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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• Anti-Stain Treatment - Berries and Cherries (carpet-cleaning-southend-on-sea.co.uk)
• Wine Stains On Carpet: 10 Tips to Remove (doorfly.com)
• Anti-Stain Treatment - red wine (carpet-cleaning-southend-on-sea.co.uk)

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!

Related articles

• My Anytime Fitness Date (krisgetshealthy.com)
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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.