Cleaning with Lemons

Save those lemons that might be getting old!  Here are 2 easy tips for cleaning with lemons:

1) Remove any stickers on outside of lemon. Cut lemon in half and place cut side up in your microwave. Heat for about 2 minutes, remove with hot pad (very hot lemons!), and discard. Then wipe your microwave down with a clean cloth. Easy and smells so good!  Idea from this blog.

(**Note, if you don't have any lemons on hand but don't feel like scrubbing, and scrubbing, and scrubbing, and scrubbing, your caked up microwave, follow this simple tip that I've used for years:  fill a coffee mug 3/4 full of tap water, place in microwave and heat up for about 1 minute. Remove mug, and the grime in the microwave will be much easier to wipe down because that steam has loosened it all up.)

2) Clean your countertops!  Since moving into our house, I say, probably every month, that our white countertops are "of the devil."  I know that's a little dramatic, but you can see EVERYTHING on the counterops: coffee spills, black dog hair, red wine droplets, crumbs...you name it, it's there.  Then I read somewhere that you can cut a lemon in half and squeeze some fresh lemon juice onto the stain, and even rub the stain away with the lemon.  Works like a charm.  And it makes me happy to see the gross little stains just disappear!

(Disclaimer, not all countertops can handle the acidity of the lemon, so make sure you know your countertops and what they can and can't have for clean-up on them) 

Now to just learn about cleaning with vinegar from this Seventh Generation blog...