Collective Heloise

This weekend, Torsten was eating cherries when I heard a yelp, and turned around to discover that he had squirted dark red cherry juice all over his jeans and his favorite shirt. He was traumatized about his shirt and on the verge of freaking out, but luckily I was already sitting in front of my computer when it happened, and so: Google to the rescue!

And this wasn't the first time that Google has saved me from ruining something I own and love. But my problem is that I often don't think of checking Google until after I've already done something I shouldn't have done. So I've decided that we should create our own little collection of hints, whether or not they were originally supplied by Google.

First, the cherry stains: If you get cherry juice on cotton clothing, stretch the stained area of fabric over a large bowl and fasten it in place with a rubber band. Then pour boiling water from a height of two or three feet (according to Google) or one foot (what I actually did) directly onto the stain. It will evaporate like magic! Seriously! It just... goes away!

And speaking of disappearing like magic, a few months ago (back when the whole flower saga was happening), I got lily pollen all over my favorite cashmere sweater. I seriously almost burst into tears, because I'd always heard that pollen was totally indelible, and I loved that sweater. But when I googled it? It turns out that all you have to do is put the stained garment in direct sunlight for a few hours. I was at work when this happened, and luckily I had another top in my desk, so I changed clothes and put the pollen-stained sweater on the windowsill of an office facing the sun. A few hours later when I went back to check, the pollen was gone. Seriously, every trace of it (and there was a LOT) had totally evaporated.

Okay, so those are the only two I can think of, but I feel like there SHOULD be more. There MUST be more. This is only one little baby Heloise column right now, but that's where YOU come in. What little hints like this do you have? They don't have to have come from Google, and they don't have to pertain specifically to stain removal. Just any useful little tricks that you use that you think are worth sharing with other people. Share them in the comments so we can all benefit from your knowledge!

In other news, tomorrow I'm having my surgery, so I won't be around. But I'll be back on Wednesday, when I'll be home from work just sitting around trying to recover, and I'm sure I'll have lots of bored time to spend posting. But I'm excited for you all to expand this Heloise column in my absence, so that when I get back, I'll have all sorts of new household tricks to learn. If THAT isn't motivation to get out of the hospital as soon as possible, I don't know what is.