It is amazing what one can find on Pinterest. It is even more amazing when one actually does/make/create/perform what they find on Pinterest. My latest find might suggest that I have too much time on my hands…okay, here’s where I confess that perhaps it is true that I have too much time on my hands. I mean having only worked, what three shifts since August only to be cut or put on call all the rest, it just might be true.

It sucks you know when you try to pay the bills but my house has never been cleaner. That could be a good thing.

I also have time to hang out on Pinterest where I am discovering all kinds of crazy things including the magic of ammonia. I make no secret that although I am liking the new Big Top, it needs work. It needs lots of work. I hate the lame-assed paint job on the staircase. Yes, I’m still procrastinating working on that project. It will be done soon. I hate how the baseboards, doors and trims are painted different shades of white. I hate the blinding white walls in a home that has an east-west orientation. I really don’t like my kitchen stove and oven. But, be it ever so humble…and blindingly white…it is the Big Top. I just have a lot of work to do on it…and time on my hands. Which brings me to my latest Pinterest discovery: Cleaning with Ammonia.

Our kitchen stove and oven is most likely the original model in this ten-year old home. It works just fine so the landlord is fine with it. The stovetop might be ugly and gross with years and years of cooked on grease, but it cooks up dinner just fine. Still it is gross and even when I clean it, it still looks nasty.

I know. This is rather small compared to world problems. But in my world this is a big problem.

Ammonia to the rescue! You take the stovetop burners and place them in large ziplock bags. To the bags add about ¼ cup of ammonia and seal the bags up. Leave outside on a cookie sheet overnight for 10-12 hours. The ammonia fumes will work their magic inside those plastic bags and loosen, melt and dissovle all that hardened grease and oil.

No kidding!

In the morning remove the burners from the bags and rinse thoroughly in warm, sudsy water wiping off the remaining yuck with a sponge.

The same burner, no kidding!

How easy was that? So easy. Although I think I am going to have to do again perhaps in a couple of weeks. We are talking about ten years of hardened, cooked-on grease and given the empty lard tubs the former tenants left behind, that is a whole lot of cooked-on grease. Still, isn’t this so much better?

It is.

Just a reminder: do not mix ammonia  with ANY other cleaning product please. I don’t want to responsible for any deadly, toxic clouds y’all might create trying this nifty trick out.

Perhaps I might have inhaled a little bit too much ammonia but you can’t believe how happy this makes me. In the words of Kim of Emergiblog, it is like I invented Penicillin or something awesome like that. It is…just like that!

Yeah, I think I need to work…in the NICU…soon!