Mommin' It Up!

June 11, 2010June 10, 2010

You are DIRTY (or Makin’ It Work – Part DEUX)

So as I told you Wednesday, Emily and I and some other fab bloggers had a great night out with Tim Gunn thanks to the fabric care brands at P&G – Tide, Downy, and Bounce. The next day (sans Emily, who felt the need to go to WORK – LAME!!!!!) we headed to one of P&G’s technical centers in Cincinnati for Fabric Care University to learn all about the science that goes into making these great products. And Tim Gunn tooootallly sat with OUR table of cool OHIO girls at breakfast and we toootalllly gossiped about Project Runway and it was AWESOME!!! But then he had to leave. 🙁 Fortunately, the rest of the day did NOT disappoint!

Because we were in a super top-secret environment , we weren’t allowed to take pictures. SO you will have to settle for my brilliant word-pictures and this picture of me taken tonight after I got home from Target where I went specifically to purchase a bottle of Tide Coldwater Free HE!

You’re welcome. Yes, that’s right, I drank the kool-aid. I am really excited about saving energy by using Tide Coldwater and washing my stuff in cold rather than warm water. Because did you know that 80% of the energy used in doing laundry comes from heating the water?? ‘Tis TRUE! I’ve been wanting to make the leap to cold water washing for awhile, but I was too skeeered. However, the good scientists at P&G convinced me that Tide Coldwater works! So the leap has been made!

One thing about the good scientists at P&G – they are all REALLY EXCITED about inventing better ways to get our clothes clean. My favorite researcher was named Elaine. She led several of the presentations and a tour of one of their labs that contained about 15 bazillion washing machines where they duplicate water quality from all over the world and figure out how to make the best detergents to get everyone’s clothes clean. Elaine was SO enthusiastic and excited about her job. It was awesome! She was totally geeked out about fabric care innovation in a way that made us all geeked out too! I LOVED her. I want her to come over and talk laundry with me over coffee.

One of the many eye-opening things that Elaine told us is that our bodies make 50 grams of soil a day. That’s a handful of dirt coming off of ourselves A DAY!!!!!!! I think I speak for everyone in the Fabric Care University when I saw “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWW!” No wonder our clothes are so dirty!! And I won’t even go into the diagram they showed us that specified where all that body soil comes from. ICK. Just trust me, we are all dirty, dirty, dirty people. And we get our clothes dirty!! And we need good fabric care!!

The other super-eye-opening thing I learned at Fabric Care University was all about how the different types of washers work. I just got my new high-efficiency washer from Frigidaire (which I’ll be posting about next week, ohmygoodnessitissoooawesome) last week, so I was ALL EARS to learn about how HE’s work. It was really cool to learn (I’ll share more of what I learned next week) and also to hear about how P&G works with washing machine manufacturer’s to make their detergents more effective.

As I mentioned, some of what we discussed was super-top-secret. But I CAN tell you that Tide and Downy have some really exciting innovations coming up really soon. They got ME excited about them and I know you’ll think they are really cool too.

Fabric Care University was amazing and really reinforced my Tide brand-loyalty. I am excited to take the cold water plunge with Tide Coldwater and my new HE washer from Frigidaire and see how much water and energy I can save while still getting my laundry clean clean clean. I will let you know how it goes!

Thanks so much to the great folks at P&G Fabric Care for putting on an amazing event and the hard-working team at DeVries PR who took such good care to make sure everything went smoothly. I was so privilged to be a part of this event!

May 21, 2010May 21, 2010

Irony of Ironies (and a giveaway!)

As you all know if you are regular readers of this here blog, I am the World’s Worst Housekeeper. It’s just not my forte, my friends. When I do get around to cleaning, I like tools that make it as easy as possible for me. You are never gonna catch me on my hands and knees scrubbing my floor. This is why I requested not flowers, chocolate, or new clothes for Mother’s Day, but a STEAM MOP. Because a steam mop is gonna make my life easier. (And I totally got it, too, thank you Bobby Rapson!)

Anycrap! I am about to give you a cleaning tool recommendation. Which is ironic, no? But it’s a GOOD ONE!

A few weeks ago I received an email from My Blog Spark on behalf of P&G asking if I’d like to review the Swiffer Sweeper Vac, and I was SOOOOOO EXCITED. I’m not kidding, I was totally geeked out!! Because I have been a dedicated user of Swiffer products for years – they are one of those cleaning tools that make it easy for me. And I had been jonesing for a Sweeper Vac for a long time, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to spend the $$. Because what if it wasn’t as wonderful as it seemed?

It. Is. WONDERFUL! It is all that and more. It is the Starbucks of stick vacs. Get one of these babies and you will NOT be disappointed!

When my Sweeper Vac arrived, it also came with a little “kit” to show me how well it worked. It had stuff for me to dump on my floor and vacuum up, like little containers of Cheerios and even HAIR!

I totally cracked up.

Truuuust me, I don’t need them to send me stuff to sprinkle on my floor. I got STUFF on my floor! Cheerios, cracker crumbs, and especially pine needles, courtesy of these two old ladies in my front yard:

Thanks to these pine trees, my hard wood floors are constantly covered with pine needles. Especially after a week like this one, which has been super rainy. Pine needles everywhere.

Argh!

Happily, the Swiffer Sweeper Vac is GREAT at picking up pine needles! And Cheerios, cracker crumbs, pet hair, and dirt in general. I big puffy heart it, and I don’t know what I’ve ever done without it. The Swiffer dry cloth cleans up all kinds of dirt, and the Vac sucks up all the crumbs of my life. It rocks! My favorite, favorite, favorite thing about it is that the BATTERY lasts! I held off publishing this review for a month or so because I wanted to give the battery a good test. After using it several times a week, (true story!) I’ve never had the battery even come close to running out (which is a problem I’ve had with past machines I’ve tried.) My living and dining rooms are pretty good-sized and I also use it on my new fabulous kitchen floor, and I’ve always had more than enough battery to do all three rooms thoroughly. Woohoo!

Ok, so, now for the really fun part. P&G not only gave me a Swiffer Sweeper Vac to keep, they also gave me a $40 gift card to give to one of you so you can get your own Sweeper Vac of Dreams (as I like to call it.) Here’s how to enter!

1) Leave me a comment on this post telling me what room in your house you most hate to clean. 🙂

2) For an extra entry, tweet about this giveaway on twitter and leave me a link to your twitter URL.

3) For another extra entry, share about this entry on Facebook and leave me a comment letting me know you did so.

Entries will close and Random.org will pick a winner on Monday, May 20th at11:59 pm.

Good luck and happy Swiffering!

January 13, 2010

That’s Not Peanut Butter

Yesterday Sophie and I were having a great afternoon, which involved me breaking my high score at Wii bowling (208 baby!!) and her sitting at the dining room table watching me bowl while eating a nutritious lunch of grapes and chicken nuggets. What could be better?

I was getting my bowling groove on when all of a sudden Sophie began to fuss. “Need help! Need HELP!” she cried frantically. I turned to look at her and she had her hand extended toward me, covered in peanut butter. Neither of my kids like it when their hands get messy while they’re eating so I am used to having to wipe her hands before she can finish her meal. But as I walked toward her to grab a napkin, I realized: She’s not eating peanut butter. That can’t be peanut butter.

I took hold of her wrist and got a whiff and panicked. THAT’S NOT PEANUT BUTTER!

It was poop.

She had a chicken nugget in one hand, and a bunch of poop in the other.

I immediately did what I could with a napkin, then began jumping around screaming “NO touch! No touch!” while frantically trying to locate the wipes and wrestle the Wii controller that was strapped to me off of my arm. (I am very good in a panic situation. {Sarcasm sign!})

I found the wipes, got her hand cleaned up, washed it in soap and scalding water (just kidding, it was just really warm), managed not to VOMIT, and then went about changing her diaper. I quickly discovered that she’d had a bit of a blowout, and feeling poop on her lower back, had reached back to find out what the heck was going on back there. And found out. Eeeeeww.

I made it almost six years as a mother without having a kid stick his or her hand in their own poo, I guess that is pretty good. But YUCK. It was disgusting.

And it is time for Camp Potty to begin TODAY!