Sunday!
We got a king-sized duvet for Christmas (well, technically, a king-sized quilt, but it got ripped and so Maribou patched it and got a duvet cover for it and now it’s a duvet).
Anyway, we put on the duvet cover last night using the “Magic Burrito” topology trick and, oh my gosh, this is one of those tricks that will change your life forever after you master it. Just one person can put on a king-sized duvet cover in a couple of minutes rather than two people taking 15 minutes to do it.
Here’s the trick and I hope it helps you as much as it helped us!
(Apparently the comments are filled with people taking about how you just need to crawl in there and make an adventure out of it. That might work when you’re, like, 17. When you are surfing middle-age, use the burrito trick.)
There’s also this thing here about how to fold a fitted sheet in 30 seconds but the whole “wad it up” technique remains near and dear to my heart.
So… what household tips are you reading and/or watching?
The duvet cover was and has been an object of acrimony in my marriage. She thinks its great, I think it is possibly the dumbest thing ever invented. Getting it on and off (even with the instructions provided above) is an exercise in “what can I make the spouse do that I don’t really like” and thus gets pushed back in the “I thought you were going to do it?” category of household chores. Seriously, get an old-fashioned bedspread. Just a light blanket, little more than a top sheet, to lay across the made bed so duvets and quilts and other nice things don’t get messed up. Come washing day there is no trying to tie corners in the giant pillowcase that is what a duvet cover essentially is.No twisting ones back trying to install the feather (read boiling hot) duvet. Not only that, having multiple versions for different signaling events (the true purpose of the duvet cover in my eyes) herald you as a try aficionado of the home decorating arts!
I seem to be winning this battle but like the vegans in Delicatessen, the cover partisans make forays into the domestic tranquility by laying catalogs, strategically open to the bedding section, about the house. We must stay firm in our resolve.
Life has gotten fairly compacted time wise over the last few, and next, weeks, so good SF candy, Abaddons Gate by Cory. The Expanse series is good fun. My birthday is Tuesday though, so there may be additional books in the near future.Report
@aaron-david I felt much like you at the beginning of our marriage; this should feel like some kind of victory for Jay, but the “I put 6 hours into fixing this comforter, I don’t want to do that again” thing has swayed me to the dark side.
Plus the burrito/rolling thing was pretty fun with two people.Report
My fitted-sheet-storage technique is “leave the one you just took off the bed dirty in the hamper and then take it out and wash it and put it directly on the bed.” (I have more than 2 sets of sheets but really only 2 I use regularly these days).
I also discovered today that those “grabber” things (the things with a trigger grip on one end, and a couple of spring-loaded jaws on the other) are useful for grabbing surprise! mice and carrying them out of the house. Apparently a mouse blundered into my house and ate a Tide pod or something (I don’t put poison out so I don’t think it could be poisoned) but it was flopping around on the floor and I didn’t want to get too near to it, but also didn’t want to leave it there.
I have an old house so mice are sometimes A Thing. It’s a good thing I’m merely wary of them, not actually afraid.
I do kind of have a feeling of wanting to clean my floor with fire but am thinking that’s not a good idea.Report
@fillyjonk That mouse/grabber trick is ingenious and something I wish I’d thought of when I was a teenager in the country and had a cat who would occasionally leave a “gift” on my pillow. Sometimes a not totally dead gift (maybe she thought I would want to play with it?)
I read a recommendation for peppermint oil to keep mice out of cupboards, etc., this week, it was in an adorable book by Kristin Kladstrup (illustrated by Brett Helquist) called _The Nutcracker Mice_. Highly recommended if you have a fondness for Helquist, mice, ballet, and/or the Nutcracker; I have a fondness for all four – but probably not what you’re in the mood for this week, fillyjonk :D.
Funnily enough the other thing I was paying much attention to this week was the 7th season of Game of Thrones. Not much in the way of household tips there, but I think the showrunners are definitely on board with the whole cleansing fire thing. Also the murderous fire thing, the destructive fire thing, the restorative fire thing…. basically fire is the go-to. Ice not as much as fire, but we’ll see more ice next season, I suspect.Report
Yeah, I have used mint oil in the past for driving mice away. I now have something sold as “Rodent Sheriff” which seems to work despite the goofy name and “as sold on TV” vibe. It’s mint oil plus something else – citronella, maybe?
I forgot to refresh it before I left for Christmas break and I suspect the mice sneaked in in my absence.Report
Duvets and their covers are the strangest cross industry leap I’ve ever heard of – from the implements of torture industry, to the housewares industry.
I spent a year shivering huddled under an empty duvet cover with the duvet wadded up in one corner by my feet. One year was enough.Report
The duvet cover thing is one of perhaps three time in my life being a math major was of practical benefit. It was intuitively clear that the right way to put it on was to start with it inside-out and outside the duvet, and deform that to right-way-out with the duvet inside.
I use a much simpler trick for fitted sheets: crumple it up and stick it on the shelf. Anyone that bothers can fold it themselves.Report