Stovetop challenge

***Post Your Mission Accomplished!***

If you needed motivation to do the FlyLady daily mission or some other task you've been neglecting, here it is. It can be your stovetop, your refrigerator, or something else. Post about your mission when you're done and link to it in the comments, or just tell us about it in a comment under this post. I'll make a list of the tasks accomplished with a link to the relevant blog.

There will be prizes! I'm not sure what the categories will be yet, but there will probably be one for the most interesting job and the most improvement, among others. Interesting stories and humor used in telling about the task gain extra points. Before and after pictures are encouraged. I'll do before and afters of my refrigerator today. :)


Last night I tried to go to my women's Bible study at church, but I got there to a dark room with a note on the door that study would resume the middle of January. Hmmm. So, after checking in with DH, I decided to take advantage of a couple of child-free hours to have some quiet time to myself and do a little shopping. It's amazing how just a small chunk of time away from the house and kids can restore some semblance of sanity.

We were gone all day yesterday, so I hadn't gotten any of my regular chores done. By the time I got the baby fed, groceries put away, and dishes and laundry done it was after 2:30 a.m. But I really want to start doing FlyLady's daily zone mission, so I decided to go ahead and do it last night. What difference could 15 minutes make by that point, anyway?

FlyLady sends out an e-mail each day with a 15-minute task to do in the current zone. This week we are working in the kitchen.

I actually did Monday's challenge yesterday, which was to take apart the stovetop and wash the drip pans and knobs, and wipe down underneath them.


I've never taken apart my stovetop before. I've taken out the burners and drip pans, but it never even occurred to me that the knobs might be removable. So, with some trepidation, I pulled on a knob. It came off. Nothing seem to be broken or damaged, so I put the knob in the sink full of hot soapy water along with the drip pans and pulled off the other three.

Then I started looking at the glass panel and the little white buttons. Some grime had gotten down underneath the panel and the buttons, and especially in the holes under where the knobs might be. Hmmm, I wondered if the buttons came off. Easing a couple of fingernails under the rubber edge, I wiggled the button and experimentally pulled a bit. It popped out. Wow! Maybe now I can figure out what's wrong with the one that's always hard to push. So I pulled out all the little rubber buttons.

The glass panel was harder to figure out, but eventually I found the little clamps and popped it off. I put it in the sink and washed it, then dried it carefully. The area underneath was really fascinating to look at, with all the little electronic panels under the buttons. It didn't look like something that should get very wet, so I just wiped it down very gently.

You're supposed to set a timer and spend only 15 minutes on the job, but once I had the stovetop apart I didn't want to put it back together without finishing cleaning it. It had 3 years' worth of grime built up inside--ick!

The cooked-on grease under edges of the drip pans was the hardest thing to remove. I ended up using one of those non-scratch green scrubby pads around the edges, and that worked quite well. The drip pans themselves are still soaking; I'll probably end up using the green pad on them too.

After soaking the buttons and knobs in soapy water all night, I just gave them a quick wipe and they were clean. I want to make sure they're completely dry before I put everything back together.

It definitely took me more than 15 minutes, but once I got started I didn't want to stop.

Yesterday's mission was to take a toothbrush to the kitchen faucet, and today's is to spend 15 minutes cleaning out the refrigerator. I'm going to try to see if I can do both today, even though you're not really "supposed" to try to catch up--just do that day's task. But now I'm on a roll. I think I'll actually use the timer this time, though.

It sure feels good to accomplish something like this!

I'm going to be tired later today, though. By the time I got to bed and then fed the baby again, it was at least 4 a.m. before I went to sleep. DH was already gone for breakfast with a friend when the kids woke me around 7.

At least I have some good craft projects to keep the kids busy today.