Clean Queens....Friday Night at Grace Life

If you didn't have a chance to attend the Women's Ministry event last night, here's the

recap.

Nearly 30 ladies took part in the evening's fun. After some opening remarks, the decluttering began with our purses. Emily Gaitonde led us in a scavenger hunt using only our purses as the place to find items as diverse as a tape measure, a fork, and a plane ticket. We had three winners of simple prizes and a good laugh at all of the stuff that came out of those purses!

Kristy Lamper, a professional cleaner and Lydia Gardner, a professional organizer told us their best tips

.

Some of Kristy's...

1. Give your products time to work...spray and leave it for a bit and then wipe.

2. Generic products work as well as name brand.

3. Dust from top to bottom and wash walls from bottom to top.

4. Clean windows when it's overcast so the intense sun won't leave dry streaks.

5. Make sock puppets out of athletic socks, give them to the kids and let them have races around the baseboards. (I like that one...but my boys are too old to fall for this trick. Maybe John and I will have baseboard races with sock puppets;-)

Some of Lydia's....

1. Purge. Get rid of things you don't use, don't wear, don't love. If you can't find the courage to toss things, have a friend help. They can be your sounding board.

2. Use over the door organizers for anything...jewelry, spices, caps, Barbies...

3. For smaller children, post labels as well as pictures on drawers so the little ones can put things away, even if they can't read yet.

4. Lydia keeps all of her kid's uniforms in the laundry room. Each child (and her husband) has his/her own bin and the pieces of the uniform get washed and placed in the bin. When it's game time, no worries about where all the gear is.

5. Keep an album with dividers for all the pieces of paper that end up in your clutter pile. This might include recipes you are given or are ripped from magazines, articles, etc...When you get a few minutes, you can sit and read them but you don't have to hang on to all of those magazines.

6. Stuffed animals can be donated to firehouses to give to children who have lost theirs in a fire.

Did I mention lemon bars and iced brownies? As if tips and games weren't enough, we got to snack on some delicious treats. Thanks Jen Upmeyer! We're so glad you like to bake:)

A special thanks to Elaine Smith and her sister Kathy for working so hard to help set up and tear down. You girls rock!!

Keep your eyes open for the next event! June 17th is just around the corner.