Something inedible.

When I was a kid, I really didn't care for art time when it involved that certain type of modeling compound sold in the little plastic tins. Without getting into details, I'll just say that I am in the camp that find the smell absolutely revolting. As a dad, I find the commercial stuff overpriced and the clean-up is often tedious. That said, the kids love it; so I figure that if we're gonna use it, we might as well get the most out of our time and make it too. After trying a few different formulas, I've settled on using a recipe that employs another relic from my childhood (oh yeah!) to give our homemade play dough a vivid color and a smell that makes the fun much more palatable to the olfactories.

One of the big reasons we bought our house was the kitchen. It was a nice size and had plenty of cabinets. It was also the only place we could find where we weren't gonna have to sink a new car's worth of cash into the most-used room in the house to make it usable. Although it seems to fly in the face of logic that we should want to remodel our kitchen three years later, we ended up doing it anyway. It was so worth it.

Two years ago I bought the cheapest dishwasher I could find, and it runs like a dream. The dishes almost never spot, and all but the most stubborn of crud has been dispatched at the end of the cleaning cycle. I tend to think that most poor-performing dishwashers just aren't cared for properly. With the good run I've had, I figured I'd let y'all in on what works for me. The steps I take ensure that my dishwasher remains convenient; which is the reason it was purchased in the first place.