The next morning I buckled Wingnut in and he was upset about something. I can understand what he says a out 80% of the time but this instance fell into the other 20%. All I knew was something about his carseat was not making him happy. No matter. We were late (per usual) and had to get Peanut to preschool. Eventually he calmed down and we got some things done while Peanut was at school. Then when we picked up Peanut I helped her get into the car. As I was buckling her in she pointed to her buckle and told me, “I don’t like this one.” I asked her what she was talking about and she informed me that usually she has a round buckle button. Ah. That must have been what Wingnut was having issues with earlier. The buckles got switched. Who would have thought they were so particular about the shape of the button on their buckles? Peanut asked me to switch it and I told her that takes a lot of time and work and would involve me taking both carseats back out of the car, undoing and redoing their buckles, and loading them back in. I assured her I would change them the next time I cleaned them.

As it turns out, I shouldn’t have gone to the trouble. Last week we were rear ended. Everyone is fine. We were on our way to preschool in the morning and stopped at a red light. A lady ran into the guy behind us and he, in turn, bumped us. Since we were the second car hit it wasn’t as bad. The bumper on our car looks pretty much untouched and there’s only a little separation between the body of the car and our back, right tail light. No biggie. Peanut was a little scared but the tears didn’t come until she realized she was missing preschool while we waited for the police to come and do a report.

Anyway, because they’d been in an accident we had to get new carseats. I was able to find one with the same upholstery as Wingnut’s and found the same model with a different upholstery for Peanut so they can tell them apart. Despite Peanut not getting the pink flower upholstery (in general I don’t like pink and it will be handed down to the new baby before long anyway) both kids are quite excited about getting new seats.

Then yesterday I was looking at Pinterest and came across something my cousin’s wife pinned. Short of buying new pans I didn’t believe anything could make my pans looks nice again but I thought I’d see what this pin had to offer. The lady who posted about it had used some cleaner I’d never heard of and it had really worked! As I read on I wondered where I’d have to go to find it and how much it would cost me. Near the end of her post, though, she mentioned the ingredients in the cleaner consisted of tea tree oil and liquid castile soap and that while doing some digging found other people had had the same success with just those two things.

While I don’t have the actual cleaner she used I do have Dr. Bronner’s castile soap and tea tree oil on hand so I thought I’d give it a try. To my utter surprise it worked! I used a tough scrubber with it and it cleaned my pan right up. It’s not absolutely perfect and there are still a few stubborn spots in the corners where I can’t scrub very well but everything else has come off with a little elbow grease! I’m seriously amazed.

The front. There are still visible scratches since it’s an oft used pan but I expected that. The “before” pan doesn’t look as bad as the “after” pan used to look but you get the idea. I should have taken a before picture of the cleaned pan. It really was shocking.

The back.

ODD, while just as surprised at how clean the pan looked, was not thrilled with the cleaning combo. The castile soap I have is the peppermint kind. That, combined with the strong scent of tea tree oil, was too strong a scent for him but, personally, I like both smells and rather enjoyed sniffing it while scrubbing. If you’re sensitive to smells, though, you might want to do this outside when it’s warmer.

Now I just need to do the other sheet pan, then give it a try on my saucepans. I’m excited to have nice, shiny pans again.

The day before we celebrated I was telling the kids what the plan was and how fun it would be to play with Grandma and Grandpa. Peanut asked where ODD and I would be. I explained we were going to stay someplace special that night to celebrate being married for nine years. Then Peanut said “Nine years! Is that faster than a race car?” Hmm. Not sure how to respond to that. I had a good laugh about it, though.

ODD worked in the morning on Friday while the kids and I cleaned up the house and got ready to go. When he got home we packed up the car and hit the road. We took the kids to my parents’ house, visited for a minute, then kissed them goodbye for the day. We had ended up in Tiny Town earlier than anticipated so ODD suggested we go bowling. ODD took Peanut bowling last weekend while I took Wingnut to a birthday party. They had a lot of fun last week so ODD thought it would be fun for us to go. We haven’t been bowling in years and the last time didn’t go so well, if we’re being honest. This time was much happier and we had a fun time with lots of laughing at my inability to bowl well. I think my final score was something around 77. ODD had a pretty good game, though.

The guys at the counter chuckled when I requested a size 5 shoe.

After our game we headed to a restaurant for dinner. It was a place we hadn’t been before but had heard was good and we weren’t disappointed. For appetizers ODD ordered some chicken tenders and I had some chips with a monteray jack and blue cheese dip. Both were awesome. And filling. We both had a chop salad after that and were stuffed by the time they brought out our entrees, short ribs and an Oscar style New York strip steak, both with mashed potatoes. Neither of us could eat much of our main dishes so we boxed them up and had them for lunch the next day and enjoyed them just as much as the day before.

We then rolled ourselves out the door and to a local Inn. We had a nice, relaxing stay there without the interruptions of poopy diapers, whining, or pestering. It was lovely.

The next morning we had warm cinnamon rolls, parfaits, and juice for breakfast. Mmmm. After hanging out for the rest of the morning we headed back to pick up the kidlets. They were happy to see us and we got to hear some of the funny things they did while we were gone. Apparently Peanut pretended to be asleep in my mom and dad’s room for a little, then after my mom left she got up and started playing on my dad’s computer which was open and running a Carbonite back-up. My mom came in when she heard some tapping on the keyboard and found Peanut had somehow opened a paint program and was “painting a picture for Grandpa!” She does want to be an artist. Maybe she’ll get into graphic design someday.