Marmee's Monkey

Water Fun

On Sunday, Marmee and Poppy bought Angel a new little slide pool. She had lots of fun with Aunt Alli...a little timid climbing up the slide and the water was very cold...but will be lots of fun to cool off in this summer. Also tried the sprinkler but wasn't too sure about running through it! I made my mother-in-law's recipe for Strawberry Pretzel Salad...so yummy! My mom made a Frozen Chocolate Torte for dessert, so yummy and refreshing on a hot day!!

Excited

This past weekend I was so excited to get my washer and dryer cleaned up, I know sad that this is all it takes to excite me. But every couple months I like to do a thorough cleaning of these appliances. I have used my two favorite cleaning books for tips: Queen of Clean, and Martha Stewart's Handbook. I just use mild dish washing liquid and water to clean off the exteriors, then wipe with a damp cloth. Then I do a hot wash with 1 quart bleach in the washer, followed by another hot wash with 1 quart white vinegar. At this time I also heat up one cup white vinegar in microwave and pour into fabric softener dispenser and pour some vinegar into the bleach dispenser as well. I love Q-tips to clean out the little spaces!! I have also learned that keeping the lip open after washes helps things dry out faster and cuts down on grime and mildew issues. For the dryer, I spot clean the exterior, vacuum out the lint chute and vents inside and we also need to disconnect the dryer duct hoses and vacuum those out (recommended once a year) to make sure there are no lint build ups. I got really excited because my mother-in-law just sent me THIS which is awesome for treating any kind of stains and lots of other uses found in these books....she used it in Virginia when we were there and I called it the miracle soap....she said her mom always used it too. THANKS MOM!! Happy cleaning!

One of many reasons

There are many reasons why I love my hubby, but one of them is definitely is mister-fix-it and frugal spending, do-it-myself mentality and talent. We have so far (other than new tires) NEVER taken our cars to get fixed for anything. He has always said that places charge way too much and most of it is for labor costs, so why not just learn how and do it yourself? He has gotten books on our cars and when there is a problem he figures out what it is, shops around for the best part and learns how to do it. While sometimes these things take hours to remedy, he has saved us hundreds of dollars. Last Friday, he drove home and his car sounded like a truck or Harley pulling into the driveway. He thought his exhaust manifold had broken but it ended up being something with the muffler area (note how car savvy I am? I am probably getting all the details wrong!). Anyways, he started driving around to get estimates on parts etc....to only keep getting told that the part was between$100-200 bucks and with labor to fix would cost around $500!! He kept at it and finally found a place where he asked if his car really needed two catalytic converters...the answer was no. So Jason asked them if they would just cut out the bad one and weld a straight pipe on to fix the problem. The shop agreed and $40 bucks later the problem was fixed and he drove home, happy and quietly!! I am so thankful to have him around to fix these issues and determined to do it because I am afraid I would have gotten suckered into the $500 rip off deal!