Cleaning Fiend

Pinterest is a problem. I can't stop myself. But, as I just recently told a friend of mine, it has literally changed my life for the better. My kids are happier because they have new projects. Like these cool thumbprint trees:

And we've done fun science experiments, like making rock candy:

And I've found some great new recipes, like the pumpkin cinnamon rolls we had for breakfast on Sunday. (Sorry, no photo of those, because we ate them too fast, but you can get the recipe here.)

But seriously my favorite thing so far is that I feel like a better mom. My kids are happier because they're more entertained, and my house is cleaner. Especially thanks to this cleaning tip. Here's what you do. You take your nasty stove burners. You know, the ones that look like this:

You put them in a zip top bag and add about 1/4 cup ammonia. Zip it up quickly, put in on a cookie sheet for ease of transport, and set it outside for 12 hours. Outside, in case the bag leaks, so you don't have to suffer the wrath of fumes. The horrible (and I mean HORRIBLE) stench of the ammonia seems to make all the grease cooked onto the burners just give up and die. It literally falls right off. The parts that are really really cooked might take a little scrub, but it all comes off. This is my finished product:

I giggled and giggled for like 20 minutes when I did the first one. My husband thought I was crazy, so I made him do the second one. He was so amazed that he cleaned the 3rd and 4th. So I guess this really IS an amazing trick. They're even less work when your husband elbows you out of the way to finish it off!

Sure, I could have found all this stuff elsewhere on the Internet, but it's so much more fun when my great friends share it with me! Thanks for the pinspiration!

~ Joy