Spring Cleaning Chronicles: Window Cleaning

Every year I have an argument with myself over when I should start my spring cleaning. Why? Because… Michigan… that’s why. However, I don’t know why, but I always get the urge to deep clean my house before I go on vacation. Something about leaving a clean home and coming back to a clean home makes me very happy. So I decided to start my spring cleaning a little earlier this year—despite it feeling like early October outside-- because I’m going on vacation very soon! And I usually start with the place they say allows you to see inside someone’s soul…and in this literal case, house. The windows!

            I don’t know about you, but I have so many windows in my house. Though this is great for that morning-cup-of-coffee type feeling, it kind of sucks to clean and maintain. But, I think one of the most important parts of cleaning the window isn’t only the glass. It’s the inner part between the screen and window itself. To me, I feel like it’s so important to keep that part clean, because anytime you want to open your window a little bit of that dirt and dust is going to creep its way into your home, onto your floors and you just don’t want that.

            So, I first begin by taking a Kirkland disinfecting wipe, or a damp paper towel and just wipe away whatever obvious dirt is visible. You can use Clorox wipes, or Lysol wipes, too. I just use Costco’s Kirkland brand because I feel like it does the same job. Often times, there forms a pile of dirt up in a corner that you just want to yell at, like this:

 It’s almost as irritating as trying to wear mascara and having some end up on your nose. Anyway, that dirt build up can be lessened by this easy trick-- and a lot of you hijabi sisters have plenty of these laying around – a straight pin!

If you just take a straight pin, and kind of polk at the dirt enough to break it down, you will see a bigger difference, like so:

You can use that straight pin trick in a lot of other instances around your home, whether it’s a corner in a kitchen cabinet or in a small crease of a coffee table.

So, after I finish breaking down the annoying dirt pile, I continue wiping away any excess dirt from the inner part of the window, and then proceed to clean the glass with a glass cleaner and ledges around the window with a damp paper towel or disinfecting wipe.

 In order to not kill myself in this process, I tend to do one room at a time so that way I can spread out my work  load, and not have my neighbors think I’m crazy.

Stay tuned for more of my spring cleaning chronicles…and please feel free to share some of the ways you clean your windows!!

-M

Spread out your house workload!

So, I hope you don’t hold this post against me if you ever come to my house and it’s not in tip top shape. I don’t believe in a spotless, doesn’t-look-like-anyone-lives-there type home. But, I do love a clean home. However, if you spread out the work load, and someone does show up on your door unexpectedly, you won’t have too much to tidy up.

I had a friend recently tell me, “Every time I clean my house, I look around and say my house will never look like yours”. I laughed because little does she know that anytime I know I have guests coming over, I pull out the stops (swiffer, clean bathrooms, make sure all the glass in my house is fingerprint free). In other words, my house isn’t always sparkling –but, when I know I’m having guests over I like to try and make it sparkle.

When I first got married, I was trying to get into the routine of having my own home. Being Middle Eastern, it's known that in many households, the kids don't move out until they get married. So, for me, I was used to my mom doing the majority of the housework, and the transition of taking care of my own home was a tough one! 

The first few weeks in my own home were a complete nightmare!! I have a colonial home, three floors that are all wood and tile, no carpet. I found myself wiping my floors every day, and dusting every corner of my furniture. Now that I look back, I laugh at myself because it was just me and my husband living in the house--what was I thinking?!? After two weeks of every day mopping, I was worn out! I love a clean home, but there is no way I was going to spend the rest of my life cleaning three floors every single day. So, I decided to spread out my workload. To do a little every day, and this helped me tremendously --and not to mention, my house remains easy to clean. 

If you're like me and have three floors, dedicate one day a week to each floor. Or, if you have a ranch home, maybe dedicate one room for each day of the week. I also use the swiffer duster, which I absolutely love, to keep my floors clean every other day, or even sometimes once every three days, depending on how much ‘traffic’ went on in the house. For example, here's my weekly routine:

Monday-Swiff whole house

Tuesday- First floor: furniture dusting/bathroom clean

Wednesday- Second Floor: furniture dusting/ kitchen cleaning

Thursday- Third floor: furniture dusting/bathroom cleaning and change bed sheets.

Friday- Swiff whole house

Saturday- Mop the (necessary) floors. 

Sunday- Free day!

Although this seems like it's a lot of work--it's really not. Each daily chore takes me about 35 to 45 minutes. And, depending on the size of your home, it may take you a shorter amount of time or a bit longer. I've stuck to this routine ever since I got married five years ago, and it's really helped me maintain a clean home. Now, in regards to mopping, I don’t mop all of my floors every week. For example, there are a couple of bedrooms in my house that I barely go into, like my office or the baby room. So, I really only mop those unused areas maybe once or twice a month. The swiffer keeps them nice and clean for me anyway! But, like I said, just dedicate 45 minutes a day to chores and stick to it—and I promise your house will stay clean!

In my upcoming posts I will share with you how I mop my floors, and what I use to dust my furniture and the cleaning products that I favor.

Don’t stress out, spread it out.

M.

Less is always more

As cliche as it sounds, when it comes to fashion, my philosophy has always been less is more. I'm all about simplicity; from my home decor to my fashion sense. When I'm looking for an outfit or when I think I'm ready before an outing, I usually always ask myself this question: Is this too much? 

Because I wear hijab, my style is conservative and modest. And, I feel there’s a fine line between looking elegant and tacky and that line could be crossed with just one wrong accessory or headscarf. Here's my rule of thumb: When my outfit has some sort of pattern, whether it's polka-dots, stripes, floral or even paisley, that usually means my hijab is a solid, plain color. However, when my entire outfit is pattern free, I usually go for the printed hijab styles, just so it's not too boring. This isn’t always the case, but most of the time that’s how you would see me dress. Here’s a couple of examples:

Here, I'm wearing printed high waist pants, and so I chose to wear a plain cream hijab. 

Contrastly, in this picture, my outfit is pretty plain, with no prints/patterns. So to  spice (for lack of a better term) it up, I added a polk-a-dot navy hijab to tie it all together. 

 I also usually stay away from really bright colors. Especially, neon! Sometimes, I see others pull it off, but for me, I just feel like I would look like a highlighter. Typically I wear neutral, earth tone colors, and sometimes in the spring you may catch me wearing lighter, soft colors. As this is my first style post, I just wanted to let you in a little bit on my sense of style and what to expect! I look forward to showing you more of my fashion favorites, because your home isn’t the only thing that should stay polished. :) 

-M

Sleep like a baby? That means you don't sleep...

For my first baby post, I figured I’d write about what is the most relevant in my life right now! Babies and their sleeping habits.

Shout out to the past 25 years of my life where I had precious sleep time! I was able to sleep in, wake up well-rested and even take naps. Ahh naps … those hour (or two) durations of slumber that had you wake up re-energized and ready to take on the rest of the day! I miss naps. Those don’t happen for me anymore. And, I’m sure a lot of you moms know exactly what I’m talking about. What’s funny is, when I first had my baby, everyone kept telling me, “make sure you sleep while she sleeps!”.  I never understood how that was possible. If I slept while she slept, I’m losing time to pump, house work, shower, fulfill religious duties (prayer), and not to mention eat! But...Wait…I just realized I’m writing in the baby section, not in the “about me” section…so let me get back to the baby part. Sorry for my rant.

Okay… so back to babies and their sleeping habits. It took me 8 and a half months (my daughter’s current) age to realize that infants, for the most part, are never consistent with their sleep. I get days where my daughter sleeps through the night, and days where she wakes up twice. And, I’ve read so many blogs, and articles by experts that were meant to be how-to guides on how to get your baby to sleep long and well, but truthfully, nothing worked for me. I’m not saying my daughter doesn’t sleep well—she does. But, some days are more predictable than others. For the most part, I am able to put her to bed around 8:30 p.m., give her the pacifier, I leave the room and she falls asleep on her own. Then, she’ll wake up 4 or 5 hours later and want a bottle. At first, I figured she was waking up and eating out of habit because she got used to me feeding her at night. However, sometimes when she finishes the entire bottle, she cries when it runs out. So that leads me to believe that she really is hungry when she wakes up! So, I don’t mind it. I feel bad letting her go to bed hungry. So I feed her a bottle, and she goes right back to sleep for a nice long stretch until around 8 or 9 a.m. 

 I truly believe that every baby is different and there is no right or wrong way to teach your baby to sleep. At around 4-5 months, I tried the “cry it out” method, which was pure torture, but it didn’t work out for me. I tried for a week, and I realized that I need to really know and understand my daughter’s personality. She would not sleep when I let her cry it out. I think what worked best for me was routine. Every night, I gave her a bath, fed her a bottle and put her in her crib. After a while, I think she got the hang of it. But, she still gets many days-- like I said before about inconsistency—where she doesn’t sleep well. Every month she goes through a week that I call hell week. During this week she wakes up two-three times a night and refuses to go back to sleep. Guess what that means? Mama doesn’t sleep either!

So, for those of you moms who worry and wonder “WHAT AM I DOING WRONG” or “WHY ISN’T MY KID SLEEPING?” don’t stress too much about it. Anyway, if babies are full, clean and have burped, sometimes they may be teething, be going through growth spurts, or want to move around as they begin the crawling stages. Most Infants aren’t going to be consistent in their sleeping habits. Their brains are developing so fast and there are so many factors that may be preventing your baby from sleeping , well, like a baby. Now that I think about that quote, “sleep like a baby” it really doesn’t make much sense—in my case at least!

What are some of the methods you used to help your baby sleep better?

M.