You know you have hit a certain level of desperation when you tell the hubby to forgo jewels and get you a hand-vac for Mothers day. That is exactly what I asked for last May, and I’m glad I did. The make and model, however, were all my dear husband’s pick. Rather than the standard Dustbuster model, he went with this bigger pivoting head design. The 18 volts make it strong enough to pick up a large spill. To empty (...Read More)

We have hardwood floors. We also have two kids. Our floors, needless to say, get trashed pretty fast. Mopping is not my favorite chore. In fact, I hate it. With the bucket and the dirty water and the grungy mop and all the squeezing. I’d rather fold fifteen loads of laundry than wash the floor of one room. Once, I convinced myself that if I bought new supplies, it’d inspire me to become a moppess extraordinare. So, at Target, I (...Read More)

My mother-in-law, as long as I’ve known her, has had an ugly set of dishes. They’re sickly white with seventies-era gold designs etched around the rims. Their lightweight lack-of-heft makes them feel like they could snap to bits if you squeeze them too tightly. They’re Corelle, she told me once. She got them decades ago. She lives in a retirement community, which means her cupboard space is limited. And I did, grudgingly, come to admire how they stacked without taking (...Read More)

If you had asked my 20 year-old self if there would be a time when I would give cleaning products more than a few seconds of passing thought, you would have been met with a blank stare and perhaps a “They make products? To CLEAN?” But alas, with the joys of parenthood come the responsibilities of maintaining a home that doesn’t qualify for condemnation or reality tv. We do what we can to keep the house from falling into total (...Read More)