Y’all. I am the WORST housekeeper.

Every July, I tell myself I won’t let clutter take over this year: THIS year, I’ll keep up with the laundry. THIS year, I’ll dust regularly.

And then school starts. And life moves a million miles a minute, and I fail to keep the promises I made to myself.

So by the end of May, I know what my job almost all summer will be: shoveling out the house.

This summer, I’ve gone through clothes and moved out furniture and donated piles of bedding and books.

But still, if you showed up on my doorstep today (please don’t), I would feel obligated to apologize for the mess. I would tell you that it doesn’t always look this way, and I would be right… but only because it usually looks worse.

My decorating style can best be described as Tornadic.

I recently told a few friends that my new housekeeping strategy was to get up on Saturday, have some breakfast and coffee, and then clean until I couldn’t stand my own smell and take a shower.

One friend (a brilliant, funny graphic artist and business owner) responded, “Yes! This is me, every Saturday. And I wash the dog and clean the shower before I grab my own shower.”

And that’s how I figured out not only that I am clearly behind on the whole adulting thing, having only just now figured this strategy out, but also that I will never be able to maintain that pace.

In fact, I’ll do well to slip in a chore or two between coffee and the shower on Saturday mornings.

I say all that to say this: the recipes in this column this week are for CLEANING. They are not for EATING.

Did you hear that, everybody in the back? PLEASE DO NOT EAT THE DISH SOAP. I MEAN IT.

I realize this is a food column, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my mumbledy-mumble decades of homekeeping, it’s that eating food leads to spilling foods.

And spilling foods calls for stain remover.

I have used this stain remover for more than a decade. I found the recipe in some long-forgotten Mary Hunt newsletter about being frugal (not about cleaning, see, because I would never subscribe to a newsletter that would bully me).

I printed it out and taped it above my washing machine. I even packed it up 10 years ago when Zack and I moved into this house and dutifully taped it in this laundry room.

THAT should tell you how good it is: even my ne’er do well housekeeping self has managed to cling to this gem.

I’ve gotten mildew out of backpacks with it. I’ve removed pen ink and food spills and blood stains and dried-in stains of unknown origins.

It’s not magic: it didn’t get out the ink from a broken gel pen. It won’t do everything. But it may just salvage a backpack or two, and that’s pretty close.

STAIN SOLUTION

(DO NOT EAT. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, DO NOT EAT IT).

Ingredients
4 tablespoons hydrogen peroxide
1 teaspoon Dawn dishwashing liquid (you can try another brand, but I can’t vouch for it)
2 tablespoons baking soda

Directions
■ First, don’t outsmart yourself and try to double or triple this batch to keep it on hand. Hydrogen peroxide loses efficacy when it is exposed to light, so this is one of those very rare instances when I’ll go ahead and tell you that you’re better off making this fresh each time you need it. If you like it, keep the recipe, all the ingredients, a cup, and an old toothbrush in your laundry area. That’s about as streamlined as I’ve been able to make the process. But the slight hassle is worth the outcome.
■ OK. Mix hydrogen peroxide with dishwashing liquid in a small bowl or cup. Add baking soda and mix well. Use a clean brush to scrub mixture on stain, saturating the fabric. (I use an old toothbrush or a handheld spinning brush for this.) Allow to sit overnight. Launder as usual. Check the stain *before* drying and repeat process if necessary.

Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville. Email reaches her at [email protected].

Amelia Plair is a Starkville resident who writes occasional food columns.