I quit drinking sodas a while back and struggled to find a substitute that I liked. I can't handle the aftertaste of the diet sodas. For a while I was brewing tea and keeping it in the fridge, but I found I didn't want the caffeine at night. And I was getting bored with it anyway. Then I decided to make some lemonade based on the recipe on the ReaLemon bottle. Two cups of ReaLemon, two cups of Splenda in a gallon pitcher and fill with water. Tart, sweet, refreshing. I'm addicted!

I love lemonade Jakabedy! BTW, we do decaffeinated tea.

tina

Not sure if this is belongs in the category of Helpful Tips or if I should start a new thread of Things I'll Never Do Again!!

Do not put a king sized bed with a massive headboard and footboard in a room with wall to wall carpet. You can never move that sucker to clean behind it or adequately underneath it!!! Never again will I have carpet in any room if I can help it.

Oh!! That is a great tip dlm!

jakabedy, that sounds so good. I'm a drinker of water only and need a change every once in a while. Think I'll give that a try, thanks!

Jakabedy, you should treat yourself to real lemons. Buy 'em when they're cheap and freeze the juice. Much better than RealLemon. That stuff tastes weird to me. Probably the preservatives. Only time I used it was when canning tomatoes and didn't care for the taste it gave the tomatoes.

I'm ready for lemonade and hot dogs!

Here's a tip I use a lot at work...
Most newer homes have the floor plan on line. Enter the builder and the model name and it's usually easy to find. Oddly enough, the niche in the foyer is what I am looking up for most people.

I don't have a tip, but I need a tip!

Does anyone know a good way to keep houseplants watered when you will be out of town? (if you don't want to have someone to come to your house).

Nacy, could you fill a bathtub with a few inches of water and place the pots in that? Although they might rot instead of drying out!!!!

How about a tip for getting yellow deodorant stains out of the armpits of white blouses?

nancybee_2010 - we bought those glass self-watering bulb/globe things from home depot last year. we were away for 3 weeks. The plants aren't anything special so we wouldn't be too upset if they did die, but they lived.

Thank you, Chispa and Ummm! :)

"How about a tip for getting yellow deodorant stains out of the armpits of white blouses?"

Soak in a basin with several scoops of oxi clean- i use the original powder and water.

Leave for a couple days then dump everything in washer and wash as normal.
Worked for me on blouses I was about to get rid of that had years old stains. (they were in the back of the closet)
I use it all the time now on summer blouses.

For watering plants, get a two liter bottle, fill with water and put the cap on. Then poke holes around the top with a thick pin or needle. The idea is to have a hole big enough for water to ooze through. Poke a bunch of holes, then you place it on your plants. The water will weep out constantly keeping the plants moist. You don't even need to be on vacation to use that tip.

Try spraying white vinegar on the underarm stains, let soak overnight in a plastic bag then wash in the hottest water safe for the fabric. Also add oxybleach in with detergent or in the washtub (if using liquid detergent). Repeated soaks and washings may be necessary.

Dim, same problem here. Live alone, king size bed, impossible to clean below. I finally bought a ROOMBA and I love it so much I am going to marry it. I call him Ramone. I turn it on, lift one corner of the bed enough to shove him under and he vacuums until he dies. (my frame goes close to the floor, so keeps him contained. If yours doesn't, you could use the electronic boundary thingies that come with it to keep him under the bed. I swear, I have never loved a household appliance as much as Ramone (well, maybe my Cuisinart - I hate chopping as much as I hate vacuuming). I just can't believe how much dirt/dust he sucks up. I cannot figure out how to get him to do the cobwebs up high on the walls so I'd never have to get my regular vacuum out ever again (I have hardwoods, everywhere...don't know how well he'd do on a fully carpeted house. I do know he'd do a fine job under the bed.

I have a huge king sleigh bed which is impossible to move. I bought 4 of the 4" diameter slider disks and put one disk under each corner. I'm able to move the bed myself now! It does tend to sink down a bit into the carpet so you have to give it a good push to get it going, but amazing how this massive piece of furniture slides across the carpet.

Thanks, Pesky!

I have a tip that might be kind of weird but here goes:

If you have tubular, metal windchimes that are too loud and clangy, but you like the way they look, you can stuff them with newspaper to soften the sound.

I make my own body butter - well not exactly from scratch but my version.

You know when you get the matching lotion to go with your favorite perfume/cologne. Or a nice smelling lotion from Victoria Secret or Bath and Body Works. It usually smells heavenly, but doesn't do a thing for dry skin. Plus your perfume lasts six months maybe - your lotion is gone in a week.

I keep an empty body butter jar (usually a pretty one from VS or similar) and mix my favorite smelling lotion with the generic Eucerin (the Equate Walmart is $6.00; Eucerin around $12.00). I would probably say I mix 1:1 using a teaspoon to whip it up. I also save the small samples of moisturizers from the department stores free gifts and mix with the cream.

I have EXTREMELY dry skin and my dermatologist recommended the Eucerin cream. Well if you have ever tried that stuff, you know it goes on like white thick wax. It is so waxy that it gets on your bed linens and clothing. But it works for dry skin.

My daughter thought I was being chinchy - not! But that is an added benefit! I just like for my body cream to smell good.

Tuesday

olychick that's very cute about Ramone! That might take care of the carpet but what about the baseboard and the back of the headboard? I'm talking major dust here !

caroloh that's exactly what we did th other day but we also have 2 support legs in the middle of the bed - that was a trick getting the sliders under there. I still couldn't move the bed by myself. The carpet is a pretty dense frize pile and the bed as I said is massive. Once we moved it I was so grossed out at the dust on the back of the headboard. I think I actually slept better knowing it's now clean!

We had a dietician who came to work to speak to us, and she said to eat something within the first 30 minutes of waking in the morning. She said this revs your metabolism up. I knew eating breakfast was important, but this info was new to me. I have been trying to do it, but I usually like to eat after I've been up about an hour and had my coffee, so it's been hard.

One I just learned...timely as it's getting to be flying bug season...wrap duct tape around the end of a broom or other long handled thing, with the sticky side of the tape out. When you've got a spider up in the corner of the ceiling or a flying bug inside, swipe at it with the taped broom and it'll stick. You can then dispose of it outside (or do what I do...flush them).

I used the FTC's "opt out prescreen" phone number to opt out of credit card offers for the next 5 years. It's only been a month since I did it, and my junk mail has already dropped significantly. Shredding paper is not my favorite thing, so I'm pretty happy about it.

Here is a link that might be useful: FTC Opt Out Prescreen

Peach and mint iced tea w/honey.

Celestial Country Peach Passion tea bags
Bigelow Green Tea Mint Flavor (light green box)

To make a gallon:

2 double peach bags = 4 single
4 single mint

Put tea bags in coffee pot, fill resevoir to capacity. Brew as you would coffee. When finished brewing, remove pot from machine, put tea bags in tea to steep. Set aside for at least 2 hours. No need to cover.

Remove tea bags, making sure to sqeeze them out.

In a two cup measuring cup, add 1 cup of honey and fill 3/4 full with some of the tea. Place in microwave for 45 seconds. Mix well, then stir into brewed tea. Pour this into pitcher and fill with your choice of water. Stir, chill, enjoy.

It's best after it has chilled and set for an hour or so, but you can drink it immediately if you can't wait. If it's too weak you can just add more tea bags. I make this same tea using other flavored fruit teas and all good.

If you like lemon, Minute Made has pure lemon juice in the frozen food section usually next to the vegetarian hamburgers. At least that's where it is at my WM. It's pure lemon and after defrosted, keeps a very long time.

Here's a tip for the DIYers out there. This is seriously the most handy tip I think I've ever learned.

If you get oil-based paint or stain or tung oil or similar on your hands that turns into sticky goo when you try to wash your hands with soap and water (something you'd normally have to wash your hands with paint thinner to clean), you can also clean them by rubbing a little vegetable oil on your hands, then washing your hands with dish soap. The vegetable oil dissolves the oil-based chemical and the dish soap washes it all away.

Another random goody --

To keep the layers of a cake from "humping" in the middle (and thus making it hard to stack them), bake them at 25 degrees LESS than recommended for a slightly longer time. The tops will stay nice and flat.

lkplatow, thanks for that tip about the cake. Never knew that. While we're on the subject of cake baking, can someone tell me how to successfully bake a cake or brownies using those throw away aluminum pans? Every time I tried to use them, I burned what I was trying to bake because the inside was not cooked, but the outside was. Is it a matter of reducing the temp? Thanks for your help on this one.

Wow, this has turned out to be a darn good thread! Thanks for all the tips! I'll have to try that when baking a cake next time, mine always get that bump!