Love & Tinderness: Homemade Flavored Toothpick Tutorial
At the end of a hearty meal, what more could you ask for than a no-calorie, delicious treat that also doubles as a crud-picker?
(I am not ashamed of my lack of finesse with words, when it comes to oral hygiene. Oral hygiene should be a laughing matter. How else are you going to show off your shiny white choppers?)
Homemade flavored toothpicks are ridiculously easy to make, and not only will you want to keep a bunch around for yourself, but they also make adorable little gift additions. Or you could carry a few batches in your purse to hand to people with offensive breath. Talk about incredibly easy social graces. You just say, “You HAVE to see these adorable flavored toothpicks I made? Here. Have some! Try them! Aren’t they awesome?”
Problem = solved.
And who wouldn’t want something that looked like this?
The Oil Magic Trick That Hides Number Two
How many of you work with other people? Raise your hands.
How many of you live in close quarters with other people? Raise your hands.
How many of you find yourself in a public place now and then? Raise your hands.
Okay. You should all have raised hands at this point, which means you can’t scroll down anymore. So put your hands down.
Thank you.
Since we had the no ‘poo uproar the last couple of days, it seemed only fitting that we talk about the other kind of poo.
The real kind.
The stinky kind.
The kind you don’t want anyone to know about.
I have exciting news. I have something you can do to get rid of evidence of #2!
How to Keep a Natural Litter Box and Other Cat-Related Nonsense
Did you know that you can train a cat to use a toilet? It’s a real thing, and real cats who have brains can do this; they don’t even need opposable thumbs or current issues of National Geographic. They are just fine with back issues.
I’m thinking about doing this with my cat, but given our recent interactions, it will just give him one more reason to sit on my head. Here are his other reasons: he’s hungry, or I’m asleep, or it’s less than 86.5 degrees outside, or I’m breathing.
But let’s be honest, there’s really only one natural litter box, and it happens to be “the earth.” While I do sometimes feel in my heart that cats would be happier (and our personal waste would be less) if they were just allowed to roam free about the neighborhood, many neighbors would highly disagree. Mountain lions around here, on the other hand, have engaged in a sign-waving “Free the House Cats” protest on street corners.
It isn’t going very well. Mountain lions have terrible handwriting.
I’m not convinced that all house cats want to be outside. My friend has two cats who are allowed to do anything they want, including feasting on all the butterflies they can find in the backyard, but all they do is sit around in the sunroom, drinking tea and reading the newspaper while commenting on current events.
Historic Beauty Days: Snippets From A Magazine Past
I’ve spent 40 of the last 80 hours immersed in this gosh-darned ladies’ magazine from the 1800s. Fascinating, eye-opening, and sometimes a little frightening, Godey’s Lady’s Book belongs in the annals of history, to be sure.
It’s not so much that I’ve received life-changing tips and ideas on beauty, it’s more that I’ve realized how true that frustrating axiom is, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
But we’ll talk about that tomorrow. Today, let’s just have some fun.
With ladies.
Delightful, proper ladies.
Turn That A/C Off: Clever Ways to Keep Your Sanity When It’s Sweltering
It started a few weeks ago, when temperatures were still in the low 80′s.
My bedroom window overlooks not just one air conditioner – not just mine – but four of my neighbors. And one of them, one blessed sensitive soul, found the need to turn on the air conditioner – at night. It was, like, 50 degrees outside. That’s 15 degrees plus a bucket of hamburgers for those of you who use Celsius.
I don’t know how to convert to Celsius, but I’m sure it involves buckets of hamburgers.
Fast forward a couple of weeks to 100-degree temperatures, and I can no longer be indignant and judgy-judgy. I have been guilty of turning on the A/C for brief amounts of time in the last few days.
But it hurts, right? Every time I click that convenient climate lever, all I hear is money draining from my bank account and energy being sucked from the power grid. (As a little back story, this is the first time I’ve had air conditioning in 6 years, so it’s almost new to me.)
Here are some clever ways I’ve found to keep my hand far away from the thermostat, keeping the air conditioning OFF and still maintaining my sanity. (Mostly. Booga booga booga.)
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