Socal Stuff

Finally -- A Reality Show *I'd* Be Interested in Auditioning For

I found this notice on a new L.A. community board I belong to, called CityMommy. It's small and lively and chockfull of good insider stuff for families in SoCal -- it's a lot like Maya's Mom and Facebook, only it's limited to the Los Angeles metropolitan area and its neighboring communities. (If you are interested in joining, drop me a line and I'll forward you an invitation.)

So that's where I learned of this intriguing new reality show -- and for the first time in my life, I'm really tempted to apply:

Now Casting for Overwhelmed Moms!! Get $10,000 Make over from Style Network

Overwhelmed,stressed out moms where, the kids and toys have taken over her room and life. Do you want to get your livingroom, familyroom back in order and madeover in style. (Must be a disaster!!!)

also,

Do you work from home and have a home office that has exploded, bleeding into your living space or taken over your living space. Have the office you always dreamed of!!!

Makeover could be $10,000 or more and we pay the taxes!!!

Thanks!

Alesia
dressmynest2@yaho.com

STYLE NETWORK'S REALITY SERIES
"DRESS MY NEST" IS NOW
CASTING FOR ITS SECOND SEASON AND THE CHOSEN FEW WILL RECEIVE A ROOM MAKEOVER WORTH OVER
$10,000 BY CELEBRITY DESIGNER THOM FILICIA.

LOS ANGELES, CA, August 28, 2007—PB&J Television, producers of Dress My Nest are currently casting for the second season of the reality show starring the fabulously talented Thom Filicia (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.)

Is your home a design catastrophe?
Do you have problems making sense of your home decor?
Do you hide your interior from your family and friends?
If you answered 'yes' to these questions, you need Dress My Nest!

Dress My Nest is a unique series that takes interior design to an unprecedented level of personalization. Hosted by Filicia, an accomplished designer, every episode motivates viewers to look at their living spaces from an entirely new perspective. In each Dress My Nest episode, Filicia helps one woman take her home from Design Disaster to Stunningly Stylish! He examines the space she wants rehabbed and draws inspiration from her most cherished personal belongings to determine a home design that best reflects her interests, style and personality. Filicia's unusual approach to design evolves out of a belief that every woman has a strong sense of style, and even if her home does not reflect it, her clothes, accessories and personal treasures can clue him in to her inner design diva.

Design disasters need apply!

dressmynest2@yahoo.com

Now, I have to confess that I LOVED "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," and that Thom was one of my favorites. I loved watching him transform those guys' pads into tasteful, beautiful homes -- using a lot of the resources I dream about each month in their catalogs.

Which brings me to another true confession: I don't have an "inner design diva." I'm clueless. But I do like the clean, uncluttered look of the Pottery Barn catalog (which you'd never know on a typical day by looking at my home).

So I do whatever I can (within my budget) to make my house look just like that -- and my living room and dining room really to look like a PB catalog exploded there (except for a few scattered pieces I picked up at Z Gallerie and a cheap discount media center that was too big for my living room... so I moved 2/3 of it into the dining room. This worked, because it is amazingly close to a piece I admired in the Restoration Hardware catalog, which actually is too rich for my budget).

Unfortunately, our living and dining areas are pretty good when I have the clutter under control (which is only when we have company coming, I'm afraid). But the walls are bare. We have lots of family photos I would like to display, but I can't seem to decide how or where they should go.

But our bedrooms are a total disaster. My middle schooler's room is especially in need of a makeover. Too bad that's not what the Dress My Nest staff is looking to redo.

So Dress My Nest: maybe next season. In the meantime, I hope you will consider any of my readers who happen to see this post and email you guys.

We Begin by Going Down the Toilet

Welcome to Socal Stuff, my new resource for products and services I'd like to share with my friends (for better or for worse).

Those who know me best have heard me say that Life is Too Short for Housework. I like living in a clean house -- I would just prefer it if someone else was doing the cleaning. My biggest goal in life is to win a hundred kajillion dollars in the lottery -- or at least begin earning enough -- so I can hire a housekeeper.

In the meantime, I do whatever I can to minimize the pain -- mainly by purchasing just about every cleaning product in the supermarket. I've got stuff that promises to make it easy to clean the the kitchen counter, kitchen sink, stainless steel appliances, tile floors, wood floors, carpets, windows, bathrooms... You know, I'm proud of the fact that I don't buy a lot of beauty creams and lotions that promise to rid you of wrinkles, because I realize they are all fraudulent. But if a cleaning product claims that it will do the job without any elbow grease on my part, I lap it up. Every time. 

A few years ago, everyone was putting out new tools with disposable pre-filled cleaning pads, and I must have invested in every one. Most worked OK. Some, like the "Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner," worked well for a while and then broke.

And then there was the Lysol Ready Bowl Toilet Cleaner, which was a canister full of cleaner that snapped into the brush handle, allowing you to press a button, squirt the cleaner, and brush everything away. It was neat. You could accomplish everything in one step. And to my horror, I discovered last week that refills for the thing are no longer available.

Which is how I ended up back in the household cleaner aisle last week. My sister and her family were coming to stay with me, and since I don't want to gross them all out, I wanted something heavy duty for the bathrooms, something that would be at least as easy as my beloved Lysol product with the canister in the handle. I was about to settle for an old fashioned squeeze bottle of stuff, when I found this:

Kaboom Bowl Blaster Foaming Toilet Cleaner, which claims to clean, freshen and deodorize, even under the rim - WITHOUT "hard scrubbing." You fill the cap with the magic powder, it fills the bowl with foam, and five minutes later, you flush out all the icky stuff. What could be easier? That is, if it worked.

So I gave it a try last week. I DID have to scrub, but not hard, so I suppose there is truth in advertising there. And they suggest that by using the stuff on a weekly basis, you may get by without scrubbing at all. I just gave my toilets their second application, and I'm afraid I did have to do a little scrubbing... but it was easy.

The only thing I don't like about this product is that it's hard not to breathe in the powder when you pour it into the cap, and it makes me cough and I wonder -- if it's that strong -- what that might be doing to my lungs, not to mention the environment.

I am going to continue using it -- at least, until I've finished my container of the stuff. And in the meantime, I'm going to keep scouring those supermarket cleaning aisles for something that will work even better -- because that's easier than scouring my toilet, or any other bathroom fixture.