Necessity is the mother of many things....

I have found a new love. I love my hubby dearly, but this new love saved me a lot of heartache and a tantrum from our daughter. What is the new love? this:

If any of you have ever had a child dump half a plate of ravioli onto a brand new white dress, you'll understand my new love affair. Said dress was Alaina's favorite....she'd worn it a grand total of twice, and it was one of the rare articles of clothing that was actually purchased new (albeit on a clearance rack), which in itself is an event for this household. So we were both mortified when the whole ravioli incident occurred. Alaina was devastated. I was determined to get that darned stain OUT and salvage the dress so she could wear it the rest of the summer. I had a mission, and I chose to accept it. I would not be thwarted!

They told us when we moved into our house that we couldn't use bleach in our laundry because of the septic tank system we had. I still don't think I completely understand the logic of that statement, but since I don't particularly want to dive into the intricacies of how our septic system works (can you say EWWW?) I just followed the rule. So this little side rule was a hinderance to the whole ravioli fiasco. So we washed the dress....twice. We stain sticked....twice. We oxy-cleaned....twice. Nada. Nothing....just a wetter, less meater-version of the original stain. Enter my new best friend, the clorox bleach pen. God bless the women engineers at Clorox. Yes, I am assuming the inventors were women. Because we women think of things like this. If the dress had been completely, totally white, then tossing it into a bath of clorine bleach would've solved the problem, there would be no need for a bleach pen, and then I'd have no story to tell. But a white dress with green polka dots with green ribbons and a pink flower? A little harder to bleach. Again, God bless the bleach pen. I took said pen and being the smart-ish person I am, completely ignored the directions and treated the stained parts.....washed the dress, and presto! No more stain.

I'm off to go buy some Clorox stock....