Ask Anna

How to Clean the Blender the Fast and Easy Way

Hello Ask Anna readers! My name is Kim and I am mama to a sweet little girl named Jayna and wife to my college sweetheart! I started my dream job a few days before Jayna was born and it has been quite the ride so far! From 36 hours of labor (totally worth it), to helping her learn to walk (who knew it took so much effort?), I have found motherhood to be the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever experienced. I recently started blogging about our adventures over at A Real-Life Housewife. I also share useful household tips and tricks as… Read More

Publishers Clearing House Party

Did you even know that Publisher’s Clearing House still existed? I didn’t until recently! My best friend is a PCH addict though and I recently found out that she still fills out the forms and mails them in! So when it came time to plan her 30th birthday party, her husband and I decided to go for a Publishers Clearing House Party! We thought it would be fun to have everyone come in their best “surprised” look. I emailed Tracie, of For Your Invitation, and she created these great invitations for us. We also had her design an extra large… Read More

How to Clean Carpet

I don’t know about you but I can’t afford to have my carpets cleaned more than once a year. So how do I keep my white carpet white? With a magic wand! No, not really; It’s actually just an awesome cleaning product, but a magic wand would be nice! People told me I was crazy when we had new carpet installed a little over a year ago, and I chose white! At that time my daughter was about 18 months old and everyone thought I was nuts. The thing about carpet is that it’s easy to keep clean, you just… Read More

Chocolate Toffee Cake

Do I need to even say anything else? The picture and the title pretty much say it all. 🙂 A few weeks ago we celebrated my best friends 30th birthday with a huge Publisher’s Clearing House themed party. Since I’ve never really liked cake, until I started making them this year, I knew I had to make something fabulous for my chocoholic best friend {no store bought cake!}. I found these Toffee Crunch Cupcakes on Pinterest and have been wanting an excuse to make them, but just haven’t had one yet. So when it came time to make… Read More

14 Day Cleaning Challenge

It’s never too late to get started with our 14 Day Cleaning Challenge! Here are links to each of the tasks: Day 1: Holiday Un-decorating and De-cluttering (Christmas Organization) Day 2: Getting Rid of Dust Day 3: Refrigerator Organization and Freezer Help Day 4: How to {fake} a Clean Bathroom (Quick Cleaning Tips) Day 5: Organizing Your Closet Day 6: Organizing Kitchen Cabinets Day 7: How to Organize Emails and Computer Desktop Day 8: Organizing the Laundry Room Day 9: Organize the Linen Closet Day 10: How to Clean your Oven Day 11: How to Organize Cords & Chargers Day 12: Organizing with Binders – Manuals… Read More

Cleaning Checklist Printables

Can you believe you’ve made it through the entire challenge!? I am so proud of each one of you and I have truly enjoyed seeing your completed tasks. As a thank you for all of your hard work today I have a little gift for you. It’s a free printable of my cleaning schedule and it’s brand new, hot off the press! It’s easy to get clean an organized once, but to stay clean and organized is a challenge in and of itself. This year I am challenging all of us {including myself} to get on a cleaning… Read More

Day #13: Storing Seasonal Decorations

I have been asked many times how to organize and store seasonal decorations. Since we are starting 2012 clean and organized I thought this would be a good time to tackle this subject. I store my seasonal decorations in three different locations: baskets above the laundry room shelves, the storage closet in our guest bedroom and the garage. Let me explain. There are three different types of seasonal decorations: #1 Holiday decorations that are only used once a year #2 Candles and small accessories that can be switched out throughout the year #3 Vases and artificial flowers, plants, etc. Since… Read More

Day #12: Organizing with Binders – Manuals & Warranties

Today we are going to be organizing with binder for all of our manuals and warranties! Manuals are tricky to store because they are all different sizes, different thicknesses, and you probably have about 1,000 of them, one for every item in your house! Ugh! There should be a rule that they all have to be a certain size. It would really make our lives easier. 🙂 For years I have had all our manuals stored in our file cabinet. As the years have gone by, and we’ve bought more stuff, it was getting too cluttered and wasn’t working for… Read More