The Crazy Cleaning Guidebook is here!

andreaandtim

Posted on January 27th, 2012

On this new cleaning and organization kick I am in, I realized one problem I was having in this department, is I just didn’t like doing it!

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Really, the last thing I wanted to do when I got home from work is clean, so I found myself running around like a sweaty banshee hours before company would be coming over, or spend whole days catching up on laundry, with piles of clothes sprawled on our bed just waiting on me to finally fold them.

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And with the ‘I just don’t like doing it’ mindset, I realized the reason why I don’t like it is because my methods of cleaning were far from perfect, no matter how much I scrubbed things, the no-good products I’ve been using were just laughing in my face while I sat filthy, defeated hovered over our toilets in disgust. I knew there had to be a better way.

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So I decided to take my cleaning mission to the streets, or maybe just to my online followers, friends and everywhere in between and ask them not just what they use, but what cleaning products they LOVE, techniques that work and tips and tricks they live by.

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I was OVERWHELMED by the responses, and realized that I’m not alone in this journey. Some girls had excellent ideas for one room, but were looking for answers in another. And vice versa. So, this guidebook allowed me to compile the best answers for each room into one source, for all of us!

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I hope you enjoy it! Plus there are links to some great coupons too!

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And please if you have any ‘must-have’ tips, please feel free to leave them in a comment below. I can already see updated additions in the future. Feedback and comments are always appreciated too!

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And if you find it useful, please feel free to share and ‘Pin It’ too!

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To download a copy of the FREE e-book, all you have to do is enter your email on the top right-hand side where it says:
Sign up & Download the FREE Crazy Cleaning Guidebook!

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You will receive the e-book link in your email with your confirmation email. (Please make sure you confirm your subscription by pressing the ‘confirm follow’ button first. If you are a wordpress.com user, you will not get a confirmation email when you subscribe, so you can then proceed below.

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Update: Look what I found! Proctor and Gamble (P&G) which owns many of these cleaning products and other household, and beauty products has a site specifically for brand samples and coupons. And they deliver them all straight to your door. Perfect find if you want to try some of these winners before you buy them, and when and if you do buy them, use a coupon! Click here to learn more.

Really short-term update! Looking further on their site, they will be issuing a big Sunday paper coupon book this Sunday, January 29 in most large daily Sunday papers. It’s called the P&G Brand Saver booklet and it features over $101 worth of coupons! So look for it this Sunday!

Categories: cleaning and organization, Featured, House Adventures, Product Reviews

Tagged: carpet, cleaning products, clorox, comet, dishes, dusting, floors, haan, kitchen, laundry, method, scrubbing bubbles, shark, steam mops, swiffer, tide, tiles, toilets, windows

give a little. watch the village grow.

andreaandtim

Posted on January 24th, 2012

Have you seen/experienced a life-altering event that changed your life or made you see life completely differently? That is what happened to me a bit over a year ago when I seen first-hand the devastation and pain that Epidermolysis Bullosa, a genetic skin disorder, brings to families.

When our best friends’ daughter, Aubrey Joy Oberlin, was born with Epidermolysis Bullosa one of the first things I did was search the internet to learn about this disorder. The first story that came across my Google search results was that of a four-year-old boy named Charlie Knuth. Charlie was making news because his insurance was denying him the stem cell transplant that would save his life.

Family Fights to Treat Child’s Skin Disease – www.nbc26.com

Thankfully, Medicaid overturned their denial and Charlie was able to get the stem cell transplant that he so desperately needed.

Abandoned at birth, Charlie entered the Knuth’s family home when he was only two-weeks-old and was adopted a year later by this giving family. Charlie’s remarkable progress has prompted the Knuths to adopt another child who suffers from the same severe form of EB, a six-year-old boy named Seth, who has lived in a group home all of his life, and has never had a family to call his own.

The Knuth family will be bringing Seth home at the end of March, but at this time their house doesn’t have a bedroom for him or a medical/dressing room for baths and dressing changes. They are also needing to make their home wheelchair accessible to have Seth live with them and become their son.Just recently they posted a fundraising page created for this effort, and noticed on one of the mother’s updates, Trisha Knuth posted:

Trish Knuth's update

I wanted to help. I learned this past year that awareness has an amazing effect on people. So I read this update and thought, “How could I help this family get that bath tub?” I looked at the link she provided to learn more about these height adjustable tubs. This manufacturer, TR Equipment, is headquartered in Sweden and has offices in four different countries, including the United States. I figured it was a far stretch, but decided that you never get a ‘Yes’ unless you ask in the first place.

So I wrote an email to their head of customer service in the United States. A simple email that explained the Knuth story and asked them if they could help. I didn’t expect a response, but I knew I had to try.

An hour later, my ‘simple’ email was forwarded to their Director of Operations.

And the next evening I received this email:

Email response from Jeffrey Wagner, TR Equipment

What! Really!!???

One simple ask, and two amazing companies decided to donate and transport a $16,000 bathtub to the Knuth family in Wisconsin!

AMAZING. PEOPLE ARE AMAZING!

And all you have to do to find these amazing people, is reach out to them!

Below is the link to the Knuth Family fundraising page. Feel free to learn more, donate and help share Seth’s story with the world. As I learned, even ‘simple’ efforts go a long way!

A Bedroom for Seth — IndieGoGo

Thanks for listening! – Andrea Ness

Categories: Featured

On the road to the empty jar – here, here to weight loss!

andreaandtim

Posted on January 19th, 2012

The countdown begins!!

Next week officially starts my 18-week training program for my HALF MARATHON at the Traverse City Bayshore Marathon!

Here is the current fabulous schedule that I’m using. For my last couple 10K trainings, I used Hal Higdon’s training schedules.

Which also means it will be my 16-week weight loss CRAZINESS with the celebration party being in Now Jade Riviera Cancun. Ok, well maybe it’s not MY party but a wedding for good friends, but I don’t have to tell my mind that.

So to make it a bit more fun, these will reside next to my scale in the bathroom. The ‘Empty’ jar holds 40 glass marbles and stones, signifying each pound of weight I would rather not have. Every time I lose a pound, one of those bad boys are moving over to the ‘Gone’ jar. It is on like Donkey Kong!

And yes, I know there are a TON of marbles in the ‘bad’ jar right now

I would be extremely happy with 30 of those bad boys moving over (wedding weight) but why not try for my senior-year college days at MSU when I really didn’t have to wear a skirt-bottom bathing suit. That is where Riveria Cancun kicks in. A couple weeks before my half marathon, we will be sun-bathing here, along with 50-100 others from the local fire department.

So you see, it would be quite nice to shop from the Victoria Secret bathing suit collection again. . Just for ol’ times sake!

If you are interested in doing something similar, I got all the jar materials at Hobby Lobby. Jars were 50% off, scrapbooking stick-on letters and found these marbles in a jar near the floral section.

Kindest regards,
Andrea

Categories: Featured, Healthy Living

Tagged: marathon, motivation, training, weight loss

Mini-adventures to be a great mom, a good cook…and to fit in those damn skinny jeans.