Freaky Frugalite

I just LOVE my new cast iron sink! But the thing stains SO easily and it’s such a pain to clean. So when the dudes from Greased Lightning took pity on me and offered to send me a free bottle of their cleanser, I jumped at the chance.

See how pitiful my sink is. Be glad I spared you photos of the bathtub.

I sprayed on the Greased Lightning. The sprayed is impressive. The stuff came right out. You housewives know what I mean about some of those sprayers– you have to painfully chugchugchug to get anything out of the nozzle. I have small hands and “sprayer quality” is important to me, especially for large jobs like the huge kitchen sink or bathtub. The Greased Lightning sprayer gets my official stamp of approval. The smell of the product is nice, too. It’s not acrid or overpowering at all. Has a very light lemony scent. Unlike some of those other nuclear-waste-type products, you can use Greased Lightning without a gas mask!

I sprayed it on. I scrubbed with a washcloth for a few minutes. All the congealed goop in the sink washed out immediately, but the stains remained. Hm.

I scrubbed with a nylon brush for about 3 minutes. Hot water. The stains came out! The sink is beautiful again.

According to the label, Greased Lightning is best used for really greasy, grimy stuff found in and on microwaves, stove tops, and stove vents. It removes dirt from outdoor patio furniture, too! It can remove red wine, pet stains and some laundry and carpet stains. The best use of all, in my opinion, is that is removes soap scum from showers and tubs. I HATE SCRUBBING the tub. I will procrastinate until the tub is caked with 2 inches of soap scum. Well, OK OK I’m exaggerating. A little.

Anyway, I like Greased Lightning. I will keep it around the house for sure. You can buy the product at Walmart, Home Depot, and Dollar General, to name a few major stores. If you want a coupon to try it out, go to the Greased Lightning website and print some coupons! You can also learn more about Greased Lighting on their Facebook page. Try it! You will like it!

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When I was an apartment dweller, and even after I’d bought my first home, any discussion or mention of mortgage financing promptly put me to sleep. Zzzzzz. What could be more boring??

Now that I am an experienced home owner with a ton of kids, a remodeled kitchen, and my sights hopeful for more home improvements, home refinancing has taken on a brand new, bright, and shiny appearance. When we bought our house, mortgage rates were right around 8 to 12 percent. Outrageously high, in my opinion. WAY too high. We got some assistance through the United States Department of Agriculture, getting a secure loan at a low interest rate for first-time homeowners. We were also willing to buy a clunker of a home and fix it up. Our home equity has shot through the roof, even in these shaky economic times. Eventually, we will refinance. We will probably go with a smaller company, too.

Now that the housing industry has shrunk and investors are nervous, interest rates have been creeping down for several years. After the housing bubble burst, the banks need business. You can use this to your advantage if you already own a home. Refinancing a mortgage can save you TONS of money. As a savvy, frugal homeowner, it really helps to check the rates now and again. Mortgage companies like Aurora loan and others are eager to help homeowners refinance. It can be such a win-win situation. You get a low interest refinance loan, the lender gets your business.

The federal government has a terrific website called USA.gov. They maintain a list of mortgage programs, mortgage calculators, articles, tips and more for squeezing out every last buck of your loan. There’s also information on veteran’s loans and rural housing assistance. Good stuff. I was listening to Clark Howard over the weekend, and he was talking with a lady who refinanced her 7.9 percent mortgage for 3 percent!! The clincher is qualifying for such low loans. Your credit must be really good.

Check out the websites and see if refinancing is helpful. In this day and age of shaky Wall Street investing and political upheaval, it’s best to get out of debt ASAP.

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The other day, I prepared spaghetti for dinner. As I was waiting for the big stockpot of water to boil, I wrested open the box of “Thin Spaghetti” and placed it on the counter. Being a mom, I then rushed off to accomplish a billion other jobs in the meantime.

A minute or two later, I heard a faint “SHHHHHHH” sound in the kitchen.

Oops.

The spaghetti slid out of the box, onto the floor. Yes, my house is THAT crooked. It’s *only* 160 years old, thank you.

So the noodles were all over the floor. I picked most of them up. Livvy, sensing unusual sounds (that is, me grunting from crawling all over the floor), raced into the kitchen, and stopped dead in her tracks.

WHAT IS THIS MONSTROSITY ALL OVER THE FLOOR??? You could almost hear her think. WHAT COULD THEY BE?!

Toys, of course!

Hey. Over here, Sherlock.

She had fun and entertained me for a good three minutes.

Game over. Back to naps.

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That isn’t the name of a new Godzilla movie, as cool as it would be. Thermolactyl is a fiber, for a type of ladies and mens thermal underwear. Today, I am reminded of Damart’s thermolactyl on Upstate New York’s traditionally coldest day of the year. My oldest son just informed me that he’s outgrown his long johns (AGAIN). I am never buying that cheapo polyester junk from Wally’s World, never ever. It never lasts and I don’t think it keeps the boys very warm, either. I just found out that I can order Damart clothing ONLINE! Woohoo!! My sons love thermolactyl and Damart makes the BEST thermal underwear ever.

Thermolactyl is very “cool” stuff. For many years, we had a Damart outlet factory nearby and we used to get the most AMAZING clothing. You could wear Damart thermal underwear with a flannel shirt and be as warm as toast on a cold New York day. It looks very nice, too, for both women and men. The ladies garments are in pretty colors and have nice trim. The men’s clothing is very attractive– masculine colors, ribbed designs, and even with turtleneck collars. My sons love stuff like that. This type of clothing keeps the body warm but still allows skin the breathe and perspiration to evaporate. So when the guys are shoveling in sub-zero temperatures, they still feel warm without that cold, clammy feel on their skin. Damart makes the best stuff. It’s the preferred type of winter clothing for sports enthusiasts up here, too. It’s been difficult to find in retail stores because the garments fly off the shelves.

I always wondered why they called it “thermolactyl.” Was it named for the winged dinosaur or something? Actually, Damart invented the fiber in the 1950s. It has a zillion little air pockets that trap warmth from the skin but allows perspiration to evaporate through the fibers. This is very important because when you are outside in the cold, because it’s the trapped perspiration that freezes onto the regular clothing and makes your body temperature drop. Damart makes thermolactyl clothing like cardigans, vests, jeans, and more. I like it because it doesn’t add that uncomfortable bulk common in other winter clothing. Ever try to wear jeans with flannel lining? VERY uncomfortable. And after a little while, it’s freezing cold because the flannel traps perspiration.

Still, I couldn’t find out why Damart calls its long underwear material “thermolactyl.” I understand the “thermo” part, but “lactyl”? Do you have any idea?

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Feast or famine, as the saying goes. When it comes to telemarketers, it’s always feasting time.

We’ve slowly incorporated more cell phones now that the kids are older. We now have five cell phones and one VoIP phone, and I’ve really enjoyed the relative quiet. Before, our landline would literally ring off the hook with calls from telemarketers and bill collectors. But the calls weren’t for us- they were for the people who had our phone number before us. Apparently, those folks had bad financial problems. When their debt collection calls got too pervasive, they ditched the number and got a new one.

…and our lovely telephone company promptly dumped that old number onto us. Sweet. Fun. SO now I was not only getting calls for OUR telemarketers, I was getting calls for THEIR telemarketers and debt collectors. My heart would always skip a beat when the phone rang. I discussed with my phone company how we could stop collection harassment for good from these calls, and the company said they’d give us a new number… but this would be our THIRD number because the one we had previously was bad, too! So we ditched our landline altogether and got a funky VoIP (Internet phone) number and I got the kids cell phones. The silent bliss lasted a few months and it was wonderful. But since September, we’ve all been bombarded with calls. Solicitors, wrong numbers, even some stop collection harassment California requests or some such stuff.

I’d heard about some Do Not Call list that the government maintains. I did a little research and found out that, according to the DoNotCall.gov website,

The National Do Not Call Registry gives you an opportunity to limit the telemarketing calls you receive. Once you register your phone number, telemarketers covered by the National Do Not Call Registry have up to 31 days from the date you register to stop calling you.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but I thought cell phone numbers did not need to be placed on the list. Isn’t it illegal for telemarketers to call us on our cell phones? We get so many calls so often that I would consider it harassment.

Anyway, I put all our numbers on the list. I find it very discouraging that we have to go to such extremes to opt out of such things. Junk mail is another thing. Why aren’t we all just “opted out” automatically? Well, we all know the answer to that: because NO ONE would ever sign up!

Here’s more information about the DO Not Call list that you may find interesting or helpful:

• After you sign up, telemarketers have 31 days to remove your number from their list.
• Charities, political organizations, and businesses with whom you have done commerce are exempt from the Do Not Call list. A business can keep calling you for 18 months after your last purchase! And if you sign up to “win” products, these companies have permission to call you because you voluntarily released your phone number. I always believed that those “contests” promising new windows, new siding, new cars, and new shoes are more like information farms that harvest your data for marketing later.
• Your phone numbers in the Do Not Call registry are “shared” with law enforcement to “assure compliance with federal and state law.”
• The Do Not Call registry applies to telemarketers calling from within the U.S. and from foreign countries. So, even telemarketers from Russia or China are not supposed to call you. How the U.S. government is able to enforce that, I don’t know.
• If your number has been on the list for more than 31 days and you are receiving telemarketing calls, you can file a complaint with the government at DoNotCall.gov.

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When my computer was struck with a debilitating virus earlier this week, I managed to save most of my data. I had a lot of my stuff on an external hard drive, thank God! But I did lose some data and one of them was my RSS feed reader list of all your blogs that I visit. I think I had about 75 in that list. Because of the nature of my feed reader, I *kinda* forgot some of the urls of your blogs.

So, dear bloggy friends, I am asking you to do me a little favor and leave a comment with your blog url so I can grab it again. Please? It would really help me. Some of you have left comments since then and have already left your url in the comment form, so I have added those to my feed reader (thank you!!). But others I do not have and I fear are lost forever unless you give them to me again.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience. *sigh* That’s what viruses do, inconvenience people. GRRR!

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