It’s a New Year, and I’m trying out some New Things, Reader.
First on my list is a new skin care line, Glycone, because someone mentioned it to me and I am an absolute sucker for a product recommendation. I’ll slather just about anything on me if someone mentions it to me. Yes, I’m that easy.
So far we are in the “horrible breakouts” phase of the new skin care line. I don’t know if we’re supposed to go through this phase or not, but I look like a pubescent teen and I am not too happy about it. I don’t like my skin impurities brought to the surface, I like to keep them stuffed well below the epidermis. I’m also trying their fade cream on some of my freckles I will post pictures if I become the color of White Michael Jackson.
Next:
Last weekend – or maybe it was two weekends ago, I frankly can’t keep track of all the time that’s passing – we bought a Hoover Floormate for my hardwood floors.
I’ll tell you what, I do love having wood floors on the main living area of our house. Because I cannot pretend the floors are clean, like you can when you have carpet and the cat hair tumbleweeds just get mashed down into the carpet and what you can’t see obviously isn’t there.
But. It has been a challenge to keep them looking shiny. The Swiffer Wet-Jet mop thingamajig? Well, I hate that thing. I don’t even understand how it’s supposed to work, but that didn’t stop me from wasting twenty-five bucks on one. I mean, how is a wet maxi-pad that collects dirt – and then that same dirty maxi-pad is pushed over the rest of the floor – supposed to clean the floor?? It just left behind giant maxi-pad-sized streaks and I hated it.
Last night we finally put the new Floormate to use. It’s good, because it sucks up the dirty water and let me tell you, the water was surprisingly dirty. I had even vacuumed the floor first, so it was truly just dirt that would have been left behind.
This morning when I got up I was a little less than thrilled, because it was still a little dirty in spots and I had to give it a hand job anyway. But overall I guess it’s okay. It did get most of the Christmas glitter up off the floor so that’s a plus.
Who has hardwood floors, and what do you love love love to use to clean them? I’m still searching.
On a side note, I noticed how much my kitchen chairs have lightly scratched up the floors, and that made me sad, but I keep reminding myself that it’s a floor and things will happen. I even tried that stupid fucking Facebook advice about rubbing a walnut on scratches to instantly & naturally fill them in, and that worked not at all, so then I had to vacuum crumbled walnut pieces up from the floor.
Last:
This part doesn’t have anything to do with what I’ve tried recently but it is along the same vein of cleaning, so here it is. Since we’ve lived in our house, I have been battling a musty-ish smell from the kitchen.
I continually throw stuff like lemons and limes and baking soda down the garbage disposal, and change out the dishrags, sponge and towel, as those are the normal musty-smell culprits, but always a whiff lingered.
Last night I finally got to the bottom of it. I prepped with some nasal spray to get the nostrils fully opened up, and then a thorough sniff test ensued throughout the kitchen, including under the sink area, and the source was discovered.
Don’t you wish you lived here, with all this Saturday night fun? We know how to par-tay.
So guess where the source of the musty smell came from. Anyone?
Well, I was going to take a photo, but My Mister said it was just too gross, so you’ll have to use your imagination.
The smell was coming from layers upon layers of disgusting crud that had built up in the sink basket strainer – this thing:
It was underneath, around the rubber part, so no amount of scrubbing the kitchen sink was doing it any good.
I solved this little problem by letting it soak with baking soda & vinegar in a plastic baggie, and then used twenty Q-tips as I dug the gunk out from around the edges.
My Mister suggested I just buy a new one, but I was going all “Grandmother” on the thing instead, and intent on cleaning it and not wasting ten bucks.
It. Was. Gross. Fifteen years of gross.
Today? It is one fresh-smelling and shiny mo’fo.
My Mister wants to know if I think vinegar & baking soda are clean-everything products, because I do use it a lot around the house. But you know what? I do think it’s a clean-everything concoction. I cleaned my windows with white vinegar and it finally removed the streaks that were on them. I used the combo to clean my glass stove top, and it lifts up all sorts of marks from it. Try it. Your house will smell like amusement park french fries. Or a douche. But it will not smell musty, and that’s the key.