It appears to be Spring here in Central IL, although with snow in the forecast for Friday, I’m not quite sure.  Regardless, I decided it’s time to get busy with some deep Spring cleaning.  It’s especially important this year since we hope to put our house on the market in the next 4 months.  So I got out my trusty bucket and began mixing up my cleaner.  It was a simple mixture of vinegar, baking soda and dish soap.  I began running water into the bucket, poured in my vinegar and then went to get the baking soda.  I poured in some baking soda and didn’t notice any bubble action that usually occurs when one mixes vinegar and baking soda.  Hum?  Maybe the running water neutralized the mix enough that it didn’t bubble?  Anyway, I turned off the water, added some dish soap and headed to our entryway to start cleaning.

With paper towel and glass cleaner in hand, Naomi was in charge of windows.  She loves cleaning windows and since I use an all-natural glass cleaner, I don’t worry about giving her this task.  Of course it requires that I come back later and go over her work, but it keeps her busy while I’m doing my work.

Lili wanted to help me, so we began wiping down the walls, baseboards, front door, door frames and floor.  We finished our work and was I ever so pleased with how clean everything looked.

I then headed into the laundry room to pour vinegar into the washer rinse cycle.  It was in that moment I realized why there was no bubble action when I added the baking soda earlier.  I didn’t add vinegar!  Instead, I had added plant fertilizer which I had mixed in an empty vinegar bottle a few days earlier.

Never considered fertilizer to be a good cleaner, but it worked 🙂