A few years ago, I turned to FlyLady.net to help me keep my house clean, but then I got pregnant and was pretty much incapacitated by morning sickness. I never got back on track with the FlyLady system. But I never stopped receiving the emails either.

Lately, I’ve been wanting to keep a cleaner house. The house is okay but not great, and I feel like the kids are old enough now that I can do more. But it’s hard to get started.

Enter FlyLady. In my previous incarnation as a Flybaby (as she calls her followers), I had pretty good success. My biggest complaint was the number of emails she sends out every day, so I took someone’s suggestion and subscribed to the daily digest email instead – now I get one email that contains all of the previous day’s emails, keeping my inbox clutter-free.

I haven’t adopted the FlyLady system as a whole. But I love the concept that you can clean your house 15 minutes at a time. Just having that mindset again has me keeping the house as a whole cleaner, and I’m constantly thinking of how to make the house less cluttered and easier to clean – whether it’s getting rid of things or simply moving them around.

If you’ve been struggling to keep your house clean, I highly encourage checking out FlyLady for some ideas and inspiration.

We’ve had major issues with meds (one of which needs to be given every 4 hours), so I continue to be exhausted, both mentally and physically. Posting will continue to be extremely light – and quite possibly, more Twitter-like than regular posts.

In the meantime, I want to give a shout out to Zout. I got a bottle last year when it was there was a mail-in rebate offer, and it’s done a fabulous job getting all of the bloodstains out of bedding and clothing. My technique is to spray the stain, throw the clothes/bedding in the washer, and soak on cold water for anywhere from 15 minutes to hours. Then I run a normal wash cycle with detergent on warm (but our “warm” tends to be cold rather than hot). When the clothes/bedding come out of the dryer, you’d never know there was a bloodstain.

And on a related note, baby wipes do a great job getting bloodstains out of carpet. My friend K. says they work really well on vomit, too (of course she had to find that out the hard way).

I remember when the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser first came on the market. Marc immediately bought one to use on all of the dark streaks that had accumulated on the white walls of our house. I started off a skeptic, but was an immediate convert. It worked amazingly.

And it’s just gotten better over the years. I received the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Extra Power to try out, and it works great. It removes marker, crayon, dirt, and even stuff you can’t identify. I use it to scrub my stove, and it gets off the grease.

My only complaint is about the tiny white bits that come off when scrubbing a rough surface. But they’re a small price to pay for a clean surface

Find more Works for Me Wednesday tips at Rocks in My Dryer.

I have to admit that during the last few months, I’ve been finding it harder than ever to keep a clean house. But earlier this week, I suddenly realized that I could at least keep the kids’ bathroom clean by scrubbing it while they’re in the bath. It seems obvious enough, but for some reason had never occurred to me (partly because Marc and I had been trading off on bath time duty). The last few days, while the kids have been in the bath, I’ve been standing at the sink, scrubbing bath toys with a sponge and soap, something I thought I’d never have time to do. It doesn’t help me get the rest of my house clean, but it’s working for me.

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, head over to the fabulous Rocks in my Dryer.