Tuesday Cleaning Tip and the mouse

    

A few tips you may find helpful.  As I say on my Web page, these are tips that have been emailed to me, or that I have found on the internet.  I have not tried all of them and cannot guarantee their success.  If you do try one and it works, or if you have another one that works for you, let me know.

Ink Stains: The best way I have found to get out ink stains is to put rubbing alcohol on the stain - it disappears! This must be done before washing. For ink on the wall, wipe with bleach and it will disappear.

And the more is my story about our recent "adventure".

Sunday evening I had decided it was time to clean out my bedroom closet.  All through the month of November, as I was preparing for turkey day, all non-essential items seemed to end up in my closet.  You know all those things that seem to have no permanent home and just move about from one spot to another.  The things that you don't know what to do with but can't just toss out.

So by the time Sunday evening arrived I couldn't even see the floor of my closet.  What I saw when I opened the door was the box for the Christmas tree, the box filled with about 40 videos, a foot bath-massager thing (I didn't waste money on that), a broken printer, a second hand fax-printer machine (no cable for it), 2 boxes of out-of-season clothing(shhh, half of that I can't get my fat bum into), my camera case, a sewing machine, an empty laundry basket, a box of shoes and 3 stacked plastic drawers with socks, old bra's and bottles of fingernail polish.  Don't be fooled by this long list of "junk"...it is not a walk-in closet. 

Which is why I began throwingthingsout into the bedroom.  My frustration from spending the month baking and cleaning, a whole day cooking and nary a word of simple "thanks" from my "room-mate" kicked in full force.  I just felt an irrational need to get my life in order.  An impossible task actually, so I did the next best thing...cleaned my closet.

So there I was standing at the door to my closet, bent over with my bum sticking out the door.  Tossing various bits of junk into the bedroom when I finally spied a hint of yellow.  Yellow is the color of the 30 year-old, sad looking carpet throughout the house. 

However when I noticed the small, black, slightly crescent shapes scattered over the worn out carpet in my itsy bitsy closet, the tossing of junk became even faster, more furious and was now accompanied with high pitched yelling.  I was now in a mad dash to get my closet cleared out.  I ran and got the sweeper.  The person (who seems to be permananently) attached to the lazy boy asked me how I knew it was a mouse.  DUH!  I guess the same way I know that men have a brain...I just assume it!

So there I was sweeping the small amount of carpet over and over again.  I was down on the floor with the attachment making sure I got all the bits of mice pooh cleaned up when I heard someone say something.  I turned off the vaccum and heard "He just ran out and went under the bed".  Arggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

So the baby was sent to the other end of the house to play with her older sister.  We got ourselves into attack mode.  I was handed a broom and told to poke around under the bed while he lifted it up.  He lifted, I poked and it ran...right under the door and out of the room.  Good plan.

It was much bigger than I had imagined.  Don't worry, there was no long tail.  Nope, it isn't a...ick...rat.  Just a big, fat, well fed mouse.  Yep, I found candy wrappers in the closet and under the bed.  Apparently the nasty little critter likes the same goodies as the ol' man.  Heck, there is a toddler in the house.  The lil' fella is probably having a happy feast every night when we all go to bed.  Eww!  Eww!  Eww!

Well, we searched the house and saw no more of our little visitor.  What a shame.  I think the ol' man really wanted to fluff his plumage, shake his mane, or beat his chest and prove his use to us as a protector by beating the little fat boy with my plastic handled blue broom.

We had 2 traps from the first year we lived here when we found one of this fella's relatives living with us rent free.  The trap worked before, I hope it works again.  I keep checking them.  That fat boy is probably just sitting some where watching me.  He's probably thinking "I don't need to get the peanut butter out of your little trap when that baby leaves me all kind of crumbs all over the house."

Ahhh, the adventures of a housewife.  How much more exciting could things possibly be?  Oh, be sure to come back tomorrow for part 2.  Which includes some sheets, a baby, a diaper...oh, just come back, okay?

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Have a totally terrific Tuesday!