Weird little joy of mine: buying a brand-new bottle of hand wash and placing it next to the sink. I love how it looks; I love trying out a new scent; I love feeling all virtuous washing my hands fifty-six times a day (a slightly obsessive habit I developed when I gave birth to a) protect my newborn from germs and b) protect myself, because I was so devastatingly exhausted that had I managed to catch a cold on top of it all I would have just given up, handed Kendrick our offspring, and crawled under the changing table until spring came along).

Anyway, Method's hand wash (in the Cucumber or Sweet Water scents) is what I've been using for...oh, years now. Ever since I first spotted the bottle on a drugstore shelf and picked it up figuring it would be way too pricey for my taste, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was adorably packaged, totally didn't smell like Clorox misted with raspberries and sparkles (as a lot of hand washes can, no?), and affordable.

And! Every Method hand wash is formulated without triclosan (a chemical found in many comparable products that's presently under FDA review, and that Method believes is unnecessary - and potentially harmful - overkill), made with biodegradable, naturally derived ingredients, and contain Vitamin E and aloe.

This is my laundry pile, more often than not. You've seen it before. (Hey, give me a break: there is someone currently residing in my apartment who goes through up to five outfits a day, depending on his mood.)

You know, Kendrick and I were sorting our clothes to send out to the laundromat the other day, and I said, "wow, in a month or so I'll be doing all this myself." And in return, he gave me a "aw, sweetie, that really sucks" grimace.

I mean...is he kidding?! He's kidding, right? I could not possibly be more excited about the prospect of having a washer/dryer of my very own to do with what I will. You New Yorkers without laundry rooms in your building know what I'm talking about: it's a dream, the idea of coming in from a rainy day and being able to throw my jeans right into the wash, or getting into toasty, straight-from-the-dryer sheets at night, or knowing for certain that my favorite t-shirt will not be returned to me shrunk down to a size more appropriate for my six-month-old (this just happened; I am not happy about it).

Anyway. This is all to say that I am very much looking forward to becoming intimately acquainted with laundry detergent very, very soon.

(That, by the way, is Noah, "the official spokesinger of Method.")

Confession: the space under my sink - the space that houses my cleaning products - is a disaster. It's filled to barely-closing capacity with the grocery store bags I recycle as trash bags, various craft supplies (chalkboard paint! brushes! glitter!), and, somewhere in the depths, highly specific products with which to clean the various surfaces in our apartment.

You know what I'm way too lazy to do?