Housekeeping - Bettina Network's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Housekeeping’

Upkeep of Wood Floors

Saturday, March 4th, 2017

We have talked to several people who use the Walnut Oil on their floors and in response to your question – here is what they do:

Once a week – if you are the absolute-on-top-of-it type – use a soft cotton rag, which has a bit of Walnut Oil on the rag.  You can either pour oil on the rag for this, or you can keep Walnut Oil in a spray bottle and spray a bit on the rag.  This is only a little bit of oil for this job.

A couple people we talked to keep such a rag saturated in Walnut Oil, which they use for upkeep in a number of ways and have a special metal container with a top – in which they keep the rag – like last years’ fruit cake tin.  They use that rag and wipe up the floor so it has all the dust removed and a thin coating of oil on it.  The oil should dry in short order.  They keep such a saturated rag for a month and then toss it.  If they need to wipe fingerprints off furniture within that month, that rag does the job.  Or, if they need to wipe their dining room or other table with a bit of oil, in-between their yearly going over with the 0000 steel wool, they use that rag.

A couple people we talked to will do this once a month because they want to keep up their floors, keep them looking great, but do not worry themselves if a little dust shows.  Our observation – unless you have lots of traffic in and out of the house you only need to do this once a month and then it is a light wipe of the floor.

One person – ostracized after she told this story – uses a cotton mop onto which she sprays a bit of walnut oil in a spray bottle she keeps and then wipes the floor with the mop.  Since most of the people we talked to about this upkeep are – on your knees to do your floors kind of people – there were gasps when she said – others do this with a cotton mop with a bit of oil sprayed on the mop.  Our question was, is there a difference in results?  Of course, everyone thought their way was the best and absolutely the only way to get good results.

In defense of the “on your knees people”, they use that time for exercise while wiping the floor.  There are several exercises that can be done in the process – which most exercise books, or a search online will show you.

Those who do this upkeep once a month are the ones who hang drapes on all of their windows – who close their windows on top of air stops so outside air/dust doesn’t get in and they look constantly for other ways to keep dust from coming into the house including having people visiting leave their shoes at the door.

Hope this answers your question.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to                           bettina-network@comcast.net

 

A Sample of Bettina Network’s Lessons and Requirements!

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016

Bettina Network, inc. has guidelines and lessons for those who join the Network with a talent, body of knowledge, wisdom, art, craft, etc that they want to share.

To give you an idea as to what these small lessons and requirements are, we share the following:

“We understand all of the marketing behind stainless steel and other kinds of utensils for eating.  However —-

In Bettina Network, inc. as a Host Family and Hedge School Facilitator we require that you use silver utensils when serving any kind of food.  If you are using  stainless steel and/or other materials for your knives, forks, spoons and other utensils which go in the mouth, please change to silver as soon as possible.  They are a bit more expensive so you can take six weeks into joining the Network to change the utensils you use.  To be efficient in the use of your resources, you might want to sell your current utensils at an estate sale, or yard sale, etc. to find the money to replace them with silver, if necessary.

Why?  Because silver has anti-bacterial properties and we want to make sure guests and those coming to learn are as protected as possible.

Silver plate or sterling silver are equally fine.”

Some of our homes have moved even further and adopted the old German habit of using silver pots and pans for cooking.  That is the ultimate, but instead – if you can’t afford or don’t understand how to use these silver pots and pans and are a bit squeamish – you might try converting to a combination of iron and glass pots and pans.  Give the idea of silver pots and pans a bit of time and you won’t want to use anything else.  Corning used to make a fantastic set of pots with the blue cornflower on the side which is great either for cooking on top of the stove or for using in the oven for baking.  Cast iron – which you will need to  oil (season) after each use, is excellent also.  Please don’t oil these iron pots with Olive Oil.  It goes rancid quickly and defeats the purpose.  You might try Peanut Oil – Coconut Oil – or etc.  Stable oils which you use to cook foods when the temperature is higher than ‘slightly warm’.

If you have questions or comments, call or send us an email.  If you want your email published as a blog, please so indicate.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

Washing Linens, Towels and everything else

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

We have been trying for several years to come up with the best way to wash bed linens and bathroom towels – because that is important in bed & breakfast.

We were especially concerned about having soft towels and the smell which we sometimes could not get out of the sheets without several washings.

We tried every fabric softener on the market.  They all do the same thing and none really great.  -They give the towels, particularly, a slimy feel rather than a clean fluffy feel.  The towels, after they have been through the wash with fabric softener, are too soft and too greasy to think that is a good solution.  Having done a bit of research on this, I find that is because the fibers are coated with chemicals – that can’t be good!  Especially when the results we were trying to achieve were not happening.  And, what happens to the chemicals which coat the towel fabric?  Do they go on your face when you wipe with the towels?  Or on other parts of the body?

Trying to wash towels and bed linens without a fabric softener left the towels really scratchy and uncomfortable to use.  You wouldn’t want to wrap up in the very large bath towels because that would not meet the ‘feel good warm and cozy’ test.

We received many suggestions about putting White Vinegar into the rinse water.  However, after having worked with White Vinegar and knowing from whence it has come, we discarded that idea.

We put organic apple cider vinegar with the ‘mother’,  in the washing machine in the small box which asks for fabric softener.

We fully expected to ruin all of the clothes in the machine because we expected there would be residue from the organic apple cider vinegar, especially since we were using the ‘mother’ so we couldn’t think beyond = ‘there goes the wash’.

We couldn’t use a lot of the apple cider vinegar because the container of our LG Washing machine would only hold what seemed to be less than 1/4 cup, so while we tried it anyway, our hopes were not high for success.

The results, however,  were spectacular.

With bed & breakfast guests, some  are exceptionally clean and their bedding doesn’t have an odor when they leave.  Some people, even though they wash, leave behind an odor in the sheets which doesn’t always leave after the sheets have been through the wash,  so we have been super concerned to get the odors out.  Basically, we assumed if there was an odor there was bacteria still in the sheets and towels.

Putting organic apple cider vinegar in the fabric softener container of the washing machine solved the problem.  And weren’t we surprised!!  We found organic apple cider vinegar worked wonders as an anti-perspirant, but we couldn’t make the leap to the washing machine.

When the clothes came out of the washer, there was no odor left in any of the sheets, towels or clothes.  The towels were softened to perfection.  They had no slimy feel, which happened when we used commercial fabric softeners.  We don’t have to worry about people being allergic to the linens or towels because of how and with what they were washed and the towels were neither too soft nor too hard and scratchy.  The towels were sturdy enough to allow one to dry one’s face when you wanted a little roughness to get the blood circulating, but not much.  And they were soft and nice enough to please those who wanted soft towels.  The same thing happened to the bathrobes.  They are perfect after coming out of the organic apple cider vinegar rinse.

My great-grandmother used to put her clothes through a vinegar rinse – I should have had more respect and given her the credit she deserved for the things she knew and did.  Is this how sexism works? – hand and glove with the marketing and advertising machine?  If young people don’t learn the lessons from their families, but from what used to be called “Madison Avenue” we are all doomed to destruction- a slow excruciatingly painful destruction via cancer, and all the other degenerative diseases.

How fantastic is it to find something your great-grandmother used on a daily basis with no bells and whistles.  That was just how she did things.  It can make you feel kind of foolish to know what you have looked all over creation for was right under your nose from the time you were a child.  I have the marketing and advertising people to thank for that, along with the forces in society which made me turn to my peers rather than my family to learn these kinds of lessons.  Now I understand why Martha Stewart became such a phenom.  All the lessons we didn’t learn and when we turned around to try to back track to learn them we could not break through the veil. The silence from our families could not be bridged.

I used to think my grandmother and great-grandmother were really out of touch with today’s society and here I find if I turn back to try to remember what they did, it is safer, purer and better for all of us.  Now, not everything they did is so relevant, but I will be going over their lifestyle as I remember it to see what else I can salvage.  I am sure many of you have or are experiencing the same thing.  Give your mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers credit, gratitude and thanks.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

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