Two plugs

These two products/tools are must haves. The first is your basic kitchen scissors. If you haven't fully realized their potential you're missing out. They are very helpful when you have toddlers or young children. Just this morning I made pancakes for Sarah and Nathan. When you try to cut pancakes into nice size squares for kids with a fork or a knife it is somewhat laborious and can tear apart the pancake (the top or bottom breaks off from the other side), but with these scissors it's a cinch (is this sounding like an infomercial?).

They are also great for cutting up your kids pasta/spaghetti into kid friendly sizes or really any other food product for that matter. We have used it to cut meats (fish, chicken, lean beef, etc.) and just about any meal that we've needed to cut down into a smaller, more reasonable size to accomadate the fork/spoon sizes of kids. It also reduces messes. These things are awesome! Get yourself a pair!

The second thing is the Miracle Eraser. A friend blogged about the power of this recently and I'll just say that Mary and I saved ourselves a lot of time (let alone saving our company a lot of money) when we managed apartments. It saved us from re-painting walls and replacing vinyl or countertops on many occasions. This thing gets out just about anything and everything. One caution: if you use it on something that has some kind of shiny finish (semi-gloss-painted wall, shiny vinyl floor, etc.) it does take off some of the sheen and might be noticeable from certain angles. However, you have to consider whether that black Sharpie mark on your tan wall looks better than a little lost sheen on it. Also, according to my friend, aerosol hairspray accelerates the process. Go Aquanet!