I must admit that sometimes I can be hard-headed. I like to think of myself as cautious, practical or determined, but sometimes my skepticism is misplaced.
Take cleaning the glass on the fireplace doors for example. Over the years we've had homes with fireplaces or wood stoves. Sometimes these had glass doors that became sooty after burning a winter's worth of seasoned oak. In the past I've ignored advice to clean the soot with water, ashes and newspaper. Instead, I've spent hour scrubbing with window cleaners of various types. I've even been known to buy expensive cleaners made just for fireplace doors. And why not. There was no way ashes and newspaper would work. It was too simple. It sounded like a joke that would simply make a mess more unmanageable than the one already on the door.
But, the chimney sweep was scheduled to come, and although it is July, the blackened mess from last year's fires was still clinging to the glass doors. In desperation to clean the doors before the sweep arrived, I tried cleaning the burned on soot with the ashes. I grabbed a wad of newspaper, dampened it, dipped it into the heap of ashes and rubbed it across the sooty doors. Miraculous! In just a few minutes even the most heavily burned on soot was gone. A quick wipe with a wet paper towel and the doors were shiny and bright.
I've been thinking about the years of struggle I put myself through just because I was too skeptical to try the simple solution. And now I'm wondering what other things could be simpler than I make them. Maybe this old dog needs to learn a few more new tricks.
