Of Magic Erasers and To-Do Lists

I once read a time management book which made the suggestion that "if something can be done in only 2 minutes, then do it now!" So I put that pithy little gem to use and knocked out several items on my to-do list. Like change the HVAC filter. Water the plants. Email the photographer who took pictures of my kids back in November and still hasn't given me my order. Wipe all the little handprints and boogers off the front of the refrigerator. Icky stuff, etc etc.

Speaking of cleaning, I have to give a big shout out to one cleaning product I was introduced to that totally blew my fucking mind. (And BTW, I'm not one to advertise or even mention products by their real names, but I'm about to break my own rule here.) So DS recently decided to draw some crayon pictures all over the beige wall of our living room, and once we found his crayon-art masterpiece, we figured we'd just have to re-paint over it. Then someone told me about the Magic Eraser. Holy fucking shit! It is amazeballs. I paid $3.50 for a pack of 4 sponges that you just wet and wipe... and every bit of the fucking crayon comes right off the wall without any effort or elbow grease whatsoever. It also works on random marks and scuffs that have been there forever. I have no idea what sort of alien technology they have going on in there to make it work so well, but what can I say, the shit just works. Your grandkids may turn out like monkeys, but your walls will be clean, so there's a trade-off.

One of my other brief to-do's was to check the status on my online complaint with my state insurance commissioner's office against the insurer of the woman who totaled DH's car 3 months ago. Long story short, the shady adjuster for her co made a written promise to reimburse our rental car expenses back in Feb and still has not done so. But instead of actually doing his job, he sent some hilarious emails in which he quoted old case law and tried his best to sound like a lawyer... and that I forwarded around to a bunch of people who also got a kick out of them.. Today his supervisor finally emailed me and cc'd him to bascially encourage him to stop emailing and start talking on the phone, presumably because his emails were only helping my case... No, I won't be taking their calls. "Email is forever" - and much much better for documenting what they actually say. I kind of enjoy the game of it - luckily the amount they owe us is not earth-shattering. And most importantly of all, all parties involved walked away from the accident without a scratch. We also learned that our own insurer handles claims properly and professionally, so that's good to know.

I love it when I actually have my paperwork and facts together so no one can trip me up. That happens maybe once a decade, so let me revel in it.