MidLifeBloggers: Our First 365 Days

Obama's just celebrated his first 100 days, and MidLifeBloggers, not to be left out of the hoopalah, is celebrating our first 365, plus or minus a couple.

Here's what we've done in that time:

Changed themes: three, maybe four times

Changed logos: four times

Published: 146 posts by 30-something bloggers

Which Provoked: 1,079 Comments, of which only 39 were not approved (don't ask)

Here's what you don't know:

There's another brain, eye, and sense of humor behind MidLifeBloggers. Janice Miller, of the Manhattan Millers, is now our official Development and Marketing person. Janice and I go way back--to tenth grade, in fact. We still, after all these years, finish each other's sentences. Mother's Superior is her blog; you'll be seeing much more of it in the future (she's got a lot on her plate these days!).

Here's what's coming up:

Registration for MidLifeBloggers. You'll want to register because--well, because we say so.

T-shirts, mugs, other CafePress goodies

A weekly link to More.com where I'll be posting regularly (and writing that is why I've been MIA on ByJane.

This year has been quite a ride--and it's only the beginning! Who knows what the next 365 will bring...

Mold--BeGone!

I am always willing to humiliate myself in order to bring you another new cleaning thingee. I am, if nothing else, a collector of cleaning thingees. Utensils, swabs, potions--whatever, I'm always up for trying them in my neverending search for the cleaning thingee that requires as little help from me as possible. The humiliation part comes in because I am scrupulous about showing you before pictures. And from them you can see how unscrupulous I am about cleaning. I've written about this before. It is what it is. Amen and whatever.

My latest cleaning thingee that promises nirvana is X-14 Mold & Mildew Stain Remover. When MomCentral sent out a call for people willing to try it, I raised my hand and waved it in their faces (virtually, that is). Several weeks later, some nice man delivered a box to my door and inside was said X-14. What particularly attracted me were the works Works WITHOUT Scrubbing. Well, glory be and praise the lord if that is so.

If I still lived in LA, I would have emptied the bottle in no time, such was the mold and mildew with which I suffered. But here in Elk Grove, the air is just a tad drier--and the house is like 80 years newer--so the mold situation isn't that awful. But it still, my cleaning proclivities being what they are, exists.
This is exhibit A, a corner of my shower stall, in all its glorious moldiness.

And this is exhibit B: The same corner, post application of X-14 Mold & Mildew Stain Remover.
I'm not sure what accounts for the difference in color--lighting, maybe--but I can assure you that all I did was spray and rinse. My lily white hands didn't have to do anything more strenuous than squeeze the nozzle on the bottle. It truly does Work WITHOUT Scrubbing!

Next I'm going to take it out in the back yard where my redwood furniture is quite sad and in need of not only de-molding and mildewing, but painting as well. According to the instructions, X-14 Mold & Mildew Stain Remover is "excellent" as a deck wash or painting prep cleaner. Its magic ingredient is "sodium hypochlorite at a level generally 60 percent higher than similar products on the market...(and it's) activated by pH adjustments.

Whatever that may mean.

If There Is No Sedar, Is It Really Passover?

I think not. I do have a box of matzohs in the cupboard. And I plan to buy some gefillte fish with the 1/2 coupon Maneschevitz handed out. But that will probably be the extent of my Passover celebration. One might say that this year I am not passing over. One might say I am moving beyond. And if you are the one who says that, could you please explain to me exactly what it means. Or inexactly, for that matter.

I could get into all the whys and wherefores and ramifications and therefores of why there is not a sedar this year. I do know people who are having sedars. But those to whom I could invite myself to plotz at their table are some 3000 miles away. And despite my involvement in The Jewish Community (caps very important) here in Sacramento, no one was forthcoming with an invitation (and truth to tell, I would have been shocked if anyone had, such has been the success of my involvement with the Jewish Community here). My family, the ones with whom I celebrate holidays, aren't Jewish. They're doing Good Friday and He Is Risen Sunday. Last year I had a sedar for them and they all came and were exceptionally good sports, but I kinda felt like I was on stage and hadn't really learned my lines sufficiently well to say them with conviction. I guess I learned that it takes more than one mediocre Jew to hold a successful sedar for a bunch of Christians.

So tonight in honor of the Red Sea parting and manna raining down upon the Israelites, to commemorate the ten plagues which plagued those who enslaved us verily, tonight I shall be attending a comedy writing seminar. Somehow, I think God would approve.