When Soap Isn't Enough

The most disgusting of disgusting happened to me the other day. As I was helping my daughter in the Home Depot bathroom, my sunglasses fell off my head and right into the toilet. Now, there are many things I would not rescue from this particular situation, but my prescription polarized sunglasses were definitely worth saving. I stared for a moment completely mortified. Then, quickly fished the sunglasses out and hustled to the sink (luckily the toilet had a freshly-flushed bowl). I washed the glasses and my hands for about five minutes in soapy water, but felt like I wasn't quite ready to let them anywhere near my face.

After wrapping the sunglasses in a paper towel and heading home, I called my personal Optometrist and his office manager (a.k.a. my parents) to find out the best way to clean the sunglasses to my satisfaction. I learned a few things about cleaning glasses that I thought I would share here, since I know my first instinct of throwing them into boiling water then dowsing with Clorox probably was not the best course of action.

1) Use rubbing alcohol for disinfecting. NEVER use a household cleaner as it can ruin any coating on the lenses.

2) Use gentle liquid soap such as dish soap to clean. Put a dab on your thumb and index finger and rub lenses carefully under running water. At the risk of sounding like a shampoo commercial, rinse and repeat as necessary.

3) Kleenex is actually the best thing to use to dry. T-shirts, dish towels and paper towels can easily scratch lenses. And make sure your tissue is not the lotion variety or you will be rinsing and repeating a lot more than you would like.

4) If there is any leftover lint, use cloths that are glasses specific (they usually come with your glasses, if not; they are inexpensive and can be washed in the washing machine).

5) Wear and enjoy :)

Hopefully you won't have the issue of have to rescue your glasses from a public toilet, but if you do, now you know how to clean them properly.

Mother Knows Best

There are many times in my life when I swear that I am adopted and can in no way be related to my parents. And then there are times when it is pretty evident that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The last time I visited home was when it first dawned on me that my parents are some of the most well-organized people I have ever seen. My mom claims that there had to, of course, be an Organized Mother, in order to "train and nurture" The Organized Goddess; and indeed she is right. Not only is her home in perfect order, knick knacks aside, but she is a wealth of knowledge of fun tips and ideas. So, I send lots of props to Mom as this tip was one of my mom's most recent ingenious ideas.

Everytime she visits me in Colorado, we have our ritualistic shopping madness of running around to all the stores in the area including any and all organzing type stores (she's so excited that the Container Store is now open at Flatirons, as am I). As she was perusing the dollar travel section at Target, I saw her putting tons of toothbrush holders into her cart. Of course, I think she's losing it. I mean, how many travel toothbrushes can you possibly need?

When we got home she demonstrated her new idea of using the travel toothbrush holders as eye make-up brush containers, either for travel or keeping in your drawer. This was such a great idea that I thought I should share it here. The average women can have a multitude of different brushes, and what a better way to keep them organized and separated by use and style then to use this inexpensive storage and/or travel container? The actual brush is protected and kept dust-free in a compact container.

So thanks for the tip mom, and as always, you do know best :)