You Know You’re a Mom When…
You know you’re a Mom when: it’s Friday and you are excited to get your nice pajamas on as early as possible- definitely 7:00pm, and have a relaxing night at home…
Guess what I’m doing tonight ?!
Got Wine? The Absolute, Best, Guaranteed Get-Red-Wine-Stain-Out-Of Clothes Solution
Okay, I’ve got your attention. Have you ever gotten a splash or drip of red wine on your clothes?
I have. No, I don’t normally drip wine all over myself, but you know what I mean…
So, here is the solution to get red wine out of clothes- literally.
Get a bowl and mix a little
1) blue-colored Dawn dishwashing liquid WITH
2) a lot more Hydrogen Peroxide Solution.
Put the stained top/piece of clothing to soak in the bowl… You’re Done.
You can get Hydrogen Peroxide, the first aid antiseptic, at any grocery store or drugstore.
This TOTALLY works, every time. It even works on an ‘old’ stain. It gets just about any kind of stain out. I found this on the Internet a long time ago. The directions said ‘blue-colored Dawn’ so I went with it. I’ve never tried anything else, although I’m sure another-colored-dishwashing-liquid would work. I happen to have a light blue kitchen, so blue-colored Dawn is what I buy… I like to match, what can I say?
Good Luck,
and here’s to ‘unstained’ clothing!
My Antique iPod
This was my iPod until a few days ago. I was one of the first people with an iPod. I am normally not that trendsetting; my husband had heard about it at his high-tech workplace and got me one.
I remember, I kid you not, riding on Metro and people asking me what it was. Then Oprah featured it on her ‘Favorite Things’… and Poof! Magic! You gotta love Oprah…
The same week Oprah declared the iPod one of her favorite things – 2 different people actually
stopped me on the street to confirm that what I had was ‘the iPod that was on Oprah’.
That was many years ago and believe it or not, my IPod worked until about a month ago.
My husband got one a few years ago that was super-snazzy compared to mine, and much sleeker.
But his died around the same time mine did… like a sweet, old, married couple, or something.
So my husband surprised me with a brand new iPod Nano for Valentines Day (the smaller version of the iPod which only holds about 2,000 songs). I currently have 26 songs on my iPod so it’s plenty big. I know, I’m adding songs.
And when he found out that a new battery for his would cost almost the same amount as a new iPod nano- he got himself one too.
Look at the difference in these iPods.
And the instructions are a few sentences long. Pretty amazing, huh?
Reminds me of a trip to Best Buy last year to buy a new cordless home phone. Woops, sorry, no home phones have cords anymore, unless you get a ‘retro’ one from Pottery Barn… Back to Best Buy: I was disappointed with the size of their phones- they were all so
small. I wanted a bigger one so it wouldn’t get lost flushed misplaced.
It’s 2009. What an incredible world we live in… now if I could just figure out how to sync-up the remote for the TV and the one for the DVD player; now that would be incredible.
Good Plumbers are hard to find…
I am happy to say that I now have a new dishwasher.
The hard part was not finding the dishwasher, but having it installed.
After dealing with a not-so-honest plumbing firm that quoted me an astronomically ($455) high rate to install my dishwasher, I took matters into my own hands… (I nicely told this plumber to leave my home, after all, BananaBlueberry concentrates on the good stuff).
I called the firm that had come out to look at my old dishwasher and asked them who THEY recommended.
They gave me the names of 2 firms and 1 is located about a mile from my house, so I called them-
Leahy Plumbing and Heating is a great, honest, plumbing company. John Leahy, the owner, always tries to answer the phone. He did when I called. He’s been around for years and gave me a very reasonable price.
Leahy Plumbing will come to your home and give you a FREE ESTIMATE. If you don’t like it, tell them to leave, that’s it. No service call charge, done.
The Moral of the Story:
Ask other businesses their recommendations. I went with the first company from word-of-mouth.
And pass on GOOD experiences with service companies 
I Caught My Pumpkin Vandals in the Act!
I found out who’s been munching on my pumpkins!
Here are a pair of squirrels who are eating on my next door neighbor’s pumpkins. I know they have been feasting on mine too.
What is curious is the squirrel on the right side by the pot. It looked like he or she was sleeping –
the squirrel didn’t move at all; even with my 4-year-old sneaking around in front of them with me.
then all of a sudden-
they both are alert and take off. Do squirrels sleep with their eyes open or have a weird-eyelid thing going on?… because this is the second squirrel I’ve seen in the past couple of months that looks, basically, dead, and then jumps up and runs away.
And- I didn’t know squirrels ate pumpkins. Are the neighborhood squirrels REALLY hungry or do they normally munch on pumpkins? Pumpkins aren’t easy to eat, then again, squirrels have pretty big teeth. But squirrels eating pumpkins on porches seems like ‘a bottom of the barrel’ type thing.
Am I right?
A Messy House… ?… !
I was gone on Monday, from 8:00am til 8:00pm…
12 hours: not a long time in the span-of-a-life, but apparently TOO MUCH time for my 2 guys: ages 39 and 4, to be at home together with no supervision.
Disclaimer: I have an amazing husband. He’s a great guy, great dad, etc.
But how can 2 people displace so many things? And not big things, but little things that are so easy to put back into place, but were not. I have been picking things up for 2 days now and I still have some clutter left in the dining room…
And people need no reminders of how much I DISLIKE CLUTTER.
Wait, I’m just noticing a play train (I just crossed out play because that’s a bit redundant; you all are very intelligent and can guess that a full-size train cannot fit in my living room- nor would it look good, most importantly, it would ruin my carpet, but I digress…), there’s a train lying on the floor of the living room.
This is what I’m talking about: this is not a big train, and it’s lying NEXT TO the basket it is supposed to live in, but it’s lying there on the floor. PLUS, I just noticed this and I’ve been putting things away for 2 days.
But this isn’t a big train… or a big deal. I can hear Dan Zanes playing in the next room and know there will be a day when my son doesn’t want to play Memory, or do art projects, or do sing-a-longs with mom,
so I’ll take the 1,000 cars and the 1,000 trains and the 1,000 planes and the 10,000 legos:
for the hugs, Santa, and band-aids healing every hurt.
SEWER PROBLEMS… THE VIEW FROM MY FRONT DOOR
Our neighbors across the street have a problem with their sewer.
This is the view from my front door.
Oh wait, it’s changing.
Yes, that’s a full size bulldozer. Luckily, I’ve already made friends with the guy who is in charge of this ‘excavation project’…
The good news, he says, is that they won’t start today. They are just going to leave this bulldozer there until Monday. I’m not quite sure how that is good news… but whatever.
The bad news is that the sewer pipe they have to repair and/or replace is right in front of our driveway and house.
More bad news- he thinks he may have to replace our sewer stuff because our houses are on the same line.
BUT – hey, let’s look for that silver lining=
He says this is good in the long run, because we won’t have sewer problems ever… not that we’re having any now…
And they will get this done in 3 or 4 days… he thinks.
I’m thinking positive thoughts. I’m thinking positive thoughts. I’m thinking positive thoughts.
Happy Friday! I hope your view is better!
FLOWERS, FLOWERS, AWARDS, FLOWERS
CONGRATULATIONS TO MY DAD! He is a retired biochemist and now, avid rose and Dahlia grower. His Dahlias are now winning awards!
The Dahlia above won Best In Show at the National Capital Dahlia Society Show. Those are my son’s hands around the bloom, as you can make out, the flower is just about as tall as him.
My dad also (drumroll, please) went up this past weekend to Philadelphia to the American Dahlia Society National Show.
He won ‘King of the Show’ for Best Big Dahlia (in the country) with the lavender Dahlia on the left of this picture. (That is not the actual bloom that won, but it is very similiar/from the same plant.)
Happy Monday! Don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers
DOVES… AND FASHION
There are 2 doves which have started to come to rest on our deck every morning. It’s so sweet. Sometimes it looks like they are on a date.
I was watching them this morning and 1 of them turned her head 180 degrees (or just about).
And I thought to myself: What if we could turn our heads like that. We could carry on complete conversations with people in back of us…
WHAT WOULD THIS DO TO FASHION? The FASHION INDUSTRY as we know it would be COMPLETELY different. Designers would have to put more effort into the backs of shirts,etc. because it would be like another front. You would have designs on the backs of t-shirts as well. And jackets… blazers, what would happen to them?!
I know, it boggles the mind… maybe I need some more coffee. it sounds like I am still in REM sleep.
Happy Friday Morning.
MY SON HAS ‘THE SMELLY PILLOW’ ?!
First of all, I pride myself on being a pretty neat and tidy person. I have a place for everything, I have my lists; I’m pretty organized.
I plan all my meals for the week, and am right now, in all of my spare time-
cleaning out our attic. After that I am going to re-organize all of the closets.
I do lots of laundry and change sheets all the time. And I like it this way. I’m a no-clutter mom and I like things clean.
Don’t get me wrong, almost every room in our house has toys is it, but there are also baskets, sized appropriately (and in colors to complement the room), to keep all the toys, for that particular room in.
No, I’m not anal.
But, I like things to be straight, no clutter (oh, I mentioned that already).
So, with that said, I took a big blow this week…
I tucked my 4-year-old in bed, kissed his little cheek and said good night. I closed his door, heard him take a deep breath and sigh and expected him to go right to sleep.
Ahh, nothing like a nice routine. But then, after a few minutes, I heard him calling for me. It wasn’t a distressed call; I figured that he was stalling and had to ‘tell me something he had forgotten during the day’. I went back upstairs.
“Mommy, something smells.”
I chuckled to myself and sniffed the air in his bedroom.
“I don’t smell anything, sweetheart.”
“No Mommy, over here.”
I walked over to his bed and still couldn’t smell anything.
“No, Mommy, down here, by me.”
I leaned down to his bed and his head and I did smell something… that bad, stale, sweat smell… yuck.
“I think it’s my pillow.”
I picked up his little round pillow decorated with animals that he loves, and insists on sleeping on EVERY night (because my mom gave it to him), even though we have tried offering much more comfortable pillows routinely.
It was the pillow.
“Whew!” he said.
“This does smell bad,” I confessed. “I’ll put this in the wash.”
“But I HAVE to sleep with that pillow!”
Then he sniffed it again, crinkled his nose and with no further words, thrust it upward to me, and asked me to put it in the wash right away, while taking the other pillow I offered him without a second thought.
I walked downstairs, my bruised ego in hand, and said to my husband,
“This pillow stinks!” Holding my chest, I continued, “our kid has the smelly pillow.”
I felt like Adam Sandler in Big Daddy (“You mean, I have the smelly kid?”). I love that movie. But I don’t like comparing myself to the lead character- a single, hapless, trying-the-best-he-can but NOT KNOWING WHAT HE IS DOING brand new dad. I make lists, for gosh sakes! I even ironed my son’s shorts for the first day of school!
How did this happen? How did I get to the point where my son cannot sleep because of the foul odor coming from the little pillow upon which he rests his head? He had to ask me to wash it! I can provide for him a clean pillow and I didn’t; and this is pretty basic. The shame…
“I am not Adam Sandler, I am not Adam Sandler.”
Okay, I’m over it.
An abbreviated version of this can be read at DC Metro Moms.
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I Was In The 2012 Show !
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