The Barbarock Blog

Barbara is a natural detective.  If she notices a funny sound or something amiss in the pantry or basement (something that may escape the rest of us), she will watch and deduce until she has the riddle solved.  Not surprisingly, her favorite pastime is putting together difficult jigsaw puzzles–her ability to sense patterns and how small elements fit into the larger whole serves her well in that hobby.

Her sharp senses and wits have benefited us many times,  saving us trips to the store and calls to the handyman or critter control.  Her keen observational powers and excellent analytical skills also leave very little room for secret-keeping.  Within a few minutes of arriving, she has a good idea of what where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing since her last visit. But she’s also the soul of kindness and discretion–voicing her conclusions only to help or watch out for us.

Barbara put her analytical skills to good use recently as she was polishing some glass cases at the jewelry store she cleans a couple of times a week.  She timed herself using different techniques for cleaning the cases and found that she finished the job most quickly using this approach:  spray windex all over the surface, then wipe around the edges first, then clean the center section in overlapping circular motions.  After timing herself, Barbara concluded that this method of cleaning the cases took her about half the time it did using other techniques.

Barbara has a great talent for making things pretty using whatever is available in the house.  We have a French hydrangea on our porch, from which she cut some blooms last summer and put them in simple vases on the kitchen window sill to dry.  You can see the silver bud vase, a little sake flask, and an unusually-shaped soda container.  And there are our little friends between them, Sleepy and Doc from Disney’s “Snow White.”  It’s nice to have a simple little row of flowers to remind us of long summer days as winter approaches.

And, for Barbara’s tip of the day–to keep medicine cabinets smelling fresh, fill a small paper cup 3/4 full of baking soda and keep it in the cabinet.  After a month, dump it into the sink and wash it down to keep the sink fresh, and then refill the cup and put it back into the cabinet.

Barbara is the oldest of ten children. Her father left when she was two and she never knew him, a fact that saddens her to this day.  Her grandmother and grandfather raised her after her mother remarried a man who didn’t want another man’s children around.  It was a difficult beginning to a life that has had more than its share of troubles, but Barbara is a happy person nevertheless.  I ask her how she can be so happy in the face of the many troubles she’s had.   She shrugs and says there’s no reason to be unhappy when she knows so many good people who love her.  And she has her children, who have been the center of her life in a way that she never experienced with her own parents.”I love my children and they make me happy.”  She adds, “I’m just glad to be alive.”

Barbara’s oven-cleaning tips of the day (both microwave and conventional)–

If you have a spill in an otherwise clean oven and it gets cooked in a little bit–wait until the oven cools down to warm, and then take a wet paper towel and apply some dishwashing detergent to it.  Then lay  the paper towel over the spill for at least 30 minutes, and it will come right off.

To clean your microwave, fill a mug 2/3 full with water and add a few tablespoons of vinegar.  Then microwave the mixture on high until it has been boiling and steaming for about 30 seconds.  Let it sit for about five minutes, then take a paper towel and wipe out the microwave thoroughly.  It will be clean and deodorized as well.