Whatever Wednesday...the book-o-holic edition

Whatever Wednesday is when we explore all the different ways that Whatever spray can be used around the house. It is an amazingly versatile little workhorse and because it is so safe and friendly, the uses are endless. If you'd like to share the unique ways you use Whatever in your life, post a link in the comments or email me and tell me about it. kate at cleanhappens dot com

I'm a reading junkie and right now while pregnant the emphasis should be on the "junk" part of junkie. It's ok, I'm not embarrassed, I love trashy romance novels. Don't get me wrong, I love the classics, too. But, being pregnant when it is 102 degrees outside with a heat index of 115 degrees does not allow my brain to do much more than get caught up in the fabulous world of smut. The darker and more brooding the Duke, the better. The stronger and more hoydenish the heroine, the more enthralled I am.  I can't get enough renegade cowboys in the Old West or primitively masculine Scottish Lairds from Medieval times.

But, let's face it. This is mass reading kind of fiction.  I can easily go through 4-5 of these novels in a week.  And since I have yet to make a commitment to an e-reader (but, I am oh so close), how's a girl to keep up with this kind of volume of steamy little mass market paperbacks? If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Frugal = green more times than not.  I'm not going to pay $7.99 a pop for these bad boys. (teehee. no pun intended.) And checking them out of the library basically equals at least that much in late fines. My solution is the fabulous little world of Paperback Swap. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle all of your literary fare right there in one handy community.

The way it works is quite simple. You list your books on the site and when someone sees one they want, you get a message to mail it out. You pay postage on the books you mail out, usually around $2. Then once they receive the book, you get a credit and then you browse the extensive selection and use your credit to request a book be sent to you, this time no charge. I end up mailing out and receiving 3+ books a week.  You have the option of purchasing your postage from them and printing it out at home, which is crazy convenient, but you end up paying about $1 more for the service.  I keep stamps on hand or take them to the post office on my errand running day.

So, how is this related to our wonder cleaner, Whatever? Well, this week I was sending out a book and I like to take a little time to make sure the book is in nice condition and I even pretty up my packages a little bit. Just because it's nice. It's nice to get prettied up little packages in the mail, and I know it brightens my day when I receive one.  The book I was mailing out had a couple of sticky smudges on the cover. I wanted to clean it up.

So, I sprayed a little Whatever on a dry cloth and gently rubbed the stickiness off. Because it doesn't leave any residues and it doesn't contain any solvents, the color on the cover wasn't effected and all that was left was a nice clean book. (I took this picture before it was completely dry, so the dark spot you can kind of see was gone within a few minutes.)