Stick Figure Saturday: Household *Magic*

I recently started following the blog called Alabaster Cow, every week she does something called Stick Figure Saturday in which she creates a lovely work of art using stick figures. It looked like fun to me so I thought I'd try my hand at doing my own Stick Figure Saturday.

I made myself use Microsoft Paint to create my stick figure art. The graphic designer in me was screaming "NO! This could be so much smoother and prettier in Illustrator!" But the kid in me was screaming "Wee! This is fun!" Oh, who am I kidding? The kid in me is more of a perfectionist than the adult version of me. Nonetheless, I had fun.

Here is my beautiful artwork entitled "Household *Magic*"
This illustration depicts me clearing our shower drain using baking soda and vinegar

When I was a kid my mom helped me and my brother make a volcano out of paper mache. After the paint dried we gathered around to watch the surprise that my mom said was waiting for us. First, she took some baking soda and dumped it into the hollow at the top of the volcano. Then, she took a cup of vinegar mixed with red food coloring and poured it on top of the baking soda. Suddenly our volcano was erupting with red, frothy "lava". It was Magic!

Little did I know that my mom's bit of magic would help me 20 years later when I found myself faced with a clogged shower drain!

We have a stand alone shower in the basement. This shower drains into a pipe which drains into a hole in the basement floor. It's pretty gross but it's all we've got and we don't pay a lot of rent so I can't complain (much).

As you can see in the picture, I have copious amounts of long, curly, blondish brown hair. I shed. A lot. The shedding has somehow gotten worse since I had my daughter. When I take a shower I try my best to "catch" the loose hair and then I plaster it to the shower wall until I'm done so that it doesn't go down the drain. I know, it's totally gross but what's a girl to do? For the record, I always (almost) remember to take the hair off the shower wall and throw it away.

Anyway, apparently I can't catch all of the shedding hair and large amounts of it end up in the drain anyway. A few days ago the drain in the floor completely backed up while Paul was showering and half of our basement flooded. Luckily, I remembered a cool trick to fix backed up drains that I'd read about on a blog.

You take 3/4 of a cup of dry baking soda and dump it into the drain. Then take 1/2 cup of vinegar and pour it on top of the baking soda. Instant drain volcano! It's important to remember to take a rag and plug the drain after you dump the vinegar because you want the "volcano" to go down into the pipes and push the clog out. I was so fascinated by the bubbles that I forgot this step the first time and I had to do it all over again.

After you plug the drain, wait about 30 minutes and then pour hot water down it. Your drain should be unclogged! Like I said, I had to do it twice because I forgot a step. But, our drain worked perfectly after the second "volcano". My fiance thought I was a miracle worker! Yay!

I hope you enjoyed my version of Stick Figure Saturday! If you want to see the original, visit Alabaster Cow!