Domestic Geek

I know, I've been absent of late. I've been around. Mostly on Facebook, Twitter and Ravelry. I'll be honest — I lost my blogging mojo. Even the big things that happened over the last six months or better, such as shattering my left pinkie at work*, haven't pushed me to compose anything for this blog. Today, however, an event happened that made me go, "I so have to blog about this."

So what is so momentous that I absolutely have to share?

I discovered that the Swiffer Wet Jet totally sucks.

See, I wanted one of these things for ages. The commercial when the thing first came out made mopping the floor (one of my least favorite chores ever) seem like a breeze. I looked longingly at them in the store. I dreamed of having a spotless kitchen floor. For Christmas a couple of years back, Marcus gave me a Home Depot gift card. I used it to buy a Swiffer Wet Jet and, per my standard method of operation, never took it out of the box. It's been sitting on a shelf in our laundry room since. Yes, I hate doing floors that much that even my dream device couldn't get me to do it. (Marcus usually does our floors and prefers using the string mop and bucket.)

Well, Tuesday evening after a long, rough day at work, I reached into the refrigerator to get the tea pitcher and proceeded to knock a big, glass mixing bowl full of sugared strawberries that I had made for shortcake for the preceding day's Memorial Day festivities right onto my foot and all over the kitchen floor. I stood in this puddle of goo crying and in pain while Marcus got me towels to sop up the mess. I did the best I could to get it cleaned up, but I really needed to get to bed and there was a little bit of syrup stuck to the floor in various places. I decided that today would be the day that I would finally give that Wet Jet a try and see what it could do.

First thing out of the box, I was ticked off that it needed 4 AA batteries. I didn't recall seeing that mentioned on the package. After scrounging up some, I got the thing assembled and gave it a try. Following the initial pass across the floor, I was really impressed. It was light and easy to use. I was getting a lot of dirt up off the floor. I thought my floor cleaning nightmares were over. I left for a bit for the floor dry. When I came back, the floor was no longer shiny. In fact, it looked rather hazy. Then I walked on it. OH MY GOD, it was so sticky. At first I thought it was the strawberry juice, but after doing a bit of Googling, I found that it was one of the biggest complaints. That, and that the company changed the pad at some point, so refills were now crappy. Now I was pissed. It says right on the bottle of cleaner that it won't leave a residue. Were these people high? Calling what was on my floor a residue was a major understatement. I broke out the vinegar and warm water and have gone over it several times and it is still slightly tacky. I'll try again in the morning to get it totally cleaned up. I was so mad, I almost burst.

Well, the thing is now residing in the trash dumpster. I thought about trying to use it with another cleaner, but would I? Doubt it. Certainly not going to waste my money on inferior refill pads. I have never been so disappointed in a product in my entire life as I was with this one, I can't believe the POS is still on the market.

*At some point, I will blog about what happened to my finger at work.

Dang, I didn't realize it had been over a month since my last post. So much for posting every day in November. *sigh*

Well, between work kicking my ass and getting a cough that was lingering and just making me feel generally icky, I wasn't in much of a blogging mood. Top it off with my laptop screen dying (I usually made posts from the laptop while watching television), posts just weren't going to happen. Oh, well...not like I had anything interesting to say, anyway. (It would have just been sickness and crappy work rants.) Marcus scrounged up an old screen from a broken laptop and I'm back in business. Hopefully some interesting things to blog about will occur.

We went on our annual Christmas tree hunt a little over a week ago. Marcus and I went down to Colorado Springs the night before and stayed in a hotel so he wouldn't have to rush to get ready and go down there. It was definitely a good plan on his part. Getting him up early is a freakin' nightmare. Pictures are in the Christmas Tree Hunt 2008 gallery. I need to get my butt in gear and decorate it. I also need to get my Christmas shopping started. I have no purchased one. single. gift. Lame, even for me.

Marcus got me my Christmas gift early. I'll post about that in the morning after I snap some pics. I just have to say that he is the most awesomest man in the entire world.

We have had record-breaking cold the last couple of days (and maybe even possibly tomorrow if the overnight temp is lower than -8°F). The temp dipped to -19°F last night. I shudder to think what the wind chill was. I know it was still in the single digits all day today while I was out running errands. The planning forecast on 9News says we might reach 40 by Thursday. Wow, a heat wave. There go any plans of putting up outside lights this year. Probably ain't gonna happen.

So, the cough is gone and my laptop is functioning again. Let's see if more frequent posting occurs.

Ugh, my throat hurts, I was up most of the night and I'm coughing. I think I've got my first official illness of this cold season. Blah! It's going to be a long day at work.

Well, I did it. I put henna in my hair tonight. I'll wait and see what it looks like in a couple of days, but so far not really impressed. It may be because I can still see the dye on my scalp. It did cover my gray, though, which is what I was originally going for. It was a lot of trouble since I had to do it alone and was really hard to get it on my hair. The stuff is really thick, heavy and SMELLY. I ended up getting it all down my neck and on my ears and forehead. They're tinged a little orange right now. Hope that fades soon. LOL

For future reference (if I do end up liking how this looks), I bought the stuff from a web site called Henna for Hair.

I just watched this week's episode of Ghost Whisperer. Not going to post any spoilers, but if they're going where I think they're going, I'm done with this show. I'm already upset that Jay Mohr is no longer on there. It hasn't been the same since they killed off Andrea (Delia just hasn't clicked for me and making Ned grow up overnight was lame like daytime soap operas).

I just realized I never changed to Daylight Savings in my Expression Engine settings. It's such a pain to do so. I wish it just changed. *sigh* Oh, well. Guess I should figure out how to do that again. That said, I am still digging my bedside clock. I love how it just changed all by itself. The only thing that would make it cooler would be if I could program my alarm more specifically. Right now I can either have my alarm go off on weekends different from the weekdays. Since I work Thursday through Saturday, I have to remember to set different alarms. It's a pain.

Have you seen all the different flavors that Hershey's Kisses come in? I'm particularly fond of the cherry cordial ones. A couple of weeks ago, I had one that tasted like Neapolitan ice cream. I haven't seen that one in the stores though (not that I've been looking particularly hard).