WFMW: Heavy duty winter mats all year long

My cleaning tip for this week's themed WFMW? I keep the heavy duty slogger mats (what I call them) in my car all year long. We have them over top of the traditional car mats. We do have nasty winters here which involve much snow and even more salt (almost way too much at some retail establishments). We also have a gravel driveway, so the deep grooves in the rubber catch tons of limestone along with the salt and muck from the boots. Why do I care about this? Well, generally all you have to do is to yank the mat out, give it a good shake or hosing (depending upon the season that we've just recently experienced) and they are good to go. Carpet saved and there is so much less sweeping to be done.

Things caught in slogger mats:
1. My father-in-law dumped an entire cup of coffee and the mat caught it all. (It had cream in it, too. Imagine how the curdled smell would have been in the heat. Ewwww!)
2. Limestone
3. Salt
4. Massive wetness to keep the carpet dry so the car doesn't smell like something is rotting in there.
5. Crayons that have dropped. The mat kept the crayon(s) from rolling all over and under the seats.
6. A variety of crumbs, chunks and discarded foodstuffs from the backseat.

A bonus? They don't slide or jam up under the pedals.

I know that we have spent about $20-25.00 per set of mats. The ones in Hubs' car are from the trashed out RAV. The new ones in the new RAV came from Sam's.

They save us a lot of time in cleaning the cars. That works for us!

Smiles in my day:
- Having gone to the Russian Festival with my co-worker and she treated me to dinner. I had Chicken Kiev, halushki, green beans, applesauce and a roll prepared by some lovely Russian women. To that I say, "YUM!" It was so crowded that we decided to sit out in the back of the RAV to eat, with the back door open, enjoy the breeze and just talk. I'm thankful the back of my car was clean! :)
- I got home a bit after 8 PM, knowing that I had to do homework with K-. Hubs not only had her homework done, but he had read to her and had her snuggled into bed. What a guy!
- Helping to hand out 500 books in the RIF/PTA free book handout today. Aside from some discontentment among a few students regarding the lack of Junie B., a scuttle over Hot Wheels books and a bit of a dinosaur upheaval, it was all good. I was able to get a free book for working the handout, so I chose a Junie B. for K-. She was so excited, especially since we had run out of Junie B. by that point. It banked me some cool mommy points!
- I will be doing a hands-on-demo the Sunday of Holiday Open House Weekend. It will be on crafting with things from nature/decorating your tree with natural elements. Yes, I am an artist and the tree decorator, but I'm not a huge crafter. I just shook my head and told my boss that I will be working on gathering research this weekend. Any contemporary decorating suggestions you have incorporating natural elements into holiday decor, feel free to e-mail me. Just click the button on the sidebar.

Have a great day!