Sticky Hair

Every kid eventually gets it: sticky hair. I'm not talking about bubble gum; I'm talking about that mysterious stickiness that you suspect is probably some sort of food. And it inevitably happens when you have ten minutes to get out the door looking nice.

Quite often, the hard, sticky clumps are sugar. If you don't have time to give your tot a bath, wet that brush and you'll be amazed at how much easier it becomes to manage the clump and remove some of the stickiness. That's because the water dissolves the sugar.

How to take a self portrait

From my daughter:
Stand in front of a clean mirror, with the camera out to the side but facing the mirror. Smile at the camera's reflection. It will look like you're looking directly at the camera.

save closet space

Have you seen those tandem hangers that have hooks in the front? You can hang one hanger from another, saving tremendous space in the closet, or enabling you to put outfits together to find easily. But the hangers are usually considerably more expensive than other plastic hangers, which in turn are of course more expensive than the wire hangers that seem to reproduce on their own.

The answer? Buy a cheap package of cable ties. You can find them at places like Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart for good prices. Make a loop around the neck of your ordinary hanger, and attach it to the shoulder of the hanger with a twist tie. Voila! You now have your own, much less expensive, tandem hangers.

Weevils

Ew. Yuck. No matter how clean you keep your home (and I wish I could claim a shiny clean home, but I'm afraid it's more of a dream than a reality) one wrong purchase, and you have a problem that can take months to take care of.

In our case, the purchase was boxed macaroni, an off brand, that does not come in a plastic bag inside the box. Before we knew we had them, the weevils had spread to boxes of everything else. In some cases, they'd even gotten into plastic box liners, closed jars of pasta and flour, you name it.

The solution takes time, but it can be done. First, invest in gallon ziplock bags. Put any box of dry goods that will fit into a sealed bag immediately. If any bugs have gotten into the box already, you'll very quickly be able to tell because you'll find traces inside the bag. Next, empty and clean your pantry thoroughly. I recommend Lysol, because it does a pretty good job of wasting pesties, without really contaminating your shelves. Make sure you spray the corners very well. Finally, keep plenty more plastic bags on hand and immediately seal any further boxes of dry goods you buy, before you even put them away.

Finally, I'm going to try this one that I just heard about from a lady at a local store: wintergreen gum. She said her mother always kept one stick of gum in her rice canister and another in her flour, and the smell would keep away the weevils. I'm willing to give it a try. If you've done it, let us know how it worked, please!