It’s amazing how dirty our computer monitors get. Well, I guess it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise with a two-year-old who has to touch everything! Right now I see all sorts of fingerprints and smudges on my CRT monitor. It’s definitely time for a cleaning.

To clean an LCD monitor like a viewsonic monitor is a different process that I’ll explain later.

What you will need to clean any CRT monitor:

Polishing cloth like you might find in an eyeglass cleaning kit or a Nintendo DS, Sony PSP cleaning screen cleaning cloth.
Eyeglass cleaning solution or any cleaning solution meant for CDs or computer screens. Or use rubbing alcohol.

First unplug the monitor for safety. Then try to clean the monitor with just the cloth. If smudges won’t budge, dab the cloth with the cleaning solution and clean in circles (think wax on, wax off! sorry couldn’t resist). The solution will dry really fast, so you may have to reapply to your cloth to finish cleaning the monitor.

Here is my CRT monitor before:

And here it is after:

It might be hard to tell from the pictures, but the monitor does look a lot better.

LCD monitors are a different beast altogether. It is not recommended to clean them with rubbing alcohol although some people use a 50/50(water, rubbing alcohol) solution and report good results. I would stick with gently using a polishing cloth dampened with a little water. Avoid touching the LCD monitor and never pour liquid directly onto it. When in doubt, check your owner’s manual to see how the manufacture recommends cleaning an LCD monitor.

Nothing will dull scissors faster than using them to cut paper. If you any amount of sewing, you know that sharp scissors are a very important tool to have.

My mom has a separate pair of scissors that are just used to cut cloth. She even has it marked on the handle so that they aren’t accidentally used for another purpose.

I don’t sew that much but I would imagine that I would buy a nice pair of scissors to cut cloth and would want them to be used just for that. Labeling the scissors is also a good idea so that everyone in the household will know that these scissors are off limits for all projects that don’t involve cloth.

Clutter is one of my biggest problems when cleaning house. It seems that any flat surface naturally collects stuff. If I can find conquer clutter, I’ll be very proud and will certainly share how I did it.

Yesterday I started to clear the buffet and then I will move to the bar. Once I have these area clear, I plan to put some baskets or storage cloth drawers to catch the clutter.

Most of our stuff just needs to go. We don’t have the room and we never use it. So, May will be my spring cleaning month and hopefully a productive one at that. There’s a lot to do and if I don’t get on top of things, I won’t get it all done.

Today I will clear more clutter from the buffet as well as the bar. It does make the house look neater when there is less clutter even if it really isn’t that clean.

I’ve already showed my homemade laundry detergent, now I’d like to share a good laundry tip for keeping those socks together. It might take an extra step but is definitely worth it especially if you hate matching socks as much as I do.

Here is the most exciting(well to me) post I’ve read all week. It’s from the Trent at the Simple Dollar on how to make your own laundry detergent. I was so moved that I went out and bought all the needed ingredients.

Here is one reason why I love to read comments. I really don’t want to do a liquid laundry detergent mainly because it would be really hard to store it and to keep the curious 2-year-old from playing in it. Someone shares their ‘recipe’ for powdered laundry detergent. It calls for soap flakes. I couldn’t find those at the local store. I even checked the craft section thinking they might be located where soap making supplies might be.

So, I just bought some regular bars of soap. I had the idea of trying to either blend it or chop it to see if I can make my own soap flakes. I do plan to video my efforts to see how well it works.

I spent less than $5 on the ingredients to make my own laundry detergent. Since I’m unsatisfied with my current brand, I’m excited to see how my homemade detergent will actually work. I have a ton of laundry to do this week, so I will ample opportunity to test it out.

Earth Day is coming up this month, and I happen to notice that Wal-Mart is selling shopping bags. I’m so sick of plastic bags. We do use them for other things but we just have too many. I really need to bundle them up and drop them off in the recycle bin at the store.

So, I’m trying to get used to shopping with these bags. I finally remembered to leave them in my vehicle. Yesterday I forgot to take one into the store but luckily had one in my vehicle, so I just used the basket under the baby stroller.

The shopping bags are $1 and hold about as much as two plastic bags. I would wager more since the fear of them breaking is far less. Also the shopping bags themselves are made from recycled plastics.

Hopefully after a few weeks of using the bags, it will become easier to remember to take them in the store with me.

Joe and I had been married 11 years before we bought our first pillows. We have pillows from college and from our parents’ homes that we used. On one visit to his folks, we bought us each a pillow. I got a firm pillow while he opted for a softer one. Of course, his pillow cost more than one.

Well now it’s two years later, and my pillow is as flat as a board while my husband’s pillowis still in great shape. Guess I got what I paid for, right?

I remember watching Oprah one time and heard this tidbit. You should buy near pillows yearly. Wow. We’ve been using some of the same pillows for 15 years. They are older than our mattress. I’m not ready to just toss my new(apparently old by Oprah’s standards) pillow, so I’m going to try washing it and then fluffing it to see if that helps to bring it back to life.

I’ve washed pillows before in the washing machine. I usually just let them dry naturally and then place then in the dryer on the fluff(no heat) setting. Hopefully this will work with my new ‘old’ pillow. If not I will have to go pillow shopping. I have slept on my husband’s expensive pillow and hate to admit that I actually like it. It has really kept its shape. A more expensive pillow might be worth it next time I’m shopping for pillows, which from our track record, will be in 2017.

My husband loves oatmeal. It is good for you and since we’ve been trying to eat better, oatmeal makes a great breakfast. However, it leaves quite the smell behind.

I hate cleaning the microwave but it’s a necessary evil every once in a while. As I sat here watching Dora(with the little one) and being overwhelmed with the oatmeal smell coming from the microwave, I decided it was time to clean it.

I use a mixture of 1/2 vinegar and 1/2 water in a microwavable dish or cup and set the microwave for 2-3 minutes. This way the mixture gets really hot and lets off some steam. That steam will penetrate the inside of the microwave and make it really easy to clean it. Those baked in food spashes will wipe off easily.

Now that I’ve cleaned the microwave the oatmeal smell is lessened, a nice side benefit I wasn’t really expecting. It’s not completely gone, so it might be time to spritz the house with Lysol to see if that helps.

When I bake a cake or cookies, I use my <a href=”http://www.geekyhousewife.com/?p=446″>spatula</a> to mix the ingredients and then use it to transfer the batter to the cooking pan. Batter has a tendency to stay on the spatula.

This is why I always use the back of a spoon to scrape off the batter from the spatula. Then I use the spatula to scrape what sticks to the spoon. Repeating this a few times usually gets all but a little bit of the batter into the cooking pan.

I don’t like to dirty up dishes unnecessarily but this method really speeds up the baking process for me.

I so hate to clean and find I put it off longer than it actually takes me to clean. Here are a couple of my cleaning tips that help me get through the daily and weekly chores.

Buy a caddy and keep all of your cleaning products together. Just grab the caddy, and you are ready to clean. I spend more time searching for the cleansers than I do actually cleaning.

Set a timer and clean for 5-10 minutes. Then take a break. Some people work best to get all of their cleaning done at once. I can’t do that. It seems after 15 minutes of doing anything I begin to get antsy and have to switch gears.

Do dishes as you cook. While I’m waiting for water to boil or pasta to get done, I start doing dishes. This way as I get finished with them, I can do a few. I’m going to be in the kitchen anyway. Plus it means I have to do less after we eat.

Those are just a few tips I can think of right now. How do you get through the daily chores of cleaning?