Domestic Goddess? Why yes, I am.

Now that the school festivities are over, I've had time to turn my hand towards running the house again. For the freezer challenge, I think we bought food out only twice. Yay me! That was not so remarkable a feat on the face of it, because I had SOOO MUCH FOOD. But I was also still busy with other projects, and so cooking was not high on the to-do list. Still, I made quite a few meals and we made some room in the freezer. And I spent practically nothing on groceries except the basics this month. Double yay! I think grocery outlay was around $150 for the whole month, including stocking up on good deals like frozen chicken and Dr. Pepper. (Which is funny, because with 7-12 packs in the pantry, several of which I got free, everyone tells me they prefer Pepsi. In bottles.)

So I'm reading the message board at The Grocery Game, and they have a great section on product reviews. Several people raved about Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Me, I don't like Mr. Clean cleaning fluid, so I was not about to try it. Except the reviews were so emphatic, and then a great clearance deal at Target was discovered, and I had 15 (yes, 15!) coupons, so I went down and picked up 4 of these babies for 38¢ each. Normally you can get a 2 pack for $2.89, so this was a steal for a single pack.

When I got home, I tackled the Little Critter's tennis shoes. They have reddish sand at school on the playground, and the white leather was decidedly orange. Not anymore! Then to a vase in the kitchen with ick crusted on. Clean! Then, the ultimate test... the shower.

When we moved in, the bathing facilities were, um, ick. I did what I could to get the ick out, but some of it was so old, I couldn't make a dent in it.The tile grout was mildewed, permanently I thought. And the shower stall leaked into the next bedroom with every shower. With that and a flooded backyard, we lost half the carpet in that room. (I hate the loss of use of that room!) So I decided to take on the ick in the shower. With the Magic Eraser.

Oh. My. Stars.

This thing is just a sponge! No chemicals or anything! But it started taking out the ick like you would not believe! Back I went for 11 more of these babies! Then, back into the shower.

So here I am on my hands and knees checking the grout, when I made a new discovery.

Some of the grout down there was awfully torn up. The shower wall shared with the flooded-bedroom wall had gaps in the grout at the bottom. Hmmmmm. The creaky wheels in the Fishbrain start to turn. Maybe the problem isn't a cracked drain pan, like the plumber said. Maybe the water is dripping from the grout gaps and running into the next room that way.

So Fish drags the mister off to Walmart at 10 Friday night (remind me to tell you about Walmart Baby Bingo one day) and we procure about $20 worth of caulk, caulk gun, putty knife, etc. to do this job.

Neither JJ nor I are in the least experienced in Home Improvement, Maintenance, and Repair. I must say that first. But between us we cleared out the old grout, scraped down the stubborn remains that were left, and recaulked that side. JJ is about to take a shower in there for the first time, and so we are moments away from the verdict. He's already calling me a genius for figuring this out. Which is nice, if not exactly true. Because if I were a real genius, I would have tackled that ick a long time ago, and found the problem then. But hey, if it saves us the cost of a new shower until we can afford to pay cash for it, I'll accept that.

Especially since the gratitude was extended to taking me to Baskin Robbins tonight!

(Baskin Robbins has a Buy One Get One Free Sundae deal next Sunday!)

UPDATE: The shower fix seems to have worked! This means we can finally get the wood replaced and the carpet replaced in the guest room! Woo hoo! Victory is mine! I am invinvible!