To sort, or not to sort, that is the question

do I have to separate the laundry

Dear Home-Ec 101, I’m a guy so I’m sure this sounds like a dumb question. I don’t do separate loads of whites and colors because my laundry consists of whites for underwear and work out clothes. It seems such a waste to use that much water for so few whites. Yea, I’d like the whites to be bright …

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Wannabe no more!

Dear Home Ec 101: I hope one of you two can help me myself from a want’er to a doo’er. I want a lot- I want save money, I want to keep my kitchen clean, I want to keep up on the laundry, I want to plant a garden, I want to landscape my house, …

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Taming the housework beast

Dear Home-Ec 101, How do you guys “encourage” your husband to help out around the house? I know some guys just help out, but mine is not one of them. Do you have any tips? I promise I will not tell him where they came from. 😉 Signed, Nagging doesn’t work Ivy says: I started …

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Remodeling: truly living life on the edge!

Ivy says: Those of you who have ever remodeled your home can totally relate to the title of this post. It’s living life on the edge of sanity, a strange half-life where you have entire useless rooms that you have to keep the kids out of and attempt to find time to work on the …

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My mom rolls fitted sheets up in a ball, too.

Dear Home-Ec 101, Now that our teen is helping with the laundry, I would like to show him to fold a fitted bedsheet. I usually just roll it up into a ball. (bad, I know) Signed, Life Skills Teacher to Growing Son Ivy says: The person who actually showed me how to fold a fitted …

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Stupid Questions, volume 7

Ivy says: Due to my own slacking, I didn’t answer Kathy T’s Stupid Questions last week. Never fear, I am doing them this week! Here we go: 1. Since they’ve recently talked about silver fish and other creepy things on their site, here’s a bug question. What’s with those giant mosquito looking things? Do they …

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Low sugar / no sugar added jam

Heather says: First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for the feedback they gave regarding the recent post on strawberry jam. I’ve had several requests for lower sugar, sugar substitute, and diabetic recipes. Pickyourown.org has some fantastic tips for reducing the amount of sugar involved in the canning process. Here are some of the …

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Ironing out a plan.

Dear Home-Ec 101, I’m a guy, and like most guys my age, I have quite a collection of polo/collared shirts. Most of them have developed some sort of collar disease–some are flipped, some are curly, and some seem to have permanent folds. Is there some sort of laundry technique I can use to save these …

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Life is short, so get going!

Ivy says: I had such a good time at the potluck I was telling you about on Friday that I can’t even begin to form the words to express how great it was. It is very, very important that we get some time to catch up, hang with friends, let loose and just be ourselves. …

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