An uninspiring purchase.

Yesterday I bought an iron.  It was exactly as interesting as it sounds.

I cannot remember the last time I ironed a piece of clothing, but I do use my iron quite a lot - for sewing.  It is invaluable when cutting out, creating neat seams and even hems.  So, no basketful of clothes waiting to be ironed for me, instead my ironing board is heavily laden with crafting items.

My ironing board in use.

An iron isn't so useful once it has developed a leak and quite frankly the holes in the plate (is there a technical term?) were looking decidedly crusty.  So yesterday when we were in the vicinity of an electrical store, in we went.

What are the defining features of an iron?  There on display were at least a dozen irons, arranged in order of price.  I looked at them (quite blankly, to be honest) for a few seconds before a very enthusiastic sales guy came to the rescue.

There followed a couple of minutes where I tried to think of something intelligent to ask whereby I could make a decision between one iron and another.

"Does this one get creases out of fabric?  Yes?  Good.  And this one?  Right."

Of course I could not ask that so really I just nodded along while he talked about pounds of steam (I think?) and about his own personal choice of the CreaseBeater X3000 (I may have made that up).  That one was up the more pricey end of the iron line-up so I am glad he did not point to that one first.  Because how did I make my decision?  I chose the one he had pointed to first.

Unlike a purchase that is actually exciting, my new iron was deposited on the kitchen table and left in its box until this afternoon, when I wanted to take a photo of it to use to illustrate this blog entry.  I now have an iron with a 2400 W Power zone, Security Auto-off, Double Anti-calc, Double Anti-scale, 0-40g Variable Steam, 130 g/in Power zone (confusing), Self Clean and Great Stability.  I'm still failing miserably at being thrilled.

Old vs New

I don't know.  Maybe this iron will be amazing.  Maybe I will form an opinion on ironing that involves more than getting creases out of fabric.  Maybe I will fall in love with this new iron so much that I will start to iron tea-towels and sheets.  I will keep you posted.

Warm brain fuzzies

Yesterday I was adding a comment on mamamia about the little pot of wonder that is Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme, when I found that I could not spell the word ‘genius’.  It’s not at all difficult now, but yesterday I had brain fuzzies due to a week of battling a virus that has travelled the length and breadth of this household.  The best attempt I made was ‘genious’ which I knew was not right, but I couldn’t decide what was not right with it.  I ended up deleting my miserable attempt and rewriting the sentence.

Later on I had a lightbulb moment and felt silly for not knowing how to spell.  Then I wondered how many people would actually have noticed.  I know that I would have noticed in the absence of brain fuzzies, and I assume that within a minute of my entering ‘genious’ somebody with a pedantic streak would have taken great delight in pointing out my lack thereof.  But without the anonymous pedant, who else would have noticed?  Not everyone notices the same things.  By why do we notice what we do?  What is the eye drawn to?

I have no idea how to answer that.

“If you notice this notice, you will notice that this notice is not worth noticing.”

The same goes when choosing fabric.  I have a pile of new acquisitions sitting on the table next to me.  I don’t think there is a predominant theme.  The majority are floral but I think that just fits in with most fabric being floral (Is this true?  Maybe just in my head?).  All of them were chosen by me out of dozens, hundreds, of other fabrics.  When I am drawn to just one fabric out of a range all with a common colour scheme and theme – why is that?

(Updated pic - don't know what went wrong the first time.)

You know what?  I don’t even need to know the answer.  I’m looking at the pile and getting a warm and fuzzy feeling.  Much better than brain fuzzies!

* The mamamia article was about trimming cuticles (or, rather, not trimming your cuticles).  If that is up your alley go here.

* Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme has been the saviour of my nails and cuticles.  I think it truly is genius.