My NEW Favorite Household Appliances…

Earlier this year, I rambled on and on about appliances that I just can’t stand to have taking up space on my kitchen counters. It was called the Worst Dressed Appliances of 2010 and really I had a fun time with that post. :o)  I promised to share my FAVORITE appliances on a later day, and never got around to it.

So today I’m introducing my favorite finds of the year. We all know that we can’t live without our dishwasher, fridge, washer, dryer, microwave etc. Ok, I know..some of you can…but I don’t want to. :o) To live without these would be as crazy, at my house, as trying to live without a vacuum cleaner. Ewwww…Yuck!!  Thank you whoever you are for these wonderful inventions!

And since I HATE clutter (i.e. things that take up too much space) it is a very rare event if I actually put down my hard earned moola on a new appliance. This would be on order with other catastrophic world events like Y2K (Yes, I still have buckets of wheat from that one!)

I'm just saying all of that to assure you that if I recommend an appliance, it’s passed muster as being absolutely worth every penny..from my point of view that is. As I said last month..Each Gal to her own Appliance!

About the moola  part, I obviously don’t put down any more of my dear hubby’s  hard earned cash than absolutely necessary, so my favorite place to buy these special appliances is, of course, the local thrift store! Yes, they have it all…every appliance and household gadget that you ever wanted to buy…and plenty that you don’t!  Though there are some that you may only be able to buy new.

 

The Indoor Grill

Last year, I finally went over the edge… I guess I’d had just  about enough of the outdoor ‘you grill while everyone else sits in air-conditioned comfort and visits’ scenario…and of course it always seems like I'm grilling just about dusk. (Gee..is that pink, red, or…cooked?)  SoI lost it..completely!  No, Dear Hubby does not ‘grill’. One Christmas my mom gave Tim a beautiful set of grilling utensils. Without even thinking, I said, "Oh thanks Mom!"  He does do yard work, and he's a hard worker,  so you won’t find me complaining. But the best appliance I discovered this year, was the George Foreman Grill.  It cooks on both sides at the same time!  (Thanks  for the recommendation, Shona! ) I tried it out at her house when my kids were house sitting for her while she was in Ireland and I’ve been in love with it ever since.

I’ve discovered that I can actually grill enough hamburger patties for the whole family at one time.  No, you can’t do whole chicken pieces..but it works perfectly on chicken breasts.  And I’ve grilled fish fillets and pork chops on it too.  This is the perfect tool for those of us who are dieting and can’t have the ‘casserole’ or pizza everyone else is eating. You can cook up a small piece of meat in just a few minutes. And it cooks breakfast sausage to perfection!I paid $7.00 for mine at the local thrift store. ($40.00 retail).

 The Lightweight Floor Sweeper/Vacuum
Another new appliance that  I bought for $8.00 at the thrift store, is not that unique, but I do wonder why I didn’t think of it before!  It’s a smaller, lighter weight vacuum. We finally ditched the big giant one. Why? Welll, because no one would use it! The one we bought at the thrift store, we discovered, did not work, when we got it home. But I knew what the likely problem was. Sure enough the suction tube was clogged with stuff.

Ladies, do you know how many times I’ve come across a vacuum that someone thought was broken?  Just clean it out now and then and you may discover that there’s nothing wrong after all. :o) Pull  those bits of strings and things from the roller brush every now and then and it will work the way it’s supposed to.

Technically, this may be considered a floor sweeper.  But it has a nice long tube you can detach for sucking up spills like you would a Dust buster.(Never owned one of those yet.) And it has great suction! It’s bagless too which is a huge plus--no more vacuum bags to buy. :o) The handle folds down so that it’s out of the way. It’s so small that it fits into just about any corner. It works great on both hardwood floors and carpet.  A little vacuum cleaner sure goes a long way!  (If you want your kids to help with chores, then this is the right choice!)

The Electric Hot Pot
My most often used appliance in the house is a simple hot pot. Every day, I thank the Lord for the day I felt compelled to get one of these! I bought if for an extended trip on the road. Now we use ours several times a day for hot water for the coffee press, to steep tea in, to boil water fast for things like stuffing, instant soups, jello, hot chocolate etc.  Our family love sinstant hot water! It’s fantastic. We take it camping too! 

The Roller Wheel Garlic Press
Have you tried the garlic wheel? It’s such a tiny little gadget, but it really does work! Ebeth, my DIL, gave this to me one Christmas. I refrained from quipping, “Oh..a gadget!”  But I did think that, although it seemed like a cute little thing, I would probably not use it.Boy was I ever wrong! There’s nothing quite like fresh garlic…and nothing more unpleasant than having to chop garlic cloves in little pieces. Yeck!

This gadget looks like toy, but it’s got some pretty sharp blades in there! You just peel your cloves, put them in the little trap door and then start rolling back and forth. It minces the garlic very easily. Dump it out. Rinse the wheel and put it away. No more stinky mess on my hands! (Honey…come kiss me…  Hey! Where are you going?!!)

The Coffee Press
This coffee press was a Christmas present and how happy we have been since we started using it!  We are tight for space so what we really wanted to do was get rid of the bulky coffee pot.  Now that we have this press,  we grind a 1/2 cup full of coffee beans with our coffee grinder which I also ADORE! The ground beans smell soooo fresh! We dump the beans into the bottom of the press, pour in hot water from the hot pot to fill it, and let it steep just like you would tea.  The coffee tastes extra smooth. The pot is very small, so it takes up minimal space on our kitchen counter. Plus, it looks so pretty when you want to set a nice table for tea or dessert! It doesn’t keep the coffee warm, but we don’t drink coffee all day,  so it works for us.

The Famous Plastic Screwtop Starbucks Coffee Cup
Speaking of coffee, one sort of a ‘gadget’ that, at first,  I thought was not going to be worth the price (yipes!) is my daughter and I’s plastic Starbucks coffee/tea cups with straws. But I was wrong--gloriously so!  This cup is the perfect thermal cup. You can put hot or cold drinks in it. Just screw on the cap and it not only travels  well with almost no chance of spilling, but it looks nice too.  They even made the straw so that it has a ridge and can’t just fall out. It’s a VERY durable cup, but don’t put it on the bottom rack of the dishwasher. It could warp.

We often make our own ‘fake’ Starbucks and we can take these cups out in public without looking like we are drinking a homemade drink. Alright, I admit it’s a total appearance thing..but it fools everyone…even us. :o) We get the feel of Starbucks without paying for Starbucks’  coffees.  (They take $0.10 cents off per cup at your local Starbucks too!)  BTW, did you know they give $.53 cent refills at Starbucks. For that special girly date, you could plan to hang out all afternoon and not have to pay a fortune for cups Two and Three. I know that was the case on their iced Tazo tea and regular coffee but am not sure on the other drinks. However, Rebekah and I plan to find out soon! :o)

In Praise of Crock Pots
I don’t plan to go on and on about crock pots, because as far as I’m concerned, they are in the same category as microwaves and toasters.  Can anyone function without one? If you don’t have one…get one! What you may not know though is how easy it is to ‘bake potatoes’ in a crock pot or roast a chicken. Make sure the crock pot is big enough for lots of extra space. This way the chicken will ‘roast’ and not stew. You can also do baked macaroni and cheese and meatloaf in a crock pot.   They are much more versatile than you may have realized. And honestly…nothing beats crock pot stew or roast beef.

The Kitchen Aid
And last but not least is the Kitchen Aid!  I finally got mine..this last year. (I know..pretty amazing!) I really did think that I was not going to be able to make the transition to using one after years of going without, but I was mistaken. I fell head over heels in love with it! It was much easier to clean than I thought it would be. Cleaning a Bosch is a headache!  Having hands-free mixing turned out to be Heaven on earth!  I’m wondering, now,  how I ever lived so long without one!  Wow..some of us are really slow…and I’m right at the top of that list. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m considering retiring my Bosch after 23 years!

Well, that’s my list of must have appliances and household gadgets.   After all these years, I’m finally breaking out and trying some new things. They aren’t ALL a waste of space and money. :o)

So what about you, what’s the best appliance you discovered last year…or what’s your favorite one and why?

Junk Mail, Cheap Eye Glasses and Printer Ink

Meet the Junk Mail Bandit… (my son!…eek!)

My kids are not normally into social protesting…but the profusion of junk mail that has been flooding our mailbox since we started receiving my father’s mail as well as our own, has sent them over the edge. (My father passed away a year ago, and I handle the estate finances.) Somewhere, they read that they best way to protest this avalanche of unrequested, unwanted waste of paper, was to simply pack it all up in the postage paid return envelopes given us by the senders and mail it right back to them!

The idea is that it will weigh a lot and the senders will get charged a pretty penny for their own junk mail. Not to mention that THEIR mailbox will be FULL of their OWN junk mail. Is turnabout fair play? I don’t know..and I guess…it’s legal?! Well, I don’t know…maybe you can fill me in on that. I only let the kids do it once because I didn’t want to squelch their good intentions. I really felt squeamish…but the kids are all ready to ‘change the world’ which includes..the mess in our mailboxes. 

I told them that it would probably be better to just sign up for ‘Opt Out’. This is a way to get your mail on a list so that you won’t get any more junk mail. We were signed up for it in our former home but haven’t gotten around to it here. I'll  be doing it again soon. But you can greatly reduce your junk mail and phone solicitation with this option.  Here is a link from DMA Choice to get registered so you are on a Do Not Mail from the National Direct Mail list. It won’t stop everything..but it’s a start! And there are lots of other organizations for stopping junk mail too. A quick internet search can get you started. In the meanwhile…watch out! There may be a junk mail bandit lurking in your house too!

Cheap but Stylish Prescription Glasses 

Doesn’t it kill your budget to have to pay the outrageous prices  being charged for prescription glasses? We don’t have insurance for that but even if we did, I hate to think of all the money being spent on ‘designer frames’. Even the budget ones cost a fortune. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was eight, so you can understand that I dread it every time I have to pay $200-300 for frames, prescription, lenses, and special coatings.   I needed new glasses as my old ones from Eye Buy Direct were getting worn out and I was really wanting to try a new style.  Here you can see both pairs one from four years ago, and one on the right from this year.  Both were great…I was just wanting a ‘new look’, though I was very scared to try to update my style. Thank goodness, they let you try on different styles via their TRY ONLINE program.

 

My whole family (Mom, Son and His wife) and I buy our glasses ONLINE at Eye Buy Direct.  I paid a grand total of $50.00 including Bi-focal lenses, modern style light weight frames, and coating.  All you need to do this is a prescription . I get an eye exam for $50.00 at Wal-mart. (I know..it’s embarrassing! just how cheap I really am. ) It's lasted through two pair of glasses. My glasses work great and look great. I’ve been doing this for five years now. I also ordered a pair of computer glasses for only $20.00.   Yep, that’s it.

How do you try them on? Well, just upload a picture of your face and they will allow you to crop it  and rotate it on their website. I used an old wedding photo once (since I had my glasses off at the time) and I used my webcamera the last two times to do this. They offer a virtual ‘TRY ONLINE’ feature where you can ‘try on’ the different frames. It works fantastic!  (Did I add that it’s pretty fun too?Tee-hee!)

To make things even better, their customer service is great. At one point, they noticed that  I had ordered the wrong frames for the thickness of my lenses so they CALLED me on the phone..and emailed me until they finally got me to help me choose new ones. Amazing!  So save your pocketbook and check out these people. :o)  You can also have a 15% discount if you email me. You can use my ‘friends’ discount. I’ve never done it before, but I noticed when I logged in today that it was an option. 

Here are their lens’ prices.. and the frames are anywhere from $20-50. I buy the $20.00 ones. :o)

• Single Vision (1.5) – FREE
•  Light Adjusting – $35.95
•  Progressive – $39
•  Polycarbonate (1.59) – $29
•  Thin and Lite (1.57) – $25
•  Bifocal – $19

Our local shop..and a very friendly worker.

Cheap Printer Ink

And while you are out shopping, the next time you run out of ink…head to Cartridge World. I see one in just about every shopping center. When my kids were in debate, we made tons and tons of copies. The kids filled 3” binders with paper which they were constantly shuffling with new briefs on every topic imaginable.  The ink used was indescribable. But frugal me, you know I was going to go find a cheap place. Up until then, I had ordered ink online, but now we were in a crisis mode. We had to use Tim’s old laser printer and the ink for it was a fortune. Of course, one cartridge lasts us for a whole year of heavy use. 

Cartridge World takes your old cartridge and recycles it and sells you a recycled full one for half the going cost. I will NEVER buy new cartridges again! And their employees are very well-trained and super friendly! And they are located all over the world. See if there is a location near you!

Well, I hope you got a few good tidbits from my ‘in box’…before the Tiger got it all. Tee-hee!  I’ve been saving them up all month and thought this would be some fun reading   while snuggled up in your covers this evening sipping cocoa after a long day of shopping. Enjoy!

Soup Mixes in a Jar

Hi Friends!  I thought you would enjoy seeing photos of a great and inexpensive gift idea for Christmas over the weekend. My very crafty daughter-in-law, Elisabeth,  got the idea to make these soup mixes in a jar from a book she picked up at a garage sale.  She wanted to make something for our upcoming Christmas Craft sale at Grace Community Church to earn some extra spending money for Christmas.

I, on the other hand, was musing on what sort of gift I could make to give to friends and I’ve also been wanting to make some soups ‘ahead of time’ that I could just throw in the pot to simmer. I really have been wanting to improve my soup ‘repertoire’ and it always amazes me how things turn up just when I need them. This book, Gifts from a Jar, has the best recipes I’ve ever tried. It’s worth every penny!

 

You can imagine my excitement when Ebeth mentioned her idea. This is definitely a project for TWO people (plus I really enjoyed spending the day with her and the grandkids--Yippee!)  For one thing, you can go in together to buy the most critical ingredient for this project, dried vegetable flakes.  Ebeth found a good source online, and we split the cost. We ended up with quite a bit of extra, but this is a great additive to any soup you make, so I wasn’t complaining.

We spent a Saturday morning shopping with the kiddos. (Great excuse to hang out with the grandbabies—Yea!)  Ebeth had ordered the online ingredients the week before which was critical. Just coming up with a shopping list for the 5 recipes we chose was quite an accomplishment all by itself.  Even with pooling the spices and extra beans, rice, barley etc. that we both had on hand, we still had to buy some extra supplies and ingredients. We bought a few things at Sam’s like bulk dehydrated onions, chicken bullion cubes and cumin.  Diced and dehydrated garlic and the vegetable flakes both had to be purchased online.  We both had jars on hand that we had to wash and dry, but we also bought extras.

Between the two of us, we made 71 jars of soup mix!  We figured up our costs and on average we spent about $1.50 to $2.00 per soup mix (including the price of the jar). I think Ebeth could sell her jars for at least $5-6.00 a piece.  For my part, I’m just happy to have a well stocked pantry and now I also have a nice, inexpensive gift to give to friends at church and neighbors too. Plus I’ll tuck a few into the Christmas boxes I ship. What a great gift to have on hand for that surprise person that you left off of your list too! 

I packed a bag with the Chicken and Rice soup mix plus a can of chicken breast chunks, and tomato sauce for my secret sister as a ‘thank you’ for all the gifts she gave me. Plus I sent a Chili Mac & Beans casserole jar plus a can of tomatoes with green peppers to my own secret sister in a quilted tote bag for her Christmas gift. It’s so nice to have a little something on hand for gift giving during this busy season, don’t you think?  

We made the beef, lentil, and barley soup the other day and it was just heavenly! I loved the recipes so much, that I ordered the Gifts in a Jar~ Cookie Mixes too from Amazon. Of course, I bought it used. Why not? It looked brand new and even had fabric circles and raffia twine still in a bag inside the front cover. But Wal-mart also sells pre-cut circle scraps. They are in the canning section.  I gathered a bunch of scraps in colors that I thought Ebeth would like and loaned her my pinking shears so she can make fabric circles for her jars. 

Really, this is pretty easy, but if you are planning to do a bunch of jars or recipes, like we did, then we suggest that you shop on one day and do the work on the next day. It’s a BIG job! We ordered pizza for dinner. We sure didn’t feel like cooking! Ha!

There are so many resources on the internet for crockpot meals in a jar, soups, cookies, muffins, etc. Just do a quick search for “Gifts in a Jar” and you will find some great ideas for cooking ahead for your family as well as an inexpensive Christmas gift idea that’s a lot of fun to do and special to share as well.

What about you? What is your favorite gift to give for friends and neighbors?

Happy Homemaking!

 

How to Repair Christmas Lights the Easy Way!

Do you see the big smile on my face? Are you wondering why it’s there? Well, let me tell you ALL about it! By the time you are done reading this post, you will be happy too! I promise!

 It’s not just because hubby just finished hanging all the Christmas lights and everything looks so VERY pretty. 
And it’s not because I just repaired SIX sets of old Christmas lights, even the kind with icicles on them, and didn’t have to buy any new ones this year, though I certainly am happy about that.

It’s not just because I bought a Christmas Light Keeper Pro for $18.99 (ouch!) though you are getting much closer.   It’s because this little jewel of a tool REALLY WORKS!!! Yahoo!!  Miracles really do happen and some tools actually DO what they say they do. At least this one certainly does.

I spent an agonizingly painful and frustrating four hours trying to fix one seeming endless string of Christmas lights on Saturday. This is the kind that has a main string of large lights plus many tendrils of smaller ones dangling down from it. If ONE light bulb goes out..you guessed it..they ALL go out. Try finding the bad bulb… I just dare you! It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Discouragement threatened to overcome even ‘never say die’ do-it-yourself and ‘save your money’ me! I know…it is hard to imagine ME giving up on a project.  And to make matters worse, I just detest wasting time and that is exactly what I was doing. I finally gave up in despair and got on the internet (Thank you Lord for this resource!), and typed in “How to Repair Christmas Lights”.  I stumbled upon a rather technical article which explains everything you ever didn’t want to know about how to fix Christmas lights and a lot I’d always been curious about. 

I was fascinated to tell you the truth. But also terrified! I sure didn’t want to replace fuses?? sockets??!! or pull out bulb after bulb to test for the bad one. I knew that that was the normal way to do it, but this was crazy to attempt on a string of icicles.  You can read this truly fabulous article here. Chris Ritter is an electronics wizard! But because I’m NOT one of those kind of people, I was all ready to throw all of the strings in the trash as NONE of them worked right and most, not at all. Then I read his comment about using a Light Keeper or Light Zapper as I call it. And that got my attention. 

If you read his article you will understand completely WHY this thing works. All I can say is that it is WORTH EVERY PENNY of the $18.00 to $20.00 you will spend.  I wasn’t able to fix all of the strings, but I was able to fix most of them. Considering what they cost, I was thrilled not to have to replace them! I need to throw out one string, but the rest should last me for a few more years.

  

How does it work? It’s incredibly simple. The zapper has three small camera type batteries in the head which course electricity through the line. This fuses the little wires (on the left and right) inside the light socket (called shunts) so that the current can go all the way through whether there is a light bulb in the socket or not.

Here are the basic steps I followed…

First, plug in the lights and see if any parts are dark. I had several with dark ‘parts’ on the string. This is because when one light goes out about 15-20 lights go out with it.  You may need to skip down a few more and try again.

Next, pull out the first light that is dark that is closest to the plug. Plug the light socket into the spot on the ‘zapper’ while it is still plugged in and pull the trigger 10-20 times. Sometimes my lights worked after only 3 pulls or less.  If the lights come on, your done! Now go to the next dark part of your string.

 

If you still have dark parts, just plug the plug into your zapper and pull the trigger several times. It will check the whole line all at once this is also helpful if your light bulb sockets are too small or large for the socket checker on the gun.

If the lights don’t come on, you can press down on the current detector and starting where the lights are working start following the line until the zapper stops beeping.

That is where one or two bulbs may be burned out.  Pull out the bulbs, try zapping again, check the bulbs to make sure they are dead or alive and replace the bad bulbs. This can fix the string in a heart beat. Can you believe it? The Light Keeper also has a light bulb checker and it works great!  Be sure to pull the tiny wires out from the sides just a bit so they will make good contact both in the checker and the fuse.

 

If nothing seems to work, pull open the teeny tiny little sliding door on the plug and using a tiny screw driver, remove the fuses. (I know—I didn’t ever notice the little trap doors on the sides of the plugs. Amazing!) Test them on the fuse tester on the top of the gun. If they are bad replace them. You may have to go back to step one after this, but at least now you know the problem isn’t a blown fuse. I had two strings with bad fuses. Probably due to weather or overheating.

Be careful about replacing lights from one set to another. This doesn’t really work if the lights aren’t exact replacements. Sometimes the voltage for the bulb is different which causes it not to shine as bright as the others and will eventually make the bulb blower sooner than necessary. I guess I bought enough at the same time, because I was able to ‘cannibalize’ off of a pretty bad set to repair the more complete strings.  Mr. Ritter suggests always buying one extra string with each type you buy so you will have an exact match and can keep the rest going for several years. This is very smart!

 

Sunday afternoon, I spent a couple of hours fixing all eight sets and was thrilled to find out that even after we hung up lines, and I noticed a dark spot or a bulb that was out, I could just repair the light..even right on the Christmas tree.  This little jewel of a tool is going to keep us ALL happy this Christmas!  I know, $20.00 is a lot of money..but buying new sets of lights is more expensive.

I’ve decided that no homemaker is properly equipped until she has one of these babies! Mr. Ritter said they cost $5.00 at Michaels but that was in 2005.  Our Michaels store doesn’t carry them any more. But Walgreens, Wal-Mart, and Target do carry them. Target had the best price..two dollars cheaper than Wal-mart.  Or you can order one online here. 

Here is a great demo from Youtube that shows how to do everything. There was no point in me doing the whole thing when Zachary Broyles did it so well. :o)

 

This should be your FIRST CHRISTMAS PRESENT of the year. You deserve it!! 

Now, I can truly say, have a great time hanging your Christmas lights this week, because I know you won’t be pulling your hair out in needless frustration. If your MAN does this job..then buy it for him and he will LOVE you for it!

Happy Homemaking!