In our part of the country we are having a beautiful fall day, lows in 50′s this morning, with highs to be in the 70′s. Yesterday was a beautiful day as well.

So enjoy this last day of the last summer holiday of the season, but fall is also a great time to get outdoors and enjoy some beautiful, cooler fall weather.

Or use them as a stabilizer in a quilt block.

Got a yucky casserole dish, try cleaning it up with a used dryer sheet.

When done with your laundry, attach it to your Swiffer or Pledge duster, and cleanup your floors.

These ideas were from Mary Cheapskates 5-26-2010 newsletter.

Do you have left over buckets from kitty litter, painting, plastering, or from ice cream etc. Use them to store other items – like paint brushes or rollers.

We use them allot in our garden, for picking vegetables, hauling dirt and plants, watering trees. I always like to have some extra around.

photo credit: Kristoffer M.C.

Do you have a problem with getting your windows sparkling clean and streak free? Have you ever washed your windows thinking you had them sparkling clean; only to discover, that when the sun came around, they were still streaked. I have lots of times, till I found microfiber cloths and towels.

Other tips I have used before microfiber towels are:

• Using newspapers to dry the windows with, but that left you with carbon on your hands from the print on the paper.
• Using a little vinegar in the water helps to cut dirt and grime.
• Wiping the inside of the windows in one direction and the outside in the opposite direction. This helped me to know which side I had to redo.
• Another trick my mom used to use (on her windows that would get coated with road grime) was to wash her front porch windows with oven cleaner. It was the only way she could get them clean. She lived on a heavily traveled state highway, with lots of trucks and farm traffic. So that left her windows with lots of oil, dirt and exhaust residue on them.
• But my favorite tip was when I discovered microfiber towels and cloths to wash and dry my windows with.

What microfiber towels I like best to use:

Microfiber comes in various textures and blends and so to clean windows, I recommend a wet suede 16″ x 16″
Microfiber cloth for washing and a 20″ x 40″ MerryMicrofiber waffle weave towel for drying. Just one 20″ x 40″ waffle weave will dry numerous windows with just this one towel, because of its special built in “pockets” that whisk the moisture away, first into the pocket and then deep into the fabric of the towel, leaving your window dry and streak free. Depending on how many windows you have, you could use two to three 16″ x 16″ terry all purpose MerryMicrofiber towels for both washing and drying, or wash with a MerryMicrofiber towel and allow to air dry. Just remember to rinse your cloth/towel frequently in hot water to avoid streaking.

IHow does the microfiber towel work?

The unique technology of the microfiber blend, gives you a towel that is soft, durable, dirt grabbing and absorbent. The microfiber blend is made up of polyester and polyamide (nylon). The polyester gives it it’s softness, and the polyamide gives it it’s absorbability. The “star” wedges gives it it’s scrubbing ability, with it’s thousands of surface edges. This technology allows the fibers to pick up the dirt and pull it into the towel not just pushing it ahead of itself, like cotton does. This technology helps to save you time and money, using less effort to wash your windows and mirrors, in your home, office or vehicle. You can eliminate your window cleaners and paper towels using microfiber; having only to do it once and your window(s) will be clean. I have even just washed my patio door with a damp microfiber cloth and walked away, allowing it to just air dry.

I recommend using hot water for rinsing your towels as you clean. The hot water causes the fibers to swell, thus forcing the dirt, oil and grime out of the fibers into your water.

I got this idea from an email with “redneck” solutions!

If you are in need of a sprinkler, and got a pop bottle or a plastic drink bottle available, just poke some holes in it, connect it to your garden hose and “wha la” you have yourself a cheap sprinkler.

If it gets crushed or some creatures decide to chew on it, (as it happens at our house) then just make yourself another.

Are you tired of having to buy cloths to use on them?

Are you looking for a better alternative?

Try a microfiber cloth instead!

Just place a 16 x 16 all purpose microfiber cleaning cloth around the head, pushing the ends into the holes on the top of the sweeper, and dust away. When full of dirt, remove and shake out; when finished just wash in your regular laundry or rinse out in detergent and hot water.

Need to mop the floor, just wet the cloth in hot water and mop up those dirty spots. Works great on all hard surface floors.

Got a window you can’t reach, try washing it with your sweeper with a wet cloth attached. Just dry it with a dry cloth attached to the mop.

photo credit: TheTruthAbout…

When a debit card or credit card is expired – what to do with it?

If you throw them in the garbage, make sure you cut them up into little pieces first, so no one can get your information.

Or you could recycle them into useful items. My husband has cut up old credit cards and old drivers licenses into pics for his dulcimer. He has a difficult time getting dulcimer pics so he makes his own, and these cards seem to give him the right stiffness in a pic for playing.

Other ideas from Mary Cheapskate’s 6-15-10 newsletter were from 8 crafty ways to recycle, reuse old credit cards.

Some other links on that site were:

Artists recycle credit cards into crafts – like star magnets, or jewerly

10 creative — or desperate — uses for credit cards – ice scraper, Italian cheese scraper, paint masking, bookmark, straight edge, cake knife, grout caulking tool.

So have fun using these ideas or coming up with your own ideas on reusing and recycling those plastic cards.

That was allot of rain to come in such a short period of time. We had water coming into our basement in places it never had come in before. I think it was coming so fast that it just didn’t have a chance to “run” away and it was “looking” for a place to go.

The basement of our house was built in 1948 and it cement blocks. I have worked on caulking and sealing the walls with a sealing caulk and hydraulic cement. After this storm I have even more places now to fix.

At 1:20 am I woke up my husband and we started sucking up water, he used our shop vac and I used a double sided plush microfiber cloth.  It worked really well to pick up the water. I placed it down on the water, soaking it up, and then I would wring it out. It didn’t take long to pick up a 5 quart pail of water.

I even had water shooting out of a very small hole in our kitchen wall. I was amazed, for this never happened before, but with the water pressure against the wall on the outside it was looking for a place to go. I just set a bucket under the stream and collected it.

So if you ever need a cloth with super absorbency, check out using a microfiber cleaning cloth.

photo credit: P.Flintandco

iVillage had some good ideas on greening your kitchen in the article “4 Easy Ways to Go Green In The Kitchen”, like using greener more natural cleaners, watching your water usage, reducing your use of paper towels and composting your scraps.

Use baking soda and vinegar for cleaning drains and grimy pots and pans.

Use microfiber dish cloths instead of paper towels and paper napkins.

Run your dishwasher only when full. Instead of continually running water when washing dishes, fill one side of your sink for washing your dishes, and one side for rinsing your dishes. This will save lots of hot water, and the energy to heat it.

]]> http://www.merrymicrofiberblog.com/?feed=rss2&p=1020 0 http://www.merrymicrofiberblog.com/?p=1026 http://www.merrymicrofiberblog.com/?p=1026#comments Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:50:35 +0000 admin http://www.merrymicrofiberblog.com/?p=1026 If you have a business with a domain name, and you receive an email that is similar to the following email, it is a scam. I had received this yesterday, and later typed the question “What is an internet trademark?” into Google and found out it is a scam. There is no such thing as internet trademarks.

So Beware! You can read more about this on a forum at http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=185121.

Dear Manager,

We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On August,2nd,2010, We received HUATAI Company’s application that they are registering the name “merrymicrofibercloths” as their Internet Trademark and “merrymicrofibercloths.cn“,”merrymicrofibercloths.com.cn” ,”merrymicrofibercloths.asia”domain names etc.,It is China and ASIA domain names.But after auditing we found the brand name been used by your company. As the domain name registrar in China, it is our duty to notice you, so I am sending you this Email to check.According to the principle in China,your company is the owner of the trademark,In our auditing time we can keep the domain names safe for you firstly, but our audit period is limited, if you object the third party application these domain names and need to protect the brand in china and Asia by yourself, please let the responsible officer contact us as soon as possible. Thank you!

Kind regards

Angela Zhang

Angela Zhang

Registration Department Manager
3002, Nanhai Building 854.Nandan Road
Xuhui District, Shanghai
Office:  +86 216296 2950
Fax:     +86 216296 1557
Email: info@ygnetwork.cn
web: http://ygnetwork.cn
web: http://www.ygnetwork.cn

VERY interesting and inexpensive. This was
written by Becky Ransey of Indiana  (a doctor’s wife), and I want to share it
with you. She was over recently for coffee and smelled the bleach I was using
to clean my toilet and counter tops. This is what she told me. ‘I would like
to tell you of the benefits of that Plain little ole bottle of 3% peroxide
you can get for under $1.00 at any drug store. What does bleach cost? My
husband has been in the medical field for over 36 years, and most doctors don’t
tell you about peroxide. Have you ever smelled bleach in a doctor’s office?
NO!!!