Summertime Tips

Summer has hit the half-way mark, but there is still plenty of warm weather left. I plan on enjoying every minute of it! Today, I'd like to share some various tips that come in very handy in the summertime.

1.) Get Rid of Fruit Flies. It's amazing what you can do with common household items. A dish of cider vinegar on the countertop will get rid of fruit flies!

2.)Comfortable Summer Sleeping. Treat yourself to a luxury with something as simple as baby powder or cornstarch. Sprinkle a little on your bed sheets and relish the comfort!

3.) Banish Flies! Fill a zip-top bag (the freezer type work the best) 1/3 to 1/2 way with tap water. Place 3 pennies in the bag. Hang bag near a screen door or every 8 feet or so around a picnic area to keep flies away. I had heard this gets rid of flies before, but never believed it until I went to a picnic and saw it work first-hand. I now have one bag near each of my screen doors and the flies are gone!

4.) Keep your cooler cool without ice packs. This tip is great for those times when you need a completely disposable lunch or if you run out of room for ice packs in your cooler. Freeze part of your lunch! You can freeze all kinds of things that you'd normally take in a lunch and by the time you get to eating/drinking them, they are thawed, but still cold. Freeze grapes, orange slices, almost any kind of berry, bottled water or other drinks and yogurt. You now have a healthy item in your lunch and it helps keep it all chilled to perfection!

A Tip or Two- Freezing Store Bought Meat

If you are like me, you love a good meat sale. Hubby and I have found a few good sales this summer, so we stocked up on a few things. I love to vacuum seal things before I freeze them and if you don't have a vacuum sealer, I highly recommend investing in a good one. You will not be sorry!

Anyhow, when I vacuum seal something I have bought in the store, I cut the label off of the package and stick it in with the food. I now have the weight, cut and date on it all in one spot without having to write a thing!

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A Tip or Two- Washing Your Hands in a Public Restroom

I know this seems like a silly post. Of course you all know how to wash your hands, but think about what you're really touching in there:

You use the restroom and touch the handle on the toilet or urinal, then, you touch the faucet. You wash your hands and touch the same faucet again. You touch the handle on the paper towel dispenser and then touch the door handle.

If everyone does that same procedure, we're all touching the same germs we just washed off, right? So let me fill you in on how the health department instructs us to wash our hands in the school kitchens.

First, if there is a paper towel dispenser with a handle, press the handle on it a couple of times, but don't tear the towel off. Leave it hang there until you have clean hands.

Second, wash your hands for 30 seconds. Sing the Alphabet song twice to yourself to time yourself. Do NOT turn off the water.

Third, tear off your paper towel and dry your hands. Using same paper towel, turn the faucet off. In a public restroom with doors, use the same paper towel to open the door, hold the door open with your foot and throw the towel away.

Now your hands are clean!

Before you start in about hand sanitizer rather than washing hands, think about the bottle it is in. That bottle can be just as icky as the faucets. Save it for times when you really can't get to a sink to wash your hands.

A Tip or Two- Battery Corrosion #3

In the past couple of weeks, I have given you tips to remove battery corrosion from electronic devices and rechargeable devices. Today, I am going to address removing corrosion from your car battery. If you aren't comfortable doing this yourself, do not hesitate to ask a friend or relative who is more mechanically inclined or take it to a garage.

Corrosion on a car battery's terminals can make your car hard to start or not start at all. If untreated, it can ruin a battery which is expensive to replace. Luckily, the prevention is easy and cheap.

There are many tutorials on how to clean your car's battery using baking soda (to neutralize the battery acid and eat away the corrosion), but this one from HowToCleanStuff.net is the best one I've found and they say it a lot better than I could.

A Tip or Two- Battery Corrosion #2

A couple of weeks ago, I gave you a tip on how to remove whitish battery corrosion. Today, I want to help you remove the black or grey battery corrosion that can often prevent a rechargeable item from working and charging properly. The most common case of this in my house is in our phones- cell and cordless- so that's what I will refer to.

Open the battery case and remove the battery. There should be at least two contact points where raised portions on the phone meet the battery. These are often small square places where the metal on the battery touches the metal on the phone. A small area of grey or black will often form on these points over time. Using a clean pencil eraser, gently rub the grey spots until they disappear. Repeat this on the battery itself. Replace the battery and cover.

If you have a phone that sits on a base to charge, you will want to clean those contact points, both on the phone and the base, with a clean eraser.

Repeating these steps regularly, such as every month, can help your devices perform better and give them a longer life.

A Tip or Two- Grilling with Skewers

Whenever you grill shishkabobs or anything else using bamboo skewers, the skewers tend to burn. Here are some tips to slow or prevent this from happening:

1. Soak your skewers in warm water before grilling. I lay a couple of paper towels over the top to keep the tops wet and hold them under the water a bit.

2. Turn the heat down on your grill. Cooking the meat slower will make your meat more tender and will be less likely to char your skewers.

3. Fill the skewers to the top and leave a little 'handle' at the bottom. Hang the handle over the edge of the grilling surface. Just be sure not to close the lid while the ends are hanging over or your kabobs will get flipped right off the grill.

A Tip or Two- Battery Corrosion

A large number of things in our house are battery operated. We have a slew of animated holiday decorations, toys, electronics and appliances that all require batteries. Let's not forget the smoke detectors in our house as well. One of the ways we've kept all of them in good working order is to change the batteries as soon as they die. Anything that is left sitting with batteries in it can develop corrosion that could ruin the item.

Corrosion is often a whitish, crusty stuff that forms around a battery terminal and anything touching it. I recommend wearing rubber gloves just to be safe when removing the batteries just in case any of the battery acid has leaked out. Dispose of batteries properly.

Begin by taking a paper towel and wiping the battery case out gently. This will remove any moisture. As for the metal parts, which is usually the part covered by the corrosion, using a small piece of sand paper or an emery board (like the ones you shape fingernails with), gently sand the corrosion off. Wipe the area out again with a new paper towel. You may also want to blow the inside of the battery case out with canned air or another dry-air source to remove any dust and moisture.

Place fresh batteries in the case and try the device again. Wash your hands and gloves thoroughly afterwards.

3 Simple Ways to De-stress

Stress is everywhere. We worry about a million things everyday- job security, finances, our children, foreign relations, health, etc.. Every time we worry, it effects us and those around us. When you are stressed, it effects the way we speak and react to those around us. In turn, the relationships we have with our spouses, children and co-workers can suffer from the negative impact of our stress. Ever heard the saying, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."?

We have to take an active role in the way we act and react. WE must be the ones who take steps to de-stress and improve the situation. Taking care of yourself first is one of the best ways to help take care of your family.


So how do we de-stress? With all of the craziness in the world and all of the demands on our time, how do we keep it from entering our life and wearing us down? Here are some great tips:


1. Turn off the TV. You heard me, just turn it off! The constant barrage of bad news and updates on that bad news make our subconscious think these things are happening all day long, over and over again. Read your news online instead. You can pick and choose which stories you read and once they are read, they are done.


2. Take a bubble bath. Even if you usually opt for a shower, take a nice, relaxing bubble bath and soak your worries away. It may sound cliche, but adding some soft music and candles to create some atmosphere out of the ordinary. You'll feel transported from the stressful day.


3. Breathe deeply. Write a note to remind yourself if you have to. Taking ten deep breaths after a stressful moment or day will oxygenate your blood and help melt tension away.




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A Tip or Two- No More Flat Soda Pop

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This is a new little series of posts where I choose one or two of the vast amounts of semi-useful tips I have floating around in my head and pass it on to you.



Today's tip is about keeping your 2-liter bottles of pop (or soda if you aren't from Ohio) from going flat before you can drink them. This will work on any screw-top bottle of fizzy drink. After pouring your drink, replace the cap and screw on tightly. Then, simply hit the bottle on the bottom kind of hard- enough to make it all fizz up inside. The extra fizz will re-pressurize the bottle and settle quickly. Next time you open the bottle, you should get that familiar "Pssssssshhhhhhh" sound and your drink will be as fizzy as when you first opened it!



Please note that some people will tip the bottle over and hit the bottom. It works either way.