This is just a reminder that there will be no coupon inserts this week December 21st or December 28th. No need to buy extra papers.

What is Free Shipping Day? Thursday, December 18th, 2008 is Free Shipping Day. It's a day when participating merchants give free shipping to online shoppers with guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve. Free Shipping Day is the last chance for many procrastinators.

Some stores are offering free standard shipping on any order, some are offering free 2 day shipping, and some are offering free shipping with a minimum purchase, so it varies.

Click here for more details.

My mother-in-law sent me an email with a bunch of tips. The type of tips that seem to get passed on from one generation to another. Let me know if you try any of them and how they worked out.


Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to pick the little 'stringy things' off of it.


Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.


Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold.


Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.

Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.


Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.


Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if you want a stronger taste of garlic.


Leftover snickers bars from Halloween (is there such a thing as leftover snickers?) make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream.


Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza.

To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

Newspaper weeds away: Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go. Cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic but should not gt through the newspapers.

Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.

Place dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.

Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry the cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car. When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth.

If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. It unseals easily.

Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.

To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2' with Apple cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it 'home', can't digest it so they die. It works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed.

The Heating unit went out on my dryer. The repair man told us he wanted to show us something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load of clothes). The repair man took the filter over to the sink and ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material... I'm sure you know what your dryer's lint filter looks like. Well... the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! it didn't go through it at all!

He told us that the dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh and that's what burns out the heating unit. You can't see the film, but it's there. It's what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free... that nice fragrance too. you know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box... well this stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to potentially burn your house down with it.

The repair man said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (and to keep your electric bill a little lower) is to take that filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months. He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long!

My mother-in-law actually tried this. She put water on the screen and it ran through a little bit but mostly collected all the water in the mesh screen. Then she washed it with warm soapy water and a brush and in 30 seconds rinsed it and the water ran right through the screen.

If you are like me, my spring cleaning has become fall cleaning. SC Johnson has put together a plan to help us out. Each week focuses on a new way to get your house sparkling! Join in and then if you want, share your own cleaning stories and tips. Click here for great tips and cleaning schedule.

The Fly Lady is another great cleaning resource-

Are YOU living in CHAOS? (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) Do you feel overwhelmed, overextended, and overdrawn? Hopeless and you don't know where to start? Don't worry friend, we've been there, too. Read on...

How to Get StartedDon't be overwhelmed by all the material on this site - take it a little piece at a time - BabySteps. To get started, check out the Getting Started section - it will tell you how to begin. You can have this peace, too, and it won't cost you a dime! We want you to just jump in where you are!

Happy cleaning! Not!

Here come the holidays. Food safety has always been a concern of mine. I'm a bit of a nut about it especially when it comes to meat. Below is a portion of an article from the Prepared Pantry and a link to the rest of the article.

Nothing will spoil your upcoming holiday quicker than food poisoning and yet there are millions of cases each year in the U.S. Most cases are mild—not much more than an inconvenience—but some are serious and occasionally fatal. You can protect your food, your families, and your guests by following few safety precautions.

Understanding Potentially Hazardous Foods
The FDA categorizes foods as “potentially hazardous” (PHF) and not potentially hazardous.

Though there are exceptions such as, some pies with a high sugar content, if it is moist, it is likely to be potentially hazardous. So your favorite casserole is potentially hazardous while the chocolate chip cookies that you baked yesterday are not. The cookie dough is and should be refrigerated because it is moist. Banana bread is likely potentially hazardous while a banana muffin may not be—it all depends on the moisture. (If there are chunks of bananas in either, they are likely potentially hazardous.) .....

....Remember that leaving the food on the counter for an hour will allow existing bacteria to multiply. Placing it in the refrigerator will cause them to become inactive, once the food is thoroughly chilled, only to become active and begin multiplying again if the food is subsequently left out.

Understanding Potentially Hazardous Foods
FDA Meat Safety Chart

Today I received the following email from Microsoft. While this is for MSN or Hotmail users, I think it applies to anyone using email.

The 5 top ways you can protect yourself from phishing and scam email messages

1) Be wary of e-mails asking for your personal information.
Any unsolicited e-mail asking for your name, birth date, social security number, e-mail username, e-mail password, or any other type of personal information, no matter who the e-mail appears to be from, is almost certainly a scam. Legitimate companies will never ask for this information through email.

If you have any reason to believe it may be legitimate, do not reply to the e-mail or click any hyperlinks; instead copy and paste the web URL or go to that company's website for contact information. Don't hesitate to contact the company's support channel to confirm legitimacy or check out a site such as snopes.com which lists e-mail scams.

2) Carefully read e-mails that appear suspicious.
E-mails that are poorly worded, have typos, or have phrases such as "this is not a joke" or "forward this message to your friends" are generally scam e-mails.

Sometimes company names or brands are misspelled or inaccurate; such as saying Windows Hotmail (instead of Windows Live™ Hotmail) or Bank of Amarika (instead of Bank of America).
Read about the 5 most common e-mail scams, and learn to recognize them.

3) Protect your password.
Create a strong password for your Hotmail account by using more than 7 characters and having a combination of upper and lower case characters, numbers, and special characters, like the @ or # symbols. It's also a good idea to change your password on a regular basis. Learn More.

If you receive a notification from Microsoft Customer Support confirming your request to change your password, as I did this past week, and you haven't recently changed your password, that's a signal that someone else may be trying to gain access to your account, and you should immediately change your password.

To do so, either go to http://microsoft.windowslive.com/Key=16569.hcwj.G.H0.LXs3p9, or within Hotmail, click Options, then View and Edit your Personal Information. You will be prompted to log in again. Once you do, look for "Password reset information" under your name at the top. Change both your password and your Secret Question/Secret Answer as both may have been compromised.

4) Take action!
If you think someone has accessed your Hotmail account, that the Windows Live ID sign-in page looks fraudulent, or you receive a suspicious e-mail that tries to confirm a password change you didn't authorize, change your password immediately via the instructions above, or go to: http://microsoft.windowslive.com/Key=16569.hcwj.G.H0.LXs3p9. Next, help ensure your PC has not been infected with a virus or malware by running a free full-PC scan.

5) Help us identify new scams.
If you're using the Full version of Hotmail, you can select the dropdown next to "Junk", then select "Report phishing scam". Whatever you do, do not reply back to the sender.
You can read more about this topic here:
5 Most Common E-mail Scams
Hotmail Phishing Scam
A Day in the Life of a Phisher
How to handle suspicious e-mail

I encourage you to keep this e-mail for future reference on what to do if you do receive a scam e-mail so that you can help keep your inbox more safe and secure.
Sincerely,
Lisa
Windows Live Newsletter Editor
Windows Live Hotmail Team

I sign up for a lot off free items offered by legitimate companies. I realize however, that bad people can do bad things with good information. That's why any information I provide to a company is altered except for my mailing address. Other than having a P.O. Box I can't hide the fact that I actually live somewhere. I have a junk email address. I know any email received at that address that's claiming anything or asking for anything trying to look legitimate is junk, no question, deleted. I use a fake name and birth date (which they ask for to verify age requirements).

Any junk mail I receive through doing this I probably want because it's usually a coupon or a sample of a new product coming out . No one cares if my name really isn't Ruby, they just want me to try their products. Have you ever received mail that has your name listed and then says "or current resident"? They just want a warm body to see their stuff.

So the idea is to be selective. Don't sign up for an offer that asks you to meet participation requirements. Any free offer should be just that, free, no strings attached. If you're not comfortable with it, don't sign up for it. Yes they collect information for marketing purposes but follow the suggestions above and you won't have your information floating out there.

Remember to shred any piece of paperwork that has any identifiable information on it before you throw it in the trash. This could be bills, junk credit card solicitations, medicine bottle labels, an envelope from a birthday invitation etc. You never can be too careful.

Also, it may be inconvenient for someone but don't list yourself in the phone book. This makes things 10 times harder for people to find you that shouldn't. Any legitimate person trying to find you probably has better ways than the phone book anyhow.