Wonderful Wine Wash

Image via Wikipedia I've been meaning to post this solution for a long time, and the beginning of the summer season seems as good a time as any!

One doesn't need to be a parent to be beset by red wine and grape juice stains, regardless of whether they're located on clothing, furniture, table linens or carpeting. Sometimes the dry cleaner is able to get them out, but many times not. A quick Google search for a tried and true solution brings up over 3.4 million suggestions, but I've found most of those are really blind stabs into the darkness that do not work. Some suggest keeping the stain wet; some others suggest drying the stain out. Some say scrub, others say no scrubbing. It’s as though grape juice and red wine stains bring even the most contentious to their knees every time.

Well, there is a solution that works Every Single Time. It’s like magic. Seriously.  The first time I tried it, my mouth literally hung open in stupefied amazement.

White wine.

Yes, really. It works as well with champagne, top shelf and bottem of the barrel stuff. I've tried it all. Yes, I really have. lol

First, test it out. I'll prove it to ya. Take a rag and dab, drip or pour some red wine on one end and some grape juice on the other end. You don’t need much, a wee bit will do for our purposes. Now whip out your bottle of even-really-cheap-bought-just-for-this-purpose-swill-white-wine and either dab or pour it on each stain. The stain instantly disappears. It’s like the opposite of using secret ink or something.

Amazing right??? Are you as excited reading about this as I am just thinking about it???

I love this stain remover. It's awesome. My favorite way of using it is putting a wee drab in a wee finger bowl and dunking the stain into it. It reactivated dried stains (that may or may not have been there for years) and it works on wet items as well.

After the dunk, dab or what have you, you can simply rinse the item out or throw it in the wash. A quick rinse with dish liquid and water works as well to simply get the wine smell out.

For carpeting, I’ve used the trick by taking a corner of a towel or paper towel, dunking it in the white wine, ringing it out and then dabbing the affected carpet. I’ve then rinsed the smell out with soapy water and sponge.

Let me know how it works for you.

I’m happy to answer other cleaning questions. If you have them, feel  free to email me at jenn (at) jbmercurio (dot) come.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

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Week "Away"

Some of you have been asking me what’s been going on, because I haven’t posted since leaving for the Games for Health conference in Boston last Wednesday. Basically, my bad.

First, to catch you up on the conference: Games for Health was fantastic. There were loads of interesting people doing fascinating work and networking to collaborate on even more nifty projects in the future. I’m still wrapping my head around all the panels, talks, discussions and ideas that were incubated there, as well as all of the incredible folks I was able to connect with.

Second, I’ve been under other deadlines this last week - hard deadlines that crept closer as I procrastinated with other work. Then, upon returning from Games for Health, the deadlines were there waiting for me with big neon smiles. Monday morning was do, or due, day.  So I put everything else aside, including exergaming, so that all my productive time could be focused on my Monday deadline like a laser beam. Well, it worked and I got the project in on time.

That being said, I didn’t work out for a week. Last Wednesday was my last full body exergame workout. I’d originally thought I’d workout at the conference but I wanted to spend all waking time at the actual conference and I didn’t want to exergame in front of people, because I didn’t want to look goofy and/or sweat. I’m simply too shy professionally. Then, with the deadline looming, I didn’t want to divert any attention from the project.  And you know what? It was ok. Life and balance mean that sometimes one must shift focus, but that doesn’t mean that one’s overall “penumbra of foci” shifts.

My body seems to be happy with what I’ve been doing with it overall, and it’s still 20 pounds down from my starting weight. So my weight is the same as it was last week. I must say that I’m pretty happily shocked with that fact, as one would assume that the weight would start creeping back up as soon as the exergaming stopped if even for a short respite.  But such was not the case, at least for this short break.

I also started a new 9 week program on EA Sports Active 2 today and worked myself up in quite a sweat.  So I’m back at it and working toward goal #3, which is another 10 pounds by the third week in August.

So onward and downward!

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Upon Reading First 50 Paged of The Glass Castle

Image via Wikipedia It's always struck me that people who are more reticent to ride on roller coasters seem to have rockier lives, or at least that seems to be their self-perception.

It's also struck me that those of us who have had relatively functional childhoods are somewhat fascinated by the sometimes extreme dysfunctional childhoods of others, while those of us who have had sometimes extreme dysfunctional childhoods are somewhat uncomfortable reading about them; yet it is exactly the people discussed in such books as The Glass Castle, who seem to have the best coping strategies when the shit hits the fan. They would probably be the best people to have in your foxhole, whether video game related or not.

Media heaves with psychological problems, feeding the public's never-ending appetite for it. With so many shows about people who are being buried alive by hoarding, and similar issues, TV has come to be a bit oppressively dysfunctional. On the other end of the reality TV spectrum, shows like Real Housewives on Bravo give some of us our Sex-In-The-City-bling fix, while we can still marvel that even they, with all of their purported money, have problems.  Books touted on TV and best seller lists drip with real life terror, yet when any number of them are "exposed" as "fake," they seemingly shake our societal "faith" in what documentaries, docudramas and non-fiction actually are. Is this how we're experiencing our own reality - through their fake-real lense?

So we come to The Glass Castle, a disturbing look at extreme childhood abuse in so many forms it makes one cringe. A young girl having rocks picked from her face with pointy nosed pliers. Children forced to sit locked in a U-Haul trailer for 14 hours straight. Children going hungry for a day while your parents gamble in a casino, only to be given a piece of beef jerky to munch on afterward. Sweet Jesus.

We can all empathize with those who have gone through the terror, hunger, pain and suffering of extreme childhoods. Was this story "worthy" of being written? Most definitely. In recording these stories, hopefully we can then act as a society to curtail them. 

Would I recommend this book to others? No, not based on what I've read thus far. While I feel for the author and her siblings, it would be difficult for me to inflict that pain on others in the reading.  This is all to say that I'm profoundly saddened by this book, and I still have 238 more pages to go.

Did you read this book? What are your thoughts?

UPDATE: (11:29 pm) I've finished the book and agree with my assessment above. That being said, I'm heartened to read another story of my alma mater, Barnard College at Columbia University, being the transformative pivot point in a young woman's life. Such stories never cease to amaze me, and make me somewhat emotional.  Playing out one's childhood themes through the rest of one's life also continues to amaze me.

Weight Loss Goal #2

Weight Loss Goal #2 for me has been to have lost twenty pounds by the Games for Health conference in Boston this week, where I'll be speaking on a panel. I'm happy to report that I've met my second weight loss goal, now being down just over twenty pounds.

Weight Loss Goal #3 is losing another ten pounds by the third week in August (30 pounds total), so I have motivation not only to continue exergaming, but to keep losing!

I'm labeling this set of goals "Weight Loss Goals," because I've come to realize that I've developed other goals along the way during this campaign and challenge: strength, fitness, endurance, health, beauty and fashion. I'll post more about them all as the year progresses.

How has your year been going? Have you been meeting your goals? If not, what's been holding you back? If yes, what helps you stay the course?

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Oxyclean Boil Bomb is Da Bomb

I finally tried the Oxyclean boil bomb (ok, that's my title) today and boy did it work wonders!

What is the Oxyclean boil bomb? It’s basically using a deep cleaner to extra super duper deep clean clothing items without harming them. I call it a bomb, because it's bombing and (hopefully) destroying tough stains. An acquaintance had discussed this deep cleaning action in her blog, and I’d been excitedly waiting for an opportunity to use it.

Dear Child had a couple of items of clothing that had stains that refused to come out and as I was tossing them into the garbage, I caught myself and realized (yay!) I finally had great items to experiment on.

Here are the basic instructions:

Fill a big pot full of water on the stove. Add 1/4-1/2 cup Oxyclean. Slowly bring to a boil. Make sure the room is well ventilated. Lower heat to low simmer. Add clothing with stains that haven't come out no matter what, or that have been stained for years, but you can't bring yourself to throw out. Low simmer, or cover and turn heat off, for one hour. Stains should be all gone.

After doing this, I rinsed the items in cold water to set and stop the cleaning action, and then ran the clothing through a regular laundry cycle.

The items that I used now look better than new, as they're even brighter and spiffier.

Let me know how it works for you!

One Hour Into The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This is the best movie I've seen in any language in many years. Yes, it's that good. I'm not going to muddy your viewing pleasure by posting any plot twists (aka spoilers).

If you haven't seen it, do so as quickly as you can. And I still have 1:16:29 left to go - yay!

Updated: (10:44 pm) What a horrific, brilliant, phantastisch film. Only curiosities are whether the book was even better and how good the next in the trilogy will be…

Disclaimer: Not all my blog posts are going to be longer form. Some entries, such as this one, are post-lets.

Oi

I was feeling pretty good about my weight loss thus far, then saw pictures of myself at a friend's recent birthday party and now understand how much farther I need to go. Le sigh. :-/

Next Goal Very Near

I'll be speaking at Games for Health (GfH) in ten days in Boston, MA. I'm one pound from my next goal, which is twenty pounds down by GfH. Can I make it?

Breastfeeding

*Warning* If you do not want to read about breastfeeding, or such makes you uncomfortable, do not continue reading this post.


Breastfeeding (BFing) is one of the biggest nutritional and physical gifts a mother can give her newborn. For more information on its benefits, Google “breastfeeding benefits” and start clicking links; two of the best resources are Kellymom and La Leche League. 

Unfortunately, not every mom/baby pair takes to it. Many issues can be overcome by a lot of determination by the mom, but not all can be. Similarly, social and professional pressures make exclusive or even regular BFing quite difficult for many women. We see these difficulties reflected in the declining BFing numbers as babies age. According to the CDC, nearly 3 out of 4 women try to breastfeed when their children are born, but that number plummets to approximately 13% of women continuing to breastfeed their infants at 6 months of age.

Knowing the benefits, as well as the pressure to stop, many governmental agencies have begun to nurture BFing in general, as well as extended BFing (meaning longer than 6 months), through a slew of relatively new BF-friendly laws. They’ve introduced amusingly named “baby friendly” hospitals, which make me wonder whether all other hospitals are “baby toxic” and one should keep one’s child out of them. Many states allow public BFing and mandate employer lactation support. Unfortunately, there’s a long way to go, especially in terms of public knowledge, and many women don’t know their rights.

I was not one of those women.

Many months before Dear Child was born, I knew the state laws in my and neighboring states. I knew the pros and cons, and looked forward to sharing the experience with Dear Child. Dear Husband was also supportive and very much on board. Dear Child just turned 22 months old, and we just stopped BFing entirely.

One of the plusses of BFing is that it’s supposed to help women lose their pregnancy baby weight. I saw that result in myself and my friends who were able to BF consistently and continuously for months. In the first six weeks, breastfeeding helped me take off the 30 pounds I put on during pregnancy, which is a fairly typical result.

(Thus far during this exergaming process, I’ve been calling the weight I wanted to take off my “baby weight.” However, I was until now too embarrassed to admit that the weight was put on in the years leading up to pregnancy. So they’re better categorized as my “married weight.”)

But after that first post partum weight loss, BFing women are discouraged from losing weight too fast – no more than a pound a week. The theory is that losing weight fast puts too many toxins once stored in your fat cells into your breast milk to be fed directly to your baby. I can’t speak for many other moms, but that was one of my props for not losing weight, let alone not losing it too fast.

Since beginning exergaming a few months ago, I’ve also noticed that my body hasn’t allowed me to lose weight very fast. I think it’s due to BFing.  There were a few days when I was too preoccupied to eat very much of anything, and I continued to exergame. Yet I didn’t lose any weight. I think, and I can’t find any studies to back up this theory, my body held onto the weight because it knew I was still feeding my child and presumably was trying to keep that supply consistent. Again, I can’t prove it, and can’t find any studies on it either, but I hope someone does study this hypothesis. I for one would be very interested in the results.

But now I’m speaking as a former BFing mom. Dear Child and I stopped at 22 months last week. I thought it might take a month or two to but our new routine seems to be working of snuggling while reading and drinking milk. I actually seem to be more saddened by the end of BFing than Dear Child, which I’ve heard is fairly common (another thing to be studied by clinicians). But my emotionality goes along with the general nausea, sleepiness and dizziness, which I’m told is caused by the hormonal changes, which must be pretty drastic.

I’m also wondering whether the weight loss plateau last month was caused partially because we stopped Dear Child’s second to last BFing, whether weight loss will plateau a bit now, and whether losing weight will become a bit easier moving forward. As with everything, we’ll see!

If you have any feedback, BFing stories, etc, please post a comment here or feel free to email me. I’d love to hear from you.

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