Pinbusters – The Magic of Baking Soda

Have you ever wondered if the stuff people post on Pinterest is true? Well I have, and I test them all so that you don’t have to, ’cause ain’t nobody got time for that.  Click here to check out all of the pins I haven taken on. You might be surprised by some of the results!

This post is a two for one. You’re welcome.

The two pins I tested were cleaning your glass stovetop with baking soda, and cleaning your old, gross pans or cookie sheets with baking soda and peroxide. As luck would have it, I had a disgusting glass stovetop

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AND an old, gross pan circa 1998.

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The instructions for the glass cooktop are pretty simple. Soak a cloth (I used a dishtowel) in hot, soapy water.

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Sprinkle baking soda on your “problem areas,” which for me, was, well …

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Makin’ it rain snow.

Then you wring out your wet rag, place it on top, and let it sit for awhile.

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While I waited, I tackled the old pan. I mixed baking soda and peroxide into a paste, and then I started scrubbing. And scrubbing. And scrubbing. It definitely worked, but it required a lot of elbow grease.

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You can see the improvement, but no miracles were performed. Plus I’ll tell you a little secret: I didn’t bother to scrub the rest of the pan. I dried it off and put it away just like that.

By now it was time to address the stovetop. Again, this process required a lot of hard scrubbing too. The baking soda worked well to remove the spots that were really baked on, but it also created hundreds of little balls of baking soda that were time consuming to gather up.

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It worked to clean the glass, though, and I am now the proud owner of this:

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I will say this: I have a product for cleaning the glass stovetop (Cerama Bryte Cooktop Cleaner), and it comes with a little red scrubby thing, and it works equally well. So there’s that.

I wish other people would test out cleaning and home improvement pins … at my house.

I am a Dirty Girl!

That title was really redundant. I think everyone knows I am a Dirty Girl, and so is The Dog. On Saturday, though, I got extra dirty!

I mentioned the Dirty Girl Mud Run a few months ago in this post, and the day finally arrived. I snuck out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to meet Caroline and Raffi from the Tampa Bay Lady Bloggers before dawn, so we could carpool for the trek over to Dade City. I have never been on speaking terms with 5:00 a.m. or its ugly cousins (5:30 a.m., 5:45 a.m. …) and this morning was no exception, but I got up with no problem because I was excited about this run! We were getting close to the Little Everglades Ranch when the sun started peeking up.

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A huge thanks to Caroline for jumping on this golden opportunity:

I am still grimacing from the port-o-potty's lovely aroma.

I am still grimacing from the port-o-potty’s lovely aroma.

I almost got my blogger status revoked by failing to bring a camera (who does that?!), but luckily all the girls had me covered, and I have a post chock-full of their photos. So disclaimer up front: the majority of these photos are not mine, but you can click on them to take you to the source. We ran in the very first wave, so the grass was wet, the course was pristine, and the mud was COLD.

I wore my standard racing gear (the pink bikini shirt from the Tough Mudder) and a new Bondi Band (complements of Raffi):

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This shirt is best appreciated from behind:

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Oh yeah. The Boy asked if he could come support me, and I told him it was “girls only,” so he stayed home, and supported me from afar via text:

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Here we are pre-race:

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Left to Right: Caroline, Caitlyn, Genna, Jenny, Denise, Raffi, Me, and Nicole.

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Another shot with more of the group, including Mary, Meghann, Jess, and Margarita. It was very nice to finally meet some of the ladies whose blogs I love!

We got warmed up at the start line by a pep talk, and some zumba! That was definitely a fun surprise. The obstacles consisted of mud pits, water hazards, walls, a giant slide into a mud pit (Dirty Dancing), cargo nets (Get a Grip and Funky Monkey), mud tunnels (Utopian Tubes) and a stretchy rope thing (Amaze Yourself) that was actually kind of difficult to navigate.

Lydia’s husband practically ran the race with us, and was a great sport taking all of our photos. Here are a few gems he captured:

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More obstacles:
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3.1 miles later, and we reached the finish line:

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Once everyone arrived, we posed for our “official photos”:

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And a few “unofficial” ones:

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It was a great race, well-planned, organized, and with excellent staff. A fantastic start to my Saturday!

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POS featured on Patch!

If you haven’t heard of Patch, you’ve been living under a rock – or a pile of sawdust, like me. Patch is a nationwide website with local versions of their site, so people can get news specific to their community, engage with other people in their area, and find out what is going on around town. The editors and contributors of each website live and work in the areas they serve, plus anyone can post news, photos, and upcoming events, so the content is truly unique and local.

In an effort to better know your local bloggers, Patch reached out to us, and has featured us on their site today.  You can view the Q & A here. We love shout outs, and are honored to be featured. Check out your local Patch!