Shower Crud

Ok, here's the scoopage on my shower. It's tiled, looked great when we bought the house, but I swear the first time we showered the grout started to turn sinisterly grey and grossly black. I bleached it, but it grew back (Silly me thought bleach killed mildew, when it really only BLEACHES it!). So I bought some of the smelly and highly-likely dangerously fumed chemical in a spray bottle from the grocery store. Although it cleaned the nasty growth, the stink from the spray was way in the back of my nose and throat and stayed there for about 2 hours. Can't be good, right? So -- back to the grocery store a few days later when the filth reappeared for a box of 20 Mule Team Borax, some generic white vinegar in a jug, and a skinny and stiff grout brush. I doused the grout with the vinegar and sprinkled the borax, then lightly scrubbed. Low and behold, the grey and the black uninvited guests were easily gone with nary an odor and get this -- STAYED gone for a week! I'm sold!

Vacuum Cleaner

I bought a new vacuum cleaner (to add to my collection of assorted machines in my quest for the best machine I could find at a reasonable cost) and for the first time in my life am actually excited about it! This beauty was a few dollars short of $600 before tax, has a funky purple lid on its collection tank, spews no exhaust, has such incredible suction power that it actually LIFTS the heavy oriental carpet in my living room as it sucks up even the fine powdery dirt that my other menagerie of cleaners have missed for years. I vacuum daily after I return home from work, never failing to be amazed at the amount of fine silt it picks up. Where does it all come from?? Never mind that -- this vacuum is amazing! The Scandinavian-looking guy on TV who invented it is my new personal hero. This Dyson Animal rocks!

Germ Snobs

Definition - Germ Snob: self-explanatory