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Tips, hints and other wisdoms.

     Here is a page dedicated to helping you out.  Making your life a little easier, that's what it's all about.  Actually, the Hokey Pokey is what it's all about, buuuut this might give you a new idea or two, about a thing or three.


  • Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store.  If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster, but if you want them to ripen faster for banana bread or something, then put them in the refrigerator for a day or two and they will be good.
  • Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil.  It will stay fresh much longer and not mold, but remember to serve cheese at room temperature, for the best taste.  By the way, I love cheese all kinds, although Havarti is my favorite.

  • Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.  Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.  I don't know why, but it's true.

  • Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef.  It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.  This is fantastic for trying to cut some of the fat out of your diet like we are.  We have switched a lot of dishes with hamburger, to turkey, but sometimes you just want moo-moo and not gobble-gobble.

  • To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream; then beat them til they just can't be beat no more.  If you want fluffier and even more fattening scrambled eggs, add a couple tablespoons of prepared pancake mix and whip them, whip them good.

  • Add garlic at the beginning of a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.  It took me years to figure this one out, I would just keep adding more and more garlic to my foods.

  • Heat 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.  I usually throw a lid on for a minute or two in the beginning to melt the cheese.  Mmmmmm.....cheeeeese......

  • For a less messy way of filling deviled eggs, try this.  Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag.  Seal and mash till they're smashed, add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing and smashing and pretending that it's the dude that cut you off in the grocery store parking lot, oh sorry, I got carried away, cut one of the corners of the baggy and viola', you have a little squeezebag, not to be confused with the squeezebox, mama wears on her chest.  Oh, there I go again...
  • To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave next to a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.  This is ingenious

  • Put layers of torn newspapers around the plants, vegetables and flowers in your garden, overlapping as you go; cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds get through some gardening plastic; they will not get through wet newspapers.  I only wished this worked for morning glory, I hate morning glory.  It crawls across my lawn and up the side of my house.  I will find a way to permanently kill it, somehow, someway.

  • Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.  Wet paper towels for larger amounts, like when my older broke not one, but two full length mirrors in less than a week of each other.  Yeah, kiss your next 14 years good-bye darlin'.

  • 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.  And, instead of buying air in a can for your keyboard or computer, get a drinking straw and position it between the keys on your keyboard and give it a blow.  You can do the same thing on the inside of your computer and inside the fan, not to mention the killer head rush it gives you.  Enjoy!

  • I am a static magnet.  When I was a child I pulled a blow dryer in the bathtub with me, that's another days story, and ever since, electricity and I have a love, hate, pain type of relationship.  So if you have staticky problems with your clothes just 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!  

  • Before you pour sticky substances  (peanut butter, honey, etc.) into a measuring cup, fill with hot water.  Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Then add your ingredient and watch how easily it comes right out.

  • Have foggy windshields?  I once had to go an entire winter with no heat or defrost in my car.  Brrrrr!  I then asked around to my friends and family for help, here are the best solutions.  Buy a chalkboard eraser, when the windows fog, rub with the eraser. It works great and helps dry it too.  Now to keep the windows from fogging up without buying that expensive anti-fog stuff.  First, quit making out with your husband in the back seat.  Then get a dry cloth and some regular ole mens shaving cream, the foamy stuff, not the gel stuff.  I personally like the Barbasol, I get it at the local dollar store and one can last twenty five winters and it makes your car smell like a clean man.  It works instantly and continues to work for about a week of daily driving and nightly make out sessions with husband.

  • If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside or your writing a "piss off" letter and you forgot to add something completely witty and point proving and you just gotta get back into it, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.

  • Ever buy a hair conditioner and then get it home a hate it.  And now, you have almost a full bottle of "not good enough for my hair" conditioner?  Use it to shave your legs. It leaves your legs super smooth and it's really cheap, you can sometimes get conditioner for eighty-nine cents a bottle, which is rad, compared to over two dollars for shave cream.  Besides, there's more scents to choose from.

  • To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, or in my house, a beer bottle, fill it half full with Apple Cider Vinegar, 2 drops of dish washing liquid and swirl or stir. The flies are drawn to it and the soap kills em' dead.  I hate fruit flies...  Can't imagine what purpose they have other than pissing me off.

  • Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it and take it home and share it with their little ant sisters, bothers and other family, but, they can't digest it so it kills them. (Insert maniacal laughter here)  It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and it's completely non-toxic to all of your pets and monsters.
  • Here's one for my lazy friends out there.  You know, the ones who don't jump up after dinner and wash the nights dishes.  I made the lasagna,  I dished it up and served you.  I put the leftovers away, what more do you want from me tonight?  Then I wake up the next morning and realize that I should have at least started soaking it last night.  "Shit".  Well, all I have to do is put some hot water in the pan, throw in a dryer sheet, any smell works and let it soak for about 15 minutes, which is about as long as it takes for me to get motivated to actually wash anything.  Use the dryer sheet as a sponge and everything lifts away so easily.  Now I can go be lazy again.
  • Speaking of dryer sheets.  If your like me and live next to water, or your going camping and you don't want to constantly coat your body in bug spray.  Carry a couple of dryer sheets in your pockets, nothing fancy, original scent works best.  Mosquito's will keep a nice distance from you.  Throw a couple in your tent to keep them from buzzing in there when your not looking.  Mosquito's in my book are like fruit flies.  No purpose, none, zero other than pissing me off.