This tip is only for Windows 7 and Vista users.  Have you ever wondered how to make those special characters come into play without knowing all the keyboard short cuts….like…..  ^ and ÷ and £ or ¢ or ® or » …..or the many other hundreds that you see in your travels?  I have the answer for you and it’s very simple to accomplish!

• On your task bar….Click on Start > Search… type in Character Map
• When you see this in the window pane….click on it.  
• Select the character code you want by clicking on it
• Where it says ‘Characters to copy’….click on ‘select’ across from it
• Add as many as you want and when done w/your selection click on ‘copy’
• Using your mouse ‘right-click’ to paste the characters wherever you want them to appear..word doc, in a post, email…wherever!

That’s it!  You can remove characters in the select box by placing your mouse pointer at the last character and hitting the back space bar, or alternatively, you can highlight the characters and hit the back space bar

At the top of the window pane you can even change the Font you’d like to have the character be.  And, don’t forget to scroll down the side of the character box to see even more characters.

Three years ago last fall, I dressed the windows in my son’s room with off-white Roman shades.  They are attached to a metal header with a valance that attaches to the header.  Last summer I was determined to find a way to clean them without a lot of effort.  The cords were nasty from the oils and dirt from one’s hands, plus they were just plain dirty from hanging there for so long.

My mind had been working for a long time trying to figure out how I was going to get these clean. There was no way I was going to buy new ones just because I couldn’t put them in the washer. And, I am too cheap to send them to the dry cleaners. Sticking them in a tub of water wasn’t going to happen, as they would have dripped water everywhere when taking them out of the tub, for the mere fact you can’t ring out Roman Shades.  I would have had to traipse through the house with them to get them outside to dry…wasn’t going to happen!

So I came up with this fabulous idea that worked like a charm!  I took a wading pool (which I already had) and laying a shade in the pool, I sprayed it down with Greased Lightening (I LOVE this product).  I then took the pressure washer and filled it with water and a tad bit of laundry detergent and sprayed the shade. I then set the next shade on top of the first, and sprayed that one just like the first one and then added the last one.  I let the shades soak in this solution for about a 1/2 hour and then sprayed them all again with the pressure washer.

One by one, I then draped them over the back of my son’s wheelchair (you could use anything but make sure it’s clean…the chair was clean….I washed it while the shades soaked and I knew the materials on the chair wouldn’t run).  Using the pressure washer I sprayed from the top down to get the detergents out of the shades.  I did both sides and ended with a quick spray on the first side I had done.  Lastly, I draped the shades over the deck railing on top of a towel to aid in soaking up the water for one, and for two, to dry them until they were just damp.  I then hung them back up in his room to finish drying…no ironing was needed as I had put the slats back in the shades while they were damp.  Let me tell you….the shades came out looking like they were brand new!  I was ecstatic with the results.  I will be washing my mini blinds the same way this spring.

For about an hours worth of my time…I saved myself a lot of money…and had the complete task done in about 2 1/2 hours.