Hello everyone:
Most of the time, using a dryer sheet is the easiest way to utilize fabric softener. Some towels have an absorbency that is ruined by them, so make sure your towel is not one of them (read the label). [Note: Some exercise clothes cannot be placed in the dryer, so check that out as well. The wicking quality of the clothes is destroyed when they are exposed to heat, so you will need to hang them up to dry.]
Do not put an entire load of laundry in the dryer at the same time unless you don’t want to get your clothes dry anytime soon. Dry the things that have to be hung up first, so that you can take them out while the dryer is still going (before it stops and cools off, that is).
Take the shirts out a couple at a time and hang them up immediately. Remove pants next and hang them up. After these items are out of the dryer, put the rest of the load in and dry it; socks and underwear do not need to be hung up, so you can leave them alone until the dryer is done.
I actually set a portable timer when I have something in the washer and dryer, to remind me to transfer the laundry either into the dryer or onto hangers. I find that 45 minutes is usually enough for my dryer to get things dry; test your machine to see how long it takes to dry items and then set your timer accordingly. Using a timer will save you from having many wrinkles in your clothes.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
A friend of mine had a small child who locked herself in the bathroom when we had gone over to another friend’s house for craft time. We did not realize the child was missing until we took a break for snacks.
The recently-potty trained child had tried to take care of business herself but the house and its locks were old and the little girl did not know how to get out of the bathroom once she was inside. We knew nothing about tools and had to call 911 to extricate the child from her dilemma.
If you would like to avoid having fire trucks show up at your place, I will guide you through the tools you need to have on hand and will end with how to remove a locked door.
You need to have the following items in your tool box: two screwdrivers (Phillips head and flat head), pliers, wire cutters, picture hangers, wrenches, a hammer, and duct tape.
My sister-in-law also finds that a retraceable exacto-type knife comes in handy because when the blade gets dull, you can break it off and a new one appears.
Here’s the thing about tools: you get what you pay for. If you buy cheap tools, they will not last and you will end up frustrated when they cannot do what you need them to do. If you buy Sears Craftsman tools, they come with a lifetime warranty and Sears will replace them if they break.
Your toddler or grandchild has just locked him or herself in your bathroom. Short of calling 911, how do you get the child out? It depends on the type of doorknob that you have (and how old it is). If it is a relatively new doorknob, you should have a small hole in the center of the handle. These locks usually came with a key-type piece of metal. It is recommended that you keep this metal key on top of your door frame, in case of emergency. Rub your hand over the top of the door, to see if your key is there. If it is, poke the piece of metal into the door knob until you hear a “click.” The door should now be unlocked. If you have a flat-sided key, then you may have to poke it into the handle and turn the key in order to get the door to unlock.
With some older doors, there is no hole to poke into the handle. Grab a Phillips head screwdriver (the one that looks like a starburst on the tip) and head towards the door. Remove the screws on the side of the handle that are visible from your side of the door. [Note: Keep the screws local- you will need them after you get the child out of the room.] Reach into the lock mechanism and unlock the door. Plan on putting the handle back on the door after the child is freed. You will do this by putting the screws you took out a few minutes ago, putting them back on the handle area, and screwing them back into place.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Women should also keep in mind the need to have a marketable skill, even if their plan is to get married and live happily ever after with their husband supporting them.
My sister-in-law has had a ministry to recent widows and she tells the story of many older women who, after they get over the shock of losing their husband, suddenly realize that he had little or no life insurance and that they do not have any income.
One of the women she ministered to was so unfamiliar with the ways of the business world that she started to work for someone, only to learn later that the person was paying her poverty-level wages. She was unable to maintain even a small house on her income and had to turn to her church for help.
She is in better financial shape these days, yet she has no money for anything except the bare necessities of life. If she had not been involved with a widows group, who knows where she would be today, since no one would have been aware of her extreme situation.
While we are on the topic of marketable skills, one of the smartest women I know is a gal with a boatload of little kids who decided she, as a stay-at-home mom of five, needed to have something to fall back on when her kids were grown or if something should happen to her husband.
She loved to tell stories and enjoyed romantic fiction, so she took some classes in how to write and launched a new career after the kids were in bed for the night. She has written more than 30 books of inspirational fiction and definitely has a career that can support her, should the unthinkable happen. It did.
What ideas do you have for possessing marketable skills that will protect you from financial disaster?
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
When Do You Need to Buy More?
When the bottle of ketchup or the container of strawberries gets low, you probably know it. Would you rather run completely out of something, need it desperately, and then have to make an emergency run to the store to buy it? Nope, I didn’t think so.
When you see that the bottle that you have is less than half full, start looking for specials for that product. If something is on sale, don’t buy ten bottles if you live alone, but do stock up.
[Note: Things rot and products have expiration dates. Be sure to check the dates on the side of the container. If you think you won’t use it up by then, only buy one, not fifteen. Even if it is a really good deal, if you aren’t going to use it before it expires, then it really is not wise to buy too many of whatever it is.]
What is your favorite story of when you bought too many and the expiration date arrived too soon?
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Garage doors are an awesome thing, especially if you have an electric garage door opener. Pulling them up and down under your own power can be a wet activity if it is raining and a snowy activity if it is snowing, so it’s just plain nice to have an electric one do the job for you.
If you lose the power to your house, you will find it difficult to get your car out of the garage, so you will have to pull the emergency cord that hangs down from the opener in order to release the lock it has on the door. If you pull this rope, it will disengage from the opener. This will allow you to manually open the door and get your car out. Once you are outside, pull the garage door down by hand and turn the handle so that the door locks.
Your garage door opener will not work when you come back home after the power is on. You will have to go into the house, come through the garage, get on a ladder, and reattach the opener. Release the door lock on the door so that your garage door opener can function properly.
[Note: If you do not do this correctly, you could really mess up the garage door, which would collapse under the strain of being opened when it is locked. You do not want that to happen, so make sure that everything is hooked back up correctly and that the door is unlocked.]
If you have done it right, you will then be able to push the garage door opener button and pull your car back inside. If you have not done it properly, you will destroy your garage door.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Vesta Stoudt from Johnson & Johnson invented duct tape; she deserves our life-long praise. This marvelous tool can be used to secure screens on windows (perhaps not the best of uses but it kept bugs out of my condo when I was a single gal with no clue how to tighten the screw things that held my screens in place).
It is used to stick things together and it works very well. It is available in a variety of colors in your local craft and hobby store; however, I have found that it will not hold a heavy air vent air re-director in place over time. [While visiting my condo in Florida, I was freezing because the air conditioning was blowing right on my desk. I bought an air vent re-director thingy and tried to attach it to the vent. My purchase had magnets on it, but the vent was made of plastic, so they wouldn’t stick to one another. I bought some of my beloved duct tape (in white, so it would match the vent) and used some of the tape to attach the vent cover to the vent. It did not last long; I should have used screws.]
Duct tape can also be used to keep water from your shower from getting into that circular thingy that seems to serve no purpose in your shower. You know the thingy- it is under the faucet, taking up space for no apparent reason. You have to keep the thing clean and shiny or you look like a slob- you know what I am talking about, right? Well, if you have a water leakage problem, I have seen duct tape used to block water from getting underneath it and spoiling the ceiling in the room underneath your bathroom. This should not be a long-term fix, but it can help out in the short term.
What creative uses do you have for duct tape?
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Do you know what day the trash is collected in your area? How about knowing when the recycle folks show up? What time do you need to have the trashcans out at the curb? Where should you place them? How much time do you have to bring them back to the house? (This could be an issue with your homeowners’ association.) Are there any special restrictions on what you can place at the curb?
If you haven’t been paying attention to these details, talk to your neighbors or observe what they are doing. Your local county is also a good source of information on trash. Visit their website or give them a call to find out what is or is not acceptable.
Garbage cans can be extremely heavy when they are full, so either do not fill them completely, use more than one garbage can so that the weight is more evenly distributed, or get a dolly to roll the can to the curb.
I do not recommend putting the garbage can in the back of your car; even if you could lift it (this sounds like a hernia operation waiting to happen); if the trash spills out you could end up with a very smelly trunk.
Make every effort to get rid of your trash on a weekly basis. The longer it hangs around, the more likely you will attract bugs, rodents, or other small animals. Trash does not get better with time. It also does not go away on its own. (Think Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie, here!)
You can also purchase garbage cans that have wheels. They come in very handy if you need to pull your garbage can to the curb for pickup. You may wish to put your house number on the side of the can so that you can identify it from those of your neighbors; a magic marker usually works well on providing the cans with permanent identification. Again, be sure to follow the homeowners’ association rules for when you’re your garbage can be placed at the curb and the deadline by which it must be removed.
What tips do you have for garbage removal? I would love to hear from you!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
An acquaintance of mine was divorced when her hubby decided to marry his long-time girlfriend. She sold their marital house and planned on moving; she had spent a few years trying to maintain their former dream home on her own.
She had two children to support, the house was very expensive to keep, and her ex had petitioned the court to reduce her alimony and child support because he and his girlfriend had one child and another on the way. By that time, my acquaintance had begun dating a fellow from a nearby state; they saw each other every three weeks…for the weekend, if you get my drift.
When it came time for her to move into a smaller home, her boyfriend told her he would call her “after you get settled.” Translation: “You’re moving, I only want you for the sex you provide, and I’m not helping you move.”
Where could she go from there? She couldn’t afford a mover, so she and her other single gal friends did it themselves. My hubby and I lent a hand with the heavier items, out of pity for her difficult situation. She had ordered a new bed, but for some reason, had it delivered to her old house. She couldn’t lift it and now she had to move it. My hubby and some of the other men in the neighborhood helped her move it, but what if they hadn’t been around? Lesson here: get your new bed delivered to your new home, not the old one.
When we all arrived at her new home, we discovered that her upstairs bathroom toilet was leaking and had flooded the floor and the ceiling of her dining room. It was not a pleasant start to her new life.
What moving tales of woe can you share?
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
For my divorced readers, it is my earnest hope that your spouse did not control the finances of your family exclusively. You should have had your own savings and checking accounts so that you had some control over your own expenses.
Not having access to your own money is a recipe for disaster, if you have become suddenly single. When a very close friend of mine became unexpectedly unmarried, her estranged spouse allegedly cleaned out three bank accounts that they had jointly, leaving her with a grand total of $6 for the next two weeks before pay day.
By removing a check from the middle of the checkbook, she did not notice that one was missing when she picked up the checkbook to pay bills. She received a call from a friend at her bank the next afternoon; the banker told her that her estranged husband entered the bank, asked how much he had to leave in the accounts so that his withdrawing money would not trigger a special statement ($2 in each account), and took out the rest of the money.
Fortunately, she had thought ahead and had opened a personal checking account and deposited her paycheck for that week in the account, so things were not as disastrous as they could have been. She still had to cover the checks she had written before becoming aware of the situation and she thereby avoided bank charges that would have otherwise been incurred. I hope that you were not in this same situation; I hope that you had your own money, no matter how little the amount.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Garage doors are an awesome thing, especially if you have an electric garage door opener. Pulling them up and down under your own power can be a wet activity if it is raining and a snowy activity if it is snowing, so it’s just plain nice to have an electric one do the job for you.
If you lose the power to your house, you will find it difficult to get your car out of the garage, so you will have to pull the emergency cord that hangs down from the opener in order to release the lock it has on the door. If you pull this rope, it will disengage from the opener. This will allow you to manually open the door and get your car out. Once you are outside, pull the garage door down by hand and turn the handle so that the door locks.
Your garage door opener will not work when you come back home after the power is on. You will have to go into the house, come through the garage, get on a ladder, and reattach the opener. Release the door lock on the door so that your garage door opener can function properly.
[Note: If you do not do this correctly, you could really mess up the garage door, which would collapse under the strain of being opened when it is locked. You do not want that to happen, so make sure that everything is hooked back up correctly and that the door is unlocked.]
If you have done it right, you will then be able to push the garage door opener button and pull your car back inside. If you have not done it properly, you will destroy your garage door.
What tales of woe can you share about your garage door?
Best,
Dr. Sheri