This is a section of my hall wall "after" being cleaned with Magic Eraser.
We were all busy during the holidays and didn't keep a close enough eye on Ed. He somehow found some non-washable markers and decorated my hall with black and red artwork. I wasn't too worried since I have successfully been able to remove all previous smudges, crayon, pencil and other kid inflicted stuff with Magic Eraser. It took off the black pretty well, but was not successful with the red. I had consigned myself to re-painting it when Barbara (David's sister) and Carolynn came for an overnight visit. Barbara suggested I try rubbing alcohol, a remedy recommended to her by a friend for lots of unwanted spots. I did and IT WORKS! I just received this cartoon in the mail from her a few days ago:
January is a big yard clean-up time for us. The sun usually manages to push through the cloud cover and shine for a few days and makes you think Spring is on the way. The fruit trees need pruning, the lawn needs crab grass preventer and fertilizer, and there are TONS of leaves, weeds and green waste to remove since we are usually too busy to do anything about it during the holidays. We had a great crop of mandarins this year and shared a lot. Our wonderful neighbor, Elisio, came over a couple of times to get some and offered to trade some labor for the last of the crop. He raked leaves for us in return for oranges. It was a big help to me! David later paid him to help with tree trimming, so we are pretty much done with that, and it's not even the end of the month. I got the lawns done and Round-up sprayed last week before the big rain storms hit. David has been wanting to move the pomegranete cuttings out of the garden so he could roto-till it. He was getting their final resting place ready and accidentally broke a water line (see picture above). That's all fixed. Now all he has to do is plant the cuttings which have grown about 3 feet tall. I have to spray the weeds in the peach orchard and plant some pretty flowers for Ellen around her deck and also some for me. That's the fun part. I love Spring. I can't wait for all the blossoms and flowers.
Sweet little Jared is three! We love him so much. He is truly a joy in our family. I made a frog cake for him and we had a fun time celebrating with the family.
