Thanksgiving is a huge production around my home and every year it never fails, I don't leave myself enough time to clean thoroughly from all the cooking, shopping, etc. that I have to do. I discovered by accident one year that a bottle of windex and a roll of paper towels can cover a multitude of housecleaning sins.
As usual I had been squeezing in the kids school activities, shopping, preparing, baking and TV special watching after I got off work the week prior to Thanksgiving.I'd spent no time at all doing housework. I got up the morning of and looked around and realized my house was in dismal condition. I took a laundry basket and gathered up all the clothes and other junk lying around the house. I took the vacuum to the furniture and high traffic areas as fast as I could and then went and grabbed a bottle of windex (because it was the only cleaner I had on hand) and headed toward the bathrooms. 30 minutes and a roll of paper towels, I realized I just discovered the answer to my Mother-in-Law-is-on-the-way-over emergency cleaning dilemma.

So when you're in a really big hurry and must have a clean looking house, Light a Yankee Candle, run the vacuum as quick as possible around the high traffic areas, shine up counter tops, mirrors, sinks, tables and anything gooey or sticky with a paper towel and squirt of windex, throw everything into a spare laundry basket to be dealt with later and within minutes you've got a shiny, clean smelling dwelling that looks like you spent hours scrubbing, buffing, dusting and vacuuming.