How to Hold the Mail: A Quick Tip

Heather says: Mr. Heather and I are going to be taking a short trip in the near future.  Rather than pester our neighbors, I thought I would see how difficult it was to place a hold on the mail.  I remember my mother having to head down to the post office, stand in line, and …

Read more

Grandma’s Home Remedies: The Good, The Benign, And The Dangerous

Ivy says:

When I was a kid, my grandma had one remedy for nearly every malady that befell us kids. If my brother and cousins read Home Ec 101, they’d be laughing right about now. See, no matter what was wrong with us, she had the same advice. Sick to your stomach? You’d better try to poop. Headache? Have you pooped lately? “Grandma! I have a broken arm!” “Your arm is fine, you just need to poop.” And if you told her you didn’t need to poop, she’d come running after you with castor oil, so you were pooping whether you wanted to or not.

Now, I don’t exactly get that excited about pooping, but I have noticed 9 times out of 10 when my kids come to me with a stomachache, they do just need to poop. Ah, well, grandma was right.

Now, pooping wasn’t my grandma’s only home remedy although it was the most frequent. There are a lot of home remedies that are actually good, some that are benign and may work by the “placebo effect”, and some that are downright dangerous. Let’s explore a few, shall we? (after the jump)

Read more

Fighting Off Chaos

Heather says: There are times where a home will fall apart.  It may be sickness, a family emergency, a crazy schedule at work, or occasionally it’s a season of celebration ( a wedding, graduation, birth).  Whatever the case it’s easy to fall out of healthy routines.  Like a bad houseguest chaos rarely arrives alone, it …

Read more

Papers, please: How to handle a car wreck

Ivy says: Last night Mr. Ivy was in a car accident. Don’t worry, dear readers, he wasn’t hurt and our car wasn’t hurt very badly either. He was stopped at a stoplight and a gentleman driving a trailer with big lawnmowers on it turned left right behind him and clipped the back end of Mr. …

Read more

Living on Less: Real vs Perceived Need

Heather says: I was picking up my bedroom the other morning and I opened the curtains to take advantage of the bright sunshine. Of course, that bright sunshine also made it clear that the doors were grimy. Over the past few years I have been working on reducing our paper consumption. Contrary to what commercials …

Read more

How to live on less: Priorities

Ivy says: If you’re going to live on less money than you have in the past, chances are good that you are going to have to start spending less money as well. This is where prioritizing comes in handy. Now, not everyone is going to have the same priorities, so I can’t sit here and …

Read more

How to live on less: A guide to thrifting

Ivy says: If you’re trying to live on less money and you are not yet acquainted with the joy of thrift store shopping, let me introduce you. Reader, meet thrift store. Thrift store, meet reader. Now that y’all know each other, let me give you some good tips on thrift store shopping. The first rule …

Read more

How to live on less: repurposing items

Ivy says: Today in the “How to live on less” series, let’s talk about repurposing items. This is a lesson learned from our Depression-era moms and grandmoms. The idea is to take items that have been used for one thing, and turn it into something else. This can be as simple as using a (washed …

Read more

How to live on less: The series

Dear Home Ec 101, I lost my job due to downsizing. The economy is so bad that I had a hard time finding a new job, and when I finally did find a new job, it was with less pay and fewer benefits. I’ve run up my credit cards and I owe a fortune. I …

Read more

Keeping All Those Cookies

Dear Home Ec 101, When should one begin their holiday baking if they want to give out cookie platters the week before Christmas? Last year I did all my baking in 2 days and it nearly killed me, but I don’t want to do it too far in advance or the cookies won’t be fresh. …

Read more