Show Us Your Life -- Cleaning tips

Over at Kelly's Korner, it's "Show Us Your Life" time, and this week it's about cleaning tips.

Weeellll...for those who know me, know I'm a bit of a cleaning freak. I like things organized just so. I don't like for things to be out of whack. I like clean lines and appropriate places for things to go. But I will be the FIRST to admit that things got way out of control when I was in my first 3 or 4 months of pregnancy. I'm still getting them back in check. I did not have an easy time and it was all I could do to take care of myself and Sara during the day, let alone try to keep a clean house. And I'll also be the first to admit that my standard of clean changed ALOT when Sara came along. Before she was born, I was cleaning bathrooms on Mondays and Fridays, if that tells you anything! So here's my cleaning tips, for what they're worth:

1. I try to keep the house picked up every day. We vacuum every night after supper, I sweep every night after supper (or either after lunch), I unload the dishwasher and reload it every day, and we've made it a habit to pick up Sara's room with her every night before she goes to bed. I have learned to kind of let the living room go during the day (that's where she plays the most, other than her bedroom) but I do make an effort to pick it up about 20 minutes before Michael gets home from work. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I'd like to walk in the door from a long day at work to a room full of strewed toys...so we pick it up.

2. I clean out the fridge every other week. Because Michael gets paid on the 1st and 15th, I make my grocery list out on the day before and as I'm going through to see what we have, I clean it out.

3. About once every 3-4 months, I take one room a day and deep clean. I'm doing just that this week, actually -- I started with the kitchen today. When I deep clean, I wipe down the baseboards, clean out the windowsills and wipe down the wooden interior shutters, wipe walls, shampoo carpets or clean grout. Wipe down cabinets, whatever needs to be done that I don't do on a daily or weekly basis. Doing one room a day makes it SO much easier (to me) than trying to do it all at once.

4. I keep two boxes in the closet -- one for Goodwill and one for consignment shops. When they're full, I take them over. The extra cash from the consignment shops go into our "play money" account. Usually it's saved for beach vacations...our favorite!

5. Believe it or not, I don't use very many cleaning products. I think most of them are a waste of money. I use Dawn to wash my dishes, I make my own dishwasher detergent (equal amounts of washing soda and Borax), I make my own laundry soap, I use Windex with vinegar, I use those Scrubbing Bubbles (or whatever it is) disposable things for the toilets, and I do use off-brand Clorox wipes. Oh...and dusting spray. Okay...maybe I DO use a lot, but it's not as much as I've seen some people use.

Anyway -- so that's me! What are your favorite cleaning tips?