For today’s Tuesday Tip, I’m soliciting YOUR help!

I am a neat freak in some senses, especially when it comes to clutter. I am a huge proponent of “a place for everything and everything in its place,” and I typically do a quick swoop around the apartment putting things away before bed every night. I’ve learned that I’m much happier if my environment is organized; in fact, sometimes in college I would notice my stress level rising in proportion to the disorganization of my small room!

I also hate dust. I think dust the grossest kind of home dirtiness to me. I recently bought some Pledge Dust and Shine spray, and I really like it. I’ve been attacking all the wood surfaces in our apartment with it on a regular basis. Cleaning the toilet is another one of my pet cleaning tasks. Sure, it’s gross if you think too hard about it, but it provides a lot of clean bang for your not-too-taxing scrubbing buck.

In addition, I make the bed every morning, I wash and change our sheets and towels like clockwork, and I empty the dishwasher shortly after it’s done.

But I am clueless when it comes to cleaning the tub. It just seems like such a large expanse to try and scrub! And it never really looks that dirty, so it’s not as satisfying as dusting a bookshelf. To be quite honest, sometimes I skip cleaning it entirely. I’ll spray down the edges that collect dust and hair and leave the rest. I’m not even sure what the best product to use on a tub is.

So, dear readers, what do you suggest? What are your best tips and tricks for keeping the tub shiny and clean?

This list was originally meant to be a “25 Before 25” list, but I found myself out of ideas at 10. Plus, 25 is only 2 years away! Most people who participate in the “30 Before 30” trend get started much earlier than that. So I decided to call it my birthday resolutions instead (my birthday is tomorrow!). I’m not going to give myself a time frame, per se, though I’ll try to remember to check in on my list each year around my birthday. And I’ll use this as inspiration for copious blogposts throughout the year. Check the static page entitled, aptly enough, “Birthday Resolutions” to see links to all the posts I write and to check on my progress!

Now, without further ado, the list:

1. Sew a t-shirt quilt (…the size of a throw, not a queen bed). I took a sewing class earlier this summer and this was one of the goals I had in mind. My teacher told me sewing jersey is an entirely different ballgame, but some friends of mine enlightened me about fusible interfacing, which makes the fabric not stretchy and therefore sew-able just like normal. I have a full-sized t-shirt quilt, but I’m not crazy about the backing fabric. Plus, I’ve accumulated more t-shirts since then and think this would be bother a fun project and a great memento!

2. Have a guest post published on a blog I respect OR have a freelance article published somewhere.

3. Discover a wine, a beer, and a cocktail that I really, consistently like, and be able to articulate why (i.e. “the nose,” flavor notes, combinations). I have a few things that I know I like, but I’m not really sure what they do or do not have in common. I usually depend on cocktail menus to coach me, but I’d love to be able to sit down at a restaurant and confidently order something that I know is standard and that I know I’ll enjoy.

4. Participate in a conversation (even a basic one) in Spanish. I took French for ages, and while I am far from fluent, I have a good basis of using a foreign language. Especially in my line of work (social services) knowing Spanish is becoming more and more important for being able to communicate with clients. I bought a Spanish workbook last year and plugged along for awhile but didn’t make it very far. Whether I use the workbook or take a class, I’d like to keep this on the forefront of my mind as something that’ll be worth the effort.

5. Learn how to make 5 recipes from memory. I’m well on my way with a few. I think the delicious meatloaf from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook will be a contender, as well as one of the casseroles I make pretty frequently. I’m not counting meals that I can throw together any time at this point, like fried rice or marinated steak, as recipes.

6. Conquer the Southern Biscuit and experiment with making bread.

7. Complete a sprint triathlon (no matter how slow). This will require having a working bike and finding somewhere to swim (although that’s the area in which I would need the least training), as well as the motivation to make myself run for more than 5 minutes at a time, so it might be more of a long-term goal than some of these others.

8. Join the choir/praise band at church. In high school, I always said that I would do this when I “grew up.” Well, I’d say I’m there now, so I suppose it’s time! I’ve never sung much in public, but it is one of my favorite things to do, and I think singing in church could be an incredibly rewarding experience.

9. Make it all the way through a Bible reading plan.

10. Get enough calcium; figure out how much that is, how much I’m currently getting, and how to get more if need be. I read an article recently that more and more women even in their 20s and 30s are being diagnosed with osteopenia, which is a precursor to osteoperosis. Now, some doctors argue over the validity of even diagnosing a precursor, but I still think it can’t hurt to give it some thought. I do a lot of load-bearing exercise (read: walking), which is good for promoting bone density, but I’ve never been much of a milk drinker, so I have no clue if I take in enough calcium. I’d like to make sure I do.

There you have it! I think this list represents a good range of intellectual, physical, and domestic activities, and I’m looking forward to giving it a shot.

It’s so easy to make excuses for putting things off…what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but never have? What do you think will make you take the plunge and get it done?

There’s a whole slew of “blog awards” out there that are informally passed among bloggers, from friend to friend, acquaintance to acquaintance. There aren’t set-in-stone criteria for them, but it’s a fun way to acknowledge that you enjoy reading someone’s blog.

Well, yesterday, Stephanie over at our journey gave me the Blog on Fire award!

(Side note: These definitions of “on fire” from Urban Dictionary make me giggle. I’m not sure which one to pick as the meaning of my award! Definitely not #8, though.)

The stipulation of the award is that you have to share 7 things about yourself, and then pass it on to 10 other people. As Stephanie pointed out, this feels a lot like those silly chain letters you used to send when you were 12, or those chain emails that you immediately delete, but I thought it would be fun to do a random list of things about myself. And then I’ll pass the blog on to some number of people that will likely be less than 10, because I don’t have a ton of blogger friends yet.

So here goes nothing!

1. I am unable to clap and sing at the same time. I can clap on beat, and I can sing okay, but when I try to do them at the same time, the rhythm completely falls apart. This proved difficult the summer I taught Sunday school to elementary schoolers and had to enthusiastically lead worship.
2. Somehow in the process of moving, A. and I managed to lose, of all things, my hiking boots. So, after tearing the apartment apart and completely reorganizing our closet and still not finding them, we budgeted for a new pair, since we like to hike and would have been hindered by my only having athletic shoes. I LOVE my new boots. So much so that I have briefly considered wearing them for my walks around the neighborhood (but only very briefly). And part of me keeps expecting to inevitably find the old ones somewhere weird, now that they've been replaced.
3. I talk to my mom on the phone for about an hour at least once a week. We got much closer when I went away to boarding school, and the older I get the more I wish we lived closer to each other. When A. and I first got married, she stopped calling me much because she wasn't sure how to navigate our new relationship, but we're in a groove now and communicate all the time. Included in communicating is sending emails of the funniest LOL Cats from I Can Has Cheezburger. (Click it. You know you want to.)
4. A. and I have been watching Friday Night Lights. We just started Season 2. I don't think I've like a show this much since probably Everwood or Gilmore Girls! I really like the way they treat real-life issues, and I love the marriage relationship between Coach Taylor and his wife.
5. I don't like taking the interstate if I don't have to, at least within Atlanta. In Birmingham, everywhere you go requires getting on the interstate, so I got used to it, but they still scare me a little bit here. It might take longer on the surface streets, but it's more interesting and less stressful to me. Plus, you never know what traffic you might hit on the interstate that would delay you even more!
6. I use French Vanilla creamer in my morning tea. I used to use it in coffee, but then we switched to a French Press for making it, and for some reason I don't like the coffee as much. But I missed my creamer, so I just started adding it to the tea.
7. I am pretty much awesome at the Super Hula Hoop on Wii Fit Plus. Even the first time I did it I got 4 stars ("calorie incinerator"). Thank you, years and years of swimming, for giving me strong core muscles, even now.

That’s it! And now for my award winners. The envelope goes to:

• Wynne @ Hearts and Stars Adventures
• Katie @ The Amateur Librarian
• Caitlin, who Was Never Meant to be a Theologian
• Olivia @ Crossing Bridges
• Kaleigh @ campy living

Have fun, ladies! (I guess this will be a real test of who actually reads my blog regularly.)

If you feel like divulging, what’s one thing about you that you take for granted but that sounds strange when you tell it to someone else?

When I went to Paris for the first time in 9th grade, I remember being endlessly interested in all the different types of sugar packets they had at the cafes. My favorites were the little tubes! They were so much more fun than the simple rectangular packets we have in the U.S. that come in only a few select colors.

My parents went to Italy recently, and among the miscellaneous souvenirs my mom sent in the mail after they returned were these sugar packets, I’m assuming from various cafes. I love all the different names, the patterns, and the bright colors! Even though I mostly use Splenda to sweeten my drinks, these just make me happy to have.

One time in high school, I had a stye.

My contacts had been bothering me all day, so at some point in the late afternoon I went up to my room to take them out and switch to glasses. (Side note: I went to boarding school. Without that piece of knowledge this story wouldn’t make sense!) As I pulled open my eyelid in order to take the lens out, I noticed this red, blobular thing on the inside bottom of my left eyelid.  I ran downstairs to the sweet lady that worked in our dorm office and said, “I have a monster thing in my eye!!” She calmed me down and told me it was probably a stye. My only experience with styes was a teacher of mine who had one, and I just remembered it looking really lumpy and uncomfortable, so knowing it was a stye didn’t really keep me from freaking out. I was sure it was going to make me look deformed.

I was taken to the eye doctor by one of the RAs (on the short bus, no less) and was prescribed some antibiotic drops to use, but there was also talk of having to “cut it out” if it didn’t heal on its own. Now, I HATE needles, so those words breathed utter terror into my heart, especially since I was away from home and didn’t have my parents there. I could just imagine being able to see a giant needle coming toward my eye.

Thankfully, the stye never got much worse, and the eye drops eventually helped. It was on the inside, so unless I showed it to you (which, in true adolescent grotesque fashion, I did often) you wouldn’t even know it was there. I just had to wear my glasses for awhile instead of my contacts. No big deal. But since then, every time my eye feels itchy or looks the slightest bit puffy, I act IMMEDIATELY as if I might be developing another stye, even though I haven’t had a single one since then. And what I’ve found to be the best home remedy for an inflamed eyelid is a simple hot washcloth.

I think the eye doctor told me this, but I was so focused on the potentiality of giant needles that I can’t be sure it came from him. It might have simply come from Google. But either way, wetting a clean washcloth with water as hot as you can stand and placing it on your closed eye is a tried and true palliative for a stye, and, as I’ve found, also a preventative measure. I’ve never understood exactly why, but I just know that it works. It also makes itchy, inflamed eyes feel a million times better. It does for the glands in your eyelids what a cold compress does for the skin underneath your eyes, which is to leave them feeling stimulated and refreshed.

According to Wikipedia, that bastion of knowledge, “application of a warm washcloth to the eyelids for one to two minutes may be beneficial in decreasing the occurrence of styes by liquefying the contents of the oil glands of the eyelid and thereby preventing blockage.” (Side note: ew.) I don’t usually time it; I just leave the washcloth on until it’s no longer hot. Often I refold the washcloth and apply it again, so that a former inner layer that is still warm is then pressed against my eye. Other ways to prevent styes include simple things such as washing your hands regularly and not sharing cosmetics or tools that are used near the eye. It’s probably also a good idea to wash makeup brushes and applicators frequently and discard mascara that is past a certain age. I don’t pay too much attention to those last two things. But in preventing eye monsters, I swear by my good old hot washcloth.

If you feel the need to view moderately gory pictures of people’s inflamed eyelids, I’ll leave you to Google that on your own. They’re out there and readily available, trust me.

What are some simply home remedies that you swear by? Have you ever had a minor malady that you found inordinately bothersome?