Build A Bear $25 Gift Card Winner!

Ivy says:

Congratulations to Shauna of Opishposh for winning the Build A Bear $25 gift card giveaway! Lucky #52 got it this time:

Click to make bigger.

Congrats, Shauna! I’ll be in touch to get shipping info!

Stick around, Home Eccers, more awesome giveaways are right around the corner!

Keeping Illness From Making The Rounds

Ivy says:

Oh, Home Eccers. Heather’s on the road for the next couple of weeks, and today I’m so sick that Mr. Ivy actually stayed home to take care of me. But the posting must go on, so here’s a little guide to keeping illness from making the rounds in your house. I wish I had been better about this, myself, as first my youngest got sick, then my middle daughter got sick, and now I’m sick. Oy.

The first thing to do is make sure the sick person is not doing things that can spread illness. No kisses, no sharing drinks, no eating after the sick person. Make sure everyone is washing their hands appropriately. Hand washing is the greatest key to keeping illness from spreading, so make sure that’s being done.

Also, while there are sick folks in the house, make sure to use the heated dry on your dishwasher, if you have one. If you’re washing dishes by hand, a tiny amount of bleach in the dishwater can help.

Clean, clean, clean. Be sure to use Lysol or Clorox cleaner on everything people touch- door handles, toilet flushers, light switches, etc. Once the person’s better, strip the sheets and mattress protector off the bed and wash them. Put pillows that are unable to be washed out in the sun to freshen them up.

That’s all my sick little brain can come up with. Home Eccers, anything I’m forgetting?

Removing Candle Wax From Fabric

Dear Home Ec 101,

I accidentally spilled some candle wax on my favorite pair of jeans. What should I do to get it out?

Signed,

Waxy Buildup

Ivy says:

This is actually a fairly simple fix. First, scrape off any excess with a butter knife. Then all you need to do is take a warm iron and some paper grocery sacks and iron it. Keep moving the sack around so it absorbs the wax. If there’s any left, just pre-treat the stain with some Goo Gone and wash as you normally would. Easy peasy!

Submit your household questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.

No, really. Read the directions.

Ivy says:

I probably should have saved this for Heather’s confessional, but I have so many things to confess, I’ll just go ahead and post this one here. Besides, this one comes with a life lesson!

I was making brownies for the family, from scratch. I was in a hurry, though, and I read the directions very quickly while I was getting everything out. While I was mixing everything together, I thought something seemed odd. A half cup of salt? That’s an awful lot, I thought. Then I internally shrugged and dumped the half cup of salt in. And I failed to notice that I had put an awful lot of salt in and NO SUGAR.

When I tasted the brownie mix before putting it in the oven, I realized my error. Worst brownie mix EVER. I had misread salt for sugar and had somehow skipped over the actual salt in the recipe entirely. So, let my massive screwup be a lesson to you: Always, always, always, read the directions thoroughly. And if something seems odd, stop and look at the recipe. Salty brownies are a bad, bad thing.

Then and Now, Some Encouragement

Heather says:

I stumbled across this little quote while browsing through The Project Gutenberg.  It’s from The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking by Helen Campbell:

Every science is learned but domestic science. The schools ignore it; and, indeed, in the rush toward an early graduation, there is small room for it.

“She can learn at home,” say the mothers. “She will take to it when her time comes, just as a duck takes to water,” add the fathers; and the matter is thus dismissed as settled.

In the mean time the “she” referred to—the average daughter of average parents in both city and country—neither “learns at home,” nor “takes to it naturally,” save in exceptional cases; and the reason for this is found in the love, which, like much of the love given, is really only a higher form of selfishness. The busy mother of a family, who has fought her own way to fairly successful administration, longs to spare her daughters the petty cares, the anxious planning, that have helped to eat out her own youth; and so the young girl enters married life with a vague sense of the dinners that must be, and a general belief that somehow or other they come of themselves. And so with all household labor. That to perform it successfully and skillfully, demands not only training, but the best powers one can bring to bear upon its accomplishment, seldom enters the mind; and the student, who has ended her course of chemistry or physiology enthusiastically, never dreams of applying either to every-day life.

Take heart, Home Eccers, ours is not the first generation to struggle with the age old question “What’s for dinner?”  This book was first written in 1880 and revised in 1893. So the next time you find yourself staring blankly into the pantry trying to figure out what to feed the family, know you do not stand alone.

Next Page »