Simply Amazing! A Laundry Tip from Yours Truly.

It simply amazes me how quicky my children can destroy things...their rooms, their toys, and especially their clothing. Last week Sarah and Will went for a bike ride. I told Sarah she needed to change clothes because she had on gauchos and their wide legs might get caught in her bike chain and get greasy or torn. She was most uncooperative and after a few minutes of her wild protesting, I just gave in and let her go without changing. Less than 5 minutes later she comes back in bawling her eyes out...with ripped and grease-stained gauchos. Hard lesson to learn, but she makes sure now that she has on shorts or jeans. Her gauchos are wearable, but have a little rip in 'em. She's sad about it too.

Will played at a friend's the other day and came home with the pocket on his shorts ripped off. If I told you how that happened, you'd likely share my own disbelief and question his integrity. And then there is Abbey. Three articles of clothing this week have appeared with oily stains on them. Three. In one week. It's oil from the cheese quesadillas she insists on eating for lunch every day. And if you even think about putting a white shirt on that girl, stains start to magically appear. A white shirt is not her friend, but rather her napkin.

So yesterday I tackled our mound of laundry. And was feeling hopeless about those oily stains in her cute, relatively new stuff. I pre-treated them, but after the stain remover dried, I could still see the grease spots. So in a moment of desparation, I squirted a huge amount of Dawn dishwashing detergent on them and set them aside. A couple hours later, I dumped a bunch of baking soda on top of the detergent. Why not? Baking soda is good for so many things. I forgot all about them until late last night. Threw everything in the washer and then hung it up to dry. This morning...ALL of the stains are gone. Dawn detergent is magic! Simply amazing. I don't know if the baking soda helped or not, but it worked, so why mess with a good thing?

A couple of weeks ago, I was hurriedly making salad dressing and spilled a large amount of olive oil down the front of my t-shirt and my favorite khaki capris. We were just about to leave for dinner, so I quickly changed clothes and treated the oil stains with copious amounts of dish soap (dawn, of course!). Threw them in the kitchen sink and left. I really had written them off as ruined. They've been sitting in my laundry room for awhile now, waiting to be washed (sloth, sloth, sloth!). So I washed them last night with my oily load...and they are grease-free as well. I am so happy!!!

So before you throw away all those things you think you've ruined, or quit serving your children quesadillas...grab the dawn and let it work it's wonderful laundry magic. And if you've known about this laundry secret before now, please keep that to yourself and let me glory in my pride at having discovered it on my own.