Well, my crockpot has been on overdrive lately. First, there was the bushel of apples I got from our CSA. At least a third of which became applesauce or apple butter.

Then, I 'funcycled' [which is a contraction of 'fun' and 'recycled'] crayons. I went through the kidlet's crayon bucket and took every single broken crayon out of and striped the paper and put the various colors into my muffin molds in the crockpot. I'm not creative enough to have thought of this myself. Hop on over A Year of Slow Cooking and read how it should be done.

I did it in my silicone mini muffin cups and this was a slightly flawed idea. I think it would work well in good quality silicone but mine weren't. They worked okay but I had one rip in each batch. The cute part is that the crayons are a nice size for my kids little hands.

After a month of hard work my white porcelain crockpot was stained. I got the soap and scrubbed but nothing worked until I thought about how I clean my sink. I use Barkeeper's Friend.  Ah, this worked wonders. It removed the build up of sugar from the cooked apples and the spilled wax from the crayon projects. The only sad part was that I hadn't thought of this years earlier!! So, save yourself some time and elbow grease and just get some Barkeeper's Friend. It's amazing stuff. In fact, I'm not sure there's anything it can't do.

As part of my spring cleaning this week I've just finished the first part of getting two pair of Birks ready for Spring! Two pair down. Two to go. Woohoo!! That means - No More Socks!!! Yeah!!!

Yes, spring appears to be settling in here in Virginia and it will be time to put socks away for good - at least for me. Comfort and Joy will still have to wear tennis shoes to school but my toes are painted [Pink Flamenco, thank you very much] and I'm ready to ditch the socks until the weather turns cold in the Fall.

And Birks are my go-t0 daily shoe. They are not only comfortable but they offer great support. I got my first pair of Birks when I had a pinched nerve in my foot and had to wear custom orthotics. I found that the only shoe that offered the same relief as my orthotic was Birkenstock. So Birks became my dress shoe and I still have my first pair. Sure they have new trends and a new footbed but the straps [which are the expensive part] are the same ones I bought in 1997!

So how do you clean your Birks?
1. Need to freshen up the footbed? For a quick footbed clean just dampen a washcloth and wipe out the dirt. Rinse the washcloth over and over until the water runs clean. Let air dry. The leather will feel stiff when you put it back on but it'll get better once your body heats it back up. I promise.

2. Does your footbed need some serious maintenance? For a major footbed cleaning you'll want a nail brush, a wash cloth and the Birkenstock footbed cleaner or some diluted baby soap [hand soap might work, too]. I dampen the footbed to get any dried dirt or grass out of the way then take your dampened nail brush and go to it. You want to loosen the dirt but not grind it in - so rinse the brush repeatedly. After a few minutes I use the washcloth to wipe out the residue until the water runs clean. * I've only used Birkenstock's footbed cleaner but it appears to just be a diluted soap which doesn't foam very much which is why I think baby shampoo might be a good substitute.

3. Keep your cork in good shape and it will treat you right! The cork is what keeps the shoe stable but as we walk and live the covering wears off. I have the 'official' cork repair and it's nothing but a pot of glue with a great brush attachment. So after you've cleaned your footbeds and let your shoes dry be sure to get some glue and seal the corks of your Birks. Not only will your shoes look brand new again but they'll have more support and continue to give you years and years of wear.

The actual Birkenstock cleaning kit also includes nubuck and seude cleaners and leather protection sprays. I've never actually used these. I always use the footbed cleaner and cork sealant though and my shoes are going strong after years and years of daily wear which is a perfectly Cool Idea!

Free magazines create piles in the house. It's a fact. Yes, I do read them as fast as I can and I have some that I pass on to friends. [Hi, Leanne!] But it's a fact that there are only so many hours in a day and right now I have a growing pile of magazines.

I hear some of you say - just chuck them. Sure, I could do that. But there is a method to my madness. Some of them I want to keep for Discovery collaging. I didn't really get into this when I took Lani's class in January but I want to delve into it deeper later so I'm holding onto some magazines for that reason.

So in the interest of Spring Cleaning I'm turning to my magazine piles today. I found a great box and I've gone through the living room, the hallway, the dining room and the kitchen looking in all the places where piles of mail sometimes lurk to make sure that I found all of the magazines. Now I have a box full of magazines. A very full box of magazines.

I'll keep going through them and reading the articles - and cutting out the great coupons - but the ones that I'll be keeping are now in a manageable and tidy place. Whew!

Yep, it's that time. Some of you might be on Spring Break this week. We're on break next week so there's some attempt to get cleaning done this week while Comfort and Joy are still in school.

If you haven't found Totally Together Journal, put together by Stephanie O'Dea of A Year of Slowcooking fame, then you need to hop on over and check it out. Better yet sign up for the daily emails because she does a really nice job of posting a daily reminder of things you can get done around the house everyday without driving yourself nuts. Truly, I'm not keeping up with her but I like the way she thinks and they are good reminders.

Yesterday, I did cleaned out my inbox. Usually I'm a clean as I go person - this goes for all of my cleaning and especially my inbox - but I've gotten behind lately. This is an easy thing to take care of while you're sitting online, too.

Just sort your inbox by name and go through it to see if there are things you can go ahead and delete or move to folders. I usually max out the number of folders that my Yahoo mail will give me so I consolidate them every few months as well.

In a matter of 15 minutes I deleted 250 emails and that's only from a few months of laziness and truly just a couple of weeks of being behind. If you haven't cleaned your inbox in a while it might take a bit longer. Or not. Depends on how worried you are about being careful.

So as you're cleaning the house - fridge, dusting, bathrooms, floors, etc. - let's not forget about the places that we spend time in these days. Our email inboxes. Make them efficient and tidy and they'll work better for you. Well, I think so and for me that's a Cool Idea.

If you enjoyed A Year of Slowcooking then you need to hop on over to Totally Together Journal soon because Stephanie O'Dea going to helping us again.

Not only are there some really great tips for getting your act together but each day this year she's posted a quick tip or reminder for how to keep things pulled together around the house.

The one that I'm working on, in a modified form is the Daily 7, which are:

Number 1: Make Beds Right Away

Number 2: Do One Complete Load of Laundry

Number 3: Empty All Garbage Cans

Number 4: Keep Your Kitchen Sink Empty

Number 5: Clean Up After Yourself and Help Children Do the Same

Number 6: Bathroom Wipe-Down

Number 7: Before Bed 10-Minute Clean Up

But this is how I works in reality for me.
#1: I don't care about beds. I never have. This comes from the fact that no one ever spent any portion of the day at my house growing up. I generally pull up the duvet when I get out of bed and that's the extent of it. I do the same to the girls beds.
#2: This is a reality in our house. I set the washer late at night - a habit I got into when we were on the critical-peak power pilot - and I put it away in the morning after the girls go to school.
#3: Um, not so much. Trash gets taken out when I get a chance or it gets too smelly. Which is usually the same thing.
#4: This is the way I am already. I empty the dishwasher at breakfast time and load it as I go throughout the day. I am, however, the only one in my house who does this. Not that I notice.
#5: We're working on this. Comfort and Joy are 4 and 3, respectively, so it's a slow process but I never forget to clean up after myself. It's reality in my house.
#6: I'm working on this and finding it easier to get in my pattern than I thought I would. I mean, with potty training it's not like I'm not in the bathroom a great deal of the day. Instead of just sitting around uttering encouraging words I get out the Clorox wipes and do the wipe down.
#7: This was something we started doing over the holidays while the girls were home from school. Too much indoor playtime had turned our living room into a total wreck. Now we have clean up time when we change activities, like moving from coloring time to eating or reading to bedtime. It's still mostly me putting things away but the girls are doing their part and that's the point.

The point is to do a little bit all along so that it's not entirely overwhelming. Also, it's good to get the kids involved as soon as we can. They learn from us and their future roommates and spouses will thank us for instilling good habits in them at this early age. Believe me. I know.

I loved having a white porcelain sink when we first moved into this house 8 years ago. It looks so nice with the blond wood cabinets and the gray tile floors.

Then reality sets in. DH loves coffee. And he's not so great about rinsing out the sink after he pours his cup out. And the scratches. I had NO idea. Well, it's taken a toll.

Then I read a great tip on Mary Hunt's Everyday Cheapskate about using Barkeepers Friend to clean porcelain sinks and I bought some the next time I had a mystery shop at Kroger. That way, if it didn't work, at least it was free. Right?

Well, no worries. It definitely works. Check this out.

Here's the side by side view of my kitchen sink. The left side has been cleaned with dish soap only and the right side with Barkeepers Friend. Sure there's still some staining but it actually looks better than this picture portrays since my kitchen doesn't have the best lighting for photography - even with the camera's flash.

So, my new friend is Barkeeper's Friend. It has so many uses I haven't even learned about them all but it is definitely a Cool Idea!!

As new clothes gets moved into the drawers for Comfort and Joy I'm also going through my own clothes and deciding what needs to stay - go - and what can be donated.

One nice this is that after 4years of being pregnant/ nursing and having lost weight I can now use my own closet as a shopping trip. Clothes that I wore and loved years ago but haven't been able to wear are now available to me, so I've moved them to prominent places in the clothes rack so that I know I won't need to buy anything similar. In fact, I won't need to buy anything at all for awhile thankfully because I found great clothes to layer all through the fall and winter.

Another great thing about going through clothes, whether it's when the seasons change or when you are going through a closet overhaul - like I'm doing - it gives you a chance to shake out pockets of pants and check the bottoms of purses, etc. I didn't score anything out of the pants [I'm careful about emptying my pants pockets when I take them off] but I did net 2 gift cards out of a purse! One of them was from when I was working and was for a local spa!!! I can't tell you the last time I had a spa gift card. This is a significant amount of money, too, so I am super-duper happy.

So, don't forget to shop in your own closest first. We use this rule for grocery shopping a lot but I think we sometimes forget when it comes to clothes. And, the corollary is - always shake out the pockets of pants and purses - because you never know what treasures you might find!

Okay, I don't usually clean this much all at once but spring has come to Virginia and I have book club at my house next Monday so it's time to get tidy. Today I was in the bathroom and noticed that thanks to the Scrubbing Bubbles Cleaner I still don't have to do any major shower cleaning except to the floor of the shower. 

I'd forgotten to get a Magic Eraser as my commenter suggested but I thought about what the problem is - it's the texture of the shower floor. I needed something to get in and around the ridgelets. So, I went down to the kitchen to get a dish scrubber that we'd picked up at IKEA forever ago and never used, squirted some cleaning goo in the shower and went at it. 

It was clear pretty quickly that this was working and working well. In fact, I think I heard angels singing:) In just a couple of minutes it looked like new. Lesson learned here - most problems that are in our home can be solved with something found in our home. Just take moment, take a look around, look at it inside out or whatever it takes. But unless you've found something highly specialized or you don't have any extraneous stuff in your house (in which I envy you) try to recycle what you have for another purpose. It's Cool to find a new life for stuff lying around the house.

Okay, stop laughing. Those who know me are not used to the words, "Hey, guess what I figured out how to clean today?" coming out of my mouth but I'm excited and figure I should share since I'm not like to be the only one in this position at some point. 

We had to do some renovation last year and it included put up drywall. Groan. If you've ever done this you know what I'm about to say. Drywall dust gets everywhere. I've dusted since the renovation but it still manages to be in new places. 

Today I took down the curtains to wash them and, of course, found more drywall dust. Then when I walked through the room I saw it in it's unshaded glory and realized that the walls needed to be dusted. Our ceilings are tall. Really, really tall. How was I going to get up to the tippy top corners without hurting myself?

Gosh I love problem solving like this. I really do. I pulled out one of my new microfiber towels and my Swiffer pole. I tucked the towel in where the Swiffer cleaner would usually go and voila, I had the perfect tool for dusting my walls. I was able to reach all the way up to the corners, I was able to move around pictures, I was able to easily change direction and even move directly to clean the paddles on the ceiling fan. Just amazing. In fact, I'll go so far as to say this might be my coolest discovery in recent days. So, if you have to be cleaning in the near future and you find you have to dust your walls - don't despair. Grab the Swiffer pole and a thin towel. It works great and is definitely a Cool Idea!

Scrubbing Bubbles has done it again and it's even better than before. I'd tried the Automatic Shower Cleaner before but it's been tweaked now and it cuts soap scum 40% better, with 2 powerful sprayers that target all the hard to reach areas of the bathtub and shower. And let me tell you I never knew how important this was until we got a shower stall separate from the tub and I tried to clean it without getting inside it!! Now, as soon as I'm done in the shower I push the button, pull the curtain closed, and let the Automatic Shower Cleaner do the work for me. That's it. It eliminates mold and mildew, has a great smell and dries clear so that you won't see traces of it on your colored tile.

Who benefits from this? Who else - you and me. Maybe you're fortunate enough to have someone else clean your bathroom but unless my mom is visiting and takes pity on me the bathroom is mine to upkeep. The only magic it wasn't able to perform was to get rid of the soap scum off the textured bottom of the shower floor but that would have been above and beyond the call of duty. It's been over two weeks of daily use and the shower looks better than when I started using the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner. Yep, it's that good.

Feel like you need more information about it -  check it out. Wanna try it? Leave me a comment and let me know. I have some coupons from Scrubbing Bubbles to share and I'll try to make them stretch as far as I can.  

This saved me time and pruney fingers and as far as I'm concerned that makes it a Very Cool Idea.