Catching up...

Spring, my builder-fabulous azaleas, and early summer have come and gone and all the craziness (2 graduations and a wedding) that has been going on in my kid's lives is pretty much over. I'm still PC-less since the death of my 2-year old HP a couple months ago, so I'm taking advantage of my daughter being out of town to use her Mac.

One of the things on my to-do list this spring was to clean the mold from my Trex deck. I researched how to do this in an environmentally friendly way and I settled on a product called Corte Clean from Lowe's:


I was really skeptical (as a rule, I expect nothing to go as planned, and generally I'm right), but it was really easy to do, looks just like it did when I moved in, and I've had no damage to the grass or the structure under the deck. Plus I have a ton of it left in the bag, so I will do this twice a year as maintenance. Win-win, for a change. And no, I am not advertising the stuff, just saying it worked for me.

Something else that impressed the heck out of me was a $2 piece of plastic I bought at Walmart in the plumbing aisle. I was looking for something to unclog my shower drain that did not involve chemicals and there was this barbed flexible plastic strip with a handle at one end called a Zip-It. You just ease it down into the pipe and pull it back out with the clog attached. Pretty gross, to be sure, but quick, cheap and completely effective. (I will spare you the photos of that.)


For the remainder of the summer I plan to hone my cooking skills, spend time with my family and work on the other things on my list. First up - cleaning out the garage.

Have a safe and happy summer!