I keep my AAA card with my debit card and always present both at once. Half of the time I get a blank befuddled stare (no m’aam, this is not ID) and half of the time I get a discount. That second half is good enough for me. Trips to the zoo, prescription refills, or [...]

You can’t beat rice. Fast-cooking, versatile, and almost universally-liked. We make rice in big batches because the leftovers are just as good. Here’s a few uses for this wonderful food. 1. A base for stir-fry2. In soups in place of noodles3. As a “mash” for breakfast with milk and cinnamon4. Rice pudding with a custard [...]

Before tossing something broken, try to fix it. There’s a great book called “How to fix almost anything” that I had for a long time. We mend worn clothes (except socks). We use epoxy, super-glue, and paper clips to mend all sorts of things. Before replacing any malfunctioning plumbing item, we take it apart and [...]

Here in the Seattle area, we’ve seen record temps for the summer. My neighborhood reached 108 degrees (an all-time high) in late July. For an area with an average summer temp of just 76, that’s impressive and most of us just weren’t prepared. Here’s a few tricks I’ve learned that have helped cool down our [...]

If you have a personal printer (either ink or toner) at home, I’m sure that like me, you hate replacing the cartridges on the thing. So much expense, just to have some Web site’s banner advertisement print on a separate page all by itself in full color. Argh! Unless you do extremely high-quality, image-intense work, [...]

Coupons aren’t just for the bricks-and-mortar I’m more prone to buy something from an online store if it’s on sale, or used (think Ebay), but here’s a tip my sister taught me about online shopping: Just after you’ve filled up your online cart, google the name of the store you want to buy from and [...]

Maybe it’s living within a few miles of a Ball plant, or maybe it’s sentimental memories of my grandmother’s pickled beets and my great grandmother’s English Relish, but even though I’m not a canner, I LOVE mason jars. They’re the perfect organizer. They’re durable, transparent and timeless. You can put flowers in them for a [...]

I hate junk mail, but I open it all. I salvage return address labels, and business reply envelopes. Some people attempt to be removed from lists by mailing the letter back with a request for removal from the list—but be cautious, as this often works the other way around. What I do instead is compost [...]

Do an energy audit on your house. One night, I walked into the living room and discovered that there were 24 blinking LED lights on. In the dining room was the piano (electric), which had been left on and one little red LED was there. Six phone/ipod/Bluetooth/laptop chargers sat atop the piano—all plugged into a [...]

They’re not just the “musical fruit” but a great source of fiber, vitamins, minerals and protein! They’re extraordinarily versatile. I’ve lined my kitchen with canning jars full of staples—around the back wall of the countertop that I can’t reach anyhow (I’m vertically challenged). This way I can always see what I have on hand. Pasta, [...]