Remember a while back I did a post about all sorts of useful household life hacks (shortcuts)? I got a lot of positive feedback about it, so I decided to share a few more:
1. If you run your hands under cold water before pressing Rice Krispie treats in the pan, the marshmallow won’t stick to your fingers. I make a lot of Rice Krispie treats and it works.
2. You can remove grass stains from your clothing by rubbing Karo corn syrup onto stain. Then just wash as normal.
Happy Halloween! Halloween is my favorite holiday and when I was a kid, Trick or Treating was pretty much the highlight of the year. Now that I’m a mom, I love taking my boys out Trick-or-Treating just as much as I loved it myself.
Tonight I’m taking my boys out trick-or-treating solo. My little man is a handful, so it should be interesting to say the least. Whenever I take the boys out, I try to be as prepared as possible. It makes my life easier and keeps them happy.
Did you know that as a parent, you are lawfully entitled to collect a candy tax on Halloween? Oh ya, it’s a federally mandated law. I’m sure of it.
Basically, any child who collects a large quantity of candy when they go out trick-or-treating on Halloween is subject to the tax. This percentage is up to and including any and all Milk Duds (or you can insert your favorite candy here), if the amount constitutes 10% or less of the total haul. However, if your kid winds up with some outrageously large amount of candy – say a large pillowcase full of it, the candy is then subject to a 15% Candy Tax. The candy tax covers the time and stress of the parent having to manually inspect each piece before the kiddos dig in.
If you ever find yourself right in the middle of a horror movie type scenario, here are a few tips on surviving the ordeal
:
1. Never, ever, become a camp councelor.
2. Whenever it appears that you have killed who ever or what ever is after you, NEVER check to see if it’s really dead.
3. You will need to uproot your life & move out of your home immediately if you ever find out that you’re living on an old Indian burial ground, in an old insane asylum or you find out satanic worship was ever practiced in your house.
4. Never, under any circumstances, use a Ouija board. This one’s for realz folks. I kid you not, Ouija boards are one of the few things in life that really scare me.
One of those things I always have on hand is a bottle of vinegar (the distilled white kind). It’s one of those things that has way more uses than most people realize. Here are just a few of the things you can do with a simple bottle of vinegar:
For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you may remember a few weeks back when I posted a tweet asking about tipping tattoo artists. I had an appointment to get some new ink and I had always tipped in the past (and planned on tipping this time), but I was curious to see where other people stood on the subject. Surprisingly, I got a mix of answers that ranged from “of course you tip them” to “they make more than enough off the tattoo itself that there is no need for a tip”. So I decided to do a little research and see if there was some sort of “master list” of tipping rules. FYI – no such thing exists, but I found enough compelling evidence to support tipping tattoo artists (and many other people that provide services) that I decided to start my own master list of whom to tip and how much of a tip is generally suggested.
If anyone were to ask me what the one essential item that I think every home owner needs to have on hand at all times, my answer would be simple: duct tape. Because whenever I have the chance to buy anything in the color pink – I do, so my duct tape is….you guessed it, pink. I use duct tape all the time for just about anything and everything.
Here are some clever uses for duct tape:
My boys are still much too young for cell phones of their own, but even at their ages (four and seven), they know what it means to text and eventually, they will start asking for their own phones. My 14 year old stepson does have a cell phone and he basically has his freedom with it. He’s a really, really good kid and never gets into any trouble, but it got me thinking about the what if’s. He’s in high school now and I’m not naive about what goes on in teenagers heads. Even though it was quite a while ago now, I still remember what it was like – the only difference now is that there is all of this technology at their fingertips and they can stay in constant contact about god knows what.
I love going out to eat. I wish I could say it was because I liked to try new things, but that’s not always the case…I just like to go out and not having to cook for a change. I’m pretty lucky in so far as that my two boys go with their dad at least one night a week, so I get a chance to go out with my husband alone sometimes, which is pretty nice I have to admit. I love my kids, but taking them out to eat can sometimes be a challenge and there is definitley some planning involved when they come out to restaurants with us.
Here are five things I do to help ensure things go well while we’re eating out at a restaurant with the kids:
We all know that cleaning our teeth is the primary (and obviously the most important) reason for using toothpaste, but did you know that toothpaste has many other uses around the house? Since my recent post on some useful household life hacks seemed to be pretty popular, I decided to share these great shortcuts – using toothpaste. Here we go….
1. Remove crayon marks from walls.
2. Eliminate food odors from your hands (ie onions or fish).
3. Remove scratches from CD’s.
Someone emailed this list to me yesterday and although I’m not sure where it originated, I thought it would be fun to share.
1. Bring a camera & take pictures of everyone on the elevator.
2. Push the buttons & pretend they give you a shock. Smile & go back for more.
3. Ask, “Did you feel that?”
As a mom, sometimes I swear that many of my days are filled with almost never ending backtalk. Like anyone, we have our good days and bad days, but as my boys are getting older, the amount of lip they’re giving me seems to keep increasing.
Today is the best day of the year as far as I’m concerned – it’s the day my kids go back to school. We had a blast traveling, going on day trips and doing all sorts of fun things over the summer, but the time has come to get back into a routine. Now that the new school year is upon us, so are some big changes to routines and schedules.
Aside from practicing our skills over the summer (reading for my seven year old and alphabet & numbers with my four year old), here are a few things I do to help the transition from summer fun to back to school go smoothly.
I love getting comments on my blog. Who doesn’t? It makes my day if I check my WordPress app on my iPhone while I’m out and about and there are a bunch of new comments on my posts. It’s really, really nice to know that people take the time to read whatever I’m rambling about on any given day and it’s a huge compliment when takes the time to leave a comment.
My little man is heading back for his second year of preschool next week and I’m curious to see how he handles it. Last year he went two days a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays), but in preperation of kindergarten next year, he’ll be attending three days a week this coming year (M/W/F). Drop-offs last year weren’t always smooth for him and he had a really hard time seperating from me. I’ve been home with him since the day he was born and he’s a real “mamas boy” (and I mean that in a good way – I love it).
I don’t know about you, but I’m always on the lookout for little tricks to make life a little bit easier. Being a busy mom, saving time and money are really important to me. Over the years, I’ve gained some handy little household tricks to help me cut down on both of those things. Check ‘em out and let me know what you think.
I’m fortunate that both of my boys were both born in August, so I can get their well visits done in one fell swoop. For me personally, I think it’s easier to get them both done and over with at one time, although I’m sure not everyone would agree with that.
Although I absolutely love my boys pediatrician, it’s still quite a bit of “work” taking them for a double visit like that. I usually try to prepare myself and the kids in advance for the visit, which I’ve found tends to make the visit go a bit smoother. I just took my boys for their visits on Tuesday and even though my four year old needed shots, the visit went really smoothly.
Towards the end of the school year last year, my three year old son came home with a project in which his name was spelled out in colored pasta. I remember thinking when he brought it home that day, that colored pasta seemed like a simple, fun project idea with limitless possibilities.
The only problem? I had absolutely no idea how to dye the pasta.
This day in age, dating really can be expensive. Whether you’re in a brand new relationship or have been married for forty years, we all need to spend some time alone with our partners. It’s part of what helps keep the spark alive. Right? My situation is a little different in so far as I’m divorced from my kids father and he takes them overnight every Friday night, so I get to spend time alone with my husband once a week, which is really, really nice.
What makes a date is how you interact with each other during your time alone, not by the price tag of the evening. Some of the best dates I’ve ever been on were “cheap” or even free. Being creative makes for some really amazing quality time with each other – plain and simple.
Both of my boy were born in August, so I do a joint party for them every year. It makes life much easier that way, trust me. This years party theme was Legos. Both of my kids love building with Legos as well as playing all the Lego Wii & DS variations, with the newest being Pirates of the Caribbean (Remember my Lego Hell post, which centered around a large Pirates of the Caribbean pirate ship).
First off – here is the cake. I soooo wish I could take credit for making it, but alas….I didn’t. I had every intention of making a cake myself, but I’m just not as good of a baker as I am a cook, so it was worth it to me to pay someone to make the cake. Didn’t it come out great? Everyone at the party went gaga over it!
