You may think I’ve gone off the rails when you read this, but I hope that you will find this amusing and helpful, too. I’m veering off from the topic of food and writing about cleaning instead. Oh how I love to clean! My friend once said “Isabel, your idea of going on spring vacation is to find something yucky to clean that has dirty corners”. My son used to say “Mom, you are on continuous cleaning cycle”. Years later, I still laugh at that. It’s true though!
I was quite surprised to recently discover the joy of blue paper towels, the kind that mechanics use in automotive shops. How, after all my years of playing with various cleaning supplies and gadgets, had I not known about the Miraculous Blue Paper Towels? I thank my friend Theresa Byars for introducing them to me. That happened one afternoon when we washed the windows at their guest house. The house is brand new so it didn’t need much cleaning (I was very disappointed that there were no dirty corners but I did find one cobweb up high on a light fixture. Yay!) Though the house is new, the windows needed a good polishing up. Years ago I noticed that if the windows are clean, the house tends to look clean.
Washing windows properly is an art. I once had a friend who was a professional window washer and he taught me how to wash windows correctly. I didn’t think my window washing technique could be improved on until Theresa handed me a roll of those blue paper towels. Those little lines of water left behind by the squeegee disappeared as if by magic. The towels were remarkably absorbent and they left no lint. And they had just the right amount of “tooth”; tooth is the roughness of a surface. These paper towels glide and grip perfectly. I said to Theresa “These paper towels make cleaning so much fun and pleasurable too”. She said “I wouldn’t go that far but they do make cleaning easier”. Well, we can agree to disagree!
Then of course I had to get my own roll so I stopped by the Napa store in Madras. I made a comment to the clerk who then told me that he accidently discovered they are washable. Now I wash the not-too-dirty-ones on the quick wash cycle and let them air dry. I can wash them four or five times before they get holes and then I toss them.
The next time you are ready to throw in the towel on cleaning, try a blue paper towel. Thank you Theresa for this remarkable cleaning tip!
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