Ask the audience #1

Ivy says:

We like to hear from you guys! You’re a smart, savvy bunch (hey, you are smart enough to be one of our readers, right?) so we’ll toss out discussion questions from time to time. Hey, we don’t have all the answers…just most of them.

So here’s the question du jour, it’s a two three-parter:

What are your favorite relaxation techniques?

What is the surest relaxation buzzkill? Got a good story about having your relaxing evening totally killed by something?

I’ll start with a relaxing evening totally killed story for ya.

One of the things I really like to do to relax is go out and drive through these particularly hilly/curvy roads with the windows down and the radio turned up. I don’t exactly know what it is- it has to be those roads, with the windows down and the radio turned up.

So, one evening I was driving down the road and a possum ran out in the road just in time for me to hit it. Yeah, that sucked, but I’m not a huge fan of possums, so I shook it off and drove on. Only to hit a cat. I stopped the car, tried to find the cat, but all I found was a little blood where I hit the cat. I have hardly ever felt so bad about anything as I did hitting that cat, especially since I had just callously run over a possum.

I’m a little more careful about traversing those roads nowadays, heh. (Plus, it’s so expensive to go for a drive! I could get my nails done nearly as cheaply!)

Slop, sloppy joes

Heather says:

Have a pound of ground beef? Sloppy joes are a hit at my house, even the one year old approves.

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 small onion diced (pickier the kids, finer the dice)
• 1 small bell pepper diced (optional)
• 2 8oz cans tomato sauce
• 2 TBSP tomato paste
• 1 tsp Montreal steak seasoning
• 3 TBSP brown sugar
• 1 TSP Worcestshire sauce

Over medium heat brown then drain the ground beef. Return to the heat and add diced onions and peppers, cook until soft. Add tomato sauce, paste, brown sugar, steak seasoning, and Worcestshire sauce. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low and cook for an additional five - ten minutes stirring occasionally. Serve on toasted buns.

A sista in need is a friend indeed, or something like that.

Sista Smiff writes:

We all know that your Sista will never be enshrined in the Fly Lady Hall of Fame. It ain’t gonna happen. Things have gotten extra-out-of-hand since we spent a large part of April and May tending to Hazel following her surgery, etc. So, I’m sitting here staring at the various forms of mess…laundry, crap, crapola and crappity-crap knowing I should just quit my whining and just get in there and face the Beast head on.

Why do I have such an issue with this? What mental place does the Neat Gene originate? What is it that makes some people obsessive compulsive (which I do not want to be) and others like me who spiral further and further out of control and perpetually dwell in CHAOS….Can’t Have Anybody Over syndrome? I try to pick this apart (yeah, I know I should get up and actually deal with it instead of talk about it, but, it’s funner to bitch about) and figure out where it all went wrong. How do you get your family pumped about getting with it? For real, I’m a lone ranger in this quest around here.

In all seriousness, it’s a real source of frustration for me and a part of my life I feel like a total failure. What’s the secret to getting excited about housework???

Ivy says:

Man, cleaning sucks. There are people that dig it, I’m not one of them unless I’m playing with some nifty-neato cleaning toy.  So I totally understand your dilemma. I’ve had times in my life where I have had a house so nasty I could hardly even stand to be there, so believe me, I know where you’re coming from.

You look at the mess and you’re just so overwhelmed, don’t know where to start, etc., so you sit down at the computer or the TV and just do something else. Well, you might not, but I have certainly done that a million times, myself.

So, how do you get motivated to clean, and how do you motivate the family to help you keep it clean? Well, Heather and I have many tricks to this. Here are a few:

• Set a timer. Dude, you can bear to clean for 15 minutes. Everyone can.  So, set your oven timer for 15 minutes and clean for just 15 minutes, then stop and do something else. Enough 15 minute intervals and the next thing you know, you’ll have an entire clean room.
• Make a list. Sometimes it’s easier to work from a list and it is more rewarding to scratch things that are finished off the list than with other methods.
• Get an accountability buddy. Heather and I have been doing this for each other for years. I put a boot in her arse about things she needs motivating to get done, and she usually puts her boot in my arse about things like, “What are you cooking for dinner tonight?” (I love cleaning about a million times more than I love cooking. Heh.)
• Just get up off your butt and do it. I have to FORCE myself sometimes to get up and clean. Believe me, I don’t wanna, but I tell myself, “Get this done so you can do something you really want to do, like waste time in IMs and read the LJ drama.”
• Spend a lot of time getting it clean, and then just make sure you keep up with maintenance. It’s a heck of a lot easier to maintain your house than it is to CLEAN it. I spend 30 seconds swishing my toilet bowl every morning. I never have to scrub my toilet.
• Hang out here, and on our message boards. Post your triumphs and tribulations! We are here to help.

Sista, I’ve got your back. Get to cleaning and then you can throw a party and we’ll celebrate your clean house by trashing it.

Mygrocerydeals.com

Several weeks ago a reader contacted us looking for a way to create fast and easy grocery lists. I was later contacted by Ed Hladkowicz VP of mygrocerydeals.com:

Our goal was to create an engine that eliminates the need for consumers to wade through the grocery flyers and circulars delivered to their doors via the weekly newspapers. We are building our business from the grassroots level and are continually adding new stores, products and nutritional information based on feedback from members. We are not perfect in having all the information that consumers want, but we are trying hard. We encourage members to ask their local grocery stores to contact us with their advertised specials so we can incorporate them into our database. We are also continually updating our nutritional information on listed products so members can check ingredient information before heading out to their favorite stores.

Ivy and I have been checking out the site.

Useful?

Yes, I love the absolutely love the nutrition library. I have friends whose children have life threatening food allergies. The library lets me check for potential allergens as I consider a recipe.

Intuitive?

The site layout is functional, with an easily accessible FAQ section.

Time saving?

Absolutely. My favorite part is where you can skim the sale flyers.  You can skim by store, skim by category, or skim by brand. This is AWESOME because you can determine quickly which store has the most of what you need on sale and you can hit the correct store. You can easily add things to your grocery list on the site, which then you can print out and take to the store with you.
Money saving?

Signing up for the site is free, which is awesome. Being able to shop the sales is one of the biggest ways I stock my pantry and save money, so yes, it’s absolutely money saving.  Add to that the ability to print out coupons and they have a letter (PDF) you can print to the retailer if they won’t accept the online coupons.

The Home-Ec 101 recommendation:

This is a great money and time saver. We highly recommend checking out MyGroceryDeals.com.

Taking care of your granny whiskers

Dear Home-Ec 101,

Ok, so I don’t know if I’ve just noticed it, or if it is getting darker (is this what aging does to you?!?), but suddenly, I’m noticing fine but dark hair growing on my face. What do I do?! I don’t want to nair it, because that upsets my skin. Can I use peroxide to lighten it or what? Ack!

Thanks,

Ms. Kong

Ivy says:

Ah, the curse of the granny hairs. My mom Someone I know gets them and she totally freaks out about it. Since you said there are several fine hairs, I probably wouldn’t go the tweezers route, as my mom someone I know does.

Fortunately, your girl Ivy is all about dying things on her face (my eyebrows, people! when my hair’s blonde! sheesh!) so I have quite a bit of experience in this. What you need to get is a creme facial bleach. Usually you mix up small bits with the bleach activator and the bleach crystals on a saucer (no metal!!) and then apply to your face and wait the amount of time the package recommends. I’ve always had this work really well on my dark-as-night eyebrows, so I expect it would also work well on your granny hair, too.

You could also try waxing it, but I’m not a huge fan of waxing anything other than eyebrows and legs, heh.

Just as a side note, dark facial hair suddenly cropping up can sometimes mean a hormonal imbalance, so be sure to mention it to your doctor next time you go for a check-up.

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