To remove expired food.To check for signs of pantry moths, biscuit beetles, or other pestsTo take stock of what we need to have on hand in case of emergency.

You aren’t going to need a lot for today:

pen/paperbroom/dustpantrash bag(s)vacuumpotentially all-purpose spray & rag or paper towelsflashlight if your food storage areas are dim or unlit

If you have food in its original packaging, check for holes and tears. If the food is unopened, but the packaging is damaged, you’re going to need to check closer for infestation, as that’s how the pests get in. Check the corners of your food storage area, especially the upper and lower ones for any signs of webbing or insect or rodent debris. Clean up ANY spilled food as this invites more and throw out any damaged and expired food. If you can, transfer food to air-tight containers.

In my part of the country, as I write this, we’re already two weeks into hurricane season, lucky us. This means that it’s time for us to take stock and make sure we have at least enough food to get us through two weeks of no power. We also need to be able to store enough water for every family member for at least 72 hours minimum.

The good news is that you don’t need to run out and stock up all at once after you do this deep clean. Just add a little bit to each shopping trip until you meet that general standard. Oh, I can hear those of you in evacuation zones clamoring, have we already forgotten March of 2020? Having non-perishable food on hand makes it much easier to stay home when you need to. It doesn’t take a worldwide pandemic to need to. Sometimes it’s just a very personal case of stomach flu. Speaking of that, go ahead and take stock of your first aid kit/medicine cabinet. Do you have your basics? Good.

For later:

It’s awesome if you can afford a set like these, but there is nothing wrong with repurposing jam jars, pickle jars, etc if that is the route you need to take. I used to be so happy whenever my mom and stepfather would pass along the empty gallon jars they bought their pickles in. They were perfect for storing grains in. I also used to ask the ladies in the bakery at the grocery store if they had any empty frosting buckets and they were happy to pass those along. I just had to wash those out. Just be polite and don’t ask when they are busy.

Ready? Let’s go!

Deep Clean Week 12: The Oven, Range and Microwave

You didn’t think that we would go through the entire deep clean series and never get to the oven, did you? No one likes to clean the oven, especially if it gets used a lot. It’s not just you, we all dread it.

If you have a self-cleaning oven. Follow the instructions in your operator’s manual. Don’t forget to remove the racks and any big chunks of food from the bottom of the oven first.

If your oven is not self-cleaning, you’ve likely got a bigger job ahead of you today. But don’t worry, Easy-Off and Barkeeper’s Friend were made for jobs like these, just NOT AT THE SAME TIME. Please follow the label’s instructions. If the room needs to be well-ventilated, don’t ignore the warning.

If your range and oven are a single appliance, you will want to clean your cooktop before cleaning the oven. You don’t want the cooktop heating up as you are cleaning it. If your range and oven are separate units, you can do both at the same time, live it up. (This assumes you are lucky enough to have a self-cleaning oven or help.)

While you are in the kitchen and cleaning mode, go ahead and give the microwave a good clean-up. If you have been playing along, it’s been two months since we’ve done the kitchen deep clean.

The Deep Clean: Small Project Week

Last week’s project was a two-parter. Which, by the way, that smudge hunt was pretty satisfying, wasn’t it? Especially if you have kids of any age living at home. It’s kind of impressive how much just getting rid of that stuff we don’t typically notice can brighten up a room.

It might not be as exciting as new Brita filter day or new contact day, but it’s a good day. Celebrate the little wins, and life gets a whole lot happier.

Part two was to find a small project around your home to deal with today, week eleven of the deep clean project. If you needed supplies to work on said project, you were supposed to deal with that over the week. I hope you did your homework, otherwise, you have an errand or two in addition to today’s task.

FIX THE ANNOYING THING IN YOUR HOME.

This time, I’m replacing the internal parts of one of our toilets. We’ve had all the pieces for ages. We’ve just tolerated the sticking handle and annoying flapper because… we’re human. Since I will be joining the rinse and repeat. I’ll try to remember to update this post with each cycle’s project. It’ll be neat to see what gets accomplished.

I would like to see, in the comments, what project you did today.

Are you ready? Let’s go!

Is It Sanitary? Does It Matter?

Hello,

I know someone who picks up their dog’s poop using kitchen utensils. They think it’s okay because they bleached the utensils and or wash them in the dishwasher. They also use these utensils to prepare their own food.

I do not agree!  

Please advise!!!

Signed,

Horrified in Horseshoe Bay

Dear Horrified,

There’s some stuff to unpack here, and I’m hoping, if you were staying at this person’s home, that it includes your overnight bag, at your own home, for your sanity.

Sometimes it does not matter if something is technically clean, sanitary, or sterile, but please keep reading. I agree with you, not the acquaintance. The acquaintance may be right on a technicality, but I’m throwing a red card on the play in practice.

Society has expectations. Some are good. For example, we expect people to wash their hands after they use the restroom and before preparing food. Yay, hygiene.

Some are obnoxious, like some gender expectations, but we’re getting better as a whole. Slowly.

There are standards of hygiene, some cultures have many and some only have a few. In some parts of the world, the left hand is for personal hygiene and to do something like touch produce in a store or market with a left hand would be horrifying to bystanders.

This acquaintance of yours has broken a societal expectation. (And some health codes, but they don’t live in a commercial kitchen, I’m assuming.)

They may be technically correct that the item in question is clean and that bleach or the dishwasher can sanitize it, but it really doesn’t matter.

Here, in the US, we may be uptight about many things, which can be frustrating in some regards, but food safety standards have a purpose. We separate kitchens and bathrooms, and that includes pets and their excrement. Cottage food laws that govern what can and cannot be sold after being prepared in a home kitchen exist for a reason. (I live in South Carolina, so I’m linking to information about South Carolina Cottage food laws. Please search for your own state before trying to sell any food made in your home.) Home kitchens aren’t inspected by health officials and can’t be held to standards that keep people safe.

Humans are fallible, we all make mistakes, and we are all imperfect. Maybe one day, Horrified’s acquaintance got distracted and set the utensil on the counter before it was fully clean, or maybe they don’t fully clean it. Using a kitchen utensil to clean up excrement invites the potential for cross-contamination that does not exist if the utensil is only used for its intended purposes in the kitchen. This is why we have standards to prevent mistakes and accidents that have the potential to cause harm.

Clean up any accidents of this nature with paper towels or rags that can go through the laundry. Do not use items that make direct contact with food. It’s just asking for trouble.

The practice described by Horrified’s host made their guest (and heck me) very uncomfortable, and that is a big part of the issue and also needs to be discussed. Just because something you do is safe doesn’t mean it’s always ok. If you are making your guest uncomfortable*, you’re breaking the most basic rules of etiquette. (Hmm, this sounds remarkably like the consent discussions my teens are tired of having with me.)

*Great big caveat here: if the guest is behaving poorly, crossing boundaries, making you uncomfortable, etc., etiquette goes right out the window. Defend your space and yourself first and foremost. Apologize later if you have to.

Can you Home-Eccers out there, do me a favor and reassure me that the idea of using a kitchen utensil to clean up after a pet accident has NEVER crossed your mind? I need to know that this question is an outlier and that some common sense still exists. I want to accept food from other homes without having this question cross my mind ever again.

Send your questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.

Deep Clean Week 10: Smudge and Peeve Hunt and Elimination

Over the last ten weeks, we’ve tackled the majority of the public areas of your home and last week, your digital life may have endured a deep clean, too. This week isn’t exactly an off week, but it IS a lighter one, as it serves a purpose. You’re going to use a little more mental energy to plan for next week.

For today’s main goal, you need just two things: either a roll of paper towels or a rag and your favorite all-purpose cleaner. When I say all-purpose cleaner, I mean anything from a 50:50 vinegar solution to Method’s Pink Grapefruit Spray to dilute Pinesol. What you use in your home is your choice. Just choose one, we’re on a mission.

Find all the smudges and fingerprints. Spray your rag and wipe them away.

Where do these smudges and fingerprints live? Door jams, around doorknobs, switch plates, cupboards if you have white ones, banisters, stair railings, etc. Anywhere anything light-colored exists in your home that is anywhere around waist or shoulder height of any person in your home, there are likely finger and handprints.

Speaking of in your home, if you have pets, check the walls and corners where they like to hide. If they have any oils in their coats, you might want to give the wall and baseboard in those corners a quick wipe, too.

This project shouldn’t take too long unless you are very lucky indeed, and in that case, may we come over for hors d’ oeuvres in the garden some afternoon?

No matter what, you’ll be surprised at how much better your home will look after a round of smudge patrol. That’s how things build up in our lives, a little at a time. If you do the rinse and repeat on this series, yes, there will be more to wipe away, but probably not as many, and it won’t take as long.

But Heather, you also mentioned peeves; what do you mean? We all have something in our home that annoys us. Maybe it’s just us, but there is something.

Today while you are smudge hunting, find that thing that you can fix for next week’s assignment. Now, there is a catch, and it needs to be something that you can fix within your two-hour Home-Ec101 project block. (I really don’t want you deciding that I meant that you needed to turn your home into an open-floor concept.)

Potential peeves:

squeaky doors that need to be lubricated a set of broken blindsa glass shower door with serious hard water build-upa broken toilet handlea lightbulb that’s particularly annoying to replace is out again the banister where your teen boys insist on dismounting the stairs like it’s the Olympic vaulting event has paint peeling (oh, just me?)a missing drawer pull and you’re tired of prying the drawer open

What is something that you have just been tolerating? Take a walk around your home like you were a home inspector.

When you find your project. Write it down. Do you know how to fix it or are you going to need to research it? Find a video on YouTube and then watch another in case there is a better way. Do you need to order any parts or tools? Do that now, so they’ll be here in time.

What are you going to accomplish next week. I’d love to hear about it?

How to Clean a Sweaty Baseball Cap

Hi! 

I want to clean up my baseball cap without ruining the fabric or construction of the cap (the bill). 

Thanks,

Sweaty in Sweetwater

Hey there,

I wasn’t expecting the level of research that it would take to answer this question. There are so many variables when it comes to baseball cap construction. Not only do you have to take into account the fabrics used to cover the bill and to make up the cap itself, but you also have to think about the band and potentially the badge or how the badge is held in place. On top of all of that, comes the brim itself. If the brim is cardboard, you can generally forget any method of cleaning that involves soaking, submerging or otherwise saturating the hat.

If the hat is constructed with wool, you also have to worry about shrinkage. Under no circumstances use hot water and take the drying step very seriously, or you’ll have a hat fit for your little nephew.

So before we go into removing sweat stains, let’s talk about a quick ounce of prevention for the future. I tease my husband about the number of hats he has, but. . . it’s worth having a couple of caps for different purposes. Have one for lawn mowing or the gym and another for running errands or whenever you might want to look a bit nicer. I know to some of you, it might sound silly to have a good baseball cap, but some people love their caps or more to the point, the way they look in them and that is all that matters.

If the cap has sweat stains and a cardboard brim, you will need to stick to spot cleaning. First, test to see if the material is colorfast. If you are using a spot treatment like Shout, for example, first put a little on a white rag and rub that on the most inconspicuous (inside) part of the hat you can. If the color comes off, it’s not colorfast, you are just out of luck. Congratulations, you have a gym or lawn mowing hat. If you have serious sweat stains, you can TRY the soaking method, leaving the bill hanging out, but do know that your brim may not make it. You can use the paste and brush method to remove the stains on the brim, but, it’s going to be a touchy business. Reshape it carefully and cross your fingers, but do know that there’s a very good chance that this hat may not make it. Proceed with caution and low expectations.

If your hat has a plastic brim and minor sweat stains

You can submerge the hat to clean it, but you will want to give it a head start on the soaking process by applying stain remover to the worst of the sweat stains (after testing the colorfastness). Give the stain remover some time to work, then dunk it in a bucket of water (about a gallon, with a 1/4 cup of liquid laundry detergent). Before dunking the hat, make sure that your detergent doesn’t contain any bleaching agents.

Let the hat soak for a few hours.

Then rinse the hat thoroughly in the sink.

Take a towel and ball part of it up to approximately your head shape. Place it inside the hat and set your contraption in front of a fan to dry. If you are drying a wool hat, make sure the head-shaped part of your towel is firm, so the hatband doesn’t shrink. Wait until the hat is dry before removing the towel.

Serious sweat stains with a plastic brim.

First, do your colorfastness test. Next, make a paste of baking soda and water, and gently scrub that in with an old toothbrush. Rinse. Follow that up with a dilute solution of vinegar and another gentle scrub with your toothbrush and a good rinse.

Once again, spot treat any remaining stains.

Follow up with a soak in 1/4 cup bleach-free detergent and 1 gallon of water. Then follow the drying steps outlined above.

What about the dishwasher?

Skip it.

Dishwasher manufacturers don’t recommend it and let’s face it. You can replace a hat much more cost-effectively than you can your dishwasher.

Conclusions:

Wear cheap hats when you know you are going to get sweaty.

Know that if your hat has a cardboard brim, it might not make it through the process.

If the hat isn’t colorfast, it’s not worth the effort, downgrade it.

Good luck!

Send your questions to helpme@home-ec101.com

Deep Clean Week 9: Your Digital Life

Today we’re going to take a dive into your digital life to see what needs cleaning up.

First, though, take a look at your home workstation. Does that need a quick clean-up? Take the coffee mugs to the dishwasher and the soda cans to the trash. Get rid of the out-of-date notes and go ahead and file those I’m-going-to-get-to-it-papers.

Feel better? I bet it does.

All of the below applies to both your phone and computer.

Now, start with making a backup if you don’t have an external solid-state drive. It’s time to get one. This is the one I use. I actually got mine from Office Depot and picked it up curbside. If you haven’t made a backup of your computer before, just search for your operating system (Windows or macOS )and how to back up with an external hard drive. There are lots of tutorials (step-by-step instructions). When backing up your phone, it should back up right to the cloud.

There’s a reason I’m telling you to do this first, it’s just in case you get a little overzealous during your clean up and get rid of something important.

Next up, security. Do you use a password service like FastPass or Dashlane? (I have been using the latter one for years and love it. It creates absurdly strong passwords that I never have to remember and changing them is a breeze. I also use my fingerprint to unlock it on my phone. It does make me enter the password on occasion so I don’t forget it, but for everyday use, my fingerprint works.) Password keepers can make life significantly easier, especially if any of your services experience a breach and you need to update your passwords.

Go through your services and make sure that none of your passwords are the same for multiple sites and are not the word password or something obvious.

While we are talking about security, remember that those fun little quizzes your friends pass around are almost always answers to security questions. Pro-Tip: When you create answers to security questions, create a set of answers you will remember that aren’t necessarily true.

Apps and Programs

Don’t use them? Uninstall

Use them? Make sure they are up to date.

Photos, screenshots, and old memes:

Okay, this is one that I dread and need to do more often, take a deep breath and start the purge. Just keep the best. If you actually want to make prints, if you are already an Amazon Prime member, you get free shipping and can order them right from your phone. So that makes it easy.

Subscription Services:

With the vaccination rollout, some of the world is starting to open back up. It’s time to take a look at all of the services you subscribed to over the past year and determine what you will still need in the coming year.

Those that you don’t, figure out how to cancel. Some will unfortunately require a phone call. Remember those companies and never subscribe to them again. There’s a gym in my area that required a certified letter to cancel, I will never use them in the future.

Look through your email for receipts for annual plans and don’t let their renewals catch you buy surprise.

And with the mention of email. . .

Clean up your inbox

If you aren’t reading emails from companies go ahead and hit that unsubscribe button. Please use that and don’t hit spam unless something truly is spam.

If your inbox is pretty out of control (ahem, Heather) you can often search and clear out a lot of emails at once. For example, if I search in:all from: old navy

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That’s pretty excessive. . . I’m going to unsubscribe and then delete all, that was not worth 10% off. You can do this for any sender and it quickly knocks out a lot of junk.

And finally, the hardest of all. . .

Your friends list and follows

This one is for your social applications and your mental/emotional health. There are two ways to handle relationships. If the person is someone with whom you must maintain a social connection, say a family member. Hide them from your timeline or quietly unfollow them. Generally, it’s silent and they will never notice. If it’s an old high school friend that you are just keeping around because that’s what you do and they post mean-spirited or worse racist things. Block them. You are past the popularity contest of high school. Let them go. This will get easier each time you go through your list. The first cut is the deepest.

You are a product of the people you surround yourself with, online and off. Keep that bar high and you’ll rise with them. Surround yourself with people who do nothing but participate in petty drama and you’ll find your life full of the same.

Now that you’ve finished. Go ahead and redo your backup. You don’t want to bring any of that old stuff back into your life.

Have a great week!

Deep Clean Week 8: The Refrigerator, Freezer, and Beyond?

Welcome to week eight of the Home-Ec 101 Deep Clean. This series is a way to refresh your home in manageable steps without any daylong cleaning marathons that ruin your day off. Today we are tackling your refrigerator(s) and freezer(s). Some of us suburbanites are lucky enough to have either a garage or basement fridge or freezer.

We’re done with the more public areas and are going to get down to the nitty gritty.

I grew in a military family and my dad introduced us to the concept of “field day” quite young and we hated it. When we heard “field day” we knew we were in for an entire day of drudgery. The projects in this series are not that. There are 14 weeks in total and if you don’t quite finish a project on the first run-through, in the two hours max I want you to spend. Don’t sweat it. Just hit it on the rinse and repeat. (There will be a sign-up on Week 14). You can run through the series as many times as you want. It’ll just loop, sending you a reminder every Saturday morning at 8:00 am Eastern, of that week’s project. Easy peasy.

This is one of those posts that it took me longer to write than it will for you to do the chore, unless you have a LOT of ice built up in your freezer.

If you have helpers, delegate the dishware and recyclables cleanout. You don’t need the helpers right up in your business while you’re squinting at expiration dates and deciding if you actually are ever going to use that jar of capers. (If it’s been there for six months and you only used them for one recipe, no you aren’t).

Gather your supplies. This week’s are a little different, so pay close attention.
A bucket or container with warm, barely soapy waterA cooler (to hold freezer items while you work)GlovesA small scrub brush or an old tooth brushPotentially a hairdryer and an extension cordclean, dry rags or paper towelsYour trusty vacuum, soft bristle brush and yes, the crevice toola small paper cup filled 3/4 with water (a cheap plastic cup like you get with a kid’s meal will work, or a SOLO cup—yes, I’ve heard the jokes)a coin*optional* chlorine bleach depending on what you have to clean up
Make room

Now, you should have clear counters and a clean table because we tackled those in previous weeks. If not, make sure you have space to temporarily set your items as you work. Make sure there are zones: The keep zone and a get rid of zone.

Top to Bottom

While cleaning your fridge, this rule is more important than usual because the stuff you knock from the top will cling to the shelving and sides of your fridge due to the condensation that is going to be building up as you work with the door open.

Starting at the topmost shelf, remove each item. Look at it and make a judgment on whether it is something that will need to be kept or gotten rid of and place it in the appropriate zone.

If the shelf is removable, take it out to clean it thoroughly and wipe down the top of the refrigerator and the walls.

Dry the shelf and replace only the items that you are keeping. Before putting each item back, wipe the bottom of the containers. There’s a good chance that they are not the cleanest, especially if there has been something sticky spilled at any point and you have teenagers whose mantra seems to be, “Well, I didn’t spill it, so why should I clean it up?” or is that just me?

Work your way down, until you are at the floor of the refrigerator and make sure to wash out any drawers with warm soapy water. Remove the drawers and wash behind them. This is where the brushes may come in handy. All kinds of funk can build up back there and it can get icky in a hurry.

Tip: Placing a couple of dry paper towels in the bottom of each drawer can make your next refrigerator clean up a little easier.

Close the door.

Deal with the get rid ofs before moving on to the freezer. You do not want to have to deal with a pile of get rid ofs from everything you sort today.

If your refrigerator has a power cool setting, use that when you are done with the freezer portion of your clean-up. If you have a standalone refrigerator, vacuum the coils and wipe down the appliance.

The Freezer

If the freezer has more than a quarter-inch of frost or ice on the shelves and walls, it is time to defrost the appliance. If it does not, you don’t have to deal with the ice melting portion of this show. Please just follow the rest of the instructions.

Unplug the freezer.

Now, we are going to follow the same process as the refrigerator only we are going to work more quickly and remove all of the times instead of clearing and replacing shelf by shelf because the freezer needs to warm up enough to clear the ice.

As with the fridge, you have two zones, the keep and get rid of zone. The keep zone is your cooler, if you do not have a cooler, pack the keep items as closely as possible in your keep zone so they don’t thaw quickly. As for the get rid of items, dispose of those immediately and properly before they begin to leak condensation or other fluids.*

Once the freezer is empty, take a look is the layer of frost or ice still too thick to wipe down the walls? If so. go grab a hairdryer and an extension cord. You do not want to have the cord lying anywhere near where water may pool and an extension cord can help you with this. Use a chair to keep the cord from lying on the ground. Watch where you stand. Do not stand in a puddle. Use the hairdryer to melt any thick chunks of ice quickly.

Just like with the refrigerator, work top to bottom wipe out any drawers. Any reddish stains can be tackled with a paper towel soaked in chlorine bleach and set on the stain (use the gloves to handle the paper towel, not your bare hands, please). Remove the paper towel, dry the freezer thoroughly and quickly replace all of the items.

Plug the appliance back in and set the freezer on its coldest setting. (If it has a power freeze setting, use that).

If you are finishing up a refrigerator freezer combo, vacuum the coils and don’t forget to turn on the power cool setting for the refrigerator, if your appliance has that option. If you’re just cleaning a stand-alone freezer, just vacuum the coils and wipe down the appliance.

Now what was that paper cup and coin about?

In your freezer(s) set the paper cup filled 3/4 of the way with water and wait for it to freeze. Place the coin on top of the ice. If you ever go out of town, when you come home, check the cup. If the coin is not resting on top, you know there has been a power outage long enough for it to affect your freezer. If it is only covered by a film of water, the food is safe, but if it is at the bottom, your food is not safe and needs to be disposed of.

This tip is especially useful as we head into hurricane season. (This was written in early May, hurricane season runs June 1 – November 30.)

On that happy note, see you next week!

*Home-Ec 101 is not responsible for what you choose to keep in your deep freezer. You cannot just assume mystery items are venison and scrub the floor thoroughly with chlorine bleach. That is not plausible deniability. You do need to know and vet your roommates and Air BnB guests. This is not legal advice, it is satire.

Deep Clean Your Entryway or Foyer

This week we’re going to start at the front door and not only that, we’re going to take it a little bit further and include your front porch or stoop if you have one. (If it’s pouring down rain, wait until it’s a bit drier for the outside bit).

If you have an outdoor broom, you’ll want to grab that one instead of or in addition to your indoor broom, depending on how your home is constructed. We don’t have an entryway. You enter the front door and it’s hello living room, we’re here. If you have a foyer or mudroom, today’s cleaning may take longer than those of us who don’t, depending on how much it’s used.

So get your cleaning your entertainment ready and if you have cleaning help, get them ready, too.

Gather your Tools and I don’t mean your roommates
A vacuum with a soft bristle attachment and a crevice tool if there is carpetingWindow cleaner and paper towels or newspaperIf you have wood furniture polish and an applicator (rag) or paste wax (as mentioned above)A stepladder or sturdy chairMaybe a screwdriver (standard or Philip’s head, that’s the cross-type, depending). I really like the ones that you can flip the tip out for small jobs. They aren’t the best for big jobs though they will work for our purposes, which is usually just removing a light globe or tightening something loose we find while cleaning.Dilute degreaserIf you have allergies, grab one of the masks we’ve been wearing everywhere. We’re going to raise some dust in the next hour or two. You’ll have a much better afternoon/evening.If you have a mudroom you may need a mop and floor cleaner

Today we’ll start least dirty to most dirty. I know we normally only work top to bottom, left to right and dry to wet, but today we’ll also work in to out. So we’ll be pushing any dirt outside rather than the reverse.

Make Room to Work

If you have a mudroom and kids and a collection of winter clothes and boots. I’ve held this chore off until now for a reason. It’s May 1, you should be safe in most of the country. Get the too-small items ready to sell or donate and note what you need for next year. \

If you have an entryway table, clear it. Get rid of everything that is not decorative and put it where it belongs.

Now start Top to Bottom.

Is there a light fixture? Clean it, replace any bulbs that aren’t working and clean all of the glass. We talked about it last week, always clean the light. While you are up on your stepladder or sturdy chair, knock down any cobowebs.

This area should be pretty easy on the dusting front, but I bet there are fingerprints. Grab a rag dampened with a dilute degreaser and wipe your door frame and switch plates, especially if you have kids. Pay close attention to the area around the doorknob and bolt and then look lower where people tend to close the door with their feet. Cleaning up the scuff marks will make your door and consequently, your room look much fresher.

Clean any windows.

Remove any doormats or runners and give them a good shake them outside, before vacuuming. If the flooring is wood or tile give it a good sweep and vacuum. If it is carpeting, give it a good vacuum.

How do those baseboards look? Give those a once over with your vacuum and bristle attachment and yes, if there’s carpeting, hit that crevice with the crevice tool.

See, this wasn’t so bad?

Now we just need to do the other side of the door and your stoop or porch if you have one.

If you’re an apartment dweller, you get off pretty light here, while maintenance should take care of most of this, if they don’t, it doesn’t hurt to spiff up your entryway.

Look up.

Are there any cobwebs or spiders lurking in the corners? Sweep them away. Does your light work? If not, replace it. Does the glass need to be cleaned? Clean it.

Use your broom or, better, a foxtail to dust off siding that is sheltered from the elements around your door. (If you have brick, the foxtail is great to get those weird little cobwebs that show up). If you have side windows giving them a quick, light dusting with your foxtail will make cleaning them easier if it has been a LONG time between cleanings. (Not that I ever let it go months…years between cleanings)

Normally we would clean windows etc., before sweeping, but because we are outside where more dirt lives, you might kick up lots more dirt than inside that would stick to still wet windows, so we’ll go ahead and sweep first. Before you do though, look for anything that doesn’t belong on your porch/stoop/entry that needs to be thrown away and get rid of it. Remove your doormat. Then sweep to your heart’s content.

Shake the heck out of your doormat, well away from where you just swept, I’ve been hanging around my kids too much, I didn’t have to tell you that, did I? I’m sorry.

Wipe down the outside of your door with your rag and dilute degreaser. Pay close attention to the frame near the doorknob and where you might rest your hand while inserting your key. Also, look for scuff marks at the bottom of the door.

If you have a glass storm door. Clean both sides of the glass with window cleaner and any metal framing with dilute degreaser.

Clean the outside of any windows.

And that’s it.

Call it a day if it’s nice outside. Grab a book and a glass of iced tea and enjoy the weather.