Pet Puzzler

I have dreams of being like Martha Stewart.  Every summer, I make great plans to organize my house and to keep it immaculate throughout the school year.  This summer, I downloaded a book on organizing your house in 28 days, I have worked on coming up with a cleaning system and I have planned out family meals a month in advance.  I took a healthy eating class and learned about the benefits of planning out meals and shopping once a week for foods.  All of these things sound great, don't they?  Let me tell you the rest of the story...

I get carried away with trying to do too many things at once.  I have all of these projects going around the house, and I never complete any of them.  For example, I organized the kitchen but I never made it to any of the other rooms.  I print off a cleaning schedule for myself and hang it on the fridge where I can refer to it.  Then, I never do the things on the list!  Lastly, I hate going to the grocery on Sunday because it is so crowded.  So, if I don't make a concerted effort to go on another day and do my shopping, we don't have the supplies to cook the amazing meals I have planned out.  As a result, we end up going out to eat.

Yesterday is a fine example of me getting overzealous with one of my projects.  I found a recipe online to clean up pet stains from my carpet.  As Baby, my min pin, is 13 years old, she is getting pretty senile and just goes where ever she gets the urge to go.  If I am not paying attention, I have a heck of a mess!  The recipe is as follows:  first, mix a bottle of half vinegar, half warm water.  Spray it on the stain to neutralize the smell.  After you have gotten the carpet fairly wet, scrub it with a brush to get the mixture all over the stained spot.  Next, when the area is dry or almost dry, sprinkle a handful of baking soda around on the spot.  After you have sprinkled the baking soda, mix 1/2 c. hydrogen peroxide with 2 tsp. dish soap.  Put this on top of the baking soda, and use your brush to scrub this into the carpet.  Once it is completely dry, vacuum up the baking soda with either a shop vac or your vacuum cleaner.  A professional carpet cleaner online told me in his video that this was the best technique to use.

I tried to carefully follow the directions, and it went pretty well.  The carpet smells amazing, and it is not stained any more.  So far so good-- EXCEPT, I went a little overboard with the baking soda and now I am having a struggle getting it all out!  My advice to you would be, if you try this technique, don't totally plaster your carpet with baking soda or you will have to spend the rest of your life vacuuming it up!