Cleaning Basket and other Bathroom cleaning tips

I think I picked up this tip whilst watching Anthea Turner on 'Perfect Housewife'.  I have her books and she mentions it in them too (I'm not even close to being a perfect housewife! ;D )

It is so much easier to clean bathrooms when you have everything you need in one basket.  I have three bathrooms in this place, and I just carry this basket wherever it is needed.  Usually the only other thing I need are my cleaning cloths (aka retired cloth nappies).

 I have toilet cleaner, lemon scented Jiff, antibacterial wipes, a bleach solution, a citrus spray and an assortment of brushes in a small bucket.

These are the cleaning tools I used to scrub the grout in the bathroom.

I mixed up some Jiff with some water in the little blue bucket, then used the blue handled brush to scrub the grout.  I think I purchased that brush from Big W, and it is specifically designed to scrub grout.  It isn't soft like a toothbrush, but it isn't rough like a wire brush either.

The reason I used this brush is because mould has little 'roots' that get right into the grout.  If you only bleach the surface of the mould, it is still there and will 'appear' again quickly.

Although it's not pleasant work, I scrubbed the grout thoroughly first, then sprayed the grout (trying really hard to avoid the surface of the tiles) with the spray bottle that is clearly labelled (so I know exactly what has been in that bottle).  I used about 1/4 cup bleach to 1 1/2 cups water - a fairly strong solution.  You don't want to put straight bleach on because it can run down your tiles and discolour your bathtub.  I found out the hard way.  Long story ;D

Rinse everything thoroughly and it should be sparkling clean.

I usually use a natural cleaning solution in my bathroom, but every now and then it really needs a good going over with the strong stuff.  I think this was the messiest my bathroom has ever been!

Once it is clean, it is much easier to maintain.  At least, that's what I'm telling myself ;D

A Little Bathroom Magic

I have been itching to get to scrubbing my bathroom for a while now, but I haven't had the time, energy or arm strength to be able to do it.  Well, yesterday I tackled it.

 There was mould growing on the top of the walls and a little on the ceiling. A sign of inadequate ventilation!  Mould is now gone :D

 How disgraceful!  The outside of my bathroom windows are really dirty!  Window cleaning day is tomorrow.

 During a pregnancy dippy moment, I decided to paint the window and door frames this colour.  It was over 10 years ago!  And now the paint is starting to peel.  Time for a good scrub down, and soon we will repaint back to white.

 I can't tell you how sore my arms were after using this broom and some soap suds to scrub down all the painted walls.  The effect of nice clean walls was well worth it!

 No mould!

 The bad side where I hadn't cleaned/scrubbed yet.

Halfway through cleaning.  I had scrubbed the grout with some water mixed with Jiff.  After this photo was taken I bleached the grout. It is now all sparkling white :D

The only thing left to do is clean the bathtub and scrub down the grout between the tiles on the floor (which aren't bad, just needs a good clean where the steam mop won't reach).  Oh, and clean the outside of those windows!

Bunnies Behaving...and a nice end to the day

On Tuesday I let Storm hop around for the afternoon.  It isn't good for him to be cooped up in his hutch all the time, and this is how he learns what he is allowed to do, and what he definitely cannot do.

 He is allowed to eat food we give him

 He can choose to ignore us when we give him yummy things especially if he is trying to find a nice cool spot to relax in.

 He is not allowed to sit his big fat furry behind in my pot plants just like his father used to!

 He is allowed to hop around my feet in circles showing me he loves me, even though it makes me very dizzy.

 And...

 He is allowed to be a very sociable bunny, and allow us to give him lots of cuddles, so long as we don't pick him up ;D

This was a gorgeous sunset we enjoyed.  It was more vibrant than this, with a little more orange, but my camera didn't pick it up, sadly.  Once the sun starts setting, boy does it set really quickly!

Dear Blogger,

Why are you broken?  I can't upload any photos because the little 'button' doesn't come up.  Tried a few different computers at my place, and none of them bring that up, so I know it's not on my end.

Oh well, I'll have to postpone my post for another day.

I will however send a shout out to my gorgeous sister who gave birth a few days ago to an absolutely adorable and healthy baby boy.  CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Slim Pickings

Still enjoying the school holidays here!  I am continuing my Summer clean, and went through the things at the top of my built in wardrobes in my bedroom yesterday.  I was surprised.  I thought there was more.  Turns out the entire top shelf is empty. :D

So out to the garden I went.  To potter around.  My favourite thing to do.  I noticed that the top of a carrot was sticking up out of the ground, and it looked about the right size.  So I pulled it up, and this is what I got...

 Oh Mother Nature, you have a wicked sense of humour!

It did look like a really nice carrot from the top, but unfortunately there wasn't much to it.  We ate it with some other store-bought carrots for dinner as the other ones in the garden aren't ready.

 Something in my potato box smelled a little on the nose.  I had bought a big 4 kg bag of potatoes 2 weeks ago, and I figured it was at least one of those gone bad.  I hadn't even opened the bag!

I tipped the entire bag in the sink and started washing them.

 In the drainer to dry, then I patted them completely dry with an old tea-towel.

One of the smelly offenders.  Turns out there were three of them.  Now I have to use the rest of the bag up fairly quickly.  Good thing I have a book full of potato recipes :D

Holiday Cooking Fun with the Kiddos - shortbread biscuits with passionfruit icing

During my Summer cleaning rounds, I re-discovered a giant container filled with cookie cutters that I hadn't used.  I have a feeling my husband purchased them from Aldi many years ago because they looked great.  And they do!  So I put them in a basket and whipped up a batch of simple shortbread.

 A rather large assortment of cookie cutters

 The trouble is choosing which cutters to use

 Rolling out the shortbread

 More rolling.  Easier to roll if you put the dough between layers of baking paper, as it is a really soft dough.

 Baked!  They smelled delicious.  I think half the dough got eaten raw!

Decorated with passionfruit icing.  Phil came home and devoured the teddy bears :D

The recipe is:-

250 grams butter

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 cups plain flour

1. Beat butter, vanilla essence and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Stir in sifted flour, mix to a soft dough.
3. Roll out, cut out shapes etc.  Bake biscuits in moderate oven for about 12 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cool on trays
4. Decorate with passionfruit icing

My recipe for passionfruit icing is really easy.  Just passionfruit pulp with icing sugar.  Throw the pulp in the mix master and keep adding icing sugar until it looks like stiff egg whites.  Then it won't drip off the biscuits. Use it up quickly because it will set. 

Household Organisation

I like to be organised. I need to be organised or my family life completely falls apart, and I get grumpy! I have some helpful charts and noticeboards around our house to help me in keeping my family somewhat organised and informed of what's going on.  It really does make life a whole lot easier.

 Our fornightly meal planner.  I usually try and fill it out, because when I do it is much easier.  I had to put a disclaimer on the bottom because I have a somewhat fanatical son who got 'put out' when I changed my mind at the last minute. We had sandwiches on Tuesday night instead of pizza, and said son has been hounding me since, because he loves pizza.  Home made pizza, of course!  We had been meal planning for a few years now.

 My family calendar.  All our events go on here.  It runs for three months.  I left December up so I could take this photo, so you can see what goes on it, and how it gets crossed off.  It is a giant sheet of cardboard that has had a calendar drawn up on it, then covered with contact.  I use whiteboard markers to write on it, then eucalyptus oil to remove the writing.  It's nothing fancy, but it definitely does the trick!

 My birthday and anniversary 'chart' that my Mother-in-Law made for me.  I LOVE it!  It has little wooden hearts that I had to 'decorate' and write everyone's name and date of birth on.  The red heart in December is my wedding anniversary :D

 A whiteboard outside my daughter's room that has the children's daily school events listed.  It helps remind them when they need to wear their sports uniform or take their library bag to school.  It helps jog my memory too ;D

A noticeboard on the opposite wall of the whiteboard where I keep the children's excursion notes, textbook fees and anything else I get important from school.  After I diarise whatever needs to go on my giant calendar, it gets stuck up on this board so it doesn't get lost.  It keeps all those notes off my kitchen bench too!

What organisational aids do you have in your home?  Perhaps you have something that you think might only be little, that might be life changing for someone else.  Feel free to share :D