One rainy night, Aunty was driving to a company party dinner, and it was really difficult to see through the windshield even with the wipers going full blast.  The windshield de-fogger option on the AC was used, which didn’t do much because it was not the inside of the glass, but the outside that seemed to have an irregular haze on it that made driving at night a bit dangerous.

While at the dinner, Aunty mentioned it to Winfield in conversation, and he suggested using steel wool on the glass.

Really?  Doesn’t that sound scratchy and potentially damaging?  So Aunty google-searched, and sure enough, some of the professional auto detailers out there mentioned using finest grade steel wool, dry (important to use dry) on glass windshields and windows to clean off and clear up glass.

By now, Aunty figured out that it was the car wash wax that had left residue on her windshield, got out a pad of 0000 steel wool and started buffing off wax and grit on the front windshield.  It didn’t take long and soon the glass felt smooth and slippery.  The steel wool pad seemed to have gathered some wax on it after the easy job was over.  As an additional precaution, Aunty also wiped down the rubber wiper blades in case they also had wax on it.

A few days later, while driving home in the evening, it began to rain.  Goody!  Aunty turned on the wipers, and swish swish swish, they squeegeed the glass clean and clear, giving Aunty such a nice sense of accomplishment as her own auto detailer.

Next up is waxing the car by hand instead of taking the easy way out at McKinley Car Wash.

Hmmmm.  It has been awhile.  Aunty needs to think about that.

This is not a picture to show Aunty’s lack of eyelashes, sparse eyebrow hairs, wrinkles, bags under eyes, or melasma splotches on face.

It is to show that little brown dot just above and the bigger dot just below Aunty’s eye as a warning to all of us to be careful.

Aunty wanted to cut down a piece of a laminate plank to be a barrier in the vegetable garden.  Instead of using a circular saw, Aunty used her Dremel with a thin rigid sandpaper looking cutting disc mounted on a mandrel.  The laminate plank was hard and difficult to cut and as the Dremel spun furiously to the point of smoking, Aunty felt a sharp shard fly toward her eye.  It was either her lightning quick reflexes or the hand of angels (I’d bet on angels) that resulted in Aunty’s squinting shut her eye just in time, or else the shard would have burned into her eye ball rather than landing on her eye bag.  It was painfully sharp and embedded in the skin, and it took a little while before Aunty could pluck it out because it was burning hot.

It looks so little (actually it is about 2 days old and the scab just peeled off) but Aunty felt very lucky.  Imagine if it had lodged IN her eye!?!

So, lesson learned – wear safety goggles or glasses when cutting, drilling, or hammering.  And thank your angels every day and night, for the near misses we realize, and for those that we didn’t even know that we missed.

Since it has been so terribly hot and sunny recently, Aunty has been laying out linens, hankies, furoshikis (squares that are used to tie up parcels and gifts), unlined tote bags, and whatever other natural fiber item that are stained or discolored on the front lawn and having the intense sun bleach the stains away. It works like magic.

Mrs. Orpha Herrick was a favorite college professor. Not only did she teach a great course, she also was a class act in every way. I learned her trick and have used it often with great success.

To remove the yellow spots and discolorations from linens and cottons (natural fibers), spread the item on the grass in the sun, and water the fabric evenly. As the sun starts to dry the items, wet again.

Do this several times during the day until the stains disappear, and your linens and cottons look whiter than they ever did!

Ta daaaahh! Sun bleached beautiful clean linens!

If it is windy, use clean rocks or weights to hold down corners. Remove from the grass before the sun goes down and lay out again the next morning if the stains need more time to disappear. Handle only when dry. Keep your dogs off unless you want dog paw prints as a pattern – Aunty learned this the hard way. Paw print are not removable with this method.

Crocheted doilies and cloths are great candidates for this method since they do not wash well. However, the dyes that are used in the natural looking crochet threads do tend to also bleach out, so a brownish ecru piece will lose its brown-ness and become almost white.

Aunty was stuck while cleaning up.  Some things were hard to throw out or give away.

One of these things was this cute party favor from a graduation party that we went to a few years ago.  It was such a good idea, very simple, very graduation-y, and so it was kept in order to share the idea with some mother putting on a party for her child’s graduation one of these days.

It is made with disposable plastic dixie cups with lids.  Squares of colored cardstock are attached to the lid with round head paper fasteners with miniature tassels.  The cups are filled with mints or candy.  When the lids are attached, they look like cute little graduation caps!

Hope y’all can use this.  Aunty is SO glad to post this because now it can finally be tossed out and the concept is saved. One down in the clean up, many more to go.

Congratulations to all the graduates out there!

First, the tip for storing batteries, learned from Alejandra of Alejandra.tv.  I got one of those craft organizers from City Mill and stuck all those loose batteries that were rolling around on my shelf after the Costco mammoth packs were opened up and batteries would spill out in freedom.

Works pretty good, though I am not sure if the ends should be all facing the same way so I put the more plentiful smaller sized ones (AAA) in a small plastic bag in order to control them.

When moving this battery case around, it is better to hold the case level instead of carrying it like a suitcase – less rolling and moving in the compartments.

Aunty really likes this storage solution.  It was a great way to grab up all those potentially good batteries that were hanging/hiding out in the closet that I hated to open.  However, some of those batteries didn’t look so good, and one even was dated 2011(!), but the Chang in me (sorry for the ethnic slur, but my friend Chang would understand) couldn’t just toss them out – what if they were still okay?

Musings is a blog that is written and maintained by a former school teacher named Kay.  I don’t even know her but I love to visit and eavesdrop.  One of her posts referred to a YouTube video about battery testing without any tools.  The video is below.  I did the test on the big batteries in my case – those D size ones, thinking that they were too big to fall.  Unfortunately, or maybe it was fortunate, they aren’t too big to fail, and fall they did.  Parting with potentially good batteries would have been tough.  Parting with junk ones is easy.  Mahalo for the tip, Kay!

Update:  Bill Harvey is one of the smartest people Aunty knows.  Bill emailed Aunty with an additional tip to test those 9 volt batteries where both terminals are on the same end.  Touch your tongue to the terminals and if there is a slight tingle, then it’s still good.  Aunty hasn’t tried that one yet – maybe one of these days when she needs a little excitement.  Also, even if some of the batteries fail the falling test, they may still have enough of a charge left to work, just not at full capacity.  Mahalo for the tip, Bill!

Update on update:  Aunty found a 9 volt battery lying around and did the tongue testing.  Wooohooo!  Tongue got a yowza of a tingle.  Then, the battery started getting quite hot, so Aunty tossed it in the outside trash can in case it decided to blow.  It was a bit too exciting for Aunty.

Thanks to Amy Lynn Andrews’ Saveur link, here’s how to peel a whole head of garlic, super fast!  This is a great tip for those times when you need a LOT of garlic, as in the Garlic Mayo Grilled Shrimp recipe.

In case you cannot view this video, food editor Todd Coleman smashes a whole head of garlic with the palm of his hand (some garlic cloves fly around), then he puts all of the cloves into a large stainless bowl, covers it with an identical bowl (it looks like a ball), and shakes it hard for a few seconds.  Voila!  Peeled garlic!

How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds from SAVEUR.com on Vimeo.