a wide place

I’m a few days late, but here are some things that made me happy in February.

Dawn Powerwash

Yes, you got that right: Dawn Powerwash is a new-ish discovery for me and makes me very, very happy. Ironically, I don’t even use it for dishes. Here are the two main things I use it for:

1. Cleaning my shower.
I have to give credit for this idea to my friend Jeanette, but it’s truly been a game-changer. Previously, the only thing that removed mildew from my shower tiles was a bleach cleaner, and I would spend the rest of the day coughing with a headache. Enter Dawn Powerwash. You spray it all over the shower, then use one of those refillable-handled dishwash sponges to scrub everything down. Don’t put the soap in the handle! Just enjoy wiping it all down without a scrub-brush and without a cloud of chemical fumes.

2. Removing oil stains from clothes.
It’s not just that my kids who are known to wipe oily hands on their shirts; I often forget to wear an apron when cooking and get spatters on my clothes. I spray the stain with Dawn Powerwash and then add a few drops of boiling water, rub it all in, then through the item in a regular wash cycle.

Now it’s your turn: what do you use Dawn Powerwash for that I should know about?

Cleaning my house the first Monday of the month

I have a long and tumultuous past with regular house-cleaning. It’s not complicated: I just don’t do it very often. I’ve always said that I’m a good tidier and a not-great cleaner. In certain seasons, I’ve hired a once-a-month house-cleaner, which is a miraculous gift if you can ever manage it. In fact, when I decided to teach two classes at my boys’ hybrid school in the fall David agreed to let me hire our beloved house cleaner, Sandy, again.

And then one day one of my kids looked at me with their big brown eyes and said they really, really want piano lessons. Their latent talent has been confirmed by at least two reputable sources. Who am I to deny that child their musical dream?

Suffice it to say, I am once again cleaning my own house.

This month I set myself a cleaning day: the first Monday of the month. It’s typically a quiet day for the boys and I — largely free of errands and activities — and the kids are so self-sufficient with their schoolwork now that I can just devote the time they’re doing homework to cleaning. So then I’m on hand if they have questions. It took me from 9-1pm to feel like I did a good, mostly-thorough clean. And the house looked and felt amazing.

Lectio365 app

Recently, a friend told me about a prayer app that she uses that follows the form of Lectio Divina. After reading the Sensible Shoes novels, which I told you about last month, I’ve been eager to add more liturgies into my prayer life, so I wanted to give it a try.

I’m not a fan of using Bible study or Scripture apps because I generally find my phone distracting, but for this season, Lectio365 has been wonderful. There are three guided prayer times a day that include Scripture and meditation, and the theme for this Lent is “Wilderness.” Once a week there’s a brief bio on a Desert Mother/Father from the Middle Ages, which I find encouraging.

This app has been a beautiful gift for me in this season.

The Milano Cortina Olympics

Growing up, life more or less stopped for our family once every two years when the Olympics happened. For some reason, we seemed to prefer the Winter Olympics, which is odd considering I grew up in Florida and Barbados. But there you have it. I was definitely obsessed with figure skating and know far too many random facts about skaters from the USSR in the 1990’s.

I think for me as a young person the joy was in learning about people’s stories from all over the world. As David says, I’ve always loved a human interest story.

It was fun to spend two weeks in February watching the Olympics with the kids (David is more of a Summer Olympics guy, but enjoyed checking in too: speed skating is his favorite). I was very pleased that Amie too enjoys figure skating! How about Alyssa Liu?? That was one of my all-time favorite gold medal stories. Another was bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor. And of course there was the US vs. Canada gold medal hockey match.

What a great Olympics!

Dutch oven artisan bread

David and I made the decision to become more intentional about Sabbath rhythms. One of them is a weekly loaf of no-knead artisan bread. Sometimes I make it; sometimes he does.

It’s a way of slowing down, doing something with our hands, inaugurating the week’s Sabbath rest.

We used to make artisan bread on a pizza stone with a tray of water underneath for steam, but it’s much simpler and less messy in the Dutch oven. And still creates that crispy crust. Truly, the reason it’s only a weekly Sabbath habit is that our family can eat a loaf this size in one sitting — no in one standing around the kitchen island. And no one needs that much bread in their life.

An electric knife

Okay, if I’m going to write about crusty bread I have to write about the electric knife I ordered from Amazon. Does it make me an old person that I have an electric knife? Probably. But we love this thing. Perfectly clean, thin slices of artisan bread every time. Here’s the link if you’re interested.

That’s all for today! I leave you with some sweet February moments …