Baking Soda and Boiling Water

I am finally back on schedule with the laundry!  I washed clothes before we went to Jessica's for Thanksgiving because I knew I would not want to mess with it after we got back on Saturday.  So, I had to wash during the week.  Then, last week we had Elisabeth's kids and took them back on Saturday.  Having them meant I didn't get the laundry done, but I did wash some after we got back home.  But, I still needed to wash some during the week.  So, today I made sure I got caught up!

While some of the laundry was in the works, I went to $$Tree for some lights.  I was disappointed, however!  All they had were boxes of 20 lights (a 5 ft. length) for $1.  Somehow I figured I could do better than that at Walmart.  And I was right!  I got 100 lights for $2.28!  I bought 2 boxes.  And, I put the ornaments on.  Mostly store-bought, but enough salvaged ones to make the tree look decent enough.  It doesn't look nearly as pretty as this, my favorite view of the tree.....in a dark room with nothing but the tree lights on.  Beautiful!

It doesn't look as dark in this picture as it actually was.

I saw a cleaning idea on facebook that I tried immediately upon seeing it!  I am very pleased with the results!  You know that nasty, greasy screen in the oven hood above your stove?  Well, you boil water in what looked to be a BIG soup pot and pour quite a bit of baking soda in.  When the water is boiling, stick the screen down in the water and wait, then turn the screen over to clean the other end.

I didn't have a big enough pot, so I boiled a big pan full of water.  Laid the screen in the plugged sink and sprinkled a generous amount of baking soda all over the top.  I broke up all of the little chunks, so basically all of the baking soda fell into the sink.

Here is the screen after the first cleaning.  You can see by the yellow places that there was still some grease in the screen.

Here's the water after the first wash!  EWWWWW!!

Here's the water after the second wash.  Better, but still pretty dirty!

Check out the screen now!  I'm very pleased with the results!  The best part is that I didn't have to do any major scrubbing!  :D

Well, my stomach has been giving me fits again today.  So I haven't been able to eat much.  And tonight I have a headache, probably because I am hungry!  So, I think I will just go to sleep and pray I feel better tomorrow!

Nite!