A modern day “Hints from Heloise; okay I guess I can’t really say that since I just found her web-page. If Martha Stewart is still considered modern, then Heloise is too. Rather I should describe this page as a “real-world” tips page where I share my awesome skills at adverting disasters – boy, have I had a lot, read A LOT, of those types of days, especially since I had children. Another title could be “Do as I say, not as I do.” AND I’ll share 3 examples so you can see that I DO know what I’m talking about.
Seriously – an entire gallon of paint spilled on the BRAND-NEW carpet, in our BRAND-NEW home that I didn’t discover until it had almost dried. My, then 2 year old, daughter Alex decided to “paint” her room. (Back in the day, my steam-cleaner and I had a love affair, we spent hours together, working side-by-side – heck, we spent hours & hours just cleaning up that mess.)
OR how about the time that I left the faucet in the sink in the laundry room (the upstairs inside my house kind of laundry room) on. Let’s just say our up-graded carpet pad made a great sponge. That disaster involved cutting the BRAND-NEW carpet & pulling both it and the carpet pad up so that it could dry. This little adventure taught me the ins & outs of carpet tape & kickpads (there is a reason, besides comfort, that carpet installers wear those funny looking things on their knees).
btw, we don’t have carpet in our home anymore!! …so, if you are trying to convince someone that you want tile or hardwork or something besides carpet, you can also use this advice of ways to “accidentally” destroy your carpet.
Of course, there was the time that I was unloading the Suburban (which was parked in the garage) and I had the back hatch-up and my daughter (same culprit again) pressed the garage door opener. The suburban’s hatch won that battle & the paneled garage door popped-apart. Apparently the metal on ours isn’t that strong & the screws just pull right through; kind-of like ripping an earring out, but not as painful, bloody or gory – sorry. BTW, if you try to repair such a thing, keep in mind that even paneled garage doors have springs, they are just hidden. So when you take the screws out, thereby lessening the weight of the door – WHAM – that baby springs up faster than you can imagine – to the point where your child might just start screaming hysterically that you almost killed them. Not really – well, my drama queen daughter did scream this, but I assure you there was no near death experience… but I did learn that piecing a garage door back together should involve 2 people, just sayin’. And no, my daughter was not helping me…. since I was the only adult home & I preferred to have the situation “fixed” before explaining to my husband what happened – I attempted to fix it myself.
Okay…so in a matter of moments, I have shared 3 of many, many such incidences in my life. So, hopefully this will either prevent you from experiencing these types of things or it will help you remedy the situation without creating another disaster in the process.
Mother 2 Four ~ 