The Art of Cleaning a Tea Mug

I'm prefacing this post with a couple of facts.  I am a clean person, I swear. I also really enjoy black tea.  So there you have it.  Please do not think less of me after reading this post.  (I am not a hippie).

I have a stainless steel tea mug that I received as a Christmas gift a few years ago.  I took the mug to work and have since used nothing but that mug.  I used to only drink tea in the morning, and then the habit became more and more intense and I now drink tea all day most days of the week.  Since I'm at work more than I'm at home, you can venture to guess from what mug my tea is consumed.

I'll skip most of the story here and cut to the chase.  My mug becomes very stained over constant use.  Though I rinse and wash the mug at work with mild detergent, it simply does not appear clean.  The stains become thick enough for me to scratch them!!  Gyack!

A while ago I found the best way to clean it was to take it home and use some simple baking soda and elbow grease (a really good abrasive sponge or cup scrubber) to defunk the mug.  It worked amazingly, better than any detergent I could imagine.

So I recently (today) brought my mug home and cleaned it, these are the results!

Before

First Pass

After

So, really now, there you have it!

A Good Vacuum

This past weekend when hanging out in the nursery putting together the dresser from Chris' parents, we noted the filthy appearance of the carpeting. We had cleaned the floor several times, so why so nasty?

Well, for starters, I blame my furry children Riley and Bella. We have a dusty, furry, and pet dander filled house. Our second culprit was not having a good vacuum for these things. We had a vacuum. It was given to us by Rachel M. and it served us all right for some time (since she returned to C-ville to sell her condo). It, like most vacuums was one of those semi-durable guys that lasts for several years and dies off slowly (as in, not a lifer like a Kirby). The problem is that our house gets DIRTY, so this vacuum that would have served some families for years wasn't up to the Spann challenge.

So, we went to Lowe's to look as some vacuums and ultimately we spent more than we should have on a quality (or what appears to be quality so far) Electrolux vacuum. It is the first vacuum I think I have ever bought. I've either borrowed a vacuum or had a hand me down. I feel like a real adult now!




Thus far I can say that it is AMAZING. Even though the nursery floor had been vacuumed and cleaned several times, this thing was full of dust and fur within one pass over the floor. The real test was to vacuum the living room rug, which turned out to fill the vacuum up TWICE!

So, I spent parts of my weekend vacuuming in between shopping with my mom, going to Eckert's, making apple pies, working from home, and finishing Eva's baby shower invitations. It was a productive weekend and I'm thinking now about all the other things I can vacuum!

Bathing Someone Dear to Me

I did have a dream I wanted to write down when I got up this morning and forgot about. What I meant to say was this: I recall the part of the dream I wanted to write down, I had forgotten to write it down when I got up this morning!

Anyway, in this dream I was washing a sidewalk and garage door. I had a wide mouth cup of soapy water, and a wash rag. I would soak the rag, then gently wash the garage door, rinse and wring the rag in the cup of soapy water, then soak it again in the same water. Repeat. I was very gentle, as if I were bathing another human being. I washed the door, and even though I wasn't tall enough to reach the top, I still some how managed to wash it. Then I moved to the sills and washed them. All of this in the same gentle and repetitive motions of bathing someone dear to me. The association of me washing as though I were bathing someone was a really strong feeling, as if I wanted to be bathing someone dear to me. Eventually I had moved all the way down to the sidewalk. I sat and washed the sidewalk as gently as I had washed the door. Even though the surface was gritty and rough and catching the rag as it ran across, it never seemed to deteriorate my wash rag. Throughout this dream, when I felt the water was too dirty, I would take it somewhere, pour it out and replenish my warm soapy water. I don't recall doing this action, but I know it was happening. The one time that I can recall pouring out dirty water, I noticed that the water was dirty, but not terrible. I just wanted the freshest, warmest, soapiest water to continue with my task. There was a visible difference in the locations I had washed versus the locations I had not washed.

It was a very calming and comforting dream.