10 for the Price of 1
The other day when Maya and I were in the middle of our closet organizing frenzy, I found my favorite cashmere sweater that my mother-in-law gave me nearly four years ago. Have I mentioned how much I love cashmere? It drapes perfectly, layers well, and is so warm! I don’t purchase it often though because I don’t particularly like how easily it pills (gets those little bumps) or gets holes. Also, I am not a big fan of day-to-day clothes that have to be dry cleaned, which can get pretty expensive. And since I am still learning how to eat without dropping food all over myself, our dry cleaning bill can be fairly outrageous at times.
InStyle tells me that when cleaning a closet one should never put back anything dirty, ripped, or missing a button. So finding this sweater was really a mixed blessing.
I hung it on my closet door for further contemplation. You are probably wondering what there was to contemplate. Well my choices were A. stop being so cheap and spend the $6 to dry clean it or B. relegate the sweater to my soccer-mom pile (clothes that I deem decent enough to wear in certain circumstances but which may not necessarily be appropriate everywhere). For example, I could easily pull something out of my soccer-mom pile to wear to the park, grocery store, or post office without feeling too embarrassed. And check this out…I have a backup plan all ready for the rare occasion I run into someone I know – I simply point to the stain and say:
“I feel like a total slob…Maya just dropped her ice cream/chocolate/jelly all over my clean sweater!”
Yes I have used that excuse in the past and yes, technically it is a lie. But even if her ice cream didn’t drop on me at that exact moment, it most likely had at some point. So I am not entirely lying, right?
I know what you are thinking but please don’t judge. Kids literally suck the life out of you. So if my child can earn me a free pass here and there? I think I deserve it.
Anyway, back to my sweater. The other day I was at Target, loading my shopping cart full of things I didn’t need and probably would never use when I came across this:
10 garments for the price of 1? The Dryel was pretty reasonably priced at $10, which made their bold faced claim very attractive. Into the cart it went. I remember reading good reviews about Dryel in a mom magazine (Good Housekeeping maybe?) not too long ago so I figured I’d give it a shot. (We’ll address the fact that I read Good Housekeeping at a later time).
This morning I pulled out the sweater again and cringed – it was in pretty bad shape. I wracked my brain trying to think of a way to get rid of the pills and figured, why not try a razor?
35 minutes and an episode of The Unsellables later things were looking up. Pretty genius idea if I do say so myself. A side benefit of using the razor? I had nearly enough cashmere to knit another sweater.
Next I headed to the laundry room to test out the Dryel. The instructions said to use the cleaning pen to remove any stains. I followed the directions but after a few minutes I wasn’t getting anywhere on any of the numerous stains, so I zipped the sweater in the Fabric Protection Bag with a Cleaning Cloth, tossed the entire thing in the dryer to steam, and hoped for the best.
30 minutes later my sweater was much improved:
The stains on the arms weren’t gone but the rest of the sweater looked whiter and brighter. A nice bonus was how fresh the Cleaning Cloth made the sweater smell!
Would I buy Dryel again? Probably not. Call me crazy, but until my clothes are swathed in cancer causing plastic by my unfriendly neighborhood dry cleaner, I just don’t get that clean feeling. After this experience I actually have a new appreciation for his astronomical prices and maybe even a bit of understanding for his often abrupt behavior. His parking situation, well that’s another story.
But don’t worry, I’ll get my money’s worth from the Dryel by using it on Ali’s clothes. Trust me, judging from the pile of dirty shirts on his closet floor anything would be an improvement.
Book Review – What Kate Did Next
What Kate Did Next
by Lisa Heidke
As most of you already know (and are probably already sick of hearing about!) I am a working mom. That means that when I get home from work I exhaustedly stumble from one task to the next – cooking, cleaning, and pretending to be a good mom – until I collapse in bed at 9:30. And then I wake up the next morning and do it all over again.
As as I rush around every day, trying to cross things off my To-Do List, I often wonder how much easier life would be if I could just give up one of the many things I feel so compelled to tackle every day. Would it be a tragedy if I left my wet towel on the bathroom floor? No. Would I get fired if I stopped checking emails 24/7 and shut my computer down at a decent hour? Probably not. Would the world come to a grinding halt if I put aside my cookbooks and ordered a pizza instead? Of course not. And yet I can’t stop myself from trying to be perfect at everything – home life, work life, and family life. Why? Because my worst nightmare is that I will wake up in 10 years and be no closer to my goals and aspirations than I am today. And seriously, what is more frustrating and less productive than regretting the things you haven’t accomplished?
In What Kate Did Next, Kate Cavendish is a 36-year-old mother and wife who wakes up one day regretting that she traded in her promising career as a photographer for marriage and motherhood. Her kids don’t appreciate her, her husband is never around, and Kate hates that she lacks the energy and self-confidence to kick-start her career and her life again.
But Kate’s life changes forever when an old colleague offers her a temporary position as a food photographer at a prominent magazine. Kate surprises herself and her family by taking the job and quickly finds herself struggling to juggle her kids needs, an ill-tempered boss, her crumbling marriage, and the temptation of her son’s soccer coach. She manages to get by with no major catastrophes until her rebellious 13-year-old daughter Lexie’s growing pains turn into something much worse, and through a haze of guilt Kate wonders if the grass is ever really greener on the other side.
Author Lisa Heidke, a mother and successful writer herself, does a fabulous job of making Kate human. Kate is so very relatable, not only as a mother but also as a daughter, a sister, and a wife. She isn’t perfect and doesn’t pretend to be, which is very refreshing. I love that the author takes on taboo topics that few people discuss but many struggle with – work/life balance, selflessness, infidelity, and getting older.
I highly recommend this light, funny account of a suburban housewife who not only finds peace and happiness but who eventually finds her place in the world without losing herself or the people she loves the most.
I would like to thank author Lisa Heidke for sending me this engaging and funny book to review. I am also very excited that Lisa has agreed to answer some questions about the book and about the process of becoming a writer. Many of us bloggers are also aspiring writers and I know her advice will certainly be helpful to all of us. I plan to have that post up later this week.
In the meantime, do you think it’s possible to juggle a family, a career, friends, health, and happiness? Do you think it is possible to ever really have it all?
Adventures in Organizing
Since I knew that Ali would be at work pretty late I took Maya to the park in an effort to kill some time. Then we came home and did the usual – I made her dinner, gave her a bath, and read her some books. Then I had dinner and cleaned the kitchen and it was still only 6:45! As I wracked my brain trying to think of a project it suddenly came to me – we could organize my closet!
Normally my closet is museum perfect because it is off limits to everyone else. I love everything to be perfectly neat and aligned and color coded. But lately I’ve found myself getting lazy and sort of haphazardly hanging things up where they don’t belong. Or even worse, I’ve been throwing things in my laundry hamper because I can’t be bothered to fold or hang them again. This is very out or character for me because I usually cannot function unless every single thing is in its place. This may explain why I have been functioning at about 75% of my usual efficiency. My feng shui is off!
I was determined to get back on track! So Maya and I headed to my closet, Dirt Devil in one hand (by the way, Dirt Devil is the worst vacuum ever…don’t ever buy one!) and Method Cleaner in the other. She moved things out of my way while I vacuumed and sprayed, and then she helped me clean up the dusty corners with the vacuum attachments. Conditions were worse than a Nike shoe factory.
When the dust finally cleared and we could see again, I put aside any shoes I hadn’t worn in a year to give away and then we arranged the rest on the shoe racks from light to dark.
Running shoes and flip-flops went in this handy hanging shoe rack:
Dresses were next:
I am never sure how to fit patterns into the color scheme but we did our best and moved on to the pants.
Previously I stored my jeans folded and in stacks on my shelves but Maya and I decided it was more prudent to hang them with the rest of my pants so I could find them easily. So we did:
At this point my pajama clad helper decided to take an unauthorized break:
But when I bribed her with some TV time she mustered up the energy to help me evenly space my shirts.
Next we tackled my sweaters. I’ve heard that it is bad to hang sweaters up because they often become misshapen, but I am tired of constantly rearranging stacks of fallen cardigans. Plus, my sweaters drape well from these new velvet hangers versus the old wire hangers I used to use. So I think the closet police will excuse my transgression.
At this point Maya thought we were done and tried to make a break for it. Silly, silly Maya! She forgot all about my Indian clothes, scarves, and shawls.
After a minute of pouting she agreed we couldn’t leave the job half-finished and we headed to the other closet.
I filled a huge bag with the Indian outfits that were out of style, didn’t fit, or were too scratchy, and was SO relieved at this newly edited version of my Indian closet.
We tacked the scarves and shawls next. I put a bunch of them in a bag to give away and Maya and I spent a good 20 minutes re-folding and stacking the rest.
I know that it was an exercise in futility though because the next time I need something and reach in to the stack, the entire thing is going to topple over. Again.
I need to research a better storage solution. Any suggestions?
To Maya’s utter relief my coats and jackets were in pretty good shape so all we did was switch out the hangers. I can’t say enough about these velvet hangers. They are a very reasonable alternative to wooden hangers and in my opinion are much better for your clothes!
After Maya picked this hat up off the floor:
I realized I still had my hats in a disorganized jumble and my skirts were kind of a disaster but even I was too exhausted to care. I thought Maya would be too but as we walked back to the laundry room to put the vacuum away she asked:
“Are we going to do my closet now Mama?”
I was so proud! She is proof that it is never too early to learn how to organize.
While I'm not going to win Mother/Wife of the Year Award anytime soon, I haven't killed anyone yet or shot myself in the head. And that, my friends, is how I calculate success these days. 
FANCY THAT FANCY THIS 