Testing Products

Woohoo!  I got to test a product for free!  Oh yeah!  How, I hear you ask?  (Well if you didn't, you should have).  I signed up with a company called Super Savvy Me quite a while ago and I joined their panel.  Long story short, I apply to be part of projects and if I'm selected they send me the product to try and give feedback on, it's fantastic (and very minister's wife, no?).  

So my product is the new Ariel 3-in-1 pods.  I received this lovely starter pack.     

A full size box with 16 pods in it; a book of money off vouchers; a project handbook; feedback forms and, most importantly, 10 free samples for me to share, yay!  It's marvellous.  

I admit when I got it that I was like a kid at Christmas.  I had received a parcel in the post, that means presents (in my head anyway).  I opened the box to find another box, ooooh.  I opened that box to find, you guessed it, ANOTHER BOX!  Thankfully this was the outside of the Ariel box so I knew that the 'presents' would be inside.  Ta-Dah!  A big grin spread across my face, new stuff to try.  This product is perfect to enhance my practice to become a minister's wife.  You see, washing clothes is the one skill that I have.  I have not (as yet) ever had clothes colours run in the wash, thus dying all the other clothes (I have accomplished this outside of the washing machine in the wet washing basket but that's a different story and skill).  Nor have I ever shrunk clothes or stretched them - washing clothes is my forte.  

So I start rooting around in the box and grab out my box of washing pods.  I place the box proudly above the washing machine and dash upstairs, faster than a speeding snail.  I grab armfuls of clothes, drop them and grab different clothes, drop them and stare.  What clothes do I want to wash first?  Do I wash the towels?  The heavily stained jeans that the Raving Rev has been wearing whilst doing decorating and mud walks?  My delicate clothes that are covered in baking stains (again, another story)?  Which ones?  Hmmm, I decide upon the towels followed by the Raving Rev's clothes.  I grab armfuls of towels and dash downstairs (the dash was inadvertent as I kind of slipped and skidded a wee bit on the way down.  Thankfully I stayed upright and just looked like a giant weeble teetering on the stairs).  

I grab open the door to the washing machine and with manic glee start stuffing the towels into it.  I grab the box and I swear, I must have looked like a crazy woman ripping open a box of chocolates, such was my excitement.  I grabbed a pod and stared at it.  They're very pretty.  Green on the bottom with blue and white segments on the top, ooooh.  I lob the pod into the machine, slam the door shut, select the wash and wait.  Ok, sadly, I kind of stayed squatted in front of the washing machine for a while to see the tablet and what it would do.  After the Raving Rev climbed past three times, he pointed out how sad I was being and I, reluctantly, left the washing machine and the pod to do their thing.  

So results?  I won't bore you with all the details of the washes but they're not bad.  They didn't remove all the stains from the old tea towels but in the pods defence, these are extremely tough, ground in stains.  They did remove all other stains from clothes well and, more impressively, brightened the clothes.  I thought that perhaps it was me wanting the clothes to be brighter but the Raving Rev passed comment on it "What you added to make the towels brighter?"  Result!  Maybe they do do what they say on the tin haha.  So now I have clean, bright, stain free clothes.  Exactly what a minister's wife should have.  

TTFN.

Survival Weekend

I start this post slightly dishevelled and confused.  I have been on a survival weekend without even leaving my house.  I shall do my best to explain.

Hubby (whom I have now decided to nickname the Raving Rev) is away at a conference all to do with his training.  I have been left at home alone, yay.  Before leaving the Raving Rev looks at me with great concern on his face, "now are you sure that you are going to be ok on your own?"  I tut, of course I am.  I am a fully grown woman, I think I can manage.  He asks me at least 20 more times and I am beginning to get slightly annoyed that he seems to think that I cannot manage.  His final question to me was more blunt "will you and the house still be in one piece when I get back?"  I glared, what was that supposed to mean?  I am not clumsy like him; I do not break things like him; rant, rant, rant.  He backed off, nodded, gave me a kiss and was on his way.  To add insult to injury my mother also kept texting me and phoning to ask if I would be alright.  What was this?  You would think I was a disaster waiting to happen.  Turns out, I am.  

Saturday morning, after a lovely long lie, I get up and decide that I will wash the dog beds.  The upstairs one was particularly stinky and when I picked it up, to my horror, I found out why.  My beloved little pooch had decided to stash some of his food up there under his bed and it had started growing, arrrgh, gross.  I get it downstairs and in the washing machine.  That was all fine and uneventful.  Then the fun began.  I decided to bath the dog.  I managed to get him into the bath and everything was going well until I pushed him further down the bath so that I could use the shower head on him.  He slipped and couldn't get his footing and was sliding around all over the place.  I was trying to hold him in one hand and the shower head in the other and water and dog shampoo was going everywhere!  I managed to rinse him off and he got out the bath himself and then the delightful drying began.  Fifteen minutes later the dog emerges from the bathroom slightly damp and smelling sweet and I emerge looking like a half drowned rat.  

I went downstairs and decide to wash the other dog bed.  This is a large bed with memory foam insert (gift from parents).  I gather the bed up and I push, heave and squeeze it into the washing machine.  I then stop and have a thought.  I don't really need to wash the inside, just the cover.  I can fabreeze the inside and that will save time drying it.  So I start to pull the bed out of the washing machine.  I pull and I pull and I heave and it is refusing to budge.  I grab a bit of it and give it a massive yank.  The bed stayed put but the washing machine lurched forward.  Thankfully it righted itself and I'm now getting slightly worried because I've got the bed stuck in the washing machine and its not budging.  I sit on the floor, place both feet on the washing machine, grab the cushion and heave with all my might.  On the fourth heave the cushion came flying out of the machine and I went flying backwards and hit my head on the cupboards, ouch.  At least I've freed the cushion, hoorah.  I proudly unzip the cover to retrieve the inside and was met with an explosion of foam.  Apparently the cushion inside is ripped.  I stood there, slightly stunned and confused as bits of foam went hurtling all over the kitchen.  I yanked the cover off and, still with bits of foam in it, shoved it into the washing machine.  I then went about the task of clearing up the foam which the dog thought was great and was spreading it throughout the house, nooooo.  

Whilst gathering up the foam I noticed that the tumble dryer was making a strange noise.  I went to investigate and became concerned that it was about to burst into flames, such was the strange noise it was making.  I noticed the Raving Rev's bag stuffed down the side of it and decide to pull it out in case its that making the noise.  As I pull the bag out, it hooks onto the sliding cupboard we have and pulled it straight out into my face.  I reeled back in shock and hit the back of my head on the cupboard again, owwwwww.  

I am now getting slightly distressed and all this has happened within an hour.  I decide to do some food and settle for the easy option of pasta in a sauce.  It's one of those packet pastas so I can't possible go wrong.  I set about boiling the milk and water.  I stand there watching the saucepan.....nothing.  Sigh.  The saying sprang to mind "a watched kettle never boils" so I grab the local paper and begin reading that.  I stop and check the milk, nothing.  Fine, carry on reading.  Stop and check again, nothing.  Reading, checking, nothing.  Reading, checking, aaarrrgh.  There is now a volcano of milk where there should be a saucepan.  I grab the pan and turn the knob to reduce the heat.  Suddenly I'm aware that I'm standing with the saucepan in one hand and the knob in the other.  That can't be good.  I put the saucepan down, manically shoved the knob at the space where it should be and thankfully, after some 'gentle' persuading, it reattached.  After 40 minutes, I eventually managed to get my pasta that was only supposed to take 6-7 minutes.  

After all this, I decide to dry the dog beds in the tumble dryer and tidy up the rest of the house.  After a bit I become aware that something is not right.  I don't know what it was but I ran to the kitchen to the tumble dryer where all appeared to be fine but I knew something was amiss.  I yanked open the door to discover that rogue foam had entered the tumble dryer, blocked up the filter and was starting to make the dryer overheat, aaargh.  Nearly had a fire, oh good grief.  Then, one of my poor, elderly rabbits took one of his fits.  I grabbed him out of the hutch, brought him round and was just putting him back when our adopted auntie popped in to see me.  I was stood there covered in bedding, hay and rabbit fluff and looking slightly harassed.  Straight away, she checked on the bunny, made sure he was ok and then laughed as I told her about my day.  

Suddenly, I realised why the Raving Rev and my mother were so concerned.  Memories began to flash before my eyes.  Like the time in our last house when I was left alone, the tap in the bathroom kept dripping and wouldn't stop.  I took a hammer to it and it never dripped again.  Didn't work again either until the Raving Rev replaced it.  Or the time I was assembling a cabinet by myself and I couldn't find a bradawl so I used whatever I could find.  Raving Rev came in and I proudly showed off the cabinet.  He was impressed until he spotted my DIY bradawl, apparently it was the thermometer thing for the microwave.  You would stab it in the food and it would tell you if it was done.  Well, by the time I had finished with it, that thermometer was done.  Then there was the time that the chimney caught fire.  I kept calm and went into the kitchen and grabbed one of the saucepans off the side (it was the weekend and I hadn't washed up from the night before tut tut), filled it with water and then went and threw it on the fire.  The chimney fire went out and the whole house turned black/brown.  Raving Rev came downstairs and stared at me whilst I, with a big grin, proudly announced that I had put the fire out.  "You threw it on?  Are you crazy?  It could have exploded into your face!"  Also the saucepan that I used had fat in it which I had also thrown onto the fire, ooops.  The other bit as well was that all the soot and ash had come flying out of the fire and into the house.  My dressing gown was lovely and white at the back and brown all up the front (as was my face).  The dog we had then who was white, as he had been laying down, he had one white side and one brown side.  The house rabbits were covered, the settee, everything.  Ten seconds to put the fire out, five hours to clean the house.  

I think I'm beginning to understand their concern, perhaps I'm not safe to be left alone.  What will I be like in a manse?  Can you imagine me trying to serve tea to visiting parishioners?  Or trying to do a dinner for guests?  Will we all survive?    

Be blessed.