Stinky Washrags? Smelly Garbage Disposals?

Have you ever notice that your kitchen washrag starts to take on an unpleasant odor?  Well, I have.  I learned a trick from my mom on how to battle that.  Take a spray bottle and create a mixture of bleach and water (either equal parts bleach and water or slightly less bleach than water).  Then every other day or so, spray the washrag, and rinse it out.  Don't for get to use caution while spraying and rinsing or make sure you're wearing clothing that you don't mind if it gets a little bit of bleach on it.  It can happen; It's happened to me.

The other tip I received from some of the ladies in my church ward.  They said if you notice an odor coming from your garbage disposal you can freshen that up by slicing a lemon or lime into quarters and tossing the pieces into the disposal then starting it up.  I've never tried this one, but several said it works like a charm and doesn't hurt your disposal at all.

Codex Alera

Last year I listened to the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher and really enjoyed them.  I thought the reader did a fantastic job--she did all the voices for the characters.  It's a fantasy series consisting of 6 books that follow a young man, Tavi, and other members of his family through various adventures.  If you enjoy fantasy I would highly recommend them.  And if you're a fan of audio books I would suggest listening to them.

The titles of the books in the series are:
1- Furies of Calderon
2- Academ's Fury
3- Cursor's Fury
4- Captain's Fury
5- Princeps' Fury
6- First Lord's Fury

Happy Reading!

                             

Early Christmas Shopping

Happy (belated) Holidays!  This year has been a particularly busy year during the month of December, and I was happy not to have to worry too much about gift buying.  I did almost all of my gift buying on-line before Thanksgiving, then I just let the packages come to me.  This made my December quite a bit less stressful and I was able to enjoy all the fun activities we had planned.  Some people might think buying Christmas presents before Thanksgiving is a bit extreme, but to those I quote from A Christmas Carol's Scrooge, "You keep Christmas in your way and let me keep it in mine."

What are your thoughts?  Are you an early Christmas shopper or does shopping in December make it feel more like Christmas-time (as my husband believes)?