Guess What I Learned Today

I have learned a couple of valuable lessons this week that I absolutely have to share. The first is, if you leave some laundry in the washer too long and it starts to stink, unless you like to smell like stink for months afterwards, it's a good idea to wash that load with one full cup of baking soda, a full dose of Tide with Febreeze, and the hottest water your fabric can handle. My mildew laundry was spring fresh again. Woohoo!

The second lesson is even better.

Gremlins are real. They got into a berry colored sharpie marker and caused some damage to some of my daughter's clothes. The evidence that creatures who are largely believed to be imaginary OBVIOUSLY did this is as follows: It's almost a full moon, which is when gremlins come out. It's almost Halloween, AND, this is most important, my princess-angel toddler would never EVER do that.

I naturally considered just throwing the newly designed clothes into the washer with a full cup of baking soda and a full dose of Tide with Febreeze. It seemed to be the laundry answer of the week. But instead I went to work with some stain remover and color safe bleach. The verdict is still out, but the likely answer is - the marks are indeed permanent as is clearly written on the casing of the marker.

Exhausted and anxious I went into my bedroom to see if the gremlins also got my light-cream, almost white carpet. They didn't! But even as my lips were attempting to curl into a smile, I felt them dragging back and revealing my teeth in more like a werewolf effect. The gremlins had marked all over my expensive wood bedroom suit. The one my husband bought me for our anniversary 2 years ago.

With thoughts of trying to personally sand and refinish the furniture perfectly such that my husband would never notice, without him first seeing the marks, and without him noticing furniture stain smells, I got out my phone and consulted my best friend, Google.

With very little effort I found what I needed... on a finished surface, a sharpie could be removed with isopropyl alcohol. Hubby was giving princess-angel a bath, so faster than Flash, I got the alcohol and some paper towels and wiped at the marker, completely forgetting the recommendation to first test a non-visible area of the wood. Voila! The sharpie was gone! And the finish was fine!

Whew. Good thing the darling husband doesn't read my blog. He never has to know. Now to pop some popcorn and curl up on the couch. I'm done for today. I leave you with this advice: If you do happen to see the Gremlins - please don't feed them after midnight.