Spam party no more

If you are an avid Miles and Laurel commenter, you may notice something a little different about the feedback process soon. I didn't like that awkward roadblock that makes you type out a barely-legible phrase to get your comment through the spam filter - mostly because I am terrible at guessing the correct letters and have to guess most people feel the same - but I had to put it back up. Blogger is having trouble with spam commenters.

The first time it happened, I was tickled. My First Spam Comment! Then it kept happening...more and more. You guys know I blog for lots of reasons that are just for me - recording daily life, practicing my personal writing voice, and so on - but of course I love, love, love to get comments from readers. And it's a total bummer to get the little email that you've received a new comment from someone who took the time to see what you wrote - and then have it be spam!

(That was a weird little look behind the curtain of Miles and Laurel. Apologies.)

Anyway, I said I was tickled to get my first spam comment, but a small part of me remains tickled, because the spam is oddly creative. Basically, the spammers try to flatter you with over-the-top praise for your wildly amazing blog - sometimes for a random months-old post - and then drop the hammer with their spam links, which are totally and blatantly unrelated to their praise.

Like this one. Well. I'm not sure if "I do not believe I have read through a single thing like that before" counts as a pure compliment. Bad example.

And this one! This made me laugh out loud. "You definitely know how to bring a problem to light and make it important," regarding a post on decorating my mantel. I also burst out laughing again when I read, "It's surprising you are not more popular given that you certainly have the gift."

Finally, the third example. "It's great to come across a blog . . . that isn't the same outdated rehashed material." Any regular reader knows that I am quite adept at rehashing material about my dog, shadows and the sky. I also appreciate the italicized second spam link. MY WEB SITE! DIET!

Okay, now I have mixed feelings about it, but the spam filter's back up. Don't let it stop you, though!

P.S. I teased a recap of a weekend project in yesterday's post. Soon!

Ink handiwork

I am proud of the progress our class has made in three sessions!

Uh, disregard "sphinx."

But then we progressed to majuscules - that means capital letters! - and I went right back to square one, trading my ink pen back in for the number two pencil.

I will tell you more tomorrow about a project I did over the weekend - but for now, it's time to start dreaming about majuscules. Good night!

Marvelous Monday: Week 8

Oh, hello!

Here we go! Five marvelous tidbits:

1. Dinner with two friends tonight = a great way to start the week. It did not hurt that dessert was a leftover helping of Smitten Kitchen's Best Birthday Cake that my friend made over the weekend. Oh, my.
2. Book report: I'm still working on The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. I am captivated.
3. I tried a recipe for the first time yesterday that I filched from my aunt years ago, and it worked out. It's basically seeing what happens to salsa when it's marinated in a sauce made of red wine vinegar and sugar. It's good, good, good - and we brought home a little bit of leftovers after the Oscars were all said and done, too.
4. This week includes March, a month that includes spring and also me celebrating the old 2-9.
5. This is huge: OUR SINK GOT FIXED TODAY!!! As some of you know, our sad kitchen sink has been basically non-functional for a long time. We have been working with a plumber and today was the day when it became repaired (actually, replaced). I was literally hooting and hollering with joy. I am so excited to have a functioning kitchen sink.

It's hard to argue with a Monday like that.

P.S. Hi to any new readers who came over from my friend Katie's blog after her sweet and kind words yesterday! I'll get to work on passing it on!

Onward to Tuesday!

Cleaning magic

Wait! Wait! Don't let the title scare you away! This is fun!

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a blog post testing a Pinterest cleaning tip: the idea that combining equal parts blue Dawn soap with regular old white vinegar will purportedly clean a bathtub all by itself. You're skeptical, right?! But the blogger - and most of the commenters - said that it worked miracles. It sounded easy enough for me to handle and remember the right ingredients at the grocery store during my next shopping trip, so I filed the idea away. Today the project popped into my head when we were in the cleaning aisle, and I said "WAIT!" (to Josh) and dashed to get the blue Dawn liquid soap and vinegar.

You're supposed to put that solution in a spray bottle, but I don't have one, so I swished it together in a covered plastic bowl and then sloshed it on the shower walls and around the tub with a little scrubbing pad. And then you're supposed to let it sit for an hour, but some of the blog post's commenters had said that the solution dried after sitting that long, so I went back into the bathroom 30 minutes later and wiped it down.

I was pretty pleased: it didn't get the worst marks out of the tub, but the walls were gleaming and the tub looked pretty good. I ran cold water for a little bit and poured pitchers of water down the sides of the shower to make sure it cleared away the soap residue (another potential problem mentioned in the comments). The running water collected and got all bubbly at the bottom of the tub, but I left the room and let it drain on its own.

Then, about half an hour later, I went back in and saw the bubbles in the bottom of the tub. And just out of curiosity, I took the scrubbing pad to the most disgusting significant spots on the tub, and while it wasn't quite as effortless as I had hoped, the stains lifted and disappeared.

And now the tub is totally clean, like you're about to move out of your apartment and you really want your security deposit back level of clean. (We've all been there, but that sentence will probably resonate particularly strongly with my mom, thanks to a certain cleaning frenzy in an old apartment of mine a few years back.) It's cleaner than any tub I've ever had in my possession. I'm not one to get all riled up about cleaning tips, but wow, this one hit a home run and was easy and not scary.

I'm sure I'm the last person in the world to find out about this tactic, but if not, I just had to share. Happy Sunday!

From the Franklin Avenue bridge