Monday, February 22, 2010

Tools of the Trade

When you are a full-time mom, you spend a lot of time with cleaners of various kinds.

Yes, it's true.

Maybe not one of the most exciting parts of the job....but it's got to be done.

Washing dishes, wiping countertops, mopping floors, scrubbing toilets and showers, and we can't forget the LAUNDRY!

With one mommy (who gets spit-up on quite a bit), one daddy (who works around grease and out on the farm), one two-year-old (who's learning how to use the potty), and a baby (who spits up) - we do quite a lot of laundry. And I didn't even mention the laundry I do for our cloth diapers (and training pants).

Last month I tried a new laundry detergent that has really improved the chore of doing all that laundry. This stuff is amazing. Clothes that had stains on them previously are coming out of the wash clean, and without any extra scrubbing on my part!

Possibly the most amazing thing is how it's significantly decreased the amount of time I spend on laundering the diapers. I used to have to run them through two washing cycles: once with baking soda and vinegar on all cold water, and then again with detergent with hot water. Without that first step, the diapers would come out still smelling like....well, DIAPERS, and that's not a good thing! So now that we've switched brands, I just run the diapers through with our new laundry detergent on hot water and completely skip the first cycle. And they smell fresh!

Maybe not a big deal for some people, but this saves me time and water on the diapers, and gets me cleaner clothes all around....and for the same money! Not bad, if you ask me!