Storing Celery

This post has been a long time coming. Really. I tried this test probably 6 months ago, but then forgot to check it out later - or compare it with a different method to see if it actually worked. I finally got around to trying it again and I'm quite pleased I did!

Did you know that if you wrap celery in tin foil it will last longer? True story. I found this out through a test. To read more about long-term produce storage, check out this link.

Here's how I tested this theory. I took two healthy, ripe heads of celery. I wrapped one as I traditionally would - in a paper towel, and I wrapped the other one in tin foil.

I put them in my fridge and used them as needed. After just one week, the celery in the paper towel had wilted and was limp, while the celery in the tin foil was still strong and tight.

I'd say this test was a definitely success. So, in the future, I will continue to wrap my celery in tin foil. This was definitely a handy trick that I'm glad I learned! I hope it helped you too.

Celery that was in a paper towel

Celery that was in tin foil

AAA Batteries and Tinfoil

And now for another edition of the Pinterest Test, fail series! Recently, I found a post on Pinterest that if you put tinfoil and AAA batteries where AA batteries go, it'll work. Naturally, I had to give this method a try.

Photo from Pinterest

So, I took the well-working AA batteries out of my computer mouse and tried it. This is what the back of the mouse looks like when the batteries are working - see the little tiny green light above the green "on" switch? If the batteries are dead that won't light up. My mouse was obviously a good device to try this on since there's a tell-tale sign as to whether or not it will work.

I got a bit of tin foil, wrapped the AAA batteries up and stuffed them as best I could into the mouse; being sure that the batteries, the foil and the connector thingamajig were all touching. No success.

Next, I tried using one AA battery and one AAA battery with foil - just for kicks. Again, to no avail.

No tiny, happy green light here...

So, I went back to my good ol' standby, ever faithful (until they die) AA batteries. And my mouse purred back to life. That's kinda of an odd sentence...a mouse purring...anyway...

As far as I can tell, for this average gal, this is a fail. Maybe if I invested a ridiculous amount of time I may have gotten it to work, but I am not lacking that much in AA batteries and I'm fairly certain they aren't that much cheaper when you consider the amount of time you have to put in to making the batteries work - that is, if it could actually work. So...there's my two cents. Stick with the AA batteries - less hassle and works like a charm.

As an added treat, because I didn't give you any cool new trick to try - check out the post that this idea came from - there are other ideas on there that I know work wonders, so you could have some fun looking at that, if nothing else. Check it out here.

UPDATE: A friend of mine, posted this comment, so I thought I'd share: As an expert on the subject of using the wrong size batteries in things (my D cell mag-lite is currently powered by AAAs and duct tape) I can say that your failure is likely a result of a short circuit in your tin-foiling. The batteries are most likely wired in series on the mouse interior, which means the foil on the + side should not be touching one another in your solution. Your second attempt (with one AA and one AAA) was more likely to work in this case, but since it did not, I can only speculate that the foil was touching the metal at the top the slot of the opposite battery, creating the same short circuit. Get some tape into the mix, to isolate the connections, and you'll probably have more success.

So, I stand corrected. I may have to try this method - but in the meantime, I will be content to just use my good ol' AA batteries.

How To Cut An Onion

Who knew that there was actually a proper way to cut an onion? I had no idea...until recently! Thank you, Pinterest! To see how to do this for yourself, check out this blog.

Photo from Pinterest

So, the other day I posted a terrific turkey soup recipe, and in the process, I did a double-whammy Pinterest Test, because I did this test as well!

Just follow the steps on thankyourbody's blog, and you will be thanking me for sending you to their blog. Isn't it funny? Rather than coming up with my own special stuff, I use other people's...definitely not very original. Oh well, you can thank me for sending you to thankyourbody's blog anyway. :)

This was seriously no harder than cutting an onion any other way, in fact, it made it easier for keeping the onion together.

See how nicely it stayed together? Only the cuts at the end fell apart. And, not only that, it seems I usually lose a lot of my onion when taking off the skin (is it just me?). This prevented that as well!

I don't generally like big slices of onion, so I then cut my onions again and since onions have layers (as anybody who has seen Shrek knows), the layers were already individualized anyway, so this just made my cutting that much easier!

Seriously! This took no time at all and it was so much easier. Yeah, you should do this...unless you have a skill for knife-weilding...then you keep doing it your way. I, however, do not. And this was terrific.

Traveling: The Spills

Have you ever flown somewhere only to land at your destination and discover your shampoo has exploded all over your luggage? Yeah...*ahem*...me neither. Honestly though, I think I learned this the hard way; if you don't put it in a plastic bag, it's gonna explode on everything and not just your other toiletries. It's quite frustrating. However, there is a solution! To read about this and many other traveling tips, check out this blog.

Photo from Pinterest

Just wrap your full-sized lotions, shampoos, etc. with plastic wrap! How easy is that?! I tried this recently as we flew to Texas for Thanksgiving. I've not had the experience of exploding lotions and shampoos all that often, other than when it was already in a plastic bag. But, pulling it out of the plastic bag afterwards is messy and the bag can't really be reused as easily. So, I gave this option a try.

 I struggled with it just a bit because it wanted to bunch up as I would tighten the lid on my lotion, but it still worked! My lotion and shampoo and other toiletries made it to Texas without any fluids coming out. It was most excellent.

So, there you have it. A quick, cheap little trick for you travelers out there. Happy trails!

No More Monkeys Falling Off The Bed

As we transition from one child to two, we've been slowly preparing our son for this transition. One of the ways we are doing this is by "upgrading" our son to a "big boy bed." The only dilemma? There are no stores locally that sell bed railings! Well, I later found that is not actually true - they sell them at a bunch of the second hand stores, but I didn't think to look at any of those. And, being the impatient person that I am, I didn't wait for him to sleep in his big boy bed until after we'd ordered a railing - we improvised - of course, thanks to something I'd found on Pinterest. The link on Pinterest, just takes you to a picture - so I'll just post the picture here and you can just check out my blog instead.

Photo from Pinterest

The pool noodle I had purchased at the dollar tree was smaller around than the one in the picture above, but it still seemed to work fairly well - after we made some adjustments. We put a plastic mattress cover on the twin size mattress we used for my son, and we discovered quickly that the noodle was very slick on the mattress. It did very little to protect my poor guy from discovering the ground in the middle of the night.

But, thanks to my mom's genius idea, we found a solution! Rather than having the pool noodle directly on the slippery plastic mattress cover, we laid down shelf liner on top of the mattress cover and below the pool noodle.

And it worked!! I laid the liner the length of the noodle, although I'm fairly certain you wouldn't need to use that much.

It now stays in place and doesn't move almost at all. I think a slightly bigger pool noodle may be a slightly more effective as my son moves a whole lot, but the only time he's actually gone over the noodle was when he was already halfway over it when he fell asleep. I'd say this is definitely a good way to be thrifty, keep your kiddo safe and not spend a bunch of money that would make changing the sheets and remaking the bed a bit more challenging. I like this idea, a lot. And, it appears that my son does as well.

How To Freeze Cookie Dough

I love chocolate chip cookies - especially my mom's. Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious. She makes the best chocolate chip cookies around. And now, thanks to my mama, I do too. I stole her recipe years and years ago and now whenever I get the hankering, I can make myself a batch. The bad news is because I stole my mom's recipe, there is no need for her to make me cookies because I apparently can do it myself. D'oh!! Thankfully, if I look pathetic enough, my mom will make me some anyway. I sure have a great mom. I truly do try not to have her make cookies too too often for me, so whenever I make them, I make a double batch and freeze a whole bunch (probably about three-quarters) of the dough.

So, this post is a little bit of a cheat. I didn't get this idea off of Pinterest; it's just something I do and love and thought I'd share it with others.

I start out by making my cookie dough and then baking however many cookies I want. While waiting to put the rest in the freezer and making my batches of cookies, I generally put the dough in the fridge. It may not make a difference, but I think it keeps a little better that way.

After I've made all of the cookies I want, I get out my plastic wrap and my cookie dough and I get to work.

Don't mind the crayons and other crafties on the counter - my son and I were having fun right before I took a moment to make up the freezer dough

Obviously you will want to wash your hands first as you will be handling the dough. I generally use my cookie dough scoop and scoop a bunch into my hand and lay it out as nicely and neatly as I can onto a piece of plastic wrap.

Wrap it all up so it's completely covered and then get out another piece of plastic wrap and wrap it again. I generally wrap it a different direction than the first-time around to ensure that it is truly all wrapped up and sealed.

There you have it. All ready to go in the freezer and it takes up very little space. Because it is just my husband, my son and myself at the moment, this generally will give each of us 2-3 cookies. Well, honestly I don't generally make these until my son goes to bed. So selfish, I tell ya. Either way, it still makes enough cookies for me and my husband. However, if there is more of you in your family that you'll have to make for, you may want to use 2 of your frozen cookie dough rolls.

There you have it. Super easy and so nice to not have to make up cookie dough every time I have an inkling for a cookie - just pull out the dough and let it thaw for 5 minutes. There is no residual freezer-burn taste (and they have, at times - on rare occasions - been in the freezer for nearly 6 months) and they taste just like I had made the cookie dough that day. I love this trick. It's so nice to not have to go to all the extra work of making cookie dough just so I can satisfy that desire to have 2-3 cookies one evening. Besides, this is a great way to work on portion control. At least it always helps me. 

Hope you found this helpful! Have a great day!

Cookie Dough Scoops = The Multi-Scooper-Tool!

I found this tip on Pinterest once, but for the life of me, I can't locate it now. That's the biggest problem with pinning so many things; you have so many things pinned, you forget where to look sometimes!

Anyway, this is a short, sweet and to the point blog. Here are some great tips for your cookie dough scoopers:

1)  Use it to scoop muffin mix or cupcake mix into cupcake liners!! I'm sure many of you already knew this, but this was a new idea to me. Such a simple solution and yet, I never thought of it!

2) If you are having a bunch of kids (or adults) over for a little party and you plan on serving ice cream, use your cookie dough scooper or ice cream scoop and scoop the ice cream into cupcake liners and put the pan with the ice cream back in the freezer. Now you have pre-scooped ice cream ready to go! No more I scream, you scream we all scream for ice cream; there won't be time for that with ice cream already being munched on before you get past the "I."

Who knew you could use your cookie dough scoop for scooping things other than cookie dough. Novel idea, I tell ya. I have to say, I do feel a bit ridiculous having not figured this one out on my own. It's a simple solution that I just hadn't thought of...hopefully somebody else will be in the same boat with me and will have never thought of it either. Anybody? Anybody at all?

Dry erase marker + washer/dryer = no more shrunken sweaters!

The title says it all, folks! I recently went on a surprise trip to Disneyland for my birthday. I know, I'm INCREDIBLY spoiled! Part of the gift of the trip (as if the trip wasn't enough by itself!) was my choice of any (1) article of clothing. Seeing as how I am a stay-at-home mommy, sweatshirts are my go-to clothing choice. Unfortunately, pretty much every time I've tried to find a sweatshirt at Disneyland, they always have a character on them and, outside of wearing them in the parks, I know I wouldn't honestly wear it much. So, I usually just get our traditional mouse ears (yes, we are that nerdy and, yes, I know we wouldn't wear those anywhere other than in the parks...probably) and longingly wish for a sweatshirt that is cute and not too...animated.  This trip clinched it for me! I found the perfect sweatshirt!

Cute, right? The sweatshirt, that is. 

Anyway, I was so very excited to find it! Unfortunately, the only size they had was a size smaller than I would normally buy or ones that would be quite a bit too big on me. I was pretty disappointed...for a moment. Until I decided "hey! I'll just NEVER dry it - it'll be a-ok!" So, we bought it! I've been incredibly nervous about washing it, thinking surely I would forget and it would end up in the dryer which, in turn, would mean my dear little 4-year-old niece would end up with my wonderful long-awaited, slightly expensive sweatshirt.

In steps Pinterest to save the day! Did you know that you can use a dry-erase marker on your washer/dryer to remind you not to put things in the dryer (or, for whatever else you may choose to write on there)? You probably did. But, I didn't...until Pinterest. YAY! There's no blog to this - it was just a picture. So, here's my picture as an example.

My fear was gone! I did keep my Disneyland sweatshirt out of the dryer and it is still the same, wonderful size it was when I bought it! YAY!! (By the way, my Wicked the Musical sweatshirt also stayed out of the dryer and will not experience anymore shrinkage, just in case you were wondering.)

The writing did wipe off of the dryer easily as well, however there was a slight green color on the dryer after wiping it off. You can just take a wet washcloth or some windex and it'll look as bright as ever. 

I will definitely be doing this again! What a life (er...sweatshirt) saver!

Easy shower caddy holder

I found on Pinterest this wonderful idea of hanging a shower caddy on the opposite side of the shower with a coat hook so it doesn't interfere with the faucet. I thought this was a great idea. Not because we've had problems with the caddies interfering with the faucet, but because I've tried shower caddies multiple times, but the "neck" of our shower head doesn't accommodate shower caddies; it's just too wide.

So, I wanted to give this a try! However, I am power tools illiterate and didn't want to screw anything into my bathroom without my husband's help...and...unfortunately, I am impatient and didn't want to  wait. So, I didn't. I improvised. And, I'm still quite impressed with myself for it.

I used one of those stick-on hooks. We have used them for our RV to hang coats and such, and they can take quite a bit of weight - plus, I did get one that could hold heavier weights - like a seriously weighted down shower caddy. I mean, seriously, who doesn't need a shampoo bottle the size of texas for a family of 3??

Anyway, I hung up the power-tool-free hook and waited the LONG hour (I told you I'm impatient!) that I had to wait before I put any weight on it. Then, I hung my shower caddy, decided what I wanted on it and looked on with pride at the work I had done...beautiful.

(Ok...moment of truth: my shower caddy is actually far fuller than this normally, but I wanted to make it look more aesthetically pleasing for the picture...and I'm not regretting that choice at all. It looks good!)

I've had it hanging now for over a month and it has served me well, never wavering in its ability to hold onto my shower caddy and the items it holds. I am quite pleased.

Side note: did you notice that scrub brush on my shower caddy? That is how I clean my shower - another Pinterest Test that has proven to work! But, that's for a later post...

Editor's note: The exact make of the hook I used was the "iDesign adhesive!" Attached is a picture so  you know what to look for.