Taking the House by Storm

The trials and tribulations of the average gal trying to navigate through life, love and the pursuit of domestic bliss.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Useful Tips?

You'll have to decide that for yourself. Just got this email from a friend and most of these tips sounded interesting enough. The deviled eggs idea intrigues me as my mother-in-law has been requesting I bring these to most family functions (not because they’re so delicious, mind you), and there’s a lot of them.

The cheapskate in me likes the icing idea, though I usually make my own, especially if I’m going to be doing any cake decorating. The broken glass tip doesn’t make sense – if the shards are so small you can’t see them, how is something as tiny as a q-tip going to magically find them?

But I have used conditioner to shave my legs before and I am looking forward to trying the chalkboard eraser trick as well as washing my lint screen. If you have already tried any of these (or do in the near future), let us know how they worked out.

1. Reheat Pizza: Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove , set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.

2. Easy Deviled Eggs: Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal , mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients , reseal , keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly , cut the tip of the baggy , squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

3. Expanding Frosting : When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store , whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

4. Reheating refrigerated bread : To warm biscuits , pancakes , or muffins that were refrigerated , place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

5. Newspaper weeds away: Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers .

6. Broken Glass clean up: Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards you can't see easily.

7. No More Mosquitoes: Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

8. Squirrel Away: To keep squirrels from eating your plants sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.

9. Flexible vacuum nozzle: To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

10. Reducing Static Cling: Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and -- ta da! -- static is gone.

11. Measuring Cups clean up : Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

12. Hate foggy windshields?: Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car. When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

13. Reopening envelope: If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside , just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Voila! It unseals easily .

14. Hair Conditioner: Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's a lot cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like .

15. Goodbye Fruit Flies: To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2" with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid , mix well. Those flies will be drawn to the cup and gone forever!

16. Get Rid of Ants: Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it , take it "home", can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains , but it works & you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

17. INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS : The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things around the house for us told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us something; he took the filter over to the sink, ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material - I'm sure you know what your dryer's lint filter looks like. WELL....the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn't go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that's what burns out the heating unit. You can't SEE the film , but it's there. It's what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free - that nice fragrance too, you know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box, well this stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to catch fire & potentially burn your house down with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (& to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out & wash it with hot soapy water & an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months. He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long! Note: I went to my dryer & tested my screen by running water on it.! The water ran through a little bit but mostly collected all the water in the mesh screen. I washed it with warm soapy water & a nylon brush & I had it done in 30 seconds. Then when I rinsed it the water ran right thru the screen! There wasn't any puddling at all! That repairman knew what he was talking about!

1 Comments:

  • At 9:12 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I've tried the fruit flies trick and it definitely works!

     

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