product review

i don't do very many (none?) actual reviews, so here ya go. one is a local one, one is useful for everyone...

today alena and i drove downtown, picked up jared, and had lunch at gabby's burgers. it's a tiny place (the owner called it a kiosk with three doors). it's in a gritty part of town near the baseball stadium. jared and i wondered, as we drove up, how it was that some places turn into trendy little dives while others (most) fail. this guy was the previous owner of a trendy little spot in a trendy little part of town (sam and zoe's in berry hill). i'm guessing that might have something to do with it.

but aside from the simple menu, the relatively cheap prices and the awesome ingredients like grass-fed beef from a local farm and sweet potato fries, it's his story that really makes me happy.

he says that his dream was to have a restaurant, wife and kids. he got there, but realized he was working way too much at the restaurant to enjoy the wife and kids. so he scrapped it and started over. his hours are M-F 10:30-2:30 (recently changed to 7:30p on fridays). he gets there by 7am to prep and is home by 4pm. that's pretty unheard of in the restaurant-owning business. i get choked up thinking about this guy busting it to make a living and simply refusing to sacrifice his family life for the cash. judging by the line and the wait we had (all while the owner hollered out "thanks for waiting, guys! i love you guys! i promise it will be worth it!" every 5 or 10 minutes.) he is truly living the dream.

****

the second review is on mr. clean magic erasers. my house has a whole lotta white woodwork and white wooden blinds, all which need to be cleaned (and probably repainted at some point). my plan was to make up a bucket of liquid mr. clean and hot water and spend unknown amounts of time scrubbing it all. then i thought about the magic erasers and the amazing things i've heard about them. so i bought a pack and tried it out today.

here's my opinion. first, they're a little costly, i think they were $6 for 2, which, in my ultra-cheap world, is a bit high. but it said multiple uses, so i went for it.

i started out and was happy to find that the claims were true. marks, scuffs, every day dirt wiped right off. however, they don't hold up for very long. i did a white wall-type thing in my kitchen (hard to explain, but it's the size of the depth of the fridge), the front of the fridge, the white part around the oven and microwave, the pantry door and about 3" of floor molding. about 10 minutes worth of work, and the eraser was used up. to do my whole house, i would have to use quite a few.

but it works. so i think i'll get that hot sudsy bucket and wash everything first, then go back and spot clean with the eraser.

for a fuller review, click here. and for the truth behind any email forward you've received about it being full of dangerous chemicals, click here.