The Magic Eraser

I'm trying to use fewer chemicals when I clean but I kept reading about Mr Clean's Magic Eraser on a bunch of different blogs.

I got a coupon for one a while back and finally decided to try it when I saw some pencil scribble on our basement baseboards. Not sure how long it had been there or who the guilty party was (although I have my suspicions), but I wanted it gone.

I wet the Eraser and squeezed out the extra water as instructed, after a few swipes the pencil was gone!! Then I went around and easily wiped off all of the grubby fingerprints off the various walls. It was working so well I decided to try it on a mark that has bugged me since we moved in to this house - crayons scribble inside my daughter's closet door. It's been there since before we had kids, so it must have been the "artwork" of the previous residents. Again success. It did dry the wood a little bit, so I wiped it down with Murphy's spray when I was done.

The weird thing about the Magic Eraser is that it is meant to be disposable and slowly disintegrates as you use it. Still I was able handle all the things I wanted to clean with just one.

From now on I'll keep a couple of these with my cleaning supplies. If you are one of the ones who blogged about these things, thank you.  If you haven't tried them yet, you should.

Tip of the Day - Keeping a Handle on Plastic Bags

My Mom actually got this one from Real Simple, so all you organizing junkies who probably already read Real Simple probably already know this, but here's a great way to reuse two different things - empty tissue boxes and plastic grocery bags.

I'm a huge fan of the fabric tote bags for groceries and use them whenever I do my shopping. Despite that, I still end up with quite a few plastic bags. Rather than bring them back to the store to recycle them, I use them as garbage bags for our small garbage cans. I know that's nothing new, but since we have 4 bathrooms each with their own can, and one by the laundry machines, I needed a good way to keep the bags organized.

That's where the tissue box came in. I put the empty bags in the empty tissue box and put one tissue box in each room. I would refill them as I brought purchases to those rooms. The problem was sometimes I'd end up with an empty box and no bags. So now I have a 6th box in my kitchen cupboard. Now when I unpack things when I get home, I just add the plastic bags to the 6th box. As one box runs out, I swap it with the box from the kitchen, and start refilling the empty one. Problem solved.

Again this may not be the most exciting/enlightening tip ever, but definitely made my life easier once I thought of it. Since I've found so many, "why did I never think of that before?" tips on other blogs, I like to return the favor.

Make Your Own Astringent

I've found a lot of great cleaning tips and recipes on various blogs, so I thought I'd share one of my DIY concoctions. Actually my dermatologist gave me the "recipe" about 5 years ago, but I've been using it and saving money ever since.

Equal parts rubbing alcohol, witch hazel and regular water. Pour each one in the bottle of your choice (I still use my old Clinique pump), and give it a little shake to mix everything. Done. This works well for normal to oily skin, but may be a bit harsh for sensitive skin.

Back Up Your Blog

Last week I had one of my shower epiphanies. With 3 kids running around, I don't get much time to myself. My morning shower helps me wake up but also helps me clear my head, and sometimes even gives me the luxury of a couple of extra minutes to think about things other than mentally prioritizing the day's to-do list.

Anyway, back to the epiphany. I started this blog for the convenience of writing on the go, and being able to track things that happen in our family. What if one day through some computer SNAFU it all disappeared? That would totally suck. I wasn't really sure how to back it all up, and then happened upon a blogpost by another blogger who showed how easy it is. Check out this post by this post by A Simply Klassic Home for easy instructions on how to do it.

I just did it with mine. I have it saved on my hard drive now and feel better (I know an external hard drive would be even better but since I don't have one, this will have to do for now.) It was very easy and only took a couple of minutes. So while you're sitting at your computer anyway, take the time to back yours up too.

Morning Drama

We were supposed to get 4-6 inches of snow last night so I was expecting that the kids would have a snow day today. Sadly, 6 am came and went without a call from the school despite snow on the ground and more falling.

I got the kids ready for school and as my daughter was getting her boots out of the closet I heard a bump and a scream. I ran over to hear and she was screaming crying and holding a tooth in her hand. Oh shit! She is in the middle of losing her baby teeth, but hasn't had a loose one in a while. She was bleeding quite a bit, so I ran down to get my trusty red washcloth (if you have kids you need to have some of these, trust me). I brought it upstairs for her still not knowing which tooth she had lost and thinking we may have to go to the dentist this morning as all her front teeth are now her adult teeth. We sat in the bathroom for a while with her on my lap crying while I cleaned her up with the washcloth.

Once she calmed I look at the tooth and the new space in her smile and confirmed that yes this was a baby tooth, and probably next in line to fall out given that she lost the opposite one not long ago. Phew!!!

The bleeding stopped pretty quickly and we left to walk to school. As we were walking I asked her how many teeth she had now lost. She answered 8 and then thought a little and said, "Duncan Keith may have lost 7 teeth but I lost 8".

In case you are wondering about the red washcloth, it's a tip I got from my Mom. Most little kids don't like the sight of blood (especially their own). So if you use a dark colored washcloth to clean them up, the appearance of the blood won't be as dramatic as say a white washcloth. I use red as I have gotten a couple of rally towels from Hawks games over the years that I keep for this purpose. I think one year they need to make one with the old line, "Give Blood, Play Hockey". Until then, I use these.

3 things I discovered this week

1. You can wash cashmere in baby shampoo and cold water. It's certainly gentler than dry cleaning and also better than Woolite. I tried it this week (starting with a couple of my older sweaters) and it works. I put them in a basin to soak for a couple of hours to overnight (if I forgot about them) and laid them to dry on a towel after gently pressing the water out - do not wring or squeeze. Done and done and still nice and soft.

2. Olio board - I love Pinterest for crafts, recipes, home organization stuff, but when it comes to decorating, this is so much better. You create boards of decor stuff by picking based on what other people have pinned or you can search through certain retailers. The best part is that if you click on anything you selected, it takes you to the seller's website and you can buy it!!!!!! Isn't that awesome? I have seen so many things on Pinterest that I like but have no idea where the pinner found them so it doesn't do me any good. Not all retailers are on there yet but Crate and Barrel ( and affiliates) are as well as tons of others. I haven't created any boards yet but look forward to starting.

3. Feeddler RSS - I've been following a bunch of blogs through GFC for a while but honestly rarely read their posts as I don't use a real computer much. I had resisted following new blogs as I knew I'd never find them again to read them. This app let's you access all the posts on your phone. It's perfect. I'm all caught up now (after reading through over 300 ppsts that were waiting for me) I look forward to keeping up with my favorite sites.