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The TRUTH About Motherhood

Author: Deborah Cruz

  • Falling Only Makes Us Stronger

    Falling Only Makes Us Stronger

    Falling only makes us stronger.I saw this video and I sat there with a giant lump in my throat because I am still at the pick them up, kiss the booboos and tell them to get back up and carry on. I tell them to carry on because that is what I am supposed to do but each time I watch my girls stumble and fall, I hold my breath and my heart aches for their pain.

    It’s very difficult for me to tell them to carry on when all I want to do is take all the pain away and tell them they don’t have to do it again. Any pain, emotional, physical or spiritual inflicted on my child makes a chink in my own soul. It wounds me to my very core but as a mother, I have to teach them to persevere; to work hard and fight the pain because life is not easy. Hard work is needed for success and when we fall, we learn to pick ourselves back up. We become stronger and better people. We have to let them fall so that they can learn to get back up. I watch with baited breath at every new beginning and hope they can achieve what they set out to accomplish and if they do, I celebrate along with them and if they fail, I encourage them to try again. That’s what moms and dads do.

    We teach them that everything is possible with hard work and determination. We teach them that if they fall, we will be there to pick them up and kiss their booboos. We teach them that falling down is not failure and getting back up to try again is success. We encourage them to continue on, even when they want to quit because sometimes little legs and arms are tired but we must teach them perseverance and the value of hard work. We teach them that they must face life’s challenges. But most of all, by letting our children fall, we show them that our love is unconditional and we love them no matter if they fail or succeed. We love them, so we let them fall no matter how much it breaks our hearts.

    How have you had to watch your child fall?

  • Is Blogging Dead?

    Is Blogging Dead?

    Is blogging dead? A conversation with a fellow blogger in which she mentioned that blogging was dead has stuck with me over the past few days. They say Mommy blogging is on its way out and the blogging market is over-saturated. Some bloggers literally recoil with disdain if you refer to them as a “mommy blogger” as if you’ve intentionally insulted them.

    I don’t think blogging is dead at all but I do think that there are varying degrees of success in blogging, just like in anything else and some are definitely written better than others, some tell better stories or are more interesting. I read blogs for different reasons; humor, well-written stories, relateability, interests and to learn how to do something but what keeps me coming back are the people behind the blogs. If I like the person, I tend to love the writing because I am invested in what they have to say.

    I came to blogging late in the game; my girls were 2 and 4. I’ve been at this consistently for almost 5 years. Honestly, I had no idea what blogging was before I started my own blog and I only did so because I wanted to build my online presence for my writing portfolio. I was too exhausted to have started when the girls were babies. I could hardly find the time to shower, never mind write about my adventures in motherhood.

    I started my blog at a point in my life when I was a mother. I was a writer who had children so the term never offended me but there was no way that I was going to let that moniker limit what I was going to write about. After all, it was my only “me” space. I wish I had started my blog when I was single and dating but then it would have been slightly x-rated and it never would have survived the transition to motherhood. You all would have all been, “You raise your kids with that past?” It would have been like the Sid Vicious chronicles.

    I don’t think blogging is dead or dying but growing and evolving. I am getting more inquiries than ever to write for various brands and publications. I think what is more likely happening is that people are starting blogs with either unrealistic goals or no clear direction and then finding themselves bored or disheartened because they never achieved any level of “success” and quitting. But success is relative.

    If you are going into blogging with the expectation of making a lot of money…back away from the keyboard now because unless it is all about the money and you are willing to sell your soul to the SEO gods, you want no part of this world besides no one wants to read that mess. If success is building community, telling your story and creative fulfillment than I say write your heart out. Open up those veins and bleed all over your blog because if you write it without filter, readers will find you. If you are a writer and you crave a constant creative outlet and you want to be acknowledged as a writer, blogging is a great springboard to getting your writing out there. Blogging has made it possible for me to make my living doing something I love. I don’t think blogging is dead but I think that blogging is being redefined.

    When I started blogging, the community was filled with other bloggers who were doing exactly the same thing; trying to survive motherhood and navigate the muddy waters that lie between who we once were with are who we were becoming. Blogging was about human contact; not SEO, traffic and no one ever considered how viral something would be as a qualification whether or not to write a post. We clung to one another for dear life. We needed and wanted the companionship with other women and men who understood what it was like to go from a career to spending our days with tiny people who spoke a foreign language. The shared loneliness forged a bond between us all.

    We visited one another’s blogs, we commented, we were invested and then as time went on the kids got older, we found ourselves parlaying our blog into paid work and then no one had time to comment anymore. It became about sharing and liking and tweeting. We wanted our fellow bloggers to know that we were still there but now we had deadlines and after school activities and ambassadorships and press trips and we needed to maintain our own blogs. Blogging is not dead. It is simply growing beyond what we thought it could once be.

    New bloggers are entering the space every day. The difference is not that new bloggers are not coming, or that blogging is dead, it is that we bloggers who have been at it for a while have changed and evolved and we are looking for the next step in our blogging career but no longer have the time to engage like we once did. If we want to maintain connections and not become obsolete in the blogging world, we need to engage. Blogging can’t be an unrequited relationship.

    Writing is how I process life. I can’t quit blogging. I won’t quit blogging because I still want those connections and need that creative outlet. Blogging has become more than just words on a screen to me. It’s become part of who I am.

    What do you think, is blogging dead? What would make you stop blogging?

  • Captain’s Log (Mommy’s Blog); Day 17/ No end in sight

    Captain’s Log (Mommy’s Blog); Day 17/ No end in sight

    It’s Monday and the kids are, as expected, home with me; under my feet, bickering and fighting. My husband is also trapped at home, no one is at work because the roads are impassable and he’s playing video games, hunched over in front of the television in the living room like a zombie in one of his games, oblivious to everything around him, including the bickering kids and the dog whining to go piss. Me, I hear it all and I really have the urge to kick him off his stool. Don’t worry, I warned him so when I do it, he won’t be shocked.

    They’ve already texted to warn tell us that school will be canceled tomorrow as well but hey, the first grade teacher suggests that we get the kids started on that reading project that starts next week? Don’t just sit there on your ass daydreaming of knocking your husband off of his stool, woman; be proactive. Get the kids hyped up about the reading program. Who cares if they have been completely ignoring you for 17 days when you’ve asked them repeatedly to clean their rooms? Who cares if you are up to your eyeballs in laundry and have work deadlines looming? Who cares if you are hanging on to your mommy sanity by drinking wine straight from the bottle and eating sleeves of Y2K ration Chips Ahoy during snowpocalypse? Who cares? The reading program will solve all of your problems just you wait and see. Anyways, now the first grade teacher is looking like she might need to be knocked off her stool too. I’m making a list.

    Maybe the 41 degrees below zero wind-chill weather has me a little bitter and the cabin fever isn’t helping but honestly, as of tomorrow the kids will have been home for 18 days straight. 18.DAYS! To pass the time, I decided to change the absorbent material that lines the guinea pig’s cage. You know the guinea pig that my 6-year-old begged for and promised to clean his cage and feed? Yeah, he is now mine, just like the carnival goldfish, Golda, who just won’t die and the puppy, Lola, who has turned into the most interesting dog in the world (if you believe my Instagram feed). Somehow amongst all the other responsibilities that I have, my person has become a wayward home for unwanted (or only wanted on occasion) derelict pets. Anyways, I digress. The point is the guinea pig, Ted Koppel, just shit all over me. Snowpocalypse and snow days can kiss my ass.

    Captain’s Log; Day 17/ Ted Koppel shit on the mommy blogger.

    **God, if you’re reading this, this is Debi. Please let the kids go back to school on Wednesday. I don’t think I have another day in me.

  • Captain’s Log: Day 14 of Winter Break, Kill Me Now

    Captain’s Log: Day 14 of Winter Break, Kill Me Now

    Captain’s Log: Day 14/ The End is near.

    It’s day 14 of our winter break and quite honestly, I can say I am more ready for my kids to go back to school than I have ever been for anything in my entire life, except for evicting them from my uterus in anticipation of meeting them for the first time. I.AM.NOT.THAT.MOM! I swear I am not. Normally, I just want it to go on and on and soak in all the moments but not this time. This time I want them to go back to school so that I can get back to a schedule and have my house back in some kind of order. This overwhelming feeling of doneness crept in about 2 days ago. 14 days is too long and I still have 2 more days and well, I’m running low on Xanax.

    Look, it’s been great but this winter break thing has run it’s course. I’ve realized that I am one of those people that misses my children more when they are at school.I figured that out a couple months ago. See I used to always threaten to “homeschool” the girls if they misbehaved. Knowing full well that they’d never want to miss out on hanging out with their friends to be stuck under my feet. Then the 6-year-old started asking if I could homeschool her and I realized I was afraid. Very afraid. I started having nightmares of spending 24 hours a day, every day with my moody elementary schoolers. We were playing a game of homeschool chicken and I was about to bob and weave to save myself. Damn that little evil genius. Needless to say, I no longer utter the word…shhhhh (whisper) “homeschool” anywhere in a 25 mile radius of my children. Hell, I am risking my sanity just typing it.

    I’m not crotchety. I swear I am not.I love holidays and snuggles and warm fires and fuzzy memories with my sweet girls but we’ve gotten a mountain of snow and I’ve got a bad case of cabin fever and now, in a cruel twist of fate, the weather forecast has issued a winter weather advisory for tomorrow night ( squashing my travel plans to Chicago for my nephews 2nd birthday….Boo! Happy Birthday Ayden, Titi Debi loves you!) but as if that weren’t bad enough they are calling for 6-12 more inches of accumulation Sunday night. SUNDAY.FRICKING.NIGHT! That will mean no one is going to school or work on Monday. No.ONE!!!

    As I read the weather report I could feel myself getting all squirrely. I was like a trapped animal. My mind zipping from idea to idea to try to remedy and avert this crisis. It’s 10 below zero and I am fully prepared to borrow a snowblower and plow our way the 10 blocks to school.

    Must.Work.Must.Clean.House.Must.Watch.Something.Other.Than.Cartoons.Must.Enjoy.The.Silence.MUST.SNOWBLOW.THE.CITY!

    How is your winter break going? Are you soaking it all in? Or has your winter break passed it’s expiration date?

    **Sorry Girls, if you are 25 and this is 2031 and you are finally reading this…I loved you every single day but 16 days is too long for a winter break. I think 12 is about right. You’ll see when you have your own.

  • They Said til Death Do Us Part

    They Said til Death Do Us Part

    There was one thing that scared me a bit in 2013; Divorce. There sure were a lot of people getting divorced. Even people who you thought were perfect for one another and had great marriages, suddenly they were done. Next thing you know that they’re already having deeper issues because of parental alienation syndrome. What is parental alienation syndrome, you ask? Go to kabirfamilylaw.co.uk for more details.  I started to believe that maybe marriage had a shelf life even after you made it past the dreaded 7-year-itch and the expiration date was somewhere between the 11-18 year mark. We’re about to hit 15 years, so we are right smack dab in the middle of the likely to divorce session of marriage.I guess it makes sense, those are the years when people find themselves getting bored. Babies are born and life has become predictable and maybe you miss the excitement of when it was all new. You’ve both changed and maybe instead of growing together, you’ve grown apart. I get it. People grow up and perspectives and beliefs change and evolve. What’s important to you at 23, might not be important at all when you are 33.

    It felt like everyone I knew was going through an early midlife crisis and their spouse had suddenly become as obsolete to them as condoms. No one gets married thinking this will be nice for 10 years or so but no one should stay in a bad marriage but I also think we should work hard to try to salvage a good one. Sometimes just talking, really talking and listening to one another can make all the difference because maybe your partner is having all the same questions and fears about the marriage. I have also seen first hand that hurts done without sincerely apology can kill love dead. Together maybe you can work towards fixing it but if one person is oblivious to the turmoil the marriage is in or content with the way things are and the other is miserable, things build up and people part ways. It made me think. It made me wonder what the fuck would I do if I found myself suddenly single at 41?

    I mean 41 is not old but it’s also not prime husband shopping years. I’ve given birth, gained weight and have a lot more baggage than I did at 25. I have kids for God’s sake. It’s not just my life a relationship would effect, it’s my girls’ lives too and who could I ever trust to care for them and love them like their own father because they’d be marrying all 3 of us; we’re a package deal. Not to mention, and I hate to admit it, I don’t tan or pluck and shave and workout like I once did. My unibrow is just about got the band back together and my mustache, well, I swear that sonofabitch is trying to join forces with this sudden onset middle age chin fuzz. My boobs, they are further south than I knew was possible for women under 80 and every single bone in my body pops and cracks when I walk. I swear, I am 1 duct taping away from falling completely apart. Attractive, right? You’re probably wondering why the hell my husband’s still around with all that going on in the first place? I can only guess its because crazy turns him on.

    The Big Guy and I got married agreeing that we don’t believe in divorce. There is only one way out of this marriage and that is death. Now, you can go by natural causes like old age two days after I die or you can break one of the deadly sins of marriage like abusing a wife or a child in any way or cheating, having extramarital relations. We’ve joked about it and I’ve warned him of how if we ever divorce he will keep me in the lifestyle I am accustomed to and he will have the children and pets every weekend (because you know I’ll have to be on the prowl for a wealthy man. Yep, I married for love once, next go around I need financial stability and botox and such. ) But really, we both know, there is only ONE way out of this marriage and it involves death and us parting.  It’s all just a matter of how, why and when you go.

    I’d just assume skip the whole homicidal thing plus I really quite like being married to the Big Guy so I’ve decided maybe I’d like to spice up the marriage we have. What we have works but I know we are boring. At the end of the day, he is still my favorite person in the world, my best friend and when he grabs my hand to hold it, it still takes my breath away. We’re both older, heavier and we know all of each others old stories. We know what the other is thinking before they ever say it. It may sound boring if you are on the outside looking in but we still surprise one another with a flirty glance or a thoughtful gesture. Through it all; ups and downs, good and bad, rich and poor there is one constant; unconditional love and everyone knows that trumps that new relationship feeling.

    The girls are getting a little older so maybe it’s time to focus a little more time on the marriage now that we can spend a little less time trying to keep the kids alive. At 6 and 8 they are pretty good about walking up stairs, keeping keys out of electrical outlets and averting danger and they’ve gotten really good at breathing through the night…I know, I still check. So maybe a little 15 year spice is just the preventative measure we need to insure marital bliss for years to come. Plus, really, nobody wants to die anytime soon.

    What do you do to keep your marriage new and exciting? OR if you have gotten a divorce, what do you wish you would have done differently?

  • Blog Like No One is Reading

    Blog Like No One is Reading

    Discombobulated. Exhausted. What time is it? What day is it? Wow! I am in the throes of one of the worst Christmas hangovers I’ve ever experienced. It’s outrageous. My poor blog has suffered and fallen to the wayside of my priorities. With all the moments saturated in holiday joy and togetherness, sitting down to write about it seemed to feel like it might spoil the magic. I wanted to live it not write about it and that is what I did and it was magnificent.

    On December 14th the Nutcracker ended and then I played the most intensive game of catch up that I’ve ever had the misfortune to take part in. My blogging has been shit because I had so many obligations that I needed to get done. Then Christmas came and I have purposely been spending time with my girls and the Big Guy. I am like a damn quality time camel, I am trying to suck it all up while we are in this holiday bubble, before people start going back to school and work, before deadlines are mounting and the out-of-control-ness of life takes hold once again.

    I do want to get back to blogging like I did in the beginning before I had to worry about who was or wasn’t reading. I’m forgetting that my mom, mother-in-law and Homeland security have all been known to frequent my page. I want to blog like no one is reading once again. I want to comment and read blogs. I want to know what’s going on outside my bubble. I want people to give me their perspective on what I write even if they disagree. I want to have long, drawn out conversations in 140 characters. I want to make new friends online. I want to hug the necks of all those who have taken the time to engage. I want quality to matter over quantity. I want content to be king again. I don’t want to worry about fucking SEO, my “numbers” or how much to charge. I want to write what I feel and say what I mean and not give a damn.

    I have a list of goals for my life, the blog and my family (by the way, I always have a list of goals not just on the brink of a New Year. I am a chronic list maker, if you are one too, I am sure that you have a list of goals at all times too. Go ahead, flip through your phone, notebook or journal, I’ll wait). I want to be better and yet, I want to be who I am; loud and proud and free of over-thinking. I don’t want to worry about other people’s judgment or care what they think about what I have to say. I want to blog like no one is reading. I want to live like there is no tomorrow and I want to dance like no one is watching.

    Life is too short to do anything else. So this year, I have my list of things that I want to accomplish. Most are things that I do already, some are things I need to remind myself to do and others I have completely forgotten or given up on but I like a challenge so on my list they remain. 2013 was good to me, better than 2012, but I want to blow the roof off of 2014, in so many ways. Mostly, I want to be better, love harder and live fully. I want to mommy with compassion and patience, I want to be more present in my life and more passionate in my marriage. I want to give 110% to the things that matter and most of all, I want to be happy with myself with no regrets.

    I wish all of you an abundance of love, peace in your heart and success in your every endeavor. Be brave, blog like no one is reading and live like each day is a new beginning of your story. Embrace it with enthusiasm and wonder, because each day is a chance to rewrite your story. Each moment is redemption and salvation. Don’t plan for how you want to live your life…just live, right this moment; every minute of every single day for the rest of your life.

    Wishing you all the happiest New Year filled with moments that take your breath away!

    I am serious about wanting to read and comment of blogs and I am serious about more conversations on Twitter and I really want to have conversations and share on FB not just read and like links like its a job. I want to look forward to hearing what you have to say. Let’s do this. Let’s bring it back.Let’s blog like no one is reading…like it’s 2009.

    Leave your blog url, twitter handle or FB page in the comments and I will check you out. Here’s to 2014!

    What’s your #1 goal for 2014?

     

  • Do you Suffer from “The Other Shoe” Syndrome?

    Do you Suffer from “The Other Shoe” Syndrome?

    Christmas was a blur of warm fuzzy feelings and binging on family time. My cup runneth over. We cut back on the girls’ gifts this year but they still seemed to get everything they could want and more. My parents spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with us.  There were grandparents and new babies and lots and lots of love. There wasn’t even a Christmas Eve filled with wrapping sessions because, for once, we did it two weeks before. It was beautiful and magical and I even think I might remember some of it clearly but then the immediate overwhelming sense of impending doom infiltrated every fiber of my soul and I was still. So still that you could hardly notice I was there. I was hoping that disaster and doom would pass me by.

    I’ve been missing from the blog, social media and any online activity lately. Sure, I still wake up every morning and check my phone before I get up. I share and like and comment on my friend’s warm and fuzzy posts about the love of the holidays and then it happened. I began to read all the posts about being alone, going through divorce, losing someone, losing children, losing parents, being sick and dying of cancer, missing those who they lost and my heart nearly burst from sadness and then from guilt. How the hell am I so blessed when so many others are in such pain? Then I remembered how much pain I was in last year. My heart was broken. I spent nearly a year muddling through the fog and pain of surviving a shitty year. A monumentally shitty year and then I realized that last year I was the sad status.

    Then I began to wait for the doom. It sickens me that I can never enjoy happiness because I am always waiting for the counterbalancing hurt of life to even out the joy because no way life is going to let me walk around smiling like a happy, dopey dumb sonofabitch. Life is going to kick me in the balls. It always does, when I least expect it. I know happiness does not last forever but I so want to enjoy these little moments of happiness without worrying about the next bad thing around the corner. The sickness, the death, the loss, the pain and the hurt. So this is me, wishing all of you love, laughter and happiness. This is me trying to overcome my own neurotic state of impending doom. This is me enjoying the small moments of happiness that permeate the air and fill my lungs.

    May God bless and keep you all happy, healthy, and wealthy with warm beds and full bellies. May life smile upon you and may your children be safely in your arms, your love holding you tight and may you be blessed with all the love, prosperity and success that the world can muster because life is too damn short to worry about the impending doom that may or may not be right around the corner. The price of happiness is not doom. The price of happiness is laughter and a full soul.

     

    Image via Zetson

  • The Moment You Know You are Too Fat

    The Moment You Know You are Too Fat

    What’s the moment when you know that you are too fat? The photo above is not actually me but it could definitely be my before and after photos..only I was thinner and now, I may be slightly fatter. Either way, I don’t like where I am at or where I am headed if I don’t do something this moment.

    I felt my stomach on my lap! That’s when I knew. I didn’t want to admit it and I certainly didn’t want to write it for the entire internet to read but it’s true and being me, I can’t pick and choose where I’m transparent and where I’m not. It’s all transparency; all the time, even when it hurts like a damn open wound with salt in it. But it’s more than just feeling my belly in my lap it was the moment that I said no more. It was my line in the sand. I think anyone who has ever gained and lost weight knows exactly what I am talking about. That moment when you have to face the fact that you are, in fact, despite any tucking and pulling and pushing, overweight.

    I’m ashamed. Ashamed that I let it get this out if control and those old feelings have been sneaking back into my head so I’ve decided to get help. I’m typing this from my first weight watchers meeting in 4 years. I’ve tried doing it alone online but that doesn’t work for me. I’ve tried everything but I need human contact. I need support from other women who know the shock and shame of their stomach resting in their lap. I can’t believe this is where I am. It’s yet another club that I wish I never knew anything about. Oh and I am taking the Big Guy along for the ride. This will only work if we do it together.

    But here I am, sitting among the kind, understanding, compassionate faces of other women who’ve been here (the bottom) and it’s inspiring me. It takes a baby step followed by another, motivated by the sincere want and desire and dedication to changing your life. I am ready for me. I got up this morning and went to a meeting and faced the scale. It felt like someone punched my in my low lying, overindulgent belly.

    Over the past year, I’ve learned (finally) to step back and ask myself why? To stop and pay attention, even when I don’t have a free moment. 2013 was wonderful in many ways. I grew up in a lot of ways. I am finally able to see myself more clearly without judgment or through fat goggles.I had a lot of firsts and I have begun to spread my wings and fly but this is the next step. No more stomach resting in my lap, no more flapping arms and saggy ass. But it’s not just about my belly, my belly is just a symptom of my procrastination and never putting myself first. I have to put myself to make myself feel and be better for me before I can be better for the girls or the Big Guy. I am ready to be happy. I deserve it. I’ve waited my entire life for this moment of clarity and motivation to meet. There will be no magic pills, no cheating or gimmicks, just a whole lot of hard work and follow through.

    I’m not waiting for the New Year or tomorrow anymore because the beginning is always today! (Mary Shelley) THE BEGINNING IS ALWAYS TODAY…no matter what your challenge is in life….TODAY IS THE BEGINNING!

  • Zya, The Ultimate Music Game

    Zya, The Ultimate Music Game

    Have you heard of the Zya App? Neither had I. But then again, I don’t usually play many games online unless it’s Candy Crush or online casino games on 메리트카지노. Most of my game playing these days is limited to checkers and Rock Band marathons. We love music so when I heard about Zya, it sounded perfect for my girls.

    girlszya

    Zya is a revolutionary new music game that allows anyone to create hit songs on their iPhones and iPads.

    I particularly love it if we’re traveling with little ones. Give them a pair of headphones and let them go crazy. Give them the headphones or you will be the crazy one by the end of the trip.

    My girls love it. It’s like their very own Rock Band game and they don’t have to wait for Mommy and Daddy to play guitar and drums because they can select their very own band. My girls love that they can sing duets with their famous artists and their hit songs like Blurred Lines, She Will Be Loved, Poker Face, and many others. They choose the songs, their band mates, instruments and what they want them to sound like. My girls are at the age where they really enjoy those games that allow you to style Barbie, so being able to choose what their avatars look like and how they sound is right up their alley.

    photo 4 photo 3 zya

    It’ super simple to use and your kids, even the 4-year-olds will be able to figure out how to create music in a few easy steps. With autotune available no one will ever sound tone deaf ever again. It’s cool because it gives the kids a tangible outcome that they can show off to Grandma and Grandpa.

    zya

    My girls are both musically inclined and love to sing and perform so this game is perfect for them. It gives them a creative outlet to play with and develop new music and sounds. They love the choices and different versions of favorite songs they can create. Here is a one of their creations.

    Have you used the Zya app?

     

    Disclaimer: I was compensated for reviewing this product but all opinions are my own.

  • Get Your Home Holiday Ready with Swiffer Bissell

    Get Your Home Holiday Ready with Swiffer Bissell

    This holiday cleaning tips post is brought to you by Swiffer® as part of a Type-A Parent Community Sponsored Post.

    Next Wednesday is Christmas; company will be arriving on Monday which means I need to get my house “company” worthy. That means putting away the clean laundry, clearing the counter of any dishes and dusting and cleaning the wood floors and then trying to keep it that way with company, kids, a dog and a Christmas tree that’s losing its needles like its job. Then we have also hired a cleaning company as this has helped so much in freeing up time (and not having to do tasks that we hate!) so we very much recommend them, they’re easily the best cleaners in Bristol so give them a look if you are in that area.

    I love when people come to visit but I hate the deep clean that I need to give my house before everyone shows up and worse, I hate the stress that it creates. Like the checking our roofing if there’s a leak and realized I have to call roofing contractors to have it fixed. It’s like a buzz kill for my holiday spirit. So this year, I am not going to worry about the deep clean. I am going to clean my house and if it looks lived in and loved on during the holidays, even better. Deep breaths.

    If you are a clean freak, Type-A, obsessive/compulsive cleaner like I am here are a few tips and tricks to keep your house looking company worthy all year.

    1. To pick up small pieces of broken glass, press pieces of bread onto the affected area.
    2. To get blood out of fabrics, use hydrogen peroxide. Apply it directly to the stain and then launder in the washing machine.
    3. To clean the bottom of the iron, sprinkle salt on the ironing board and iron back and forth.
    4. To clean a microwave oven, add four tablespoons of lemon juice to one cup of water in a microwave-safe bowl. Boil for five minutes in the microwave, allowing the steam to condense on the inside walls of the oven. Then wipe them with a soft cloth
    5. To remove fingerprints from stainless-steel appliances, place a small amount of baby oil on a napkin and wipe the affected areas. The fingerprints will just wipe away.
    6. To remove marker pen off hard surfaces, spray on hair spray and then wipe it off.
    7. To remove cat and dog hair from clothes and furniture, rub them with damp rubber gloves.
    8. To restore toilet bowls back to their shiny best, clean with old, flat Coke or Pepsi. To dissolve limescale, leave the soda overnight to soak.

    For my floors, the dreaded floors, this year I am using the new Swiffer Bissell steamboost. Honestly, I think it does just as good of a job as my Shark steamer but costs about half the price. I have tried everything on my floors to rid them of streaks and spots. I’ve even gotten on my hands and knees and scrubbed like Cinderella but still, a film remained. The Swiffer Bissell steamboost seemed to get rid of some of the built up film. I am interested to see what it looks like after a couple more uses. I can say that it definitely got up all of the salt residue left behind by my children’s snow boots. For exterior cleaning, I’m thinking about hiring cleaning professionals from a pressure washing nashville company.

    The Swiffer BISSELL® SteamBoost™ is a steam mop that deeply penetrates dirt and helps remove messes mops can leave behind. Fill it with water, attach a Steam Pad and plug it in. No other cleaning solutions are needed.

    The special Steam Pads have a steam-activated, dirt-dissolving cleaning solution that pulls dirt from surfaces and locks it away. SteamBoost™ is light, easy to use and safe on tile, finished wood and laminate floors. Do not use on waxed or unfinished wood floors.

    What’s your best tip or trick for cleaning wood or wood laminate floors?

    This sponsored post was brought to you by Swiffer®. For a limited time, get a $15 prepaid card when you purchase a SteamBoost Steam Mop Starter Kit between 11/24/13 and 12/31/13. Swiffer BISSELL® SteamBoost™ combines a dirt-dissolving cleaning solution with the power of steam for a deep clean that gets messes mops can leave behind. Also be sure to like Swiffer on Facebook and follow @swiffer on Twitter.