Ask The Helpful Housewife

Housekeeping College Registration Form

As you may have noticed in the sidebar, Housekeeping 101 will be enrolling again!  The link for the form doesn't seem to be working, so please send me an email beginning in January if you are interested in signing up.  I will reply with all necessary details. 

Of course, Housekeeping College has evolved over time.  It's now a four week course of basic information that is easier to condense.  There's no pop quiz, but there have been lots of fun emails to read in response to the lessons!  It's really informal, and definitely an optional thing; whether anyone actually does each lesson is something I'll never know.  But as more time passes, I get the itch to develop it more.  To bring it into more detail and perhaps print an actual booklet, or create a binder, for participants.  Maybe just put it on cd-rom?  Who knows!  But thanks for all of your enthusiasm for the homemaking arts! 

I've really missed being home full time the last year, and now that the shop is settling in and I have more and more employees, my schedule will be changing for the better.  I'm going to be home more now than ever, and will be able to get back to polishing my silver and blogging with more regularity.  I'll never give up my little fabric and yarn shop (aren't sewing and knitting part of Home-Ec anyway?) but I'm finding that balance I have always worked hard to have.  Next on the agenda is redoing our daily routine that is mapped out here.  Maybe it will help the other housewives who also work outside of the home find their balance if they see how someone else is making it work? 

Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent as ususal....  Get ready for the next round of HK101! Email me to sign up!

Question & Answer Time Again!

As you all know, I answer all manner of questions via email regarding homemaking issues.  Lately, I've taken to simply replying directly back rather than post them here, as time seems to be a precious commodity!  However, this particular question deserves center stage.  More than once I've gotten this question, and when I received it this last time, I just knew it had to be answered out here!

Dear Helpful Housewife,

We have an ongoing friendly debate in my family.  I prefer our drinking glasses be stored in the cabinet bottom down and the others family members feel bottom up (with the lip of the glass on the actual cupboard floor) is best.  I feel there are for more germs that collect on the bottom of the cabinet and feel it is nothing less than licking the bottom of the cabinet if drinking from a cup stored top down.  What is your advice?

Sincerely,

Elizabeth M

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Dear Elizabeth,

I'm with you on the debate.  ICK!!!  Did you know that meal bugs/worms, dust mites, etc... actually thrive in your cabinets?  And let's face it, we don't exactly wash them out every week!   Just think, most of us let that go for years and years.  Soooooo.... all the microscopic "yuck" that's on those surfaces goes directly onto your rims when stored upside down.  And in that "yuck" is all kinds of imaginable, shall we say, droppings and germs.  I know, I'm so sorry to gross you out! 

In our house, glasses and mugs are stored in their proper upright position!

Happy Dusting!

The Helpful Housewife

Ahh, the things we have to think of in order to keep a tidy little household!