And God said, “Let there be light.”
And with a four man crew, two ridiculously sized ladders, 3 weird chain saws on poles, a wood chipper, and a pile of branches, leaves and debris 6 feet high that extended the length of our driveway, there was.
Today is the first day I haven’t had to have the lights on in the middle of the day since the weather changed.
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This may be another one of those state-to-state differences we chuckle about in the comments, but I thought I would pass on this money-saving tip The Mister and I happened upon through no ingenuity or brain power of our own.
I’ve complained often enough about the poor natural light in our home that I am sure several of you are now rolling your eyes, waiting for me to mention, again, that two towering trees flank our property. Not one to disappoint, here I go:
We have two towering trees flanking our property and they suck up all our natural light.
But wait, I have more to complain about!
They are now so big they are encroaching upon our neighbors’ property, and with winter just around the corner, one of our next door neighbors delicately suggested we consider having the beasts trimmed before the leaves dropped all over her pool and created one of those boobie traps you see in the movies where the sidekick walks across an innocuous pile of leaves and falls into a pit with a flesh eating mole the size of a Winnebago. Or maybe she was just worried about her pool sweeper getting jammed. Either way, we picked up what she was laying down and called some people.
Some people gave us some bids, which gave us something to wince over and reminded us why have we put this off for so long. The tree in the front, alone, would cost us $350 to have it properly trimmed. Or, 1/3 of an IKEA sectional, which is how I determine cost lately. You don’t even want to know the quotes we received for the woolly mammoth in the back yard. Any money we save on air conditioning by living in a constant state of nightfall is exceeded by the cost of keeping these trees manageable.
(Don’t worry, I’m getting there.)
One of the people we had out to bid the project thought the tree in our front yard might be a city tree. Modern neighborhoods have a sidewalk (here in southern CA; we’ll see what you all have to say about this in the comments), and city code states anything preceding the sidewalk is city property and, therefore, the city’s responsibility to a certain degree. Homeowners are still responsible for keeping the area neat and maintained. We do not live in a modern neighborhood and do not have a sidewalk. The tree is positioned in a gray area, so before embarking on a 1 1/2 IKEA sectionals project, we decided to have a representative from our city’s Urban Forestry department come out and settle the issue.
They came out quickly and three days later my doorbell rang with good news and bad news, according to the inspector.
The good news is the tree sits on city property, and is the city’s responsibility to keep trimmed. The bad news is the tree does not need to be trimmed at this time. (Uh-huh.) But, the inspector said I could employ city trimmers at the resident-city rate if I was so inclined. The rate? $39. That is a savings of $311. $39 to have a towering tree trimmed, a near 90% difference from the $350 we were quoted. THIRTY NINE DOLLARS.
My math might be off, but I am pretty sure that’s the middle-left cushion of an IKEA sectional.
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Mikey started walking not long after The Mister and I completed 90% of our kitchen remodel (someday we’ll have a backsplash). The cabinet installers agreed to put in the safety latches, but bailed 13 seconds after they hung the last cabinet. I guess they were tired of our little old house with it’s crooked walls and uneven floors. I asked The Mister to do it a couple of times (17–who’s counting?) but something always seemed to come up. It didn’t help when I took away his motivation and started storing all the cleaning supplies on the top shelf in the pantry.
One day I decided I was tired of grabbing the step stool every time I needed to wipe down the counters and started researching recipes for homemade cleaning supplies. I found one, bought all the ingredients, and made it despite The Mister’s scoffs and jeers and crunchy-granola-California-hippy-Birkenstock-mama proclamations. I’ll admit I was a little worried I had fallen into some deep, dark, stay-at-home-mom place I might never crawl out of without a pile of glad rags and Patchouli oil, but sonofabitch it worked better than anything I had ever used. I’ve even found a way to use my homemade concoction in front of others without feeling like a wayward Jack Kerouac groupie. I just start spouting off about the environment, chemicals, mention a landfill every now and then, toss in a well timed sniff and shoulder shrug and before you know people look interested. Guilty, but interested. I usually seal the deal when I mention it costs about $0.30 to make. So, are you feeling interested and guilty, yet? If so, here is the recipe. It’s a modified version of Alice’s Wonder Spray from Clean House, Clean Planet, which in all seriousness is a fantastic book. Great cleaning supply recipes without the crunch of granola.
All Purpose Household Cleaner
2 TBS White distilled Vinegar
1 Tsp Borax (this is mildly toxic, so be sure to keep the final product in a safe place)
1/4 cup Dr. Bonner’s liquid soap (I have peppermint scent) or 1/8 cup liquid detergent
1 16 oz. trigger spray bottle
essential oils
Mix 2 TBS of vinegar with 1 tsp of borax in the 16 oz trigger-spray bottle. Fill the rest of the bottle with very hot, purified/distilled water. Shake until the borax dissolves completely.
Add the liquid soap or detergent last. Follow with 20 or so drops of an essential oil. I like lemon and lavender, or lavender and tea tree.
It’s very important to keep the order of ingredients as they are. Adding vinegar to the soap will cause it to clump, and if you don’t first add the hot water to the borax you will have a tough time getting it to dissolve.
I use this on all of my soapstone counters, my kitchen table, range, sink, and faucets. There isn’t much this recipe hasn’t been able to tackle. In fact, over Christmas when I knew company was coming, I went out and bought the most popular product on the market to clean my kitchen cabinets. I thought for sure I needed something commercial to clean a year’s worth of grime. I threw it away after the third cabinet–it just greased up the cabinets even more! I ended up using my homemade cleaner to clean the cleanser and the grime off the cabinets. I should have never doubted my homemade cleaner.
If you try it out, tell me if it works for you. If you have a recipe of your own, please share!
Fast forward three years and we still haven’t child-proofed our cabinets.
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Hello! My name is Jules. I used to be an attorney, but it made me grumpy. Now I write about life, sweet and savory, as a wife and mother to two small boys. My knowledge of dinosaurs knows no bounds.
You can read more, including the meaning behind the name Pancakes and French Fries here. And, yes, I really am phenomenally indecisive.
