Thanks Pinterest! Bookshelf

It wasn't exactly hideous but I rearranged our living room bookshelf based on a cute pic I found on Pinterest. The books are lined up in a fabulous lil' reading rainbow.  From disheveled to delightful!

 

 

Creepy and Crawly

It's icky, but it happens...LICE! Pickles came home with the bugs about two weeks ago. Of course, I went into full research mode scouring the inter-webs for different home remedies to treat them. In the meantime, I washed her hair with dog shampoo. Now, somebody out there is all "eeewww, dog shampoo?!?" Yes. Many people use it because it has the same chemicals that the more expensive lice shampoos have. It's not too harsh since actually, dogs have more sensitive skin than we do (which is why you can't bathe them every day or every other day. If we could, Pepper would smell MUCH better). Alas, it turns out that today's lice have become resistant to these chemicals (pyrethrin and piperonyl butoxide). Yeah, that's awesome. Just what I want, some mutated, death-defying super bugs crawling around on my kid.

After sifting through a many articles all saying what I just summed up, I found a forum in which one parent said she used Listerine. LISTERINE! For some reason, it just struck me and, hey, I have to do something! Game. On.

I bought a bottle of the old fashioned yellow Listerine. The green and blue ones listed sugars and sweeteners in the ingredients and didn't want a sticky mess on my hands...or in Pickles' hair.
Without washing first, I coated her scalp with it, cap by cap to make sure I was getting every inch. After I had covered her entire scalp and rubbed it in a little, I poured Listerine into her hair, again, cap by cap. 



Now, the parent who recommended this said her kid had it in her hair overnight. But we had plans that evening and quite frankly, it's my M.O. to rush through projects I'm super eager to see the outcome of... Did I just refer to Pickles as a project? I left it in her hair for about 2 hours.

The results? EXCELLENT! As I was rinsing her hair out, I could see the little buggers floating away in the water and down the drain! I had to make sure she didn't get her hair in the water cuz I didn't want them sticking again. Duh! Now, there's two things I should mention. 1) this obviously does not deal with eggs. When I went through Pickles hair before washing, it seemed all eggs were empty. But you never can tell and you don't want newly hatched nits to just roam free like they own the place. So 2) I did a second treatment about 4 days later.

Pickles has been a happy camper since the first treatment. Before I did the second treatment, she commented that her head had not itched since the first time. So, if you're a desperate parent who has tried dog shampoo, mayo, olive oil, tea tree oil, petroleum jelly (Vasoline), coconut oil, vinegar or Dawn dish soap...well, you've already rubbed all that other crap in there, you might as well give this a try!

So I must confess to being a bit overwhelmed. I'm a big believer in baby steps. The trick is not looking at the huge pile of things that must be done; only the next thing that must be done. My general to-do list for my house is about 20 items long. Many of those items, however, are made up of several small steps or items. Maybe doesn't sound like such a big deal to most. But to a procrastinating, flighty gal with a short attention span, it might be a bit daunting.

One thing I've got to get going is a chore list! It'll help me knock certain, well, chores out every week so I can get them out of the way quickly and get on with larger projects and shop keeping.

First fruits....

So my first day of unemployment looked like an episode of Hoarders. A scary and tightly packed mess in various corners of the house is what I inherited from my working self. BUT I dove in and started clearing out a little at a time.

Witness the the kitchen catch-all, a shelved cabinet that wound up somehow in the kitchen and begun collecting and untold number of whatchamacallits. School papers, tax receipts, crayons, office supplies, surplus school supplies and much more.

Happily when I got down to it, it really just needed a tidying up and sorting of papers (well, sorting and some recycling). Now was that so bad? And just ya don't think I just hid stuff under the curtains...

A place for everything and everything in its place. Oh m'gosh that feels so good! Just LOOK at it!

So it's a baby step but definately a good start. I might not be too bad at this house keepin stuff...right?