Company's Coming!

If you're like me, then you probably use your formal dining room as a space to dump all the extra stuff. My dining room table almost always has an array of things on it, such as: stacks of paperwork needing to be filed; magazines; craft projects in varying stages of completion; toys; clothes needing to be mended; books from the library that need to be returned and other such things that should have somewhere to go other than my table.

But today everything needs to be relocated because we have company coming for dinner tonight. This is where my creative housekeeping comes in handy. I scoop up this potpourri of things that all somehow ended up sharing the same space and toss them all in my craft room in the basement and shut the door. That's handy, isn't it?

Now that the table is cleared off, time for me to think about the food preparation. Our guests are bringing the main course so that leaves me in charge of the appetizers, salad and dessert. (I always remember the word "dessert" has two "s's" because you want a second helping! Did you learn it that way, too?)

At the supermarket, I saw a tray of cheeses cut in cubes for $11.98. Not bad if you really don't have the time, but I do, so I bought three different varieties in the 2lb. size for about the same amount, and we'll have lots of cheese left over. I am going to make a cheese tray with crackers and those cute little mini bread thingies. Oh Martha Stewart I am not! But I try.

The salad will be a simple greens with cucumber and tomatoes (on the side, just in case!)

The dessert was easy. The frozen case at the bakery had a caramel turtle pie ice cream cake.

I was thinking: If it weren't for sporadic company, my dining room might look like one of those rooms you see on Clean Sweep. Not only do we get enjoy a nice meal with friends, but they keep me from the humiliation of clutter gone bad!

Oh, and you were wondering about the picture at the top of this post? I was looking on my hard drive for a before/after of our dining room. We painted it recently but since I couldn't find that picture, I thought this one of my Princess and her bunny was cute. It really has nothing to do with this post!

Doctor Doctor Give me the News

This same time last Saturday, this is what we were doing. Looks like fun, doesn't it?

Originally we had considered purchasing a home steam cleaner, but we didn't want to have to spend the money and then have to store a rather large thing that we only use once in a while. We do have a Little Green and I love that for small cleaning jobs, and for the car. Anyone with kids should have one of those in their home!

To find out which steamer to rent, I got online and googled until I found reviews for the Rug Doctor. Just about everyone loved the Rug doctor so much, and I was convinced we would as well. At the Rug Doctor Rental website, I had all my questions answered and decided on which model I wanted to rent. I chose the smaller one and even though I had to fill it more often, I thought it was very easy to manuever and use by myself.

We went to our nearest rental store and spent about $50.00 on the rental and solutions. Not bad, considering that having someone come in to do it would run about twice that or three times that. I do believe we would still have to move the furniture ourselves.

It turns out that moving the furniture was more time consuming and back-breaking than the actual cleaning. The Rug Doctor works so well that you need only take one pass in most cases. It didn't take much time to do. The only thing I didn't like was having to walk backwards but I just kept reminding myself of how much money I was saving and how great the carpets were going to look when I was finished. And they did. We were so pleased with the result!

We thought that we would have to leave our furniture all stacked up in the hallway and kitchen overnight, but the rugs were dry in three hours. It was amazing!

I don't get any kickbacks from this company or anything, just a happy customer willing to share a great product.

Making a Mountain out of a Molehill

Do you ever wonder where popular sayings come from? From Wikipedia, the saying, "To make a mountain out of a molehill" is an English idiom which means to make a big deal out of a minor issue. Hmmphf. The person who came up with that either never actually tried to get rid of a mole, or they knew the cosmic secret that has so far eluded us.

Moles are no minor issue, unless you consider their size which seems an advantage when you are trying to find the one tiny mole responsible for all the destruction. It is not an easy proposition getting rid of these critters. It seems that everyone and their brother (and their cousin) has a special method of mole extraction, but the problem is that none of them so far have worked for us.

Here is what we have tried: stomping down the tunnels, which is kind of fun but they just make new ones. Letting the dogs after them; not a good idea, unless you like your yard looking like a million Claymore mines were detonated all over. Then we tried gopher gas-- this one we're not sure if it works, but it was the most fun. After all, it looks like a stick of dynamite, what's not to like about that? It makes you feel like you're doing something constructive, and it is entertaining to watch the smoke trickle up out of the connected tunnels.

We have tried spreading around the mole repellent, designed to be safe to use around kids and pets, which is great but it also seems to be a little safe for the mole as well. The traps? nada. They are too complicated and if they aren't set right the mole doesn't get caught. We tried flushing them out with the garden hose but we only got waterlogged. Then we added laundry soap which is supposed to kill their food source, at least that's what we are told. I hope it doesn't kill all my plants in the process. This one probably takes a while before you see results, and we want them gone NOW. Then again, we could always just be done with it and dig up the whole entire yard to find the little bugger but then we would have a whole new set of problems!

It has become quite clear to me in this complicated process why the gardener in CaddyShack went a little postal. Don't they say that art imitates real life? Come to think of it, my husband did look a little bit like that gardener this weekend.

Just for fun, I Googled "getting rid of moles" and found some more ideas. Although I do hope the person who posted about putting broken glass down the hole was kidding. I think they were. One person suggested burying a transistor radio set on a heavy metal or rap station. I think he was kidding, too. Or not.

Now about the only thing left besides calling out the exterminator is to try the sonic wands which are supposed to make a high frequency noise that drives them crazy. That would be fair, since they've already done that to us.