tidytexans

[tidytexans]

With spring just around the corner, why not try this fun and budget-friendly craft using products from Dollar Tree?!

You can find all the necessary materials at your local store, including tiny pots, straw or moss and even ribbon. All you need is an egg.

To make a blown egg, gently poke two small holes in an egg, one on the top and one on the bottom. Then, carefully blow out the yolk through the other end. Wash the eggshell thoroughly but gently, and allow it to air dry. If you prefer, use hot glue to attach the pieces together in your desired design. You can even add some natural beauty by incorporating dried flowers!

#farmhousedecor #dollar tree finds #chicken #cleaning tips #budget

[tidytexans]

As most of my regulars know, I love to gift eggs from our chickens away. Since our younger chickens are finally coming into their adult age, I’m about to have even more eggs to share! This includes turkey and duck eggs as well. Eggs galore and we’re pretty excited about it.

Where we live in the country it’s not too uncommon to find produce stands on the side of the road. One in particular is called “Areks Vegetable Stand”.  If you’re from around here, you’ve more than likely seen one of their benches around town or even driven past the colorful stand itself once or twice.  Being so close to our home, we’ve been stopping there the past few years for some of their amazing tomatoes and sweet corn!

I recently had the pleasure of meeting the Gustafson’s, the wonderful people who run “Arek’s Vegetable Stand”.  It just so happened that they were looking for a housekeeper and reached out to me for a quote.  When I met with Tamah, I ended up losing all sense of time just chatting with her. I could tell right away that this family was very passionate and selfless. She told me all about her son Arek, and how he started this veggie stand because of his passion for gardening and the outdoors.

Unfortunately, in 2021 at 6 years old, Arek unexpectedly passed away. As you can imagine this left the family devastated and completely taken off guard. With help from the community and their friends and family, Areks stand continued to live on.  The Gustafson family wanted to turn their tragedy into a blessing and give back to those who helped them, making their motto “Take what you need, leave what you can.”  As well as giving back to charities that Arek loved, which includes school lunch and weekend backpack programs for children in need.

Hearing all this was so incredibly touching. Without any hesitation, I wanted to help in any way possible. I told her that I would love to donate fresh eggs from our chickens for their stand.  At the time, this sounded like a great idea. However, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to do this. I didn’t want to burden them with the responsibility of bringing eggs in everyday if they didn’t get picked up.  So after some time and a lot of thought, I figured “Why not just put out a stand on our own property?! And we can give back all the proceeds!”

I had considered having an egg stand before but just never got around to it. Part of the reason why was that I didn't actually want to sell eggs. I enjoyed giving them away. It’s something that made me genuinely happy. Combined with the meeting with Tamah, and hearing her families story finally gave me the inspiration and push that I needed.  I wanted everything to be free, swappable or accept donations that would go directly to Arek's charities.

I reached out to Tamah and shared my idea with her. She was very flattered and gave me her blessing! Our son, Fynn and I gathered up the eggs and some of my many plants and got to work! Joslynn helped make the signs and the stand itself!  A good friend of ours even donated a cooler for the eggs!

The first day having the stand open was a success! Many neighbors stopped by to see what we had. By the end of the second day, Fynn and I went to close down the stand when a truck stopped by. A nice man came out with a bunch of oranges. He started to tell me that he was coming down our road the day before, saw the stand and thought it was amazing and decided that he wanted to do his part as well. He didn’t even have intentions on taking eggs or plants, he just wanted to give. After chatting for a while and finally convincing him that he needed to take some fresh eggs with him, I thought to myself that this should be a produce stand as well!  This was the moment the “The Give Back Swap Stand” was truly born!

This stand has been such a joy so far! Between coming home to new swap surprises and meeting and chatting with new people. I absolutely love watching people take pride in their community & making new friends at the same time. It truly warms my heart to take my son to drop off money at Arek’s stand, all while he learns the importance of hard work and giving back to your community. I’ve loved every moment of it so far and I’m excited to see it grow!!

So from our family to yours… Thank ya’ll!

[tidytexans]

My Dad needs help...

This next story hits close to home.My family and I have known Leah for about 20 years. Be it the small town atmosphere or just the way friends seem to feel like family, you get invested in others easily around here. Leah had always stood out to me as a very kind, trustworthy and hard working person. She actually even won a contest I was running for Tidy Texans over a year ago for a free cleaning. Which just adds the “meant to be” to this story.

While recently looking for people to bring into the Tidy Texans family to work with, it didn’t take me long and my mind went directly to Leah.. She definitely had all the qualities of someone I wanted/needed on my team.  I was comfortable reaching out to her and let her know that I had seen all her hard work and dedication and asked if she would ever want to come work and be part of the team. I was delighted to receive a response saying that she was “always down for a challenge”. 

Although Leah was working full time and also working around her kids schedules, she was still interested in educating herself more in the world of professional cleaning. I personally love teaching and have always had a passion for it so this was fantastic! Not only did it make me happy that she was comfortable enough to hit this head on but it was great to know that she was willing to ask questions and continue her knowledge of professional cleaning.

One day Leah approached me to discuss something personal. Something that I could tell meant a lot to her immediately. She started to explain things to me regarding her father and his current living situation. We talked about her Mother’s recent passing and her father’s health decline. That his arthritis had gotten so bad that he could no longer reach down to pick up things. How he had small dogs and a cat that were getting older and making more messes than usual in the home. Leah was embarrassed, like the majority of us get in similar situations, so even discussing this was hard enough. Let alone the personal struggles of seeing her Father’s home this way without the time to help the way she wanted to due to her work and personal obligations. Little did she know how much strength it took to open up about a situation like this. 

On top of it all, reaching out to a professional cleaner, wondering about prices while dealing with the emotional toll as well. It’s so much in an already hard situation. So while she’s telling me this situation, describing the big repairs of fixing the roof, the deck, ripping up carpet to fix the flooring, I knew that I wanted to help. I knew that Leah and her father would benefit greatly from gifted services. I truly wanted to help her and her family. 

After offering this to her, she refused immediately. Which only made me want to help her more. So after a little convincing, we made the arrangement that Tidy Texans could share her story and we’d offer our deep clean services for free. And you may ask yourself, why did she need to share her story? To hopefully reach more people in similar situations that, like her at one point, were too scared to reach out. 

The day of her scheduled cleaning, we had a snow day and needed to reschedule. Leah was still heading out that way for the weekend. Even though we couldn’t physically be there to help, I made a Tidy Texans cleaning caddy up and supplied everything that she would need for an extreme clean. This was the least that I could do at the moment. She sent photos of all her hard work and my heart was so happy. I was so proud of her.

At this point, I still hadn’t seen complete photos of the entire home. So we didn’t entirely know what to expect during our clean. Being familiar with similar situations, I had an idea of what I should expect. As we walked in, we were greeted by two elderly Chihuahuas. Naturally, I had to become best friends with them. Walking around with my new companions, I noticed many cobwebs, extensive thick dust layers, animal droppings and an abundant amount of animal hair. Some of the flooring was damaged with holes and the ceiling had some visible rot.

Everything needed to be moved and completely wiped down. We gathered laundry and proceeded to wash those items. We took up rugs and transferred them outside. We also gifted a new rug for the home. The clean was extensive. I don’t honestly remember how many hours we worked but it seemed to go by so fast as Leah and I talked more and more about her family. She told me that this was the house that she grew up in. Their Christmases were spent here. She told me with such care about her how Mother kept up with all the housekeeping and that her unexpected death, only a few short years earlier, led to her fathers downward spiral. She boasted about her Mother and told me that was an artist and actually painted a mural on the wall. 

She explained how her father was so attached to so many things in the home because they were a part of her Mother. I knew at that moment that I didn’t want to take anything from him but that I wanted to leave him with a new beginning. One that he could be happy and healthy in. One that his family would feel comfortable visiting regularly so that they could make new memories. One that would still allow for him to be close to things that reminded him of his late wife.

With most projects like this, I hoped that I was doing this not only up to my standards but his as well. I was extremely pleased to know that he walked in and was in pure amazement. He was so happy and even motivated to keep the house in better shape from this point forward. 

I’m so honored that Leah felt comfortable talking to me about this situation and her family. That she trusted me enough not only as someone to help her with her family home but as a friend. Leah is a beautiful person who deserves someone to see all the hard work that she’s put in.

Tidy Texans plans to make arrangements with Leah to further care for her  family home and we’re hoping that we can get him in a rotation for regular maintenance.

Thanks Ya'll!

www.TidyTexans.com

#Tidy Texans #Cleaning #Cleaning For Clarity #Mental Health #Extreme Clean #Deep Cleaning

[tidytexans]

Cleaning for Clarity

Howdy guys! 

I’m so excited to start this blog with you all! I have so many things in store to share with you! I’d like to first properly introduce myself. Which, in my hopes, will help you get to know me on another level & see why I do the things I do.

I wasn’t always a housekeeper. Ten years ago I was a master nail technician. I won awards and was featured in magazines for my art multiple times. I even taught others in the field as well. At the height of my career I unfortunately had a four wheeling accident that led me to develop cervical dystonia. 

Cervical Dystonia is a rare, incurable muscle and neurological disorder that causes tremors, muscle spasms and the incapacity to move in certain ways. This unfortunately led to the end of my career as a nail technician. Fortunately though, with the treatments of Botox I have improved in certain areas. Although I can no longer do small detailed work like before, this has led to me becoming mentally stronger. 

In my early twenties, before becoming a nail technician, I worked cleaning houses around the area that I was living in. What was initially done for extra cash, was about to resurface again in my life, but this time I saw it with a new clarity. A different set of eyes you could say. Because I was about to experience it first hand.

I remember when I originally started doing “extreme cleans”, I would wonder to myself how anyone could live that way. I know that sounds horrible to say but I was young and didn’t see things for what they were. I couldn’t grasp it thoroughly because I looked at it more as a way to earn extra income. I didn’t see the people, I didn’t hear the stories. I was in and out and often hired by someone who didn’t share the details. However, after I was diagnosed with Cervical Dystonia, I found myself being extremely broken mentally. I started to decline in taking care of myself and almost completely gave up on my life. The last thing I thought about was cleaning. I was just thinking about how to not give up.

And then it just clicked. As much as this was tragic for me, it also humbled me. I thought about all those people that I had helped before. I was in their shoes now. And I stopped and looked around, and I was there, too. That is when I realized that I wanted to not just help people but I wanted to really make a difference. Being properly trained in chemicals, sanitation and disinfection, paired with my knowledge of self management from my nail tech career, I made the decision to start a new path. One of self healing while healing others. I no longer just empathize, I sympathize. 

When I started Tidy Texans in 2015, I knew I just didn’t want to be a “housekeeper”. I wanted to be someone that made a difference in people's lives. And while cleaning homes, I’m also cleansing not only their mental health but my own.

In my next series of posts, I’ll be discussing one of our pro bono cases and how Tidy Texans will be introducing a new roll out on an old policy. We’re thrilled for this and I’m even more thrilled to share it with you. So please stay tuned.

#Tidy Texans #Cleaning #Extreme Cleans #Hording #Housekeeper #Clean #Tidy #Pro Bono #Hoard #Nail Technician #Nails By Kari

[tidytexans]

Hey ya'll!

I’m Kari Denny, owner of Tidy Texans! Welcome to my page and my blog. I’m hoping that my every day life will not only keep you guys entertained but hopefully give you guys some tips and tricks for around your homes and farms.

Running a small business isn’t my only job. Family is my first passion! As a boy mom, wife, caregiver and chicken farmer (poulterer) I understand the struggles of day to day life! This is why I decided to create Tidy Texans. I wanted to have a flexible schedule for my family but also utilize my passion for cleaning and organizing to help other families do the same. This is something I’ve always been passionate about. I started working on helping with hoarding situations and extreme living conditions in my free time in my early 20’s. Among other passions, cleaning and helping families was something I always came back to, no matter where I found myself.

Originally from Michigan, I created Tidy Texans in 2015 while living in Texas where I met my wife, Joslynn. Joslynn, a former bar manager, has put aside her salary job to work along side me full time. While creating our business, we also had our son, Fynn. To have a family and own and operate a business has always been a dream of mine. And I’m so happy to say that I’ve finally created both. Having them combined is something that’s honestly hard for me to put into words.

Cleaning isn’t just a job to me. I wholeheartedly believe having a clean environment reduces stress and promotes happiness. Having dealt with mental illness myself, I enjoy helping those battling with their own illness. I take pride in what I have created and love making a difference in my clients lives! I want to share the many things I’ve learned over the years and even my money saving tricks! So I’m hoping in this blog I can share the best cleaning products, ways to save money, organizing hacks, promote motivation, plus more, all while keeping up with the chaos of my own family life! So much more to come and I can’t wait to take you all along for the ride.

#Cleaning #Cleaning Company #Chicken Farmer