Wipe Out

As a housewife, you can imagine how much of my days involve cleaning and maintaining our home. Finding the simplest, most effective way to clean is a preoccupation with me, because I prefer spending as little time as possible keeping up the house. 

Left to myself, I'd devote more of my time to side projects. That's more my style. 

As it is now, I have time management issues just like everyone else. I'm having to find a balance with where I put my time to make sure everything gets done in a respectable amount of time, no matter whether there is something I'd rather do with my time.

It seems I'm either doing great with maintaining the house and have several projects half done...or I spend the day on a project only to start a new one the following day. All the while, the house is suffering. 

All of that is to say, these have recently become some of my favorite things: 

Over the years, I've appreciated the value of Wet Ones for those sticky hands that are left from eating in the car. On several occasions, Matt and I have appreciated my girl scout type preparedness on the road. 

Windex wipes is a product I bought a while ago that I wasn't sure of it's best use. Now, I can say it is handy to have to spot clean our bathroom. Since I use powder make-up from foundation to finishing powder, the vanity can be dirty again the day after I clean. I love using Windex wipes to touch up the vanity, mirror, tub edge and outside of the toilet; it's a simple, quick fix to clean up a room we use constantly. 

At one point, I used Windex wipes on the hard surfaces in my car to get rid of the dust. Unfortunately, they were not completely effective. Using them helped, but I was always frustrated that the wipes didn't grab all of the dust. Admittedly, when I know the results will be less than satisfying, it takes me longer to get around to that task again.

Recently, Matt bought a three pack of Armor All wipes. They work great! (What a relief since that's what they are made to do. Note the sarcasm. :) 

About three weeks ago, I used the cleaning wipes and followed with using the protective wipes. The hard surfaces looked as good as they would in a new car. They were perfectly clean and shiny...and stayed that way until the first speck of dirt was detected a day ago. Now those are the kind of results I can handle.

My latest love of wipe is the Clorox disinfecting wipes. I've used them on occasion to clean the kitchen counter top, but recently I decided to begin using them daily to finish off the clean kitchen before bed instead of using a reusable rag as I always have in the past. When cleaning the refrigerator a few days ago, I used the Clorox wipes and the job was SO much easier. My latest effort was to clean the microwave. I can't tell you how quickly I was able to clean the appliances than the time it formerly took. 

You may be reading this, laughing, wondering why it's taken me so long to figure out the best products to achieve the best and easiest clean. I'm just glad I'm finally figuring out some of the best tools for the routine jobs I have around here!

I'm still in the hunt for newer, better products to make this part of life easier. My next goal: finding the perfect vacuum cleaner.

In the meantime, I'll continue investing in a variety of wipes to wipe out all our dirty messes :)