I don't have a new recipe to share, which is what I normally put on here (it's a great place to reference all my favorite recipes. For me, it's easier than keeping them in a cookbook.), but I do have something fun to share.
I love my stroller. If you ever have any need for a stroller, I highly recommend checking out Phil & Ted's. I won't go into the details of why I love this stroller so much or why I believe it to be one of the best products ever made because that's not what this post is about. If you want my full take on it, just let me know. I can type a mouth full about it! (Does that make any sense?)
I generally take very good care of things that are important to me, especially when they cost good money. However, with two kids in tow, sometimes things get overlooked. Things like a beach towel that I didn't know was wet that got left on top of the stroller in the bed of the truck for maybe a week or so.
What happens when wet fabric gets left on dry fabric in a hot and humid environment? MOLD. MILDEW. NASTINESS. Whatever it was, whatever you want to call it, my stroller had it. I was not a happy camper. But it was my fault, I had only myself to blame. (Which is lucky for my husband, because I'm afraid I would have been really mad at him if I thought it was his fault!)
Oddly enough, I met a friend at the park one day and she said her stroller (she has the same one I do) had been left on her porch without her realizing it and it rained and got the nasty mildew as well. She got around to cleaning hers before me and wrote me an email saying all she had to do was spray pure vinegar on the nasty spots, then let it dry in the sun and it came right out!
First of all, can we say, "Easy!" Second of all, vinegar is one of my all time FAVORITE cleaning agents!! I was thrilled. I tried it. Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy for me. Maybe mine was deeper set than hers? I don't know. I do know though that I was bummed. So I did a little more research on how to get rid of mildew.
I googled how to clean a Phil & Ted's stroller and found an interesting blog post about a person who bought a used Phil & Ted's and they said it was absolutely nasty, but they got it for a steal. So they took it home and figured out how to take the fabric off to wash it in the washing machine. I hadn't even thought of that. I went to do that and realized to take the seat part off was going to take a lot more dissecting of my stroller than I cared to attempt during naptime. So I took off a couple of easy pieces and threw them in the wash along with some Borax (Holy cow, this is a new addiction for me! I LOVE this stuff!!), vinegar, and of course, laundry detergent.
Now for the rest of the stroller than I didn't want to take apart. I googled how to clean mildew. I found a "How to" that included my two most favorite cleaning agents of all time - Vinegar (of course) and Baking Soda! I knew this was going to work. Why I didn't think of it myself, I don't know.
So, I doused the stroller with vinegar. When I say "doused" I really do mean it. I soaked that bad boy. I let it soak in for awhile, then I covered it with baking soda. And yes, I really did cover it. Then I scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed. I figured if I was going to all this trouble, I might as well do it right. So I scrubbed some more. Then I realized I wasn't quite sure what to do to get all this scrubbed in baking soda out. I decided to take it outside and hose it down, power-wash-style.
I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed. It was disgusting! The first several times I dumped water out, it was brown. The white baking soda was pulling out so much grime, it all turned brown. Nasty. I knew my stroller had mildew, but I had no idea it had that much dirt in it as well!
Once it was clean, I set it out in the sun to dry fully. I replaced the parts I had taken off and voila! It was like a brand new stroller! It looks good, smells good, and is nice and healthy for my precious kids to be sitting in!
Maybe this isn't the most exciting post of all times, but hey, it is what it is. And I'm super excited to have such a nice clean stroller!
