Life Is But A Drink

 

So, you know that I’ve had bad luck randomly picking items off the shelf at Whole Foods.  The whole garlic peanut thing still haunts me (see here). 

But, then, sometimes you hit the jackpot.  And all is once again right with the world.

I ran into Whole Foods last night to pick up some coffee beans and came across these chocolate covered caramels sprinkled with sea salt.  Yes, please.

I ate about 5 of them last night because they were so good.  And another for breakfast.  Yes, really.  Don’t mind if I do. 

I think I’m in love.

I’ve been alive for awhile now.  And, when you’ve been alive for awhile, you can kinda sorta get in a rut about some things – like the cleaning products you use.   I know, exciting – right?

But it’s true.  We’ve got our bucket of cleaning products in the laundry room and a few cleaning-related products under the kitchen sink and it’s always the same products in both places. If we run out of something, we buy more of the very same something.  It’s just the way it is.  Creatures of habit, I suppose.

But then this happened:

I’ve heard about these so-called “magic” erasers for awhile now.  Years.  And yet it never occurred to me to try one out because, really?!?!  A MAGIC eraser?  What is so magical about it?  What can it do that a paper towel and my trusty Greenworks Multi Surface Cleaner can’t do?  I assumed it was a gimmick.

Then, the other day, I was in the cleaning aisle of the grocery store getting some laundry detergent and there was the Magic Eraser display.  And because I was feeling a little crazy, I  ended up buying a 2-pack.  Just because that’s how I roll.

And I brought them home and tried using one to get some smudges off the wall.  And, you guys, it’s like a whole new world has been opened to me.  These things are amazing.  I spent an entire afternoon removing smudges from my walls and my appliances.  And literally dancing around in between each successful smudge removal.  Because these were smudges that I had tried to remove a million times before but couldn’t get off with elbow grease and apparently subpar cleaning products.  I’m serious.  Even my kids thought I was crazy.  And that’s saying a lot.

And the truth is that now I can’t stop.  I went through those first two Magic Erasers in one afternoon.  I picked up a 4-pack this last weekend and I’m obsessed with finding new things I can clean with them.  Like, right now, I’m sitting here staring at the top of the desk in our office/piano room and there are these smudges and pen marks (smudges and pen marks that I tried to get off before and couldn’t) mocking me.  And I just know they’ll come off with a Magic Eraser.  It’s taking every ounce of my being to not run into the next room right now and grab a magic eraser and go to town on them.

Magic Eraser = my new best friend.

But, I can’t forget about my other new best friend:

Now, I actually went out in search of Mr. Oxi.  He didn’t find me like the Magic Erasers did.

The grout in the kids’ bathroom has bothered me since we moved in.  It was discolored right down the middle where it had been used the most.  I’d scrubbed it.  I’d used every cleaning product we had on tap.  And it was still discolored.  And obviously discolored since the grout around the edges was light gray.  And the grout in the middle was dark gray.  It kinda grossed me out.  It always looked dirty.

I got online a few months ago and started reading about how to clean grout and deal with grout stains, etc.  A number of people I ran across recommended Oxi Clean.  Whatever.  Let’s give it a shot.

So, I went out a bought a small tub o’ Oxi Clean.  I followed the directions on the back for grout exactly – I mixed some in with some water in a bucket and used a sponge to generously apply it to the stained grout.  And then I just let it sit there and soak for about 30 minutes.  When I came back, I used a grout brush to scrub the heck out of the grout.  And then I rinsed it all off.

I didn’t hold much faith in this whole exercise.  BUT, it worked!  The grout is clean.  It’s like a miracle!  I am so happy that, after three years, the bathroom looks clean!  All hail to the Oxi Clean!

I tried to take pictures of this whole process for you but they are worthless.  You really can’t see what is going on.  And the grout looks fine in the BEFORE photo.  I figured you’d look at it and think I was absolutely insane for obsessing about my not-dirty dirty grout.  So, just take my word for it.  It was dirty.  And now it’s clean.

And my husband has now started a love affair with the Oxi Clean.  He is using it for everything.  Laundry and other odds and ends.  He’s like a cleaning machine with that stuff.  It’s to him what the Magic Eraser is to me.  He can’t stop.

Anyway, I wanted to share these amazing cleaning products with you. I’m fairly certain I’m long overdue to this Magic Eraser / Oxi Clean party and that you’ve all probably been using these products forever and a day.  But, just in case…

This week, I’ve been sharing with you some of my absolute favorite things in my house.  We started our little favorite things journey in the living room (see here), made our way to my bedroom (see here), and made a stop in my son’s room (see here).

Today, we’re in the kitchen. And my no-bones-about-it favorite thing in the kitchen is this rainbow “bowl/platter” that sits in the middle of our kitchen table.  I love this thing.  It is bright and colorful.  And I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else.  It’s UNIQUE.

And it has special meaning to me because it is something my dad picked out for me.  My dad rarely bought me anything for my home but, when he did, it was usually a home run.  And this “bowl/platter” was definitely a home run, in my book.  I can’t tell you how much I cherish it.

I wish I knew where it was from, but I don’t have any clue.