Diffused Illumination

Earlier this month I was all excited about my lavender cleaning products. I open up the cleaning supplies/linen closet and have myself a good fix every day if I'm not cleaning something since I can't still can't get enough of it.

A few weeks ago I discovered it works as well as magic erasers on the Grime Above the Stove. If you think your kitchen is immune, climb up on your countertop and examine the cupboard doors up there (especially the top of the door itself) & where the wall meets the ceiling. It also cleans appliances well, but nothing beats the magic eraser for shining up porcelain sinks from coffee/tea stains.

Tonight was the major accidental discovery: it polishes silver!! I'm not kidding, I sprayed a cloth with it just to get some dust off candlesticks and the tarnish went right off as I rubbed. I then tackled a 19th century vase, a mirror, my mom's baby cup & a picture frame with the same surprising results. I wouldn't recommend it for heavy duty tarnish (I think I last polished in the summer) or anything with numerous small ridges but for general flat surfaces this stuff does the trick, isn't hard on your hands & smells yummy.

I am in a house with 2 guys and no TV until after Christmas. The DVR receiver is history, DirecTV was rolling out software upgrades to fix a known issue and ours... fried as a result.

Kieran's taking it pretty well, although we were initially thinking of the 2 shows that he could take or leave for several days at a time. It wasn't until he came up to me with the saddest face ever and asked, "Can we still watch Wheel of Fortune, Mama?" that I realized the extent of the situation. Even then he took it in stride, but I felt awful. We'll check out the online game when it normally airs and see how that goes.

But hey, we have power. We have heat. We have a house not violated by trees. We don't have carbon monoxide poisoning. Life is awesome!

The cupboards above the fridge now open about 75% of the way, a vast improvement from just a few inches before. I wish I could say the same about my mind at the moment. I'm used to doing my job on autopilot, but not life in general.

I scared myself the other day when I realized that I'm coming up on five years of living here. Not only that, but I've also been working at the same place (although not the same job) since a few days after I moved here. That's completely unheard of for anyone my age, and I'm not sure what it means. Have I traded career challenges for complacency? I created two of the three jobs that I've done here, so that has to count for something, right? With Kieran here and the economy utter crap I'm not inclined to leave this safety net anytime soon, but I find myself wondering if it's time to move on once he's a bit older.

We are beseeching the Appliance Gods to grant mercy upon us on Tuesday. ( The saga continues... )

We even get to look like hicks for a while because they don't haul our old fridge away, but the delivery team will leave it in our driveway then an appliance recycling center will pick it up for $12 later on. Thank goodness we have a huge driveway that isn't all visible from the road so our neighbors won't shoot us.