amelia's plum

With my zealous nature when it comes to cleaning I don't know how it took me so long to discover the power of OxiClean. Last week I washed my scrubs and forgot to take a pen out of the front pocket. There were pen marks all over my pristine white scrubs, assorted light colored shirts that I'd thrown in with that load and my beloved shabby chic via target sheets that are a pale pink with rosebuds scattered throughout. I was devastated. I squirted Shout on all the pen marks, I went through half the bottle with that endeavor there were so many marks, washed everything again in hot water with some type of Tide stain lifter and washing booster potion, it faded the marks from black to pale blue but they still weren't budging. I've been sleeping on the pen marked pillowcases and feeling rather tawdry, I'm too close to having OCD, oh I probably do have OCD to a certain extent, I have to arrange the crayons and colored pencils in my children's plastic bin just so, I feel feel drab and dirty sleeping on stained sheets like that. And I was loathe to shell out money for another pair of white scrubs, I think I've written at length about how much I loathe wearing white scrubs. So I was complaining to another student with children and she mentioned the OxiClean and that I should just let my scrubs soak in a water OxiClean mixture, that I could leave them in it up to a week and it wouldn't break down the fabric the way bleach can, and I would never risk soak clothes in bleach for a week, they'd be gone. Well that OxiClean got rid of all the pen marks overnight, my scrubs have never looked so good. I can't wait to soak my pillowcases. It's the little things in life that can make your day and I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see those stains go away. But then it rained and I was faced with the water making its way through my sandstone foundation and into my basement. A little thing that can ruin your day. Or the graffitied load of laundry, take your pick. It's the infuriatingly pedestrian ups and downs of being a grown up and owning a house.