This was originally posted in 2011. I found out that this was my most viewed post, probably because I tried an experiment. I put “boobs” as a category. Still it is one of my best. Funny.
I find it annoying when, unasked, people give me “helpful hints”, for example telling me great ways to clean this or that. I also resent unsolicited decorating advice, advice on clothing, make-up, parenting, gardening, shopping and preparing meals. I don’t like being told I should go on Prozac or take up yoga. The last bit of advice might be the only useful advice I’ve been given but I still don’t like it.
I am now a woman of 50+. Is that meaningful? I don’t know. Apparently Feminism is dead. Apparently I am not. It might explain why I am cranky. I repeat my age whenever my mother tells me, (daily) that she is 89 years old. Yes, 89!!! That means, as far as she is concerned, no matter how old I get she will always be wiser. I feel cheated.
I wrote this little article for a now defunct periodical called “Homebase Magazine”. It was published by MAW a feminist lobby group here in Canada, focused on the concerns of feminist moms. I called it: “Helpful Hints”. I don’t know what year it was. It was before we had to watch television to know “reality”.
There are people and pets mentioned who are no longer living. My brother has nursed many dogs since Kelly, the dog I mentioned here. I have also questioned the bit about people asking to smoke in the house. WOULD ANYONE DARE NOWADAYS? The whole article was supposed to be funny/informative but with so many people on anti-depressants now and the fact that making things “shiny” could be considered a career, I am afraid it will not be.
These really are things you can clean with vinegar.
Dog Pee
If your doggie pees on the carpet, apparently washing it with vinegar will discourage him from peeing there again. I don’t have a dog, so I have no idea if he won’t just keep finding new places to pee. I suppose you can just follow him around with a bucket of vinegar washing where he pees until every inch of floor is washed.
My brother’s dog peed on a balloon in my dining room. He peed on the same balloon when it was in the kitchen. He is a very old dog. My brother has to lift him up after he’s been lying down for a while because he gets stiff and can’t move. He also has to brush the dog’s teeth every day because they are bad.
His breath is terrible, the dog’s breath, not my brother’s at least I don’t think his breath is bad but I can’t be sure because I didn’t kiss him.
I didn’t try washing the balloon with vinegar. I just threw it out. But if his dog had peed on the carpet I could have told you if washing with vinegar really worked.
Clean Air
This information I got from a Mennonite cookbook: “A saucer of vinegar will rid the room of cigarette smoke.” If you are like most people these days, you won’t let any one smoke in your house. If anyone asks you if it’s al right to smoke in your house you will tell them that you think they are disgusting and that they have no consideration of their own health or the health of their friends and children.
Furniture Polish
Use cider vinegar for dark woods; white vinegar for light woods.
Mix 1 c. vinegar
2 c olive oil
Apply lightly and buff when dry.
Or:
Combine ¼ c. turpentine
¼ c. vinegar
¼ c. boiled linseed oil
Shake and rub on the furniture with a soft cloth and polish dry in twenty minutes.
Painting
Paint brushes that have hardened will soften and clean more easily if boiled in vinegar.
You can remove dried paint from glass by rubbing it with a cloth soaked in hot vinegar and then scraping it with a knife.
Lime Deposits
Here’s something that I bet you never thought of: There are lime deposits in your kettle, shame, shame! Bet you won’t sleep at night now. But there’s a solution! Equal parts of water and vinegar boiled in that nasty kettle and left to sit over night will wash them away! Rinse it in the morning with cold water and you will sleep better from then on. Honest!
Vinegar will also work on the lime deposits in your children’s pet hamster cage, if it’s not politically correct these days to keep pets in cages…well, I just don’t know.
Bob is really my son’s hamster but I don’t mind cleaning his cage at all. I really love Bob. I think he loves me too. A lot of people tell me that I shouldn’t get so emotionally attached to a rodent because they don’t live very long but I no longer feel that it is how long a relationship lasts that determines the value of it. I feel I’ve grown as a result of knowing Bob.
This doesn’t really have anything to do with Bob, except that it illustrates how you should not judge the value of relationships by longevity, this is what I wrote:
I joined an artist’s guild. I had finished chemotherapy and my hair had grown back. At a meeting a woman came up to me and said, “Where you the new member who was bald last year?”
“Yes”
“Oh, I thought so. Sorry I didn’t introduce myself at the time but I thought you were going to die.
See? You never know.
Washing windows
Half vinegar, half warm water and a few drops of dish soap make an excellent solution for cleaning the dirtiest windows. Buff with old newspaper. It dries without leaving streaks. That’s all. Seriously, you just have to believe me.
Life is full of messes. I try not to gripe and to look after my own. But I also believe it is not all about keeping things shiny. It’s important not to confuse smells with stink. It’s important to think.
Words About 