Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

Always pack an overnight bag for long car trips, even if you're not planning on stopping for the night. That way, when you hit a snow storm in Watertown (there's always a snow storm in Watertown), you can get a hotel room and just grab that one bag, without having to dig through all your stuff to find clean underwear.

Or, if you're stubborn like me and you just keep driving and get home at 4:00 in the morning, you don't have to unpack the whole car - you can just bring your overnight bag into the house, and unpack the rest the next day. Or the next day after that. Or, well, eventually, anyhow.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

If you're buying a new fridge, do it in the winter. Then you can put all the food outside to stay cold while you are waiting for the new fridge to be delivered.

Words to Live By

Efficiency: Cleaning out the car from the last road trip while packing for the next road trip.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

With the exception of new and heavily-dyed clothing, I don't really sort laundry by colors anymore. I sort by "effort required to fold". When I'm doing multiple loads, the first load will be the fiddly, annoying stuff - mostly my shirts and the girls' clothes. I usually have more energy for folding at the beginning of a laundry day, so I try to get the annoying stuff out of the way first. Next, I tackle the bulky stuff that folds up quickly and easily - like bath towels and Jeremy's shirts. Finally, I wash the things that don't really need to be folded at all, like socks and underwear, so that when laundry day bleeds into laundry night, I can just stick them in the dryer and go to bed, without worrying about the inevitable wrinkles in the morning. (This also works out nicely because the socks and underwear tend to sink to the bottom of the hamper, anyhow.)

I use the same logic when I'm doing just one load of laundry, and not tackling the whole pile. I start by throwing in the things I need right away, and as I throw them in, I assess the time required to fold them. Then I throw in towels or shirts or socks to fill the washer the rest of the way, based on how much remaining folding energy I expect to have.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

Never buy a white shirt for a baby or a toddler.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

The "Kids Getting Into Stuff" Equation

When the kids are getting into something, and enjoying it, sometimes it's worth just letting them play and explore the world on their own messy terms. Here's how to know when to interfere and when to let it slide:

If F (how much fun the kids are having) times L (how long it will keep them entertained and out of your hair) times N (whether or not they know it's naughty, where N is a sliding scale from 1 to 0 with 1 being completely innocent play, and 0 being "Mom just told us not to do this three minutes ago, and we fully understood") is greater than C (amount of time and effort it will take to clean it up) times D (likelihood of irreparable damage or bodily harm), then just let them play, and deal with the mess later.
If FLN<CD then intervene
If FLN=CD then the only logical course of action is to join in. I bet smearing soap on the bathroom walls really is just as fun as they are making it look.




I'm sure my equation has mathematical errors. This is just a blog, not a web comic.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

When you finally tackle that mountain of dishes, and you encounter nasty, moldy dishes, choose to be impressed rather than grossed out. Each moldy dish is a work of art and a science lesson all rolled into one. Observe the colors, the textures, the growth patterns. There's your standard green and black, but is that a blue mold under there? Did you ever notice how much more mold is formed when another dish is on top, keeping the moisture in? Or how moldy fruit smells like wine, but moldy vegetables smell like farts? It's fascinating!

(It has to be. Otherwise, it's depressing.)

Words to Live By

Sometimes, you just need a day where everyone stays in their pajamas and does nothing all day. Every day. For a week. Or two.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

After mopping, put two towels under your feet, and skate around the floors, drying them as you go. This prevents slips and falls and dirty footprints. (I definitely did NOT learn this trick from working at a certain coffee shop where the practice was decidedly frowned upon.)

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

If you only have time for a rush cleaning, start with the most obvious areas - toys on the living room floor, dishes on the dining room table, etc. If you have time for a deep cleaning, start with the most neglected areas - the clutter pile, the countertop under the toaster oven, etc. If you run out of time for deep cleaning, you can always get to the obvious stuff later, but if you do the obvious stuff first, you’ll never get around to the deep cleaning.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

Don’t forget about gravity. If you need to clean the counters and the floors, clean the counters first. Otherwise, you’ll be cleaning the floors twice.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

If you want to record a cute video of your kids dancing, or make a tutorial for your other blog, and you don't feel like cleaning up the living room, just shovel all the crap to one side of the room, then crop the messy half of the room out of sight.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

Get a smaller trash can.

I know, I know, this seems like a backwards tip. Shouldn't I be telling you to get a bigger trash can, so you can put off taking out the trash for a few more days? That was what I thought at first, too. But I have learned something about myself: I will put off taking out the trash until I can't balance another item on the mound. Once a piece of trash tumbles off the pile for the fourth or fifth time, I will cave and take out the trash. This presents three problems when you have a big trash can: 1. You can't get the bag shut, because there's too much stuff in it, 2. The bag is too heavy to carry, and/or 3. The trash has been sitting in the bottom of the bag for far too long, and the lowest level of trash has liquefied, making a leak that much more nasty (and, proportionately, that much more likely).

So, buy a trash can that is just a little bit too small. It will make you take the trash out more often, and save you a lot of headaches in the long run. (But keep buying the bigger trash bags, for those days when you really need the extra trash space, when you can just take the bag out of the can and fill it to your heart's content.)

Bonus tip: If you live in an apartment building with a garbage chute, buy a REALLY small trash can. There's nothing worse than getting to the chute and realizing your bag won't fit, so make sure a full trash can will always fit.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

Not sure if those leftovers are still good? Just put off dealing with them for a few more days. Then they definitely won’t be good, and you won’t feel so guilty throwing them out.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

When you are doing a bunch of laundry and know that there is no way you are going to get around to folding it all, fold one large item in the load and set it on the top of the unfolded laundry in the basket. This way when you come back to the unfolded stuff a week later you won't mistake the unfolded mess for dirty laundry. Also, saves you from the sniff test to check if stuff is clean or dirty!

(Submitted by Trish)

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

Hate sorting socks? Get rid of all your socks and replace them with several packs of the exact same kind. No more sorting! Just put them all in the drawer. When you need a pair, grab two and go!

(Submitted by a whole bunch of people. I actually did this with my husband's socks - he has only two kinds of socks, now, ankle socks and long socks, all the same. I like variety in my sock drawer too much to do this for myself, but it's tempting!)

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

Join a gym. It's amazing how many productive things I get done around the house when I'm putting off going to the gym.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

Before you mop, empty your trash can, then use it as a mop bucket. This helps get some of the garbage-stink out of the trash can, and it saves you having to remember where you put the mop bucket.

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

If you have kids who tend to think that "playing with" toys is the same as "dumping out" toys, minimize the clean-up by putting away Lego in clumps of 5 or 6 bricks. Putting away 20 clumps is easier than putting away 100 individual bricks. (Or, you know, just hide the Lego completely.)

Crappy Housewife Tip of the Day

When you put bibs in the laundry hamper, turn the pockets inside out. (Unless you like finding cheerios in your clean laundry.)

Aside: I was going to say, "Wash bibs with the pockets inside out," but doing it when you put them in the hamper lets you get out the nastiest goop right now, rather than letting it rot in the hamper. It also gives you a second chance to do it when you are transferring them to the washer, in case you forgot the first time.