The bathroom should be regularly cleaned if only to keep germs under control. There are some cleaning chores that can be done on a somewhat longer schedule than the weekly cleaning.

1. Take a look under the bathroom sink and you probably see a good collection of half used personal hygiene products. Go through each and every one of them and decide if they’re worth keeping. Some products like medicated shampoos and possibly suntan lotions are good to keep handy. That green strawberry mint flavored shampoo that promised that men would go wild but only gave you a rash could probably be tossed into the garbage.

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2. Take a look at how you store all the paper goods to the bathroom. Are they organized and easily snagged when needed? If not, maybe it’s time to give those boxes of facial tissue and rolls of toilet paper, a place of their own.

3. Next up are the washcloths and towels. If you’re like most of us, we tend never to discard old towels. We end up with a pile of towels and actually only use the first one or two. If this sounds like you, take stock in how many towels and face cloths you actually need and send the rest to the rag box.

How to clean grout.

4. If your cabinet has drawers, they’re probably filled with miscellaneous hair decorations, bands, pins etc. Go through them and anything not used in the last 2 years should be thrown out.

5. Vacuum the inside of the vanity cabinet and drawers to remove hair and lose dirt. Heck, give them a good cleaning by getting one of those old washcloths damp with clear water.

Click here for more tips.

Don’t flush away all your toiletries, here are some new ways to use things that are always in your medicine cabinet.

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7 Haute Pink Accessories To Brighten Up Your Home

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So as we settled in to watch the game, drinks in hand, I noticed he was inspecting the box and his curiosity was really getting the best of him, and then I heard the magic words: “Ma, can we open it?” Being that I could never say no to him, and more importantly the game was in a rain delay (LOL) I told him to “go for it,” and before I could say “can I have a refill?”the box was open and the vacuum cleaner was ready to be put to the test.

Assembly is easy – just 3 easy steps and no tools required. If you get stuck attaching the wand (which we had trouble with, based on the picture), simply turn it around to the other side and it should snap right in.

Before I continue, you need to know that no one can enter his living room with their shoes on, and the carpet is always clean (or so we thought)!

Once the living room was cleared out, he went to work…this guy was having the time of his life, he vacummed the room three times!! He was on a roll and loving every minute of it, and was looking for any excuse to continue. We had to beg him to stop. After getting him to take a break, we looked at the cannister and could not believe the amount of dust and particles that was pulled out of the carpet.

One of the features of the Dyson vacuum cleaner that caught our attention was how long the cord was, you could take it from room to room without having to unplug it. The tools that come with the animal are awesome, he used it to dust his ceiling fan, clean the wood floor in his son’s room and the tiled floor in the kitchen.

I ended up having to leave the vacuum at his house that night because of the heavy rain that night and when I woke up the next morning, guess who was on the phone raving about how amazing his carpet looked in the daylight??

And if you thought I was making this stuff up take a look at his girlfriend’s latest tweet:

Easy to assemble, easy to use, this carpet has not looked this good since they bought it. Highly recommend!!!

He could not stop raving about the vacuum cleaner, now if I can only get him to bring it to my house this weekend as promised!!!

$600 at dyson.com

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1. Space Underneath Appliances or Keyboards: most of us just wipe down the counter or the desktop without actually moving this stuff and then you do and you discover that underneath that appliance are a ton of crumbs. While you’re at it you might want to take a sponge to the bottom of your appliances too before the dust turns sticky.

2. Dishwasher: it gets clean when you run it, right? Uh, not so much. Small bits of food may get stuck in crevices and around the door’s rubber gasket. A toothbrush can help you dislodge them; running the dishwasher on hot, empty except for a cup of vinegar or tang can help remove greasy grime, sanitize and remove any musty odours.

Top 10 Bathroom Spring Cleaning Tips

3. Walls: we spend a lot of time cleaning our floors but most of us never clean our walls, except maybe the tile in the bathroom. But they get dirty especially if, like us, you have a window or two that faces out to the street. Going at ‘em with the occasional feather duster should do the trick for most of the walls in your home but if you use spray products in the bathroom, you might want to wipe down the walls around your mirror where the excess lands.

4. Ceiling: see above. dust accumulates here as well as walls or floors. a swipe with a feather duster should do the trick if you take care of it regularly. Drop a feather duster into your vacuum’s long extension tube so you can reach your ceiling.

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How To Clean Grout

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If you have five minutes…

* Chuck crummy sponges and outdated cleaning products lingering in your kitchen; clear old leftovers out of the fridge and pitch any expired foods found in the pantry.

* Do a TV-room makeover. During TV commercials, quickly tidy up the room you’re in. Gather all the magazines, newspapers, and bits of trash and put them in the garbage. Straighten pillows and refold throws. Organize your work space. On the next program break, you can even give the den a quick vacuum.

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1) Patch up holes. Once you’ve taken your artwork down, remove nails and screws and patch with spackling paste. Don’t forget to sand each spot for a smooth wall that your landlord can easily paint over.

2) Repaint. This all depends on your landlord, the lease and what both parties agreed to when you first moved in. But if you weren’t supposed to paint or you agreed to repaint when you moved out, unfortunately you’ll have to tackle this big chore. We like to have “painting parties” and get friends involved or hire day laborers for a budget friendly option.

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3) Clean out the oven and fridge. We always like to leave the apartment how we found it (which means cleaning the oven and the fridge). Schedule these tasks at least a month to two weeks before you move since they can be time consuming. You can line the oven with tinfoil to protect it from future spills.

4) Clean. Don’t forget to give the apartment a good cleaning after everything has been moved out. Since we can barely stomach mopping after a long day of moving all our belongings out, we usually indulge in a cleaning service.

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(From the nytimes.com)

Now that women have solidly earned their place in the work force, many find themselves still yearning for something men often have: wives.

“The thing I most want in life is a wife. I’m not kidding,” said Joyce Lustbader, a research scientist at Columbia University, who has been married for 29 years. “I work all day, sometimes seven days a week, and still have to go home and make dinner and have all those things to do around the house.”

It is not just the extra shift at home that is a common complaint. Working women, whether married or single, also see their lack of devoted spousal support as an impediment to getting ahead in their careers, especially when they are competing against men who have wives behind them, whether those wives are working or staying at home. And research supports their argument: it appears that marriage, at least marriage with children, bolsters a man’s career but hinders a woman’s.

One specialist in women’s studies dismissed wife envy as something women “are usually joking about” and another called it “a need for a second set of hands, regardless of gender.” But therapists who work with couples on equality issues say it is no joke.

“I hear it all the time,” said Robin Stern, a psychotherapist in Manhattan and author of “The Gaslight Effect.” “It’s a real concern. Things that used to be routinely taken care of during the week are not anymore.”

With two-income families now the norm, and both men and women working a record-breaking number of hours, the question has become how to accomplish what used to be a wife’s job, even as old-fashioned standards of household management and entertaining have been relaxed. Many men are sharing the work of chores and child care with their wives, and some do it all as single parents, but women still generally shoulder a greater burden of household business (or fretting over how to do what is not getting done).

PARENTING: Punishment vs Incentives

According to 2006 survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in five men engages in some kind of housework on an average day, while more than half of women do.

“The real challenge is, companies expect you to perform as if someone is at home taking care of everything for you,” said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. “Some men are better positioned to deal with these corporate demands, because they do have someone at home. Most women don’t.”

Working women have noticed, correctly, that their male colleagues with wife support – whether or not those wives are themselves working outside the home – get further at work than the women who are fettered by marriage and children. Women occupy 50.6 percent of managerial and professional positions, according to the research organization Catalyst, but make up only 15.6 percent of Fortune 500 corporate officers.

Married men and women, on average, earn more than those who are unmarried, with part of that possibly attributed to career and wage advancement as workers mature (and are more likely to be married). But the gap is significantly larger for men than for women. Married women make an average 17 percent more than unmarried women, according to 2005 B.L.S. data on the median earnings of full-time workers, while married men make 42 percent more than unmarried men.

A more statistically rigorous analysis published in 2004, using the Minnesota Twins Registry, tried to isolate the effect of marriage on earnings. It found that holding education and genetics constant, married male twins made 26 percent more than their unmarried brothers.

Are you really there for your kids?

It is not as clear what effect marriage has on women’s careers and earnings, but having children is, over all, an impediment. “There’s a well-documented motherhood penalty: women with children are paid less than women without children,” controlling for other factors, said Mary Blair-Loy, a sociologist and author of “Competing Devotions,” a study of executive women who kept working versus ones who discontinued their careers.

Fathers, however, are not similarly disadvantaged and might even benefit at the workplace from being parents, according to more than one study, including one published in March in The American Journal of Sociology.

In 1972, the first issue of Ms. Magazine included a now classic essay by Judy Syfers, “I Want a Wife.” Her fantasies included her wife taking the children to the park and on play dates, arranging a social life, passing hors d’oeuvres to guests, planning meals, cooking, cleaning. The sentiment seems to persist among today’s working women.

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A new season, a new beginning. This means getting rid of unwanted smells in your home! Check out these tips we found on SheKnows.com!

Air it out

If the weather cooperates, air out smelly rooms frequently with fresh air. Try circulating stale air with a fan to invite new air in from the outside or another area of the house. Additionally, change the air filters frequently to prevent the odor from circulating to all parts of the house.

Try lemons

Many lingering odors are a result of cooking foods such as fish and onions. Eliminate these odors by cutting two lemons in half and boiling them in a small amount of water for several minutes. The steam disperses the lemons’ aroma and helps neutralize the offending smell. When you’re done, run the lemons through your garbage disposal to freshen it.

The old-fashioned way

Commercial odor-neutralizing cleansers are available, but some common household products can be very effective as well. For instance, humble, versatile vinegar zaps many odors. Just fill a bowl or pan full of vinegar and let it sit in the center of the stinky room for 24 hours.

Baking soda is another inexpensive yet effective way to absorb and neutralize household odors. Apply on a stubborn, wet stain after you’ve blotted up the excess to absorb lingering moisture. Leave an opened box in an odiferous area. Or sprinkle it directly on a smelly carpet, wait an hour or more, then vacuum the powder (and the odor) away.

Other common products that effectively trap odors include cat litter and charcoal. Leave cat litter in an open box or tub to sop up smells. Or place charcoal in a container with several holes poked in it. Throw the entire container away when the offending scent is gone.

For more tips click here!

Next time you have guests over you’ll never have to worry about them getting a whif of last week’s meal when they step through the door.

Let me take a few moments to outline the fact that rat poison is 97% corn and 3% strychnine.  Although it tastes good to the rat, once that 3% of poison takes effect, there’s no turning back.  The rat is dead within minutes.  I wonder how many wives who ingested this article were able to survive emotionally and spiritually after reading it.  I also wonder if I would have been able to live in an era where these points were common in practice and culture.

For example:

“Listen to him.  You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time.  Let him talk first.  Remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.”

The first part, corn; the latter part, poison.  What kind of blow is that to the self-esteem and confidence of a woman?  Listening to my husband is of the utmost importance to me.  I thrive off his communication with me.  In fact, even deferring to him to let him talk first is a regular practice of mine.  What I don’t agree with is quantifying the importance of the topics of conversations.  My issues are no more or no less important than his.  I care about what I talk about 100%, and I care about what he talks about 100%.  It’s that simple for me.

How about:

“Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner, or even if he stays out all night.  Count this as minor compared to what he may have gone through that day.”

This one is 97% poison!  Now granted, back then there were no cell phones, but beyond that, I can’t think of any reason why a husband would so blatantly disregard the feelings of his wife, whether a career woman or housewife in this manner (and the same vice-versa…why a wife would do that to her husband is beyond me).  This statement may as well say, “Turn your mind off.  Don’t ask him about the lipstick on his collar.  If you see lipstick around his smaller head, kindly get him a washcloth to wipe it off.”  Lord, have mercy, Jesus!

Read the rest of what is wrong with the 1955 housewife here!

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Being a Single Mom Is Not Easy!

There are thousands of books, websites and experts who all spew crap about how to make relationships work, what a man and woman should do…it’s not that deep. Ladies, if you are single, looking for love, in love, have a long term relationship that is kinda on the rocks, or want to seal the deal and get that ring on your finger…take notes.

1. SEX

Do it often, make it good, spice it up and do everything at least once…yes, EVERYTHING. If you got in the game teasing and pleasing, but one year later you are always on your back looking up at the ceiling like Celie inThe Color Purple, your man is going to lose interest and look elsewhere. All of this “I don’t do that…” will be your demise. If you talked a good game about how you got that crack in your crotch and he’ll be sprung, you should be able to deliver. Now, it’s not about giving it to him whenever he wants like some hooker. It’s about being able to take the driver’s seat and spring it on him in a way he’d never see coming.

• Go to his house in a trench coat with nothing on underneath but some killer heels and keep the shoes on during sex.

• Suggest a video camera, record, watch right after and erase

Read the rest on SaysTheSingleGirl.com

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Cleaning hardwood floors is one of the simplest chores in the world. Should you spill something on the floor, clean it up immediately with a damp mop.

Here are some quick tips on how to clean your hardwood floors:

1) Sweep, vacuum or dust mop the floors daily. This will prevent scaring and scratching of the wood.

2) Determine what type of seal is on the wood floors. There are two types: surface finish which is typically shiny and penetrating seal which has a matte finish. The penetrating seals have an oil, acrylic or wax finish while the surface finish has a polyurethane, water based, refinished or catalyzed finish.

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3 )Buy a cleaner that is applicable for your type of finished wood.

4) Wipe this solution on the wood with a terry cloth rag or a micro-fiber covered mop.

Tips & Warnings
Test the cleaning solution first in a small, preferably unseen, area.
Some people use a half-and-half white vinegar, warm water solution.
Brooms with frayed tips work best when sweeping.
Use the cleaning solutions sparingly. Buildup of the cleaner may occur if used too often.
NEVER use ammonia or bleach to clean wood floors.

3 tips to an organized living room.

Cleaning the bathroom is easily my least favorite cleaning chore in the house, but it has to be done.

Here’s a checklist to help clean your bathroom in record time:

Create a permanent location for aids such as: an all-purpose, anti-bacterial cleanser for countertops, mirror and glass; an air freshener; paper towels, toilet brush, garbage can, and laundry hamper.

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Tidy Up: Toss discarded clothes and soiled towels into the laundry basket. Replace lids on toiletries, discard used items and clear the countertops by making use of drawer space or cabinets.

Tackle The Toilet: Use a brush and disinfectant cleansers for both inside and around the outside of the bowl. All-purpose, antibacterial sprays are quick and convenient with tough cleaning and disinfecting power. Or, for targeting stubborn grime in crevices and corners, try Mr Clean Magic Eraser. It does wonders on countertops, walls, sinks and the tub.

Clear The Air: Plug in an air freshener that works around the clock, like the electric Febreze Noticeables. This one automatically alternates two complementary scents in your bathroom keeping it refreshed all day.

Countertop Wipedown: With paper towels and a multi-surface spray, wipe over the surfaces, in front, in between and behind your toiletries, grooming products, and appliances. Clean mirrors, glass and chrome.

The lazy girl’s guide to spring cleaning.

Spring is in the air. It’s time to forget about that snow you scraped from the windshield earlier in the week. Let’s move forward and think about warmer days, flowers peeking up from the soil and spring-cleaning.

Here are some tips to get your home sparkling for the bright sunshiny days to come:

Doormats. Give them some love in the form of a good sweeping and washing. Just think of how many times you’ve wiped your feet on them this winter alone.

Windows. Clean them with Windex and old newspaper, or you can try making your own solution of one part white vinegar and one part hot water and putting it in a spray bottle. Choose a time when the sun is not shining directly on windows to avoid streaking.

Dusting. Dust your entire home, including hard-to-reach places like the tops of the refrigerator, ceiling fans and window casings. While you’re at it, dust your books and shelves by taking everything off and wiping each book with a soft cloth. Always work from the top of the room down.

Clean carpets and upholstery. This can be as simple as vacuuming the carpet and walking the sofa cushions outside and gently beating them. But if there are stains, you should deep-clean them with a carpet shampooer. Make sure you check the care labels to avoid discoloration.

Give the walls a bath. They may not look dirty, but dust and other grime are probably there and should be wiped away at least once a year. Use a sponge and a simple solution of water and dishwashing detergent to wipe down the wall in sections. Use a sponge mop to reach higher spots.

Click here to find out how to spring forward in your home.

Want to upgrade your bedroom without spending money, click here to find out how.