Ask The Helpful Housewife

Wanna score some great swag? You'll love this!

Yeah, I need to get back to work on here!  I've been off enjoying the pool with the kids in this summer heat instead of paying attention to my favorite little corner of the web!  And it has turned into a little sweepstakes storefront it seems, hasn't it?  But that's OK, because you are going to LOVE this giveaway!  And I mean LOVE it!   When I got these in the mail, I flipped over them - too cute and fun! I wish I could post a photo of them here, but the best I can do is send you to the website to see them....

PLEASE KEEP GOING!!! GIVEAWAY DETAILS ARE AT THE BOTTOM!!!

Presenting:  Ouchies Bandages!  These are the coolest thing!  They are bandages for booboos, real and imaginary, that are far from the boring old peach color that blends right in.  They come in three styles:  Teen-ages for girls, Teen-ages for boys, and Make Your Own.  Yes!  You read that right!  MAKE YOUR OWN!  How sweet is that?!

I got these a couple weeks ago, but didn't post until today.  I wanted to put them through their paces.  Of course they passed the style factor with my kids.  And me!  I want to wear one as a fashion statement!  But I wanted to test them for product effectiveness.  Sure enough, it wasn't long until Annika scraped her knee! 

These things stick like crazy glue, but they don't irritate the skin.  They protect the skin very well, are thick and durable, and don't flop off when they jump in the pool.  A big plus for my whiny kids!  At one point they were all fighting over a temporary tattoo as well.  Four kids, one tattoo.  You can imagine my joy...  The bandages saved the day!  They were all thrilled to have one instead!

They retail at $5 per box, and come with 20 per tin in different designs.  The tins themselves are darn cute!  I'll be keeping mine to put all kinds of knitting notions and stuff in after the bandages are gone!

So, here's the dealio on the freebies you can win...

I'm giving away an Ouchies 3-pack, including 1 each of Boys, Girls and Make-Your-Own bandages to 3, count 'em, 3 lucky readers!  That's 3 prize packs up for grabs! 

In order to win, you need to do the following:

1.  Leave a comment here telling me to enter you in the contest.

2.  Become a fan of "Ask The Helpful Housewife" on facebook.

3.  Send an email to thehelpfulhousewife with a fashion statement you'd like to make with the bandages yourself as a mom!

I'll announce the winners on July 17th, so that should be plenty of time to get your entries in!   

EcoStore USA Has Another Hit On Their Hands!!!

I know that I have told you before how much I absolutely love this company's product line, but EcoStore USA deserves yet another post about one of their proven winners!  Their Naturally Active Pure Oxygen Whitener has far surpassed my strict testing requirements!  Not only is it 100% natural and oh-so-gentle on mama earth, this stuff whitens like you wouldn't believe!  I love it!  

I tried it several ways.  First I used it on a load of regular whites, and then put them in the dryer.  They came out so nice and bright!  The dingies were gone!  Then, I washed a second load of whites that were a bit faded and greyed out, and hung them on the line.  Well, as you know, sunlight is a natural bleach for whites.  The combine power of the two was even more amazing!  It was like the scene in "Friends" when Ross had bleached his teeth!  No lie!  

It even brightened and whitened a load that had accidently had a red beach towel mixed in with it... have I convinced you yet?  And it only takes a tablespoon or two in a load!  Talk about economical.  I've tried OxyClean.  That stuff is garbage as far as I'm concerned.  It has never done a thing it promised.  Not one.  But this product has me sold forever!  Go get some.  Right now.  And you can even get a coupon for it to use at Meijer.  Save almost $8 when you go to Coupon.com, type your zip code and print out the Meijer coupon.  It is under household products.  What could be better?!?!?!

MyPunchbowl.com Contest Winners...

OK, due to underwhelming interest in the contest (I am SOOOO disappointed, you all.  This is an awesome site!), I decided to choose winners anyway!  I plugged in the names of the followers of this blog from Facebook and found two winners from a random generator.  And the winners are (drumroll please.....)

Lisa Smith and Christie Nutkins!!!!  Watch for an email ladies!!

Irons in the fire...

As if there weren't enough going on around here, why not add one more thing to the list?  I've finally resisted the urge long enough, and I've added Twitter to my ever growing vocabulary of technological tools.  You can find me there as peony0505!  Of course, don't expect anything earth moving or profound.  I'm just a housewife who loves to clean and save the earth... whoopee.  But what the heck?  I have to try everything at least once!

A Contest Give-A-Way!!!

 

I am a little (OK, a LOT!) late in getting this news out to you... this month has been crazy hectic for us.  But the lovely Ms. Stephanie Fader at mypunchbowl.com emailed me a while ago with a great idea for a contest!  And of course, I agreed because this site is just fantastic. 

To introduce all of you to this amazing virtual destination, we are giving away two, count 'em, TWO free premium memberships to mypunchbowl.com, valued at $49.95 each!  What does a membership include, do you ask?  Well, all of the amenities of the site!  Here's what mypunchbowl.com is all about!

As busy moms and housewives, we  have all had to plan the kids' birthday parties or family events and so many other happy occasions.  And it gets to be overwhelming, doesn't it?  This site does so much of it for you!  From here, you can manage your guest lists, set your date for your event (even coordinate it with your guests beforehand), send out free e-cards and e-invitations, order gifts, get great theme and decorating ideas, and SO MUCH MORE!  I can't tell you any  more details because it's part of the contest. 

Here is what you need to do:  In order to possibly win one of these two memberships, you need to post a comment here letting me know at least one feature of the site you like the most or an event you would use it for.  You can comment as many times as you like, but it will still only get you one entry!  If you become a follower of this blog on facebook, this will get you an additional entry.  If you send an email to thehelpfulhousewife@hotmail.com with one feature from the site that you love, you will get an additional entry.  Add a link to Ask The Helpful Housewife on your blog homepage and that's another chance to win.  There's four entries for you all together!  If you have completed all four items, go back to our blog page on facebook (click from the home page here) and post it in the comments section, along with your blog url.  That way I can be sure you've completed all four and can go back and check them all! 

You have until June 2nd to enter this amazing opportunity that Stephanie has given us.  I wish everyone luck!  I'm definitely going to be using this site for all of our events from now on!  I'm already starting to make a list of the summer parties I want to have just to use the site....

Good Luck, Everyone!

Parenting is NOT for the faint of heart!

I've been away for a week or so, I know.  Preschool was winding down, and yesterday was the last day for the school year.  I now have three of my four munchkins home with me everyday, all day.  It's an adjustment for all of us.  And we were off to a good start today, or so I thought! 

Such fun we were having, playing in the back yard... swinging on the playset, running around playing tag, enjoying the nice sunny day.  Until I left them in the sandbox to go make lunch.  Big mistake!  How could I possibly think that they would stay there like they had a million times before?  Ten minutes later, I came out to serve them lunch on their little picnic table, but no children in sight!  As I looked around the back yard, I noticed a strange trail of clothing.  Their clothing they had been wearing.  And then I saw them.  Between the houses across the back yard.  On the sidewalk.  On the next street over.  STARK FREAKING NAKED!!!!  (insert faint here)

Imagine what you will about the events that happened between this realization and them getting into bed for naptime. I won't go into details.  But I love summer vacation so very much!  And I am wishing for fall for school to start again, that's how bad it was! 

Now, all you moms out there can now feel so much better, knowing that you are all better at the parenting thing than me!  I hope this brightens your day!

The Glass Is Half Full!

OK, first the glass jar has to be empty!  What do you do with your empty jam/jelly jars when you make that last sandwich for the kids?  Way to go if the answer is recycle them!  Or what about the jar of spaghetti sauce you used last night?  Or the glass soda bottles that are so in vogue right now that come filled with all those natural, organic fizzy fun flavors?  Recycle them?  Throw them away? 

First of all, don't throw them in the trash.  Obviously, you need to be recycling them.  That's a no brainer.  Mother earth would be scolding you, wagging her finger in your face the whole time.  But what if I could give you some ideas to prolong their life?  I do this all the time!  I love to re-use my glass jars.  So much so, that I often buy a different brand at the store just because I think the jar is pretty!  (My husband just shakes his head and goes back to whatever he's doing.  He's learned to ignore my quirks in this department!)  Glass jars and bottles can be stunning accents to your decor, and they can also be very utilitarian in other ways.  Some of these examples are going to be so obvious and repeated from so many other sources you will be bored silly, I know.  But some others might be ideas you hadn't thought of.  Humor me!  You just might think twice before tossing that next jar!  It could have a second or third "repurposed life" before being recycled into another gem of glassware, keeping mother earth even happier!  Just remember to thoroughly wash and dry before doing any of the following...

1.  An especially decorative jar makes a great vase for smaller flowers from your garden.
2.  Use it to hold buttons and sewing notions.
3.  Create a sewing kit:  a spool of white, black, and cream thread; small scissors; several needles; and a threader.  Be sure to keep the lid for this one!
4.  Keep a large jar by the washing machine to throw change from pockets in!
5.  Use one for storing the miscellaneous Barbie shoes, doll accessories, lego pieces and such that you find as time goes on.  You never know when the matching one will turn up!
6.  Fill one 1/2 full with baking soda, and 1/4 full with salt. Add 20-30 drops of your favorite essential oil.  Stir it well.  Pop some holes in the lid and replace the lid on the top.  Put it in a concealed area, and you have an instant air freshener for any small room.  Works great near a diaper channging area!  Just keep it out of baby's reach.
7.  Use it to hold diaper pins, with the lid securely fastened, away from baby.
8.  I use a really pretty one to hold my honey dipper and my tea bag "squeezer" in my kitchen.
9.  If you have some especially decoratively cut jars, or some pretty blue ones that really sparkle, set them out on a tray as a decorative accent.  In sunlight, it can be spectacuar!
10.  We use a super large blue Ball Canning jar to hold pop can tabs.  We save them and when the jar is full, we transfer it to a zip-loc bag (it fills one!) and take them down to the local VFW and turn them in for their charity drive.
11.  Handymen/women can use them to hold screws, nails, nuts, bolts, anything that needs containing in the workshop.
12.  Crafters can use them for glue sticks, trims, tools, marking pens, rotary cutters, scissors, just about anything!
13.  I store dried beans, peas, etc in them, rather than in the bags they come in.  They store better on the pantry shelves and I don't have to go buy all new storage containers!
14.  I also use one to hold cupcake tin liners.  Perfect purpose!
15.  The best use of all?  I keep my dish washing wand in one on the kitchen sink!

I hope some of these suggestions are helpful to you!  It keeps a little more glass out of the landfills, and helps extend the lifecycle of those items already produced.  Let's all do our part to keep trying to find new uses for items around the house!

Happy Dusting,
The Helpful Housewife

A Mom's Net Worth

One of the topics floating around the morning news shows this week is what the salary of a mom is worth.  The figure they keep tossing out there is $120,000 per year.  Not a bad figure, hey?  About 4 or 5 years ago, Andy got his USAA magazine in the mail, and they had an article in there on this very same topic, and they actually estimated it at around $140,000 I think.  I like that number better.  I wish I could find that archive in his office!!!  Counting for inflation and cost of living increases, I bet it would be more by now!

Whichever number you assign to it, it still isn't enough, but let's assume it's a fair amount.  When you think about all we do to keep our households running, we just couldn't afford to be without us housewives/moms.   We do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, managing of the budgets, shopping, caretaking, and more.  To pay a chef, drycleaner, accountant, personal shopper, daycare, and and other professionals to do these jobs for us, we would be spending three to four times more. 

Want to know the main reason why I left the engineering field when my oldest child was born?  Most of my paycheck would have gone to daycare.  Once we had all of our children, there was no point in going back to work.  Even when I had opened my own business, I was spending over $600 per week for PART TIME daycare for 4 kids.  And I still was doing all of the household management anyway.  No wonder I broke down and had Molly Maids come in once a month to do a good cleaning!  That was $100 well spent in my eyes!  For us, it is more fiscally intelligent for me to stay home. 

Moms are still undervalued today.  I hate the feminist movement; I am a firm believer that you should never feel bad about the choices you make for yourself.  If you want to work, great!  It shouldn't be because you feel like you have some bra-burning legacy to live up to.  On the other hand, if it means providing for your family, then yes, you must do it, and do it proudly!  And if you do it because you simply enjoy it and it makes you sane and happy, I applaud you!  On the other hand, if you want to stay home because you like the lifestyle of being at home with the kids and doing the housewife thing, I applaud that too.  Don't let anyone make you feel guilty or like you aren't contributing.  Because believe you me, you are.  At a rate of $120,000 per year. 

But for those of you who think that even though you love being home with the kids, and you love nothing more than a sparking clean home and freshly baked cookies coming out of the oven, you are just playing house and not really doing anything with your life?  There truly is value in what you do.  And when you can't see the emotional and spiritual value in what you do for your family some days, realize thi: you are saving your family a whole bundle of money on those professionals who could be doing it for you!

Making Your Laundry Room Work For You

I get a lot of hits on this blog relating to google searches for laundry room tips.  You all know how much I adore ironing, and even the laundry is a task I really don't mind doing.  Here's the secret to why:  a well organized laundry room!  Even if you don't have an actual laundry room, an area dedicated to this task helps trememdously.  I don't technically have a laundry room in my home.  It's more of an all-purpose back entry area.  It's closed off from the kitchen by a pocket door, but it has the hook ups for a washer/dryer and a built in laundry sink.  By default?  It's a laundry room/mud room/entry way/utility room.  I actually hate the layout, but I've made the best of it.  So today I'm going to share it with you, and maybe you can gain some ideas from what I've done to streamline and organize your own laundry spaces.

Remember my post regarding the family information center?  This is a bigger snapshot of the wall it's located on.  It's where we come and go 99% of the time, so it makes the most sense for us.

As you can see in the photo below, we installed shelving above the washer & dryer to keep laundry supplies close at hand.  It works rather well to be able to just reach straight out for stain removers, or to set items on the shelf that are found in pockets.  It also keeps things from getting lost behind the appliances!

 

In this next photo, you can see how I store my daily cleaning supplies in their caddy right on the counter top to keep them easily accessible.  The laundry soap is also right there in the blue caddy where I can just scoop it out as I need it.  The counter top is usually clear, but today I have some things there that need to be delivered in an errand later.  The counter does come in handy, though!

 

Over the sink, I have installed a fold out drying rack.  In the summer it's great for the swim suits, and year round I use it for delicates and hand wash items.  The clothespin bag is hung across from it.  In the cabinet I keep my dust rags, extra rubber gloves, cleaning supplies, sponges, scrubbers, and the sunblock/insect repellent.  Also a first aid kit and the shoe polish, so the kids dont' get into it!

 

This is the view coming in from the garage.  These hooks keep us organized on school mornings.  We always know where the backpacks and coats are!  Plus, it keeps them up off the floor so we aren't tripping over them all the time, and the kids can hang them up themselves.  There would be one more set, but Attie is still at school right now!  I also keep my cleaning smock hanging on the last hook here so I can just toss it on whenever I need to.

 

And here's the view from the sink towards the pocket door to the kitchen.  This is how our wierd and awkward room manages to have so many different functions yet work so well for us.  Because it is so organized, it is a useful space.  Laundry is easy to do here, and our lives are organized because of the other tools in place like the calendar area and the hooks.  It is a multifunctional room.  Even the closet next to the hooks -- we took out the rod and put in a shelving system and created a pantry/utility closet.  Only a few panty items are stored here; mostly trash bags, the blender, extra picnic wares, and the vacuum, broom, etc. are kept in it.  But making it functional makes it work for us, not against us!

 

It's even painted a sunny yellow to make it bright and cheerful.  Although I am considering repainting it a bright bright white... will have to simmer that thought for a while.

So, there's another glimpse into The Helpful Housewife's home.  I hope I can inspire you to improve upon my ideas in your own cozy homes!

Betty Crocker, Kitchen Goddess Imagined

So just who was Betty Crocker?  Today's home page of MSN had this little blurb on it and of course it is a topic that I would click on!  I already knew this story, but I didn't know if any of you would know this historical account of a "famous domestic goddess" so I thought I would pass it along in today's post.  Surprisingly, it's a story written by men!  Hey, I'm not a knuckle dragging housewife -- I don't berate men and automatically think of them as useless beings when it comes to matters of homekeeping.  My own husband is a wonder worker when it comes to all things housewife.  But then again, he kept his own home for 10 years before we were married!  He came well trained.  And there are some men who actually read this blog, so men do have some wonderful relevance to the "housewife world".

Anyway, Betty Crocker was not a real woman.  She was a fictional character that was created by 'The Washburn Crosby Company'.  At the time, this was the parent company of Gold Medal Flour.  (Still on the market today!)  In 1920 they ran a contest where you had to complete a jigsaw puzzle of a flour mill.  The prize was a pincushion resembling a flour sack.  I wish I had one of those pincushions!  They received thousands upon thousands of responses to the contest.  Included with a majority of these responses were questions about baking, too.  Realizing they had an opportunity to capture the market, they decided to find someone to act as their baking expert and answer these questions for the company.   This was going to be their way of reaching out to housewives everywhere and making their company personal to all of them and at the same time gaining the loyalty to their brand.

The number of questions were too many for just one person to answer, however, so it became more practical to have the responses come from a panel in-house, and create a persona that would be the "signature" to each letter to personalize it.  William G. Crocker, the recently retired director of the company, was honored for his service by choosing his surname.  The first name of Betty was chosen simply because the company felt that it was a friendly name.  And so, Betty Crocker was born in 1921.

From there, the name has expanded to product identity, cookbooks, cooking schools, kitchen accessories, and more.  She has become a household name, and synonymous with all things good from the kitchen.  She has evolved from a brilliant marketing ploy to the belief that she is an actual woman in history; all because the men of The Washburn Crosby Company listened to housewives everywhere.  Now known as General Mills, this company has been listening to us ever since.  Their product innovation and branding in combination with the cookbooks and accessories that Betty has introduced us to over the years have made for many fun experiences in the kitchen, numerous successful bake sales, and infinitely happy kids after school with their cookies, brownies, or other treats. 

Thanks, guys!  Your imaginary women that you dream up are sometimes really worth it!