Sanitizing Toys after Sickness

The dog wasn't sick, he was just extremely sympathetic.

The plague has finally left our household. I was a casualty, struck down eating popsicles and drinking gingerale for days. Once my cement-filled head could process complex thoughts and my hands were no longer permanently needed to hold a snot filled tissue my first deep thought was: this cannot happen again. It wasn't "cleaning" that needed to take place in our house it was sanitizing. Hard core sanitizing. If those germs thought they were going to hang out on a piece of plastic bacon and hitch a ride into the babies mouth the next time she felt like gnawing on something - they were wrong. We were not going on this roller coaster ride of fun again.

One roll of Dollar Store shelf liner does the trick.

I separated the toys between two laundry baskets. Those that could be washed went in one and those that couldn't went in another. I've learned over the years that soaking toys in bleach solution sanitizes them but also can penetrate tiny little holes you didn't know existed in play food and leave bits of water behind. I want to sanitize the toys not leave small stores of bleach water for the kids to find so I devised a solution that works for us and I hope for you too!

I take some plastic mesh cabinet/drawer liner from the dollar store and cut it to fit my dishwasher. Press it down over the tiny little sticky up-y things in the dishwasher. The holes will help hold it into place. Pour all the little toys that would have fallen through onto it. Add bleach where you would have put soap in the dishwasher and splash a little extra in the bottom. Run the dishwasher. Make sure you adjust the heat setting if you have "meltables" in the mix. While the dishwasher runs wipe down all of the other toys with bleach wipes. I also wipe down the outside of books (which the baby likes to "eat") and our sofas (hooray for leather). When the dishwasher is done running I dump all of the toys from it into a freshly bleach-wiped laundry basket. They usually don't dry completely during the cycle so I can shake them around in the laundry basket near our woodstove to finish them off.

And hopefully we won't see the plague again until next year.

Cleaning a Front Loading Washer (and Getting the Most out of Your Lemon)

I love citrus fruit. The only time I ever think "Hmm, maybe Vermont isn't complete paradise to live in" is when I hear from friends in California who have citrus trees in their yard. And that's it. I love citrus soda, the smell of citrus, my favorite dessert- key lime pie. So, while I love using citrus to clean around the house I hate wasting any precious part of the lemon.

Yesterday, my daughter and I cleaned the washer. It's a fairly new washer, a little over a year old, but we wash her cloth diapers in it so I like to give it the occasional scrub down. (God bless LG and their sanitary cycle- never has washing diapers been easier.)

The basics for cleaning the washer are lemon juice and vinegar. In order to not waste the skin of the lemon which we didn't need to clean the washer we gathered our tools:

Make sure to wash the lemon really well. 

To save the lemony goodness in the skin I try to think about how quickly I'm going to use it and in what. If I'm going to be using it that day or I'll be baking something, I zest:

If I'm not sure how soon I'll be using it, I use the veggie peeler to cut long strips off. Try to avoid the pith (white part) since it's a little bitter. Saving the rind in strips is great because I can chop it into little pieces, freeze it, or just stick a couple strips in a glass of water for some lemony goodness. I tend to just toss a strip or two into whatever I'm cooking- soup, pasta, tea. A little lemon always helps a dish. 

If you're feeling really motivated you can actually zest the lemon then peel the rest of the skin off in strips. Woo-hoo, it's a party! 

Ok- so enough about my love affair with lemons. It's time to juice the naked lemon. 

That must have been one juicy lemon because I got 1/4 cup total juice out of it. Strain out any seeds and pulp. 

Add enough vinegar to yield 2 cups. 

Grab a cleaning cloth and head over to your washer. I personally like Twist Bamboo Cleaning Cloths because they can be washed, dried and reused and are really soft. Spray the outside of your washer with cleaner and wipe it down. Then do the same on the door. On the inside of the door and the drum of the washer I like to spray with straight vinegar. 

Make sure to get under the lip of the rubber seal. On front loading washers this area can gather all kinds of fun stuff and it stays there until you wipe around it. 

Take your lemon-vinegar cleaner and pour it to the max fill level in every compartment available. This helps by having cleaner come in during every cycle of the wash. 

Now run the washer on hot using the bulky load setting. Be sure to add an extra rinse so that any vinegar odor is washed out. And that's it! Easy......