After a glorious weekend here in Kentucky, we are looking forward to a glorious October.  It is by far our favorite month, and any day in October is a good day.  It can be dark and rainy or warm and sunny.  We love them all.  My favorite posts to write here on the blog are tips posts.  I love finding a tip and then sharing it with you.  One of our favorite posts from last October, Twelve Ten Minute Kitchen Tasks,  is loaded with tips.  So, we are sharing it with you today in our monthly revisit.  Plus, for me it was fun seeing photos of our old kitchen.  As I type this, I am sitting at the island in our new and almost finished kitchen.  The installers have another day or two of work in this room.  They have already put in three full days putting this kitchen together.  They work at it as if it’s a jigsaw puzzle, and they are very good at it.  I can’t wait to show it to you.  But meanwhile, here’s our revisit from last October.

 

We often find ourselves saying, “Oh, if we only had more time…….”  Do you do that, too?  But on the other hand, if you have a spare ten minutes here and there, do you use it, or do you hop on Instagram and Facebook and start scrolling?  I know.  It’s so easy to fill ten minutes of bonus time with an activity that gets us nowhere.  I have been trying to discipline myself to use those free minutes that come up in the day.  Ten minutes here and ten minutes there can quickly make an hour or two.  If you have an extra hour or two during the day, just think of all the wonderful things you could do.  We put our heads together and came up with some great tiny chores that can be accomplished in just ten minutes.  First, we are going to focus on the kitchen.  Then in later posts, we will talk about ways to use ten minutes in our homes’ other rooms.  Most of these quick ten minutes tasks involve cleaning in some way, but that’s okay.

 

 Straighten up the dish towels.

Yes, you can straighten the ones hanging on the towel bar, but if you have ten minutes, go to your dish towel drawer and start stacking and folding.  This is a great time to take out the frayed ones and the ones with holes.  If you just can’t make yourself throw them away, put them in your rag bag, and use them on cleaning day.  We bet you can get an entire drawer in tip top shape in just ten minutes.  Ready……set……go!

 

  Clean out the flatware drawer.

Does your flatware drawer mysteriously get crumbs in it?  How does that happen?  Do the spoons get mixed up?  In just ten minutes, you can take every piece out of the drawer, dust it out really quickly, and clean the sectioned tray that holds everything.  Then put it back in the drawer and put the forks, spoons, and knives back in their proper spots.

 

 Clean the sink.

A lot of gunk builds up in the sink over time, and it isn’t good.  Get some old rags, some dish detergent and go after the parts of the sink you can’t really see.  Dig down in there.  You probably won’t like what you find, but afterwards you will be so glad you did it.  I promise.

  Polish some silver.

Lots of people feel as if polishing silver is relaxing.  I am one of those people.  I use Wright’s silver polish and find that it takes just about ten minutes to polish the silver coffee and tea set from my mother.  Be sure to keep some silver polish in with your cleaning products so it’s always ready.  Then when you have ten minutes, grab it and start polishing.

 

 Degrease the stove’s fan vent.

This one is an easy one.  Even though I do very little frying and seldom use grease, our fan’s vent still manages to get greasy.  It’s simple to just unscrew one bolt, remove it, and then put it in the dishwasher.  Doing that takes way less than ten minutes.  Then when it’s time to do a load of dishes, the vent gets washed along with every thing else.

 

  Clean the microwave.

Do you know the microwave cleaning secret?  Just put a cup of water in the microwave, and set it to run for just three minutes.  You can add some lemon to that water if you want.  After the microwave stops, just leave the door shut for a while.  All of the gunk will soften up, and it will then wipe off very easily.  Then wash it down with some sudsy water, and it will be sparkling.

 

 Scour some pots and pans.

Just like polishing silver, scouring pots and pans can be relaxing.  At least in my world, it is.  I keep SOS pads on hand at all times.  Then when the desire scrub something strikes, I am ready.  You can scrub several pots in ten minutes.  Make sure you use the right product for the metal you are cleaning.

 

  Clean under the stove and refrigerator.

Here’s another kitchen mystery.  How does the area under the stove and refrigerator get so dusty?  I use a microfiber duster like this one to clean under them, but you can also reach underneath these two appliances by using a yardstick that has a microfiber cloth on its end.

 

  Organize and clean the spices.

Finding spices is a lot easier when they are in alphabetical order.  You can line them up and wipe them down in just a few minutes.  Jordan wrote a post about keeping the spice cabinet organized.  You can read it here.

 

  Clean the refrigerator doors.

Even with just Mr. Right and I living here, our refrigerator and dish washer doors get smudges.  It takes a little elbow grease, but these two appliances can be cleaned in less than ten minutes.

Take inventory of your wine/liquor

This ten minute task doesn’t require any cleaning.  Do you have any idea what’s in your wine cabinet?  Take a few minutes, and do some inventory.  Maybe your wine and liquor supply needs to be replenished since the holidays are approaching.  Find out if you are low on anything.   Make a note of it and stop by the liquor store the next time you are running errands.

 

 Water the plants.

 

Just give them a drink and snip off any dead leaves.  Fluff up the soil while you are at it.  This is a great way to spend ten minutes, and your plants will thank you for it.

 

Whew!  Look at everything we can accomplish with just a little effort in just a few minutes.  I bet you have lots of ten minute time fillers for the kitchen.  Drop us a note if you would like to share them.

 

Take care.

 

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