Earth Day, A little help for Spring-cleaning and getting rid of electronic clutter

Electronic recycling from EFORCE, www.eforcecompliance.com

Ask those who love me how I do with cleaning, and they may reply, “Marcie has some trouble there,” or “Marcie’s place is a friggin mess.” Sadly a major paradox of my life is that I love neat, tidy, and warm spaces and yet I am thrown into a panic at the thought of cleaning. I avoid, I fret, I poor a class of wine, maybe write a blog post… and I find better things to do than keep my home clean and decluttered. Now there are several things that do end up helping me, one of which is having the knowledge that things I get rid of will go to a new home or be properly broken down and recycled.

       Electronic items often pose difficulty here, as most thrift shops won’t take them and I am loathed to add them to waste in landfills. Happily, for those of us in Philly and the surrounding areas there is EFORCE recycling. They accept and will recycle any items that can be battery operated or plugged in. They sponsor events in both the public and private sectors, and there are a slew of free collections happening over the next several months! Notably, Whole Foods in Devon (April 28^th) and Jenkintown  (April 129^th) will be holding collections this upcoming weekend, and WXPN will be hosting one May 4^th. Go ahead, declutter your life and rest assured your electronic items are being responsibly recycled and broken down! Celebrate Earth Day and your new freedom from electronic clutter!

Items EFORCE accepts:

Electronics, batteries, lamps, mercury devices, furniture and equipments, paper, bottles, cardboard, and glass 

You might leave out your steam iron for a day or two and find ants are using it as a watering hole….

The insect Carnage post rade on my iron...



The little guys "taking a swim"

 True story: Last week, in the process of tidying my living room, I reached down to pick up my iron that had been reposed in the corner for maybe a week (or two or three….) and I recoiled in disgusted yet fascinated amazement at the sight before me. A tiny yet determined little army of ants was crawling in and out of the water intake funnel. Apparently my iron was a water oasis in the midst of the desert that is my apartment. Upon further investigation I could see clearly through the water level window there were tons of the wee invaders in there!

      Now I am a peace loving {mostly} vegetarian {just started eating some seafood after fifteen years of being flesh free} but this was plain gross and I needed my iron! In case ants should ever take to hanging out in your iron, because apparently this can happen to you, here’s how to go ballistic on their little asses and got rid of the enemy forces:

1. Turn on the iron and place the steam setting to, “HIGH”

I know this may sound cruel, but allowing the temperature of the air and water within the iron reach death inducing heights seemed the most expedient way to handle the insurgence.

2. Stand with thumbs poised to squish any six-legged warrior who managed to escape boiling death trap.

Again, sounds cruel, but very necessary, as I could not allow any to flee and return with reinforcements.

3. Set homemade Borax and sugar traps for the scouts will invariably come investigate the fate of their comrades.

Total annihilation needs to be the goal here. Borax, though toxic, is far less damaging to the environment at large than many ant traps. For recipes and suggestions check out this page. Since it is reasonable to suppose most ant home invasions will not be focused on your iron, this is actually your most needed resource for a counter attack on your insurgents.

              *Marcie

How to Remove an Ink Stain

There are always millions of tons of dust in the air, just as there are millions of cubes of air in the earth…And sometimes there is a ballpoint pen in your washing machine, which explodes and does this to your bathrobe:

The culprit

Eight of us went for a very muddy hike at Lake Nockamixon, so afterwards we did a load of laundry. A couple of loads later when I pulled the exploded ballpoint pen out of the machine, I knew immediately it was Ben's. He had already claimed a handful of loose change and a set of keys from a previous wash that day. He must have been distracted when he put his pants in the wash...

Anyway, men are like this right? Always forgetting to empty their pockets.

But why did it have to be the load of whites? Some quick googling turned up an effective solution: rubbing alcohol. When it comes to stain removal always remember the chemists' adage, like dissolves like. Soap and water will work on water based stains. This is also why your nail polish dissolves in nail polish remover (acetone), but not in water.

We did everything we could to save Papa Smurf, but the bleeding was unstoppable.

First I  panicked and started to liberally douse the bathrobe in rubbing alcohol.This produced two results. One, the ink stain immediately dissolved in the rubbing alcohol like magic (yay!). Two, the excess ink began to spread out all over the fabric (crap!). To remedy the situation I had to get organized. I folded paper towels into blotters and laid the fabric down on top - this part was tricky because the robe had two layers, and so I had to tackle each layer separately while being careful not to let stained portions of fabric touch unstained portions of fabric.

Then I used more paper towels to section off the stain from above. Now when I poured alcohol on the robe, the excess ink was trapped on the paper towel blotter.  

 Paper towel blotters and rubbing alcohol.

After the excess ink was blotted away there were still some faint blue marks. Using toothbrushes, hydrogen peroxide, and some soap, Marcie and I got to work removing as much of the remaining ink from the fibers of the fabric. 

Then we used a bleach pen to treat whatever discoloration was left. Finally we sent the robe through the wash cycle on cold, twice. 

Using a bleach pen to get the last of the ink out. Success!

The final result was great. You could barely tell the robes had been stained at all. There were points along the way where we thought we were going to have to buy replacements. Fortunately, instead of shelling out hard-earned cash, we were able to salvage them with chemistry and a little elbow grease!

Do It Yourself: Jewelry Storage

I’m a little late to the “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle" lifestyle. I am now making a concerted effort to reuse more, and create less waste.  I’ve had my eye on a jewelry tree from Urban Outfitters , but I decided to make jewelry storage rather than buy one.

I decided to give crafting a try. I took a framed print that was just collecting dust in my house, and some mirror hanging rods that I bought when I was furnishing my house, and I randomly pierced the rods into the print.  This is the result.....

Print of the Mona Lisa 

 

*Kia*