Spring clean your computer in 6 steps
Spring might be a ways off (especially in the Southern Hemisphere) but any time is good for a clean-up — for your computer as well as your home. This advice is for Windows XP, Vista or 7 (sorry Mac/Linux users but I wouldn’t know where to start!) and should be super-easy for anyone to follow.
Go paperless at home: 7 ideas for less clutter, less stress, and more free mindspace
So much paper comes into my house that I just don’t care about. Bills that don’t change month-to-month but that I should keep for my records, receipts, healthcare info, manuals — it’s all stuff I don’t WANT but I need to keep, just in case. Sound familiar? In an effort to make all our lives less cluttered, here are seven ways to get after a paperless house.
Tricks for storing holiday decorations so you can actually use them again
I love Christmas decos — it’s a chance to hide all the bits of the house I don’t like. But by March or April I really have to take them down again. Luckily, I’ve gotten really good at putting those decorations away so I can use them again next Christmas — no more broken baubles on the slate floor.
You owe me a dollar! A self-improving way to save for big goals.
My beloved and I are not the neatest people on earth. We try, and we spend quite a bit of time each week cleaning up our humble little home, but ultimately the place is usually a little messy.
That being said, he has a habit of leaving his shoes smack in the middle of the front door, and I trip over them every day when I get home from work. This shit drives me INSANE.
One day I snapped. I told him every time he leaves his shoes in front of the door he owes me a dollar. The habit persisted, and every dollar he gives me goes straight into our wedding bank.
How to blend two schools of thought about cleaning under one roof
I try to do daily cleaning until I get behind and overwhelmed. Then he will take a weekend and do a massive cleaning. We both end up feeling like the other one never does any cleaning. How can we find a better compromise?
Our family closet: we wash, dry, and store our clothes in one room
Family closets are usually used by large families but you don’t have to have five or more kids to benefit from a family closet. Heck, you don’t even need to have a kid to enjoy the ease of keeping all the clean laundry in one place.
De-mane the drain
My mane is a formidable opponent to my shower drain. After a few weeks of hair washing my nightly showers turn into shaths — that uncomfortable combination of showering and wading in backed up bath water.
I feel like I’m doing a great disservice to the environment by reaching for the Drano, and often envision a whale keeling over when I use it. I was wondering if any Homies have some proven natural concoctions for drain unclogging.
Housekeeping realization: put your toiletries in baskets to keep your bathroom organized
My housemate Darby and I — we’re very similar — seem to be constantly figuring out really simple things, like what people use baskets for. Sometimes we feel like our brains just don’t work, especially when it comes to putting things away. If that makes sense to you, this is the thread in which to share the incredibly dumb things you’re incredibly proud of having figured out.