I survived last week, and my new party trick

My kids were home from school all week last week, and we all made it through it without any major injuries or trauma! I only had 1 FT daycare kid, so that probably helped.

Hmmm, what to blog about.  Potential thesis topics? Maybe later.  Daycare kids stealing my homework time? Eh, can’t complain as long as I get paid, and sometimes they get me laughing so hard it’s worth it.  A HA! I know, My Furbabies!

Alright, let me introduce you to my furbabies.  Boeheim (AKA Bay) is a four year old Beagle/Terrier, and is my only son. He is named after the coach of my husband’s favorite college basketball team, Jim Boeheim of the Syracuse Orange.   We also have a hamster, J Flynn, named after a former player but he’s an asshole.

Blayre  (AKA Moose) is a three year old somethingorother. When we adopted her we were told she was a St. Bernard mix, but I don’t’ believe it.  She looks Shepherd to me, and her sister looks Golden Retriever (sister Jilly lives with my parents).

Anyways, my dogs are my third and fourth children, and as such they are just as spoiled as my two legged children. They are also just as entertaining.

My parents are celebrating their 30^th anniversary this year and they are doing a second wedding. Somehow, probably out of guilt for being a shitty teenager, I ended up volunteering to hand make a crapload of leather roses (because to buy them already made it’s over $10 each). Yeah, I know, I rock. I’ll brag about flowers at a later date. Anyway, two nights ago, I was sitting in my chair assembling roses from pieces I had cut out last week. When putting them together, I need to spray them lightly with a water bottle.  They hold their shape better when they dry. Every time I'd have a handful of wet leather rose petals, Blayre would run up and start barking at me. Every time. If I did it dry, she was fine, but the flower didn't look as good. She never paid any attention to the times I've pulled stuff out and sat here cutting the petals out. Now, apparently I can only assemble flowers when she's not around. I think it's something to do with the smell of the wet leather. She tries to eat the flowers, and when I push her away, she licks all over my hands. It's very strange, but freaking hysterical nonetheless. Now I need to keep tabs on the dog to make sure she doesn't mistake these expensive and tie consuming flowers for her dinner!

I wonder if I can turn her freak out  into a party trick…

Our Clothes Are Minty Fresh

This morning I started the dryer to fluff clothes I put in yesterday. After a few minutes I opened the dryer and started to fold clothes. The first shirt I grabbed i noticed a purple smear on the shoulder. Then I realized half the clothes in the dryer sported the same purple smear!!!! SHIT! Someone left a crayon in their pocket and I missed it when I checked pockets.... a whole load of whites covered in melted purple crayon. Ugh....
I pulled the clothes out and set aside the stuff with smears. My poor, 1 yr old dryer looked like this.


Oh my goodness! The world is coming to an end! J's favorite pink sweater has purple smears all over it! She was very upset when I sent her off to school this morning, and I promised to do everything I could to salvage her favorite accessory.

After the girls are gone another thought occurs to me.....Damn!!! Everything I put in the dryer is now going to come out purple!!! Damn Damn Damn!
I ran for a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser because they seem to fix everything.

After 10 minutes of scrubbing I noticed no discernible difference. This stuff was not coming off. So being the nerd that I am, I turn to my friend the internet, more specifically Google, and begin the search. It appears that this has happened to quite a few people, and my search found quite a few helpful tips.

One specific search lead me to the Crayola "helpful information" website (i.e. how to get our product off and/or out of your stuff) which yielded a lot of information on how to remove stains left by their products in many different situations. Good place to start? No, not really. I found it quite disturbing that they listed WD-40 as a possible solution to our problem. Yeah, I'm going to spray a flammable liquid into my dryer in the hope I get it cleaned up enough so as to not to start a fire when the next load of clothes are dried. Great idea, crayola.

Dissatisfied with what I had found so far, I happened upon one idea that seemed a little far fetched, but in the end proved to be the winner. It involved toothpaste. Lots of toothpaste.

Here's what I did to remove the dried crayon from our dryer.

• 1. Heat empty clothes dryer by running it on the hottest setting for about 5-10 minutes.


• 2. Stop the dryer and slather toothpaste over the crayon afflicted areas. Make sure every area that has crayon is well covered. The more the better.


• 3. Close the dryer and start it. Again, let it run on it's highest setting.
  
  
• 4. Start removing the crayon from the walls of the dryer by breaking out a chisel, a jar of elbow grease, and a wet wash cloth. After vigorously scrubbing for a good 15min, you should notice that the waxy crayon residue will begin to dissipate.


• 5. Repeat steps 2 though 4 until crayon residue is gone.

In my opinion, the Extra Whitening did a fantastic job. Though I highly doubt the whitening part of the toothpaste had much impact on the overall performance. I would like to think it did, after all, my dryer IS white.

So, there you have it. Clean as a whistle. No more purple waxy crayon residue. The whole process only cost us a tube of toothpaste and a few years off my life from inhaling super-heated toothpaste fumes for two hours.

The fate of the clothes is still to be determined...
They soaked in hot-as-it-gets water with 2 full capfulls of Concentrated Era Ultra Stainfighting Formula detergent, half a cup of Oxyclean, and 3 Shout Color Catcher sheets....