It’s not exactly a bodice-ripping beach summer read but it is excellent.

Good Housekeeping’s new book Simple Household Wisdom kept me turning the pretty pages once I borrowed it from my library and then realised I needed my very own copy from Amazon.

If you think I’ve gone all Stepford Wife* on you, read on…

For $11, this little gem of a book is a great reference for keeping your place clean in the simplest way with products they tested against many others. These products include lots of wipes, stored in or near the place to be cleaned. Brilliant. No doubt we’ll be living on Mars soon.

I wondered if maybe Good Housekeeping might be in kahoots with Amazon.com or Walmart.com, but no. The recommended products and ways of cleaning things are great.

Some examples:

Barkeeper’s Friend soft scrub for porcelain. I bought a mini size pack of 4 and keep them next to all the sinks and 1 tub. It’s a snap to use and the porcelain shines.

Scrubbing bubbles disposable pad kits for each toilet? Oh yes, I did! They say flushable but we have small pipes and an uphill sewage grinder that kind of scares me…so I just toss the tiny pads in the trash.

Mirrors? Rubbing alcohol and paper towels. No more cruddy newspapers! Anyone still have a subscription out there?

Stainless Steel? Weinman’s wipes don’t make the horrid mess that the other wipes do. Simple follow with a paper towel at your leisure.

Down pillows? You can wash them! Oh yes. And they turn out like new. I happened to use wikihow as a guideline and set the dryer temp to medium. This deserves its very own post I think.

I see many of my friends posting Summer Adventure Adventure! pics on social media of rafting, boating, extreme swimming with guppies, and horseback riding. These are all out for me at the moment but soon, I hope to post pics of Super Extreme “Like-New!” Fluffy Pillows! in a very shiny mirror soon.

*Stepford Wives was a popular horror film from the 1970s wherein men living in a town called Stepford, have all their wives replaced one by one, by beautiful robots who like to cook and clean…