Adventures in Cleaning

So, at almost 35 years of age, I have had PLENTY of experience cleaning house, starting when I was a wee little child and thought that anything my mother did was fun because she was doing it. :) Thanks, Mom. And I have certainly put in hours of scrubbing time on various stove-tops, trying to remove grease and baked-on food. However, I have never enjoyed much success getting rid of that grease. I've even been tempted to remove the stove-top and spray-paint it white, just to cover up my inadequate stove-top cleaning skills.

A few weeks ago in Church, one of the ladies in our women's group did a little spot about being prepared. She does this once a month during our women's meeting, and she is very creative with her presentations. This last one was about being prepared to clean [gee, one of the advantages of natural disasters, IMO, is that the house is no longer there to need cleaning...] and she brought a few things that she said were her favorite cleaning supplies, because they WORKED [she put a lot of emphasis on that last word]. One of those favorite, effective supplies was baking soda. Yep, baking soda. Funny thing, it works really, REALLY well on grease. Now, I know [because Jared told me] that there is a chemical reason for this. I can't remember what it is, but I have proof that it is as effective as Diane stated.

[I realize that this next picture, and most of the rest of this post, will reveal my poor housekeeping skills, and it's okay. Y'all can sit back and revel in the knowledge that you clean more often than I do. Now don't you feel better about yourselves? LOL]

Before: [this picture was actually taken about half-way through the cleaning process, after all the easy gunk was removed, leaving only the greasy, stubborn, baked-on stains around the heating element of my gas stove]

After:

I love baking soda :) That, plus a damp rag and some elbow grease, was all I needed to get my stove completely grease-free! [okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, since I stopped halfway to share this incredible insight with y'all...] It worked wonders on the outside of the oven, and on the inside of the microwave, and I am actually compiling a list in my head of some other places I want to clean with my new best friend.

Gratitude List:
* iTunes, and how it has all my favorite songs on it :).
* baking soda [oh what a shock]
* Jared
* kids
* family and friends

- can't write anything else, must go back and clean LOL.