Helpful Hints

I keep my steel wool scrubbing pad in the freezer. That way it doesn't rust. And you know those plastic cups with corporate logos or Chuck E. Cheese or whatever, the ugly cups? That's what I keep my steel wool in, when it's in the freezer. Also, I cut the steel wool pads in half.

When using liquid laundry detergent, I don't like to get it on my hands. I have nowhere to put a sticky soapy dispensing cup since my laundry room is a dungeon. So, I throw the cup in the washer with the laundry. Problem solved. Of course, I have a back-up cup for when some helpful person changes the load and throws the cup in the dryer.

When towels or socks get that mildewed smell, or soiled potty training laundry has odors that do not go away, I use a cup of ammonia in the wash with the detergent. But NOT WITH BLEACH. Grade school science, people.



A glass scraper is my favorite cleaning tool. I just used it to scrape dried gooey gunk off of my refrigerator shelves. I cannot clean my stovetop without one. It's great for removing the carbon scoring. I learned this from those lovely British babes on How Clean Is Your House.

The Thermapen is one of my favorite cooking tools. The Chef and I use it for meat, fudge, grilling, bread making. I also use it to regulate Baby's bathwater. Lucy just used it to determine the temperature of ice cream for her science experiment. It's expensive but worth it. I've sent ours in for service too. They didn't come in all of those cool colors when we got ours.

You know those Star Wars cookies I made last week? If you break the ears off Yoda, he turns into Gollum. Weird. Go ahead. Hold your hands in front of the Yoda image I got from the web. See what I mean? I know this because I broke off the ears to give to the baby. Gollum is less fattening than Yoda.