Daily Chatter: 3/19/13

Daily Chatter is a regular (but not really daily as the title would imply) peek into what my family is doing and random things I’m thinking about. It usually has nothing to do with bargains, so read at your own risk!

Why do people list things as Monday-Sunday?  Does anyone besides me have to think twice – or three times – about whether that includes all seven days?

This is what my house looked like this morning.  I got up late after being up with the baby twice and once with a kid with growing pains*.  I spent the first three hours of the morning feeding everyone breakfast and then working.  I know it doesn’t seem like the little bit I posted on the site should have taken the better part of three hours, but there was a lot of behind-the-scenes, super fun stuff that you get to do when you are a business.  (Trade name renewals and checking reconciliation, yay.)

*I don’t think that they are really actually “growing pains” but that’s what I’ve always heard them called.  I always had growing pains in my knees at night and I vividly remember my mom coming in and rubbing them for me. I have a couple of girls who have issues with it – one in particular (ironically she is the one who looks the most like me!) – and so while I hate getting up at night, I still feel bad for her because I remember that it hurts. :(  I could shove Jeremy out of bed, I suppose, but by the time I wake him up enough to tell him what needs to be done I’m fully away myself. :)

Speaking of Jeremy, no, he doesn’t usually get up with the kids, but he is awfully helpful in a lot of areas and this past weekend, his heroic action was to fix my immersion blender!  You guys, I use this thing just about every day and I was so sad when it broke.  See, it actually broke a few years ago, when I lost my sanity for a bit and thought it would be a good idea to try to puree frozen fruit with it (to make a smoothie).  I stripped out the gears in the motor and he fixed it with Liquid Nails and it was as good as new.

Well, I used it like that for several years and then last week I was pureeing refried beans when it stripped out again.  The Liquid Nails fix had come loose, and the gears were again stripped.  I figured it was done, but he said he’d take a look at it.  He used some epoxy (left over from Grand Prix car building) to re-permanently attach it back together and it is again as good as new.  (I realize I am being vague about the repair method but I can’t figure out how to explain it clearly.)

Does anyone have any great alternatives to OxiClean?  Particularly for whitening sheets?  I used the powdered OxiClean for soaking stuff for awhile, until I realized that the cause of a huge breakout of dermatitis I had was due to OxiClean.  (It was inducing-to-tears bad!)  So, I stopped using it, but I’d really like to find something that will whiten sheets similarly!  (The main issue is body oil making them turn yellow.)  I add hydrogen peroxide to loads of whites, and I think it’s effective, but I haven’t used it for soaking.  I feel like I’d need to put a whole bunch in the water (which could get expensive) if I use it for soaking.  Any tips?  I’m thinking maybe some good old fashioned sun but we aren’t supposed to line-dry because of our HOA.