Line upon Line

While my brother was away in Florida for the spring semester, he and I didn't communicate a lot.  Quite frankly, he's not much one for the whole "keeping in touch" thing, and I sort of shrugged and figured I'd see him when he came home.  Which I did.

But there were a few things I kept in contact about.  For instance, there was a switch-up with the traffic light a few blocks from our house, and I knew he'd like to know that it was on the four-way blinker system finally.  I told him that.  I mentioned that our favorite character came back to Adventures in Odyssey.  Well, maybe not a favorite, but it was a dark day in our house when Jason Whittaker was written off the show (worked for the NSA and randomly had to go into witness protection or something--it didn't make much sense unless they were just writing the guy completely out of the show), and then behold! Jason returned!

So I had to tell him.  Obviously.

The other thing I did take the time to tell him was that they painted lines on our road.  This might not seem like a big deal to anybody, including our neighbors (or, possibly, my mother, who said, "wait, those are new lines?") but we've never had lines before, and they don't make much sense.   

See, our street is long, and each block has its own set of rules.  On our block, you can park, but only on the right side of the street.  (I don't know my left and right very well, but I know that if you stand in one direction, it's the right side of the street, so I couldn't go wrong with that.  Ha!)  Further down, you can only park on the left side of the street.  In some places, you can't park on either side.  So, in order to accommodate all of this, they painted the lines accordingly.

You can't see that well, but if you squint, you can get the idea that looking down this road, there's more space on the left side of the line than the other (in order to give room for the sometimes-parked cars).  Way down, however, it switches to the line being in the middle of the road (because all the space will be for driving, as no parking is allowed), which looks weird.

Okay, here's a close-up view of the tragedy.  Those lines DO NOT match up.  I understand why, truly I do, because of the whole sometimes-no-parking thing, they have to move the lines accordingly, but there was a reason that we didn't used to have lines.  And that is because some of the people who live on our street and/or have to drive down it often (I'm sure it's more than just me.  Maybe.) get irked when it looks like a drunken man marched to and fro painting lines wherever he pleased.  I avoid driving down our road now, because I don't even like to look at it.  It's just weird.

And then of course, they decided to erase some of the lines.  On two blocks, and two blocks only, they painted/whatevered over the yellow lines, now making a not-so-attractive black swath in the middle of the street.  It's weird.

All this to say...  Whoever makes the line decisions in my city should clearly consult the residents of the street, because the residents would be able to instantly understand when things just won't, um, line up.  So to speak.

Crafting. Of sorts.

I love crafty ideas.  Scrapbookery, home DIYs, all that stuff.  But... I don't have/make time for a lot of things, so if I'm going to be crafty, there must be a purpose.  So when VBS came a while ago, and our theme was "Springtime in Paris," our colors were hot pink and black, and I was relegated to making some decorations, I decided that I would attempt a project I saw on Pinterest.

(Okay, I promise I'm not as obsessed as I've been sounding these last few days, but I only just now got around to posting for the first time in a long time, and a lot of what I had to catch up on had roots in Pinterest.  So...  cough.  This is awkward.)

Anyhow, what I saw a was a cute party decoration idea using Christmas lights and Dixie cups.  The lady took scrapbook paper and made some festive cups, and took some well-lit photos.

Personally, I don't take charming, well-lit photos.  Nor do I have time to cut out that much scrapbook paper.  Nor do I have a desire to cut out that much scrapbook paper.

So I thought about it, because I do so like lights, and figured I'd just spray paint the cups.  I mean, spray paint looks good too, right?

So I got some spray paint, and some Dixie cups, and set to work.  Turns out, Dixie cups aren't very heavy.  And spray paint is sort of forceful.  I would spray a cup and it would blow away.  Huh.  So I used a little brain power to come up with this solution.

I got some magnets (I LOVE magnets.  There is nothing I love half so well as finding a good use for a strong magnet.  The only time I wasn't a fan was several years ago when my brother took some of my strong magnets and brought them to the breakfast table, and held them underneath the wooden table to move my spoon.  I wasn't really okay with the whole "morning" thing at the time, so it took me a long time to get over being freaked out when my spoon just started sliding away from me as I stared at it helplessly.  It's funny now, but it was sort of unnerving that morning...) and put said magnets in a cup opposite a regular table knife, as shown.  The knife is wrapped in masking tape, because I didn't want to ruin the knife.  After all, it's my mom's knife, not mine.  So I just masking taped it up and viola, a metal thing to hold on to, that was nicely attracted to my magnets.

I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say it was a string of 100 lights, though I only put cups on every other bulb, per the suggestion of my family.  I did every other cup black or pink.  Anyhow, it didn't look super professional, but I never get super professional at VBS, so I didn't worry about that.  At all, in fact.

In other news, spray paint doesn't really look that awesome, after all.  I tried.

After VBS I inherited the string of lights, which I didn't know what to do with.  I strung it up in my room, because, after all, I had gone to all the effort of thinking of a clever use for magnets, but I needed something else to clutter my room about as much as I need reading lessons.  Which is to say, not really at all.

But I have them.  For now.  They actually provide quite a bit of light, and I enjoy plugging them in at night.

But... I can't imagine I'll keep them long.  Would anybody like some painted Dixie cups on a string of lights?  Up for grabs!  : )

Talk about multi-purpose!

Is anybody getting tired of me talking about how much I've been cleaning my house?

Sorry about that.  Allow me to continue anyhow.

So, I used the miracle tub cleaner, and was like "Pinterest is beautiful and works and I love it and everything on it must work!"  Well, not quite, but I was more open to trying the cleaning tips that random people posted.  So I saw one about cleaning stove grates.  Well, ours are awful.  We have a fantastic kitchen, but my mother's one regret has always been our gas stove and how it's impossible to clean.  So I saw this tip about cleaning stove grates and thought, yay!  Finally a solution.

So I carefully did what it said.  Put a grate in a zip lock bag with some ammonia.  I let it sit for a long time and and then got excited because the ammonia took on a dark color and so I was like, "it worked!"


It didn't.


I scrubbed off the grate, and some of the gunk came off, but not all.

I'd go through the whole story, of putting the grate back in the bag with fresh ammonia like four times and still not getting them clean, but it was a lot of times, and not that fun of a story.  It was irksome.

I even used my miracle tub spray, just in case.

That didn't work.

I left them in a pan on the counter, sprayed with stuff, just hoping that something would react with the spray and somehow miraculously clean them.  I truly did this.  It worked for Alexander Fleming, and we all know that penicillin is truly a miracle.  I actually announced that nobody was supposed to move them, just hoping that something would drop into the pan and magically clean them.  Turns out, you can't usually manufacture scientific miracles.  Botheration.

Finally my mother and I brainstormed and decided to use some oven cleaner.  We had some in the basement that we for some reason never use, so I figured that since a stove is basically just an oven that has the misfortune of not having an enclosure for a home, it would work the same, right?

Actually... yes!

It took some patience, due to the unfortunate build-up on the stove, but this stuff worked like a charm.  The stove grates sparkle, the stove itself sparkles, and all is clean and beautiful.  The only snag was that the bottle of oven cleaner stopped working right when half the stove was cleaned and it was sorrowful because I wanted to finish.  Why was only half the stove cleaned?  Because I was leaving some elements open so we could still cook.  Eating is an important use for stoves.  So anyhow, my dad and I took the stove cleaner outside to try to fix it, and ended up killing the bottle and spraying oven cleaner all over the grass.  Which, incidentally, died within twelve hours.

In other news, we have a new weed killer.  My dad warned against a certain patch of weeds because he'd just sprayed it.  He made a joke about using oven cleaner which I laughed at, but he was totally serious.  He went out to the store and bought oven cleaner because he wanted to kill some weeds and knew for a fact that oven cleaner was really fast-acting.

It worked.  So this was really two birds with one stone.  The stove is beautifully clean, and our weeds are dead.

So if you're looking for a way to clean your stove, and/or kill your weeds?  Feel free to use the above information liberally.

Pinterest win. Pwin?

As I mentioned last time, I cleaned the house a lot recently.  I've been told by more than one person that "When you get married and have your own house to clean it's different--it's way more satisfying."  Well, quite frankly, I enjoy cleaning our house.  I feel like having your own that you have to keep clean might feel like drudgery, so cleaning our house for my parents actually feels more like something I enjoy doing than something I have to do.  But either way, it's the only house I have to clean right now, so my experience is limited.

Anyhow, I'd seen something on Pinterest (I've mentioned this site before--it's a social networking-type site that I'm on that allows you to share photos/information/random stuff with your friends, as well as keeping things accessible for your viewing pleasure) about the cleaning of tubs.  I'll link to the website that explains how to do it rather than linking to a random pin.

The thing I saw said that if you mixed equal parts white vinegar and Dawn soap and sprayed it on your tub, it would basically clean itself.  So I figured, well, I don't actually enjoy cleaning tubs, and if I can somehow work it out where my tub cleans itself, I'm there.

Friends?  THIS WORKED.  (Which, of course, makes me sad that I didn't take photos of my own tub for the before and after, but I just couldn't be bothered.)  I mixed it together, I ended up warming it up in the microwave first, I don't remember why, and then I sprayed my tub, walked away for an hour to clean the kitchen cupboards, and came back to wipe the tub down and it was so ridiculously clean it was amazing.  Seriously.  I cannot gush enough about the miracle of this stuff.

Honestly, the next time somebody asks, "So, what sort of things do you like?" I will probably answer, "Oh, the usual.  Sunshine.  The Phantom Tollbooth.  The comfortable silence between friends.  Reuben sandwiches.  My miracle tub cleaner."


It's on the list.  It is that good.


So anyhow, it doesn't work for absolutely everything, I discovered, but for tubs, it is my go-to product.  If you dislike cleaning tubs (or even if you enjoy it--why waste your time doing it?  Honestly?) just trust me on this.  Vinegar+Dawn soap=best ever.


Now I feel like an infomercial.  


But I can't help it.


It's just that amazing.

Windows, cupboards... farming?

Allow me to take a break out of my regularly scheduled avoidance of this blog to play a little catch-up.  I got smart and wrote "update blog" on my to-do list again, so ta-da!  Here I am.

I've been busy.  After VBS it was gearing up for conference, and then conference, and a whole week of company, and then New York for the weekend.  Basically, just another snapshot of our crazy life.  : )

Farming Game with way too many people

Fun times were had by all.  I assume.  I know I, personally, had a nice time.  Hopefully our company did, too.  We had a cookout, and ran through our town fountains, and frolicked in the river, and went swimming, and played The Farming Game way too much.  All in all, a grand week.

What I'm actually writing to say has nothing to do with frolicking in rivers or pretending to be farmers.  Honestly, I wanted to focus on the "getting ready for company" part of the story.  I spent a week and a half cleaning the house like a maniac.  I cleaned all the cupboards in our kitchen inside and out.  Would you like to know how many drawers/cupboards are in our kitchen?  Fifty.  Exactly fifty.  I counted.  And I cleaned them inside and out.  Have you ever cleaned under your sink for the first time in a while?  Ew.  And, since I'm slightly insane, I wasn't content to clean out the cupboards and then put everything back; I had to clean all the spice containers and reorganize the cupboards.

Anyhow, the kitchen looks good.  There's that.

Also, I washed all the windows inside and out.  Would you like to know how many windows we have in our house?  That... I have no idea.  But I will tell you that when I was outside the living room windows, I couldn't get the ladder to fit under the awning, and the neighbors got a kick out of my struggles.  The Mr. Neighbor finally came over and asked if he could lend me a more suitable ladder.  I got it worked out eventually, much to their amusement.

I utilized Pinterest, too.  I'll get to that another time, when I don't have three niecews (I got tired of saying nieces and nephews) begging me to jump on the trampoline with them.  So... another time.  : )