Don't It Turn My White Chair Blue

I had a really weird thing happen with an article of clothing I bought. Let me preface this by saying that I always wash clothes I buy before I wear them, so this happened after a run through the washer and dryer.

Okay, now the story. I bought a pair of jammies with navy pants. And the first time I wore them, I noticed my fingers were taking on a navy tint.

There must be extra dye, I thought and changed to a different pair so I could run the pants again the next time I did laundry. Only they were still tinting my fingers blue even after I washed them two additional times.

And then I caught sight of my faux leather kitchen table chair. You know, the WHITE faux leather chair. It was tinted navy blue, too. And the cleaning products I used didn't get it all out. Gah!

I immediately did some online searching. I can't be the only one this has happened to. But the instructions I saw for salt and vinegar only applied to things you self dyed. It was a waste of time to use either item on a manufacturer dyed garment.

When no better solutions turned up, I took matters into my own hands. I washed those navy pants in hot water, trying to forced the dye to bleed out.

I've been too afraid to wear them since I did this. My chair still makes me cringe. Yikes!

Groan!

I can't believe the weekend is over already! In a way, though, it'll almost be good to get back to the Evil Day Job (EDJ) because I worked like crazy this weekend. After sleeping so late that I couldn't make it to my RWA chapter meeting on time, I cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I also began the process of putting my music onto iTunes for my iPod. I have way too many CDs and it's taking forever! I nearly have my country music collection uploaded, but the rock is the bigger of the two.

While I'm working, I also had my parents call me--four times! Does anyone else's parents call them like that? I've asked them to refrain unless it's important, but of course, to them it's always important. It was making me crazy.

But anyway, today, I worked even harder. It all started so innocently, too. I took my camera down to the garden to get pictures of my new lilies. I have some white ones--I can't remember their name--and wanted a few shots. On the way down, I grabbed my gardening gloves. Around the stone of the garden, the weeds had set in pretty thickly and I thought I'd rescue my tree lilies.

Here's three of my four elodie lilies:



And here are my unknown name white lilies:



After getting these shots, I pulled on my gloves and started pulling. And cursing. Those weeds were out of control and had developed root systems that were incredible. I pulled with all my strength and couldn't dislodge some of them. I don't own a hoe, so I toughed it out, and pulled the entire side with the tree lilies. It looked much better.

But it needed some mulch and I mentioned that to my dad this morning on the second phone call with my parents. He came over with a pitchfork and other tools and we worked pulling weeds on three sides of the garden before he decided he was tired. (Keep in mind, this man had his kidney removed in April and he's already doing things like this. Gah!) Next came putting in the edging to hold the mulch in, then layers of newspaper, followed by the mulch. Half the area around the outside the garden is mulched, but that leaves half left to go.

I'm sore from all the weed pulling and I managed to get a blister on the bottom of my toe which means walking is ever so much fun. I also managed to do a few loads of laundry and load half a gazillion more CDs onto iTunes.

So all the things I meant to do today--like get caught up on snail mail, email, and blog comments--all fell to the wayside. The damn thing is that I should do something similar around the tree ring and then there's the area around my evergreens that seriously need a weeding and a lot more mulch put down. I also could add some more mulch around the house because a lot of that got beat down over the last two winters. In other words, thank goodness I'm going back to the EDJ so I can rest up!

I think it's easier to be on deadline! I hope everyone else had a relaxing weekend.