I love Dawn Dish Soap

So, I love Dawn.  And it’s cheap.  You can find the smaller bottles on sale at CVS for $.99 and there are always $.25 coupons so for $.74 you can use it a lot!  I like the apple scent, but any plain ones will work.  Make sure not to buy the one that makes your hands soft. Doesn’t cut the grease as well.

“C”lues- I pulled some of these from Facebook, some from my personal use and some from Pinterest
Dawn Dish Soap Use…

GREASY STAINS ON CLOTHES

My favorite use for Dawn.  Just a drop rubbed into a stain will help release the grease and bye bye stain!

GREASY HAIR PROBLEMS
Kiddos get into the darndest things! My cousin’s little one and my girlfriend’s little ones put Vaseline in their hair. Dawn is mild enough to use on their hair and strong enough to remove the most stubborn grease.

HAIR PRODUCT BUILDUP
Once a month use original Dawn as you would shampoo. It will remove excess oil from your hair and scalp and strip away any build-up of styling products without any damage. Perform this once a month and you won’t have to buy expensive salon products that do the same thing.

REPEL HOUSEPLANT INSECTS & APHID CONTROL ON TREES
A safe, effective way to repel insects from your houseplants, including aphids, spider mites and mealy bugs. Put a drop of Dawn Dishwashing Liquid in a spray bottle, fill the rest of the bottle with water, shake well, and mist your household plant and trees with the soapy water.  It’s good to rinse spray with clean water when done.

CLEAN YOUR HOUSE
Try this recipe from Merry Maids: mix 3 drops Dawn in 1 gallon water and fill a spray bottle with the solution. Spritz and wipe as you would with any window cleaner, clean ceramic tile and no-wax/linoleum floors.

You can also use the spray on: Woodwork, e.g., baseboards, shelves, and wainscoting. (Dry as you go–wood doesn’t like too much contact with water.)

PETS AND PESTS
Use it to bathe the dogs. It kills fleas on contact and is much cheaper than expensive shampoos.

CLEAN GARAGE TOOLS
After you have finished your automotive repair or house project, soak your dirty tools in Dawn before you put them away to remove all the oil and grime. Dawn also helps prevent rust from forming on the tools. Also works as a driveway cleaner after a project.  If you have gasoline or motor oil stains on your driveway, you can use the kitty litter method to clean up the excess oil and then use a scrub broom and a solution of biodegradable Dawn dishwashing detergent and warm water to safely and effectively remove excess motor oil from the pavement.

ICE PACK
Partially fill a strong zip-type sandwich bag with Dawn dishwashing liquid, close and freeze. The liquid soap stays cold much longer and it can be re-frozen many times. It will conform to the place you need an ice pack.

TUB AND SHOWER CLEANER…Check out my link here. Use this all the time.


REPEL ANTS
Dan hates bugs.  So do I for that matter.  Spray counter-tops, cupboards and any other area where you see ants with a solution of Dawn and water. Wipe dry. The slight residue of Dawn that remains will not be a problem at all for kids or pets, but ants hate it. Should you see a trail of ants, go ahead and hit them with the Dawn spray.

STRIPPING CLOTH DIAPERS
Add a squirt or two of original Dawn dish soap to your washer and run a hot wash, then rinse until there are no more bubbles. Dawn is a degreasing agent and helps stripping by removing oily residue. Be sure to rinse, rinse, rinse until the water runs clear.

UNCLOGGING TOILETS
A cup of Dawn detergent poured into a clogged toilet allowed to sit for 15 minutes and then followed with a bucket of hot water poured from waist height will clear out the toilet.

POISON IVY
Poison ivy spreads through the spread of the oil within the blisters. Washing the affected area with Dawn, especially on children who keep scratching the blister’s open, helps dry up the fluid, AND keep it from spreading.

OILY SKIN
Dawn makes a great facial cleanser for oily skin. A drop or two combined with warm water will do the trick.

PAINT OR GREASE REMOVER FOR HANDS
Dawn combined with corn oil makes for the perfect paint or grease remover. Simply combine a little bit of both in your hands then rub it over affected areas. The corn oil and the dishwashing liquid both help to dissolve the grease and paint – yet leave skin soft, unlike harsher paint removers.

CLEANING THE KIDDIE POOL
Plastic wading pools can get very gunky, very fast. Dump the water, then scrub the pool with Dawn and a sponge. More potent cleaners like bleach will weaken and dry out the plastic in the sun.  This worked great cleaning Maddy’s summer toys as well.   How about the big pool?  Squirt Dawn down the middle of the pool and all of the dirt, suntan lotion, etc. will move to the edges of the pool for easy clean up! AND it makes the pools sparkle.

MANICURE SECRET
Soak fingers in full-strength blue Dawn. It makes the cuticles soft and easy to work with. And it removes the natural oil from the fingernails, which allows the polish to adhere very well.

NON-TOXIC LUBRICANT
Sliding glass doors, door knobs, hinges etc. It lasts much longer than any aerosol type spray that I have tried. And Its non-toxic! It does a great job of cleaning the parts that its lubricating as well!  Just a tiny drop needed.

SIDEWALK DE-ICER
For icy steps and sidewalks in freezing temperatures, mix 1 teaspoon of Dawn dishwashing liquid, 1 tablespoon of rubbing alcohol, and 1/2 gallon hot/warm water and pour over walkways. They won’t refreeze. No more salt eating at the concrete in your sidewalks.  Must try this during the winter.

EYEGLASS DEFOGGER
Simply rub a small drop of Dawn on eyeglass lenses, and wipe clean. It will leave a very thin film that will prevent them from fogging up.  Baby Shampoo will do the same on this one.

“L”ink – Did I miss some?  Check out Pinterest for more ideas here

“T”houghts- There are lots of other dishwashing soaps, but Dawn truly is the best.  Nothing cuts the grease like it!

 

Feels like Summer!

I’m soooo looking forward to this nice long weekend.  Kicking it off with a work thing at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PGG Aquarium Friday morning which is always a fun time, rolling into a fun time at Soergel Orchards Saturday morning, and then looking at a weekend of sandbox playing, swing set swinging, and hanging in the baby pool with M.  The weather in Pittsburgh is supposed to be beautiful!

Sorry I haven’t posted in a bit, but we have been getting ready for Summer at the Theiss house (Cleaning, scrubbing and making our “New to Us” items shine!  This week I will give you a few tips on how to save on things for the summer with the kiddos!

“C”lue…if you don’t shop second-hand for your kids toys, why not start?  There are so many places you can do this from Resale shops, Garage Sales, Cragislist, Salvation Army, Goodwill, and Red White and Blue stores!  We got M a sandbox, swing set, water table, Little Tikes Basketball hoop in the past few weeks for under $150.

“L”ink…If you still need somethings for the summer keep an eye out on Just Between Friends Facebook Page here.  They have some large consignment sales through out the year and are just starting something new with selling items through facebook.  Their items are in great condition so why buy new when you can buy gently used?  Your kids won’t know the difference!

“T”hought…so I hate to give up my secrets, but my favorite is Thrift Stores!  I have gotten M (and me) some great finds there.  I swear the kid dresses better than me! 🙂  It’s great for play clothes, but also for dresses and more too!

The Listerine foot soak…

So I had to try. It’s all over Pinterest and my feet needed some help after this long winter!

Sounded crazy but it worked! I adjusted the recipe so it covered both my feet and I added some baking soda to help whiten my nails. Mix 1 cup listerine (any kind but I used the clear. I kept hearing some people say the blue turned their feet blue), 1 cup vinegar, two tablespoons of baking soda, and 2 cups of warm water. Soak feet for 10 minutes. I then scrubbed with a foot scrub and got a shower. I didn’t want my feet smelling of vinegar.

It was a nice way to spend 15 minutes
on Mother’s Day! Relaxing!!

Happy Mother’s Day!

No “C”lues, “L”inks this week…just some thoughts that I wanted to get out of my head in honor of Mother’s Day…

Some of you may know that on fall day in November 2012 I gave birth to our beautiful baby girl 5 weeks early. She was a healthy miracle at 6lbs 3ozs. She was everything I had hoped and dreamed of for years. When I was little, I wanted to get married and have a baby…what most little girls dream of. I babysat every chance I got, spent lots of time with my younger cousins (even making my boyfriends at the time take them to movies and to the park with us), and at the time even thought I wanted to be a teacher as well. I loved kids…all ages…well those teenage years are iffy…

What you might not know, when we started trying to have kids; it wasn’t working. We tried everything including two IVF cycles that failed. It was hard, and trying, and pretty much awful. I cried, and stressed, and was depressed. I cried after seeing the infertility doctors, I cried the first time I gave myself the first shot (not from pain, but from relief that I could do it), I cried the mornings that I had a reaction to one of the meds and had to have Dan take me to Magee to make sure the reaction didn’t get worse. I cried a lot. After some exploratory surgery, which to this day I still believe helped fix my issues…I ended up pregnant 5 months later. Our little miracle.

And I knew Motherhood was hard (as was the getting here for me), but it is also rewarding. And everyone tells you it’s hard, and everyone gives you advice. But as a mom you need to take everything you know and everything you have learned and follow your own path. Being a working mother is hard. Being a stay at mom is hard. It’s hard if you have help, it’s hard if you don’t. The nights are hard when she gets up at 1am, the mornings are scary when they sleep through the night for the first time because you panic something is wrong. But I wouldn’t change it for anything in this entire world. As my girlfriend said at lunch this week…Nothing good is easy right???

I’m blessed to have a wonderful husband and family that helps all the time. And I probably don’t thank them as much as I should. To all you Mom’s out there (especially mine!) Happy Mother’s Day. I hope you all have a beautiful day with your families.

On this Mother’s Day as in every other day…I’m blessed to be M’s mommy.

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Free Dining At Disney!

So, I know we aren’t going to Disney this Fall, but I’m totally itching to book right now. They opened the Fall for Free Dining. This special offer is for arrivals most nights: 8/31-10/3/2014, 10/26-11/1/2014, 11/9-11/20/2014 and 12/12-12/23/2014. Right now it’s only open to Chase Disney Visa cardholders, but May 7th it is supposed to open to everyone.  If you have already book, call your travel agent or Disney.  Even if you are only staying on a few of the nights listed they can get you the plan for those nights.

“C”lue-If you haven’t ever booked the dining plan, this is a great time to try it. We won’t go again without it. Think of it like an all-inclusive hotel plan. There are different plans for different hotel levels, so be sure to ask the agent when you call 1-407-W-Disney. You can also upgrade the free plan at the lower hotels to a better plan. That’s what we did last November. It saves you money.

“L”ink-Want to check out some of the menus at the Restaurants? Check out this huge database here.  We have been to a lot of them, so if you have questions on a specific one, or where to eat when you are in a certain location let me know and I will help if I can.

“T”hought-My advice on the Dining Plan?  Do it, especially if it is free.  However, everyone vacations different so if it isn’t free, look into it a little more before you pay for it.