My grand two week holiday

I just realised I haven’t posted for a week..

Well I have been on holidays for two whole weeks – yippee! Before my holiday everyone was asking where you going, what you doing? As much as I would like to have been heading to a tropical island sitting in the sun, sipping cocktails, strolling the beach at sunset etc etc.

I’m not. I am have spent the last two weeks sorting life out. Life was chaotic and I felt crap. This entire year has been one long, hectic, never-ending day or that’s what it feels like.

Continue reading “My grand two week holiday” →

What owning a hover board means

Well Back to the Future is now in the past, and is, and will always be, one of our favourite movie trilogies (Along with Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit trilogies, and Indiana Jones, oh and the original superman movies, but getting off track). For the Lovely Clan Daddies birthday, we purchased him movie memorabilia, Back to the Future movie memorabilia to be precise, a framed copy of Grays Sports Almanac and a replica hover board. And I must say they are really, really awesome 🙂 Continue reading “What owning a hover board means” →

Summertime dread, and this year it’s not swimwear!

It’s that time of the year when most of the blogs that I follow are starting to talk about rugging up and battling the flu as they head into winter. However, for us this is the time of the year when the heat turns on (yay) and things are getting worrying (nay).

Heading into summer, usually the highlight of my year, except the realisation that I didn’t lose any weight from last summer, shrugs. This year thou, I am facing the summer with a little more dread. Australia is seeing what they call a Mega El-Nino (I think that’s what they call it). Bushfire risks have increased and preparations have already started to be Bushfire ready. Emergency services are gearing up for what they are saying could be our worse Bush Fire season ever. Continue reading “Summertime dread, and this year it’s not swimwear!” →

LIFE HACK TEST: Cleaning car headlights

Hypothesis: Toothpaste cleans car headlights brilliantly

Method:

What you need: Toothpaste, rag, water

Put tooth paste on the rag about a 2cm blob
Using the rag, smear the toothpaste across the whole headlight
Work the toothpaste across the headlight and scrub a bit using circular motion
Wipe off excess
Rinse with water

Notes: We used Pearl Drops toothpaste 🙂

Conclusion: It worked pretty well, on an old set of headlights, can’t say it would have been any better than using a normal car product but definitely cheaper and smells (minty) good.

LIFE HACK RATING: 3.5 of 5

– Trialled by Clan Daddy

Let the de-cluttering commence

While the clan boys are busy dreaming of their next holiday (maybe I should do the same!) I have been considering the house.. or rather the chaos. I know we all say (well we say) we live a hectic life and we’re so busy we don’t get time to tidy up, but we really need to clear the clutter.

What do I really see when I look around??? The house a chaotic mess that needs tidying, we have way more stuff than we need which clutters up the place, the piles of paperwork have become shameful and I think there is still the occasional baby toy. We are incredibly good dumpers… everywhere you look there is things dumped for later tidying, use, sorting etc and being five of us that makes for a lot of stuff.

We come up with many ‘good’ ideas of how to rid us of clutter, we do try, we do get rid of things, but it is never enough. Our last idea was to do the 2015 challenge (read it on the web somewhere*) the idea was get rid of 2015 things that were unneeded. I think we made it to 50. And we really didn’t rid ourselves of anything it’s all still in a box sitting in the garage (grin at least it’s out of the house).

So tomorrow night at dinner I am calling a house meeting and I’m going to reinstate the 2015 challenge. House meetings are times when we all discuss how we as a family are going to tackle something and write it down and all commit to something, and yes for the Young Ones fans – I do the little dance 🙂

So we are now re-starting a little late(r) in the year. But I am on a mission. No we are on a mission.

– Clan Mummy

they even have chart to help you track your progress (that’s their pic in the header too) http://nourishingminimalism.com/2014/12/2015-in-2015-decluttering-challenge.html

Cleaning the kitchen sink

I won’t put this one under Life Hacks, as it’s just general cleaning. Years ago I was quite an avid read of The Fly Lady in an attempt to get our cleaning and chaos in order (as it turns out it didn’t help). One of the central things she made newbies do was to clean their sink as a way to start their motivation to keep clean.

If I remember correctly – it started with filling the sink and soaking using a strong, disinfectant and hot water. Then releasing the water drying and buffing using window cleaner. This should in theory make a shiny sparkling sink that will give you the prompt to start getting everything cleaner.

As an attempt to get the ball rolling today on our cleaner lives I gave it another crack. So I so I filled and soaked the sink in Domestos, left for about 5 mins drained and dried. And started the buffing process with some Windex.

Well I don’t think it did anything for the shine, and the two chemical combined are an appalling smell, it did at least take away the smell from the garbage disposal.

Comparative analysis of before and after buffing

Sink after cleaning — Sink after buffing

What do you think?

LIFE HACK TEST: Cleaning the microwave

Our microwave was a pretty feral place.

So after some searching we found the steaming life hack. This one is on many life hack websites.

Variations: Water and vinegar, Water and lemon juice, Water lemon juice and vinegar, Water and vinegar and a paddle pop stick or just water

Hypothesis: Clean the microwave and get rid of all built up gunk

Method: (from https://uclaonthehill.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/life-hack-cleaning-your-microwave/)

Step 1: Get a bowl and fill it up with one to two cups of water, and then add one to two tablespoons vinegar.

Step 2: Add a toothpick to the water so that the mixture can properly boil in the microwave. WARNING: Without this step, the liquid could possibly explode. You don’t want this, do you? Now, go get that toothpick. Go on. We’ll wait.

Step 3: Put the bowl in the microwave and close the door. Microwave for 5 minutes and after the timer goes off, keep the door closed for another minute so the steam can do its magic.

Step 4: Open the door and CAREFULLY take out the bowl of water and vinegar. NOTE: The bowl will be hot.

Step 5: If you have a turntable tray, remove it and wash it in the sink. Once the turntable is removed, wipe down the rest of the microwave with a sponge dipped in the liquid. The gross bits stuck to the microwave should come off easily!

Notes: We used a paddlepop stick not a toothpick

Conclusion: Brilliant

LIFE HACK RATING: 5 of 5