Spreading the word

to Swiffer WetJet owners.

Maybe you don’t have a Swiffer WetJet and have no intention of ever getting one. That’s okay. Talk amongst yourselves.

Those of us who do have them find them very easy to use and quite convenient for quick clean-up. They are also inordinately expensive in terms of their renewables—i.e., the stuff you have to keep buying.

The expense is bad enough. But I also get annoyed by a marketing tactic that creates demand by proprietary “technology” rather than quality of the product. It’s bad enough when software doesn’t work with older operating systems, or your music and video collections stop being playable when you buy a new machine, but when we’re talking about cleaning products, it really annoys me.

So, I am very pleased to bring you this Tuesday Tip on how you can refill your Swiffer bottle yourself. Just one caveat—in finding this tip, I did read of some people who had trouble with it. It’s possible that Swiffer has changed the design and newer bottles won’t work this way. However, you’re not out anything if you give it a try. Nothing to lose. Oh—and a safety warning. You’ll be dealing with boiling water. Be careful. Use common sense. Don’t burn yourself or anyone else.

Here’s what you do.

Once the bottle of cleaning solution is empty, get a small saucepan.

Fill it with a couple of inches of water. Just enough to cover the white cap of the bottle and a little bit of the blue part—when you hold it upside down.

Get the water boiling. You can turn the burner off now.

Hold the bottle upside down in the hot water. (I wasn’t sure if it would melt if it touched the bottom of the pan, so I made sure there was enough water to hold it off the bottom.)

The instructions I read said 10 seconds was long enough. I found it didn’t work until I’d held the bottle in the water for about 3 minutes.

Using a dish towel or something to protect your hand from the hot water, take the bottle out of the water, and twist off the top. This will take some force, but if you’ve heated it enough, it will not be too hard. I’m not that strong, and I managed it.

That’s it. The top will twist on and off now without heating. If you want to make it easier, you can use nail clippers or wire cutters to cut off the little white teeth around the inside of the cap.

Now you can fill it with a homemade cleaning solution or any commercial solution of your choice.

If your Swiffer is still under warranty, you may not want to do this. I suppose it would void the warranty. Once you’re done with the warranty period, however, save yourself some money.

I hear you can also make your own re-usable cleaning pads. I’m going to try that next.

One

Happy New Year!

Since we’re all making resolutions, here’s a thought:

Make one.

Just one.

I’ve got lists of projects and To Dos and things I want to accomplish and weight I want to lose and goals I want to meet and on and on and on.

My experience has been that most of my resolutions get broken by March. (Who are we kidding? Most of them go out the window by January 5th. But I usually have a few holdouts that make it to March.)

But I’ve been playing around with this idea of just one for a while.

Partly, it comes from a thing the Reader’s Digest was doing—a diet program they were advocating where they suggested Change One as the theme. I don’t remember if it was by the week or by the month, but the idea was that most people can’t stick to the radically altered lifestyle most diets require. Their plan was to change one thing. Start by having a good breakfast every day. That’s all. Once that became a habit, you could change something else.

It makes sense, right? Baby steps.

Then there is the idea of the über goal. Pick one goal that is so huge that it will change your life to accomplish it. Obviously, something like that will have a lot of little goals subordinate to it. But it simplifies the resolution process.

This year, you are going to…write a novel…join the Peace Corps…run for Congress.

I don’t know. I’m not even sure I can take this tip to heart myself. So many things I want to do and accomplish.

But I do think that I might have a better chance of adhering to a resolution if I just pick one. And I bet the process of deciding on what that one should be will be valuable in itself.

Gonna take more than a day, though.

Better get started.

Christmas Counsel

Good advice for every day of the year.

One of my favorite Christmas movies is White Christmas. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, Dean Jagger and Mary Wickes. Music, dancing, Vermont, Christmas. What’s not to like?

And one of the songs is an excellent tip for this Tuesday.

I hope those of you who celebrate are having a very Merry Christmas, and I hope—while you’re counting your gifts—that you take just a moment to count your blessings.

Life is what happens

While you are busy making other plans.
~ John Lennon

Isn’t that the truth!

Also, that old line from Robert Burns’ poem, To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, about how “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.”

But my tip this Tuesday is to take some time and plan anyway.

If your goal is an aimless ramble, it’s fine to set out with no particular destination. I’ve had some really fun excursions that began that way. The plan was to have no plan. We set out with no destination, stopped along the way at whatever roadside attraction caught our interest, and had a high old time exploring all kinds of oddities.

I’ve also had some expeditions of that nature that were total failures. Nothing interesting to do or see turned up, no place to get a decent meal, nowhere to sleep comfortably.

So, that’s a gamble. Fun (or not), and fine for an outing, but maybe not exactly a recipe for achievement.

You can’t reach a goal if you don’t have one.

We’re coming to the end of the year. Traditional stock-taking time. This is the point where we look back at how far we’ve come and measure it against where we wanted to be.

It’s often hard to focus on the big picture all by yourself.

Some people, a few, are very good at self-direction. Some people are able to use things like journaling to help them explore these questions and come up with a set of goals. Some people benefit from using a life coach.

One thing I’ve found very helpful in the past is a Mastermind Group. The structure involved in showing up at a meeting and having time to talk about what you are working on and where you want to go is invaluable. I’m thinking it’s time to reconnect with some of my old group or start a new one. Because it’s always a good time to be making plans.

It’s worth asking if we still want what we thought we did. What’s changed? What isn’t working? What could be better? Where do we want to be this time next year? Five years from now? Ten?

Of course, life will happen. Storms will blow us off course. Sirens will distract us. Strange gods and cannibals will slow us down. It’s wise to enjoy the journey as none of us knows whether we shall ever reach Ithaca.

But if we don’t set out for Ithaca, we won’t meet the sirens, the gods, the cannibals, and we won’t get home.

The ten years will pass anyway.

Where do you want to be?

The best holiday present

You could give yourself.

So, we’re in the middle of December. You’ve gotta bake cupcakes for the kids’ holiday party, shop for presents, wrap presents, ship presents, plan meals and trips, clean guestrooms and send cards, figure out a Secret Santa gift for a co-worker, attend midnight mass, help out at the food kitchen—whatever your version of the endless list that endlessly grows during the holidays.

My tip for you today is give yourself a break.

You had an extra cookie? You can let your diet go—a little bit—just once or twice.

Couldn’t find time to do your Morning Pages? The world will keep turning.

Can’t figure out how to get to the gym between work and the six holiday parties you have to attend? Maybe it’s okay to skip it.

I’m not saying throw your hands up in the air, curl up in a blanket and stop showing up to everything all at once. I’m just saying that there’s a lot to do this time of year. We’ve all got goals and To Do lists and routines we’ve set up to help us realize our dreams.

If you are anything like me, you might get to feeling really guilty when you veer off the path—and you are going to be forced off the path a good few times in the coming weeks. If I understood football, I would insert some reference here to offsides or out of bounds or whatever it is. The point is that you’re going to break the rules you’ve set up for yourself.

When that happens, you have a choice.

You can kick the ball and stalk off home, or you can say, “Whoops! Blew that call. Gimme the ball again, Coach. I can make up some yardage next time.”

I’m going to remember that, yes, I’d like to lose a few pounds, and yes, I’d like to make some progress on my novel, and yes, I want to be able to do a few more situps, BUT it’s okay if I don’t manage all of it every day this month.

Because enjoying the holidays is on my To Do list this year. . .and that’s one thing I’m determined to accomplish.

The best cure for insomnia. . .

. . .is to get a lot of sleep.
~ W. C. Fields

Okay, so that’s a bit snarky—in true W. C. Fields style—but there’s a valid point there.

How do you get a lot of sleep when you can’t sleep?

In my experience, all that stuff about hot milk and eschewing caffeine and counting sheep doesn’t really work that well. Everybody’s different. Your mileage may vary, but I haven’t found those things to be effective.

There is one thing that does work almost every time, though.

I wish I could remember where I found this little tip, because I like to give credit where it’s due. The problem is, when I found it, I was thinking more about whether it would work than about who provided it. This was long before I’d started a blog—long before anybody’d ever heard of a blog, in fact—so who knew I was going to want to write about it?

Since I can’t remember the source, however, we’ll have to go with me just assuring you that it doesn’t belong to me, I didn’t think it up, and whoever did deserves all the credit.

Here’s what you do when you are having trouble getting to sleep.

It involves counting—but no sheep. (No alligators, no raccoons, no animals, vegetables or minerals.)

First, you lie on your back. Breathe deeply in and out. Count on the exhale. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Turn on your left side, breathe in and out—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Turn onto your back. Same breathing drill. Count to sixteen.

Turn onto your right side. Breathe. Count to thirty-two.

You keep doing this, doubling the count each time you change positions. To be honest, I have never managed to get to my right side and the thirty-two count. I usually fall asleep somewhere in the middle of the sixteen count.

I think it works because the breathing is relaxing and the counting focuses your mind on something other than whatever obsessive-compulsive thing it would otherwise be gnawing over.

So, if you ever have trouble sleeping, give this a try.

Sweet dreams!

I’m not sure yet

But it is entirely possible—

That model trains are more trouble than they are worth.

I can see clearly now

Through the windows, anyway.

This may be one of those tips that everybody has known for a millenium. . .except me. On the off chance, however, that you missed it over in your parallel universe, too, I’m going to pass it on.

I may have mentioned that Casa Lagarto has a lot of windows.

This means, of course, that there are a lot of windows to clean. It’s true that window cleaning can be put off for a while. Sometimes a long while. I suspect all of us have deep sympathy for the cliché household help who states firmly, “I don’t do windows.”

On the other hand, there are times in your life when windows must be “done.” This is especially true when one of your home’s salient features is the view.

Being a child of my era, I have tended to rely on Windex® as my window-cleaner of choice. I’ve used some generic versions, and they don’t seem to work so well. I’ve used vinegar. It’s okay, but rather pungent.

I have recently stumbled upon—as in, found on the internet—the surprising (to me, anyway) fact that dish detergent works wonders. Mixed with water, of course, and applied with the kind of squeegee that has a sponge on one side and a rubber blade on the other.

Streak free!

And, I suspect, cheaper than all the specialty cleaners. I’m saving on paper towels for one thing.

Of course, there are a couple of drawbacks. A bucket of water is a bit heaver than a squeeze bottle. And the whole thing is a far drippier process. (Hint: Only use the dish soap and water process on the outside of your windows.)

Oh, well.

The windows look good. I’m settling for that.

What’s in YOUR wallet?

No, I’m not jumping on the Capital One bandwagon.

I’m asking a serious question.

If you lost your wallet today, would you know what’s in it? Would you know who to call and what to cancel?

This week’s newsletter from Cheryl Richardson had a reminder, among others, about keeping a record of the contents of your wallet. She suggested taking 5-10 minutes to make a list of card numbers and customer service phone numbers.

But I’ve got a better tip. Next time you’re in the library or the UPS store or the FedEx store or anywhere they have a copy machine, shell out fifty cents or so. Take all the credit cards and ID cards and membership cards out of your wallet, put them flat on the glass, and copy them. If they have phone numbers on the back, turn them over and copy the backs. Take the pages home and put them somewhere safe: file cabinet, desk drawer, wherever.

If and when you lose your wallet, you are going to be SO glad you did that.

I know. I got pick-pocketed once. It’s a nuisance, but nowhere near the nuisance it would be if you don’t have the list.

Think about it.

All the phone numbers to call—right there.

All the account numbers to cancel—right there.

All the stress and worry, the danger that you forgot to cancel the one card that’s now being used to buy 37 iPads—out the window.

Isn’t that worth fifty cents or so?

Like magic

Both of these tips.

If you are a U.S. citizen and you voted already—today or in the last few weeks—thanks! And congratulations for taking part in the democratic process!

If you haven’t voted yet, what are you sitting around reading blogs for? Get up, get out, and get to the polls!

First tip for this Tuesday is use it or lose it.

Then, in a quick trip from the sublime to the ridiculous—or, at least, the mundane—the second tip is related to yesterday’s post about my cleaning miracle.

Just thought I’d take a minute to alert you to a handy-dandy product called the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I suspect I may own some shares of a mutual fund that may own some shares of Procter & Gamble. I get bored to death reading fund prospectus,* so I’m not entirely sure. It’s certainly possible, though.

However, my purpose here is your profit, not mine.

The profit in the Magic Eraser is that it really is like magic.

I’d seen the ads, of course, but I figured it was just another attempt to get me to spend money. When one of my cousin’s (once removed) suggested it as a way to clean grout, I thought I’d give it a try.

Well!

It’s kind of amazing. First of all, it cleans with just water. No chemicals at all. How cool is that? And secondly, it really does clean. You just moisten it a bit and run it over whatever you’re cleaning, and wowee!. I’m sure it works better on some surfaces than others, but I can tell you—white grout? Excellent! Melamine shelves and cabinet doors? Perfect!

The only downside that I can see is that the “sponges” don’t last too long. They have a terrific effect while they do, though. (I’ve heard they aren’t too good for certain painted and polished surfaces. As with anything, please use caution. Test in an inconspicuous spot before going hog wild.)

Anyway, it seems to be a useful product. Thought you might like to know.

* You probably thought the plural of “prospectus” was “prospecti.” Or, possibly, “prospectuses.” Me, too. Turns out we were both wrong. Something to do with the fourth declension (your guess is as good as mine) in Latin. The plural of “prospectus” is “prospectus.” (And they say English is hard to learn.)

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Tuesday Tips