When doing the laundry earlier today, I thought how big a difference it makes for me that the clothes I wash smell good afterwards. I've noticed that it really affects the feeling it gives me to do the landry. If the result is clothes that look clean, but don't smell that much better than before, because of a too neutral washing powder, I don't enjoy doing the landry very much! It might sound weird, but that's the way it is for me and I've been given it a lot of thought, 'cause I also don't want to buy very perfumed washing powder that is very bad for the environment. At the time I use Ecover, but they added "lemon"-smell and I actually don't think that smell fits landry, but rather dishes when dishwashing.
I checked the Internet for environment friendly washing powder (liquid that is) and found one that I'm going to buy later: Coop Änglamark. Which one do you use? :)
All this laundry-thinking made me think about how I could make cooking, buying groceries, cleaning the house etc. more fun. Too often I feel like it's a burden and I would like to make it more pleasant. As some of you might know, I am not really a housewife 'cause I'm studying Audiologopaedics, but as a student I have a lot of time at home compared to my husband, who works out almost every day and earns the money.
Are there any sisters out there, who have found a key to making housekeeping more enjoyable? Perhaps I just need to adjust something inside my head :) Like thinking more about the wonderful results that I get by cleaning the house for example. Because I do feel really good, when everything is clean and is in its right place.
While searching for pictures to match this post, I have to admit that I am shocked on a daily basis, by how you can not type in any search word in Google, go to the pictures and not always bump into a loooot of unwanted pictures -- here I am referring to half-naked women mostly. Men invented fantasies with women under every possible subject :-/ Oh well that's a different story. But OMG. Will I ever learn to ignore that or is there also a magic key to avoiding these pictures? :-/ Hehe.
Anyway. I have some tips I would like to share and perhaps you want to share some tips too?!:
- As you might know, I love when things smell good and are also quite environment friendly. So when I clean the house, I use hot water with some rose water. It smells very delicate and makes it more fun to undust. I was inspired to use this mixture for cleaning, because I read that they clean the Holy Ka'aba with a mixture of Zamzam water and rose water, masha'Allah.
- It's good to give stuff away for charity or to simply throw out stuff that nobody needs or can use. Every now and then I decide to throw out/give away at least 10 things, mostly clothes. And it gives you a great feeling and a good overview of your stuff. And there's always something you don't need anymore, but are just clinging to because you're used to having it...
- The people living below us always cook food that smells the same (weird - sorry!) way and somehow that smell travels particularly into our bathroom. So to change the smell, I just add a few drops of lavendar essential oil for example on the floor near the drain. That way it will smell good the rest of the day and first go away the next morning, when you take a shower.
- When I cook, I clean the kitchen at the same time. If I for example used a dish, I wash it while the food is cooking and while the family is laying the table, I might also wash a thing or too. That reduces the amount of dishes (etc.) to clean afterwards.
- For cooking I made a list of about 15 dishes (that my family likes too) that I can make whenever I want, which stops me from thinking and thinking about what on earth I shall cook today. Once a week I try out a new recipe and by now it's working quite well.
- If you have been serving eggs for breakfast and can't get rid of the egg-smell on the plates, a good thing is to first wash everything else (so everything doesn't smell of egg...) and add drops of fresh lemon onto the plates and cutlery that has been in contact with the egg (same goes for chicken!), leave it there for a while and then wash it with soap, perhaps using a different sponge.
That's all for now, I've got to clean the house now and I feel more like it after writing this post. Hehe. Before I leave: Isn't the picture below just cute and doesn't it make you want to do a lot of housekeeping, when everything is smiling at you that way? Hehe.
