I have a nasty, dirty little secret...my friends and family know nothing about this and I never share. It is embarrassing and something I try to ignore...once a year, I try to deal with it. Just minimally...but honestly, nothing has solved my problem.

For a person with a touch of cleaning OCD, this is a distressing thing to have to admit.

The tops of my kitchen cabinets are NASTY. I don't mean "a little dirty"...I mean greasy, dirty, nasty. And honestly, usually around the holidays I make an effort to take all the stuff down, clean it or run it through the dishwasher, and wipe down the tops. But the gunk and grime is so bad I usually just say forget it and put the clean stuff back up on the nastiness. Gross, I know. Now keep in mind, I am the kind of person who pulls my stove, fridge and dryer out every so often and sweep and scrub beneath! Seriously! (The washing machine is a front loader...that sucker doesn't budge...God knows what is under there!) But the tops of my cabinets...well, lets just say...oh, what can I say to defend myself....nothing really.

So when I saw a nifty little tip on Pinterest, I said to myself (and my cats) "Hey, I can do THAT!" Clean and put down WAX PAPER! And every so often, just change out the wax paper and the grime is gone! SWEET!

The PROBLEM was getting the serious coating of grime OFF the cabinet tops before I put down the wax paper. That took rubber gloves, straight ammonia, a mask, several rags and some serious elbow grease. But I'm pretty sure I got 99% of the grime (and scorched my lungs) before I put down the wax paper.

(BTW, being a "couponer," I bought several jugs of ammonia at Target for .12 each...yep, you read right... TWELVE CENTS. Target's website has Target coupons...right now you can print a $2 off 2 Up and Up cleaning supplies. Print one, make 4 copies and take it to Target. Their jugs of ammonia are only $1.12. So you can buy 8 jugs with your 4 coupons for .96! Sweet deal...especially considering it took well over a jug just to clean my cabinets!! I don't use ammonia a lot, but when I need something to cut some serious grime, it's my go to..... )

Anywho, here are a few pictures. Honestly, it took me less than an hour....and I know it will save me some embarrassment in the future. (I have this fear that my family will find this stuff when I die and think poorly of me...it is one reason I make my bed EVERY day...God forbid I have an accident and my house is a mess when the family comes in...forget clean undies...seriously, who's really going to notice that! But a dirty house...oh my!)

Seriously, the camera flash does not do justice by the dirt on the rags...it was seriously nasty!

How pretty is that! And when the holidays roll around and I climb up on the counters to get my turkey platter (ohhhh, I forgot to put that in "my favorite things"...it was my great grandmother's and we use it every year!) or the crystal tea pitcher, I will just take up the dirty wax paper, put down some clean and PRESTO...I am good to go!

Come to think of it, I might even have one of my kids climb up there to get the stuff...just so they can see what a clean person Mom is ;)