big tips

Making a little pile

2010-01-14T09:49:00.002+11:00

Well hello dear readers. I keep forgetting about this tipster blog over here.

Today's tip is to do with vacumming.

First tip is how to spell it.

It's apparently how I've spelled it up there. Just a fluke I think.

Second tip is how to avoid dragging it out of the cupboard, finding a socket for the plug, being annoyed when you quickly realise that you'll have to use more than one electrical outlet to do the entire floor. It always seems such a nuisance getting that thing out, doesn't it? Having to put the hose in, extend the hose. Bloody nora!

Now, please note, the following tip will only work if you have a smooth floor covering, ie wood boards, linoleum, tiles. NOT CARPET.

What you do is get a broom and you sweep up all the dust, dirt, hair, fluff bunnies and their children, shreds of paper, dropped cereal, lint, skin shreddings and finger nail bits and you make a pile in the corner somewhere. You leave the broom over it. This stops people a) seeing it and b) walking on top of it.

Then next time you have the vac out, you suck it up.

Try it. It's very European.

a while between tips

2009-01-16T13:42:00.002+11:00

i have one tip for you, dear readers.

it's possibly the biggest and most important tip i can impart.

floss your teeth. always. no matter how tired you are, how drunk, how sure you are there is nothing stuck in between them.

i have just returned from an hour in the dentist chair - session #2 of my SECOND root canal.

it's uncomfortable. it's expensive. and it's probably avoidable

BY

FLOSSING

EVERY

DAY.

that is all.

restoring white havaianas to their pristine glory

2008-02-11T14:32:00.000+11:00

ok, so i know it was a mistake to buy white havvies. i know that now. but the fact is that the black ones i bought at the same time i bought the white ones, are long dead. and the brown ones i bought after the black ones died, broke yesterday. yes we were walking up fitzroy street from checking out the festival of st. kilda when the bit that goes between the toe snapped just outside that coolsie bar on the corner of fitz and canterbury rds. no, not the prince, and not the terminus and not the chemist [that's not a bar you fool] but the other one. while gigi was trying to get in the door past the rather slim bouncers, i kind of twisted my foot and snappo. so my brown thongs are now in the bin outside that bar.

so i had to walk barefoot home.

do you realise how dangerous this is in st kilda?

do you realised that within a 200 metre radius of the pig and whistle/elephant and wheelbarrow place there are a billion shards of broken glass?

anyway we got home without me slashing my feet.

and then i went and got my grotty, dirty, grubby, blackened "white" thongs out of the cupboard.

they are horrible.

but until i get my next pair [i'm going brown again. it's my fave colour] i would like to try and clean these ones.

yes, i've tried an old toothbrush with some sort of ajaxy powder.

any tips?

did you know when you freeze leftovers, it's hard to tell whether it's chilli con carne, spag bol sauce or sausage and cous cous?

2006-07-19T18:23:00.000+10:00

if you're like me and you cook way too much each time, either intentionally or not, then your freezer is probably chokkers of left overs.

this is good. it means people like us can pull stuff out of the freezer, defrost and dine like royalty quite quickly and easily.

i have had a labelling problem, though. first, i got sucked into the tupperware type system where you have a coloured plastic disc that gets shoved/clipped into the end of the box. on this you are meant to write, with the special pencil, whatever it is that you are freezing. you can rub these out (unsatisfactorily, i might say) and re-write as often as you like.

this "system" lasted about one time with me.

but i've come up with something better, which only today was tested properly.

get yourself a whiteboard marker. it's important you don't use a permanent marker. (the permanent marker of choice in our home is the sharpie. they are great, but they stay forever.)

what you then do is write the name of the food, probably not bill or percy, on the lid before you freeze. i just did this with bol sauce which was in one of those plastic spc? fruit bottles with the green lids. i find these are good for freezing leftovers.

and the label i'd written on it just washed off perfectly in the soapy water.

i am so pleased with myself. needless to say.

you give it a go if you want.

i haven't tested this yet on other plastic-ware so i suggest you be cautious with your really expensive/spesh stuff.

but so far, it's looking good and i think i may have created a solution to something that has been bothering me for a long time.

my first comment asking for advice

2006-07-13T14:04:00.000+10:00

the delightful dxxxx left a comment about a problem with some tights.

it reads as follows:

Hey tipster - Got any tips on what to do with a pair of gym tights which *someone* (ie not me) put in the wash with towels and are now covered in green fluffy type stuff? Are they a lost cause or is there something you can do to get rid off the the offending fluff?Much loveDxxxx

don't you love it that she calls me tipster?

here's my response:

i presume the "green fluffy type stuff" to which you refer is pilling which has transferred from the towels to the gym tights?

are they small tight balls or is it a looser fluff?

if small tight balls you can get a little machine that's kind of like a circular electric shaver which shaves the balls off and they collect in a plastic repository. my brother gave me one of these gadgets years ago. i don't know what happened, perhaps i got rid of it because it didn't work, but if i had it, i'd sent it straight up to you.

failing that, you might just have to spend an hour or more picking the fuckers off. have a friend help you.

if it's looser fluff, you might just have to go the manual pick, or there are i think combs that can comb stuff off.

or try the razor method mentioned in the first post, on sheet pilling. it worked for me.

if anybody else has anything to suggest, please do.

and sorry dxxxx for taking a while to get back to you. not sure how long your question was there, i haven't been here for a while.

x

how to make a cat, and it seems a dog, take liquid medicine

2006-06-01T10:13:00.000+10:00

this tip comes from another outspoken female who is a genius about many things, it seems.

gigi, the dog, was very sick last week.

the vet gave me a pink liquid and a syringe (sans needle) that i had to use to get 20mls of this gloop down her throat.

i was able to get the syringe in, well at the back of her throat. i pushed the hammer and it went down, but then as she swallowed it alot of it came back up, through her lips, which i was holding closed, and then oozed out onto my hands and the floor.

mmm. success.

then when i mentioned this on my blog, aof stepped up with the solution. she said it worked for her cat, and thought it might be a goer.

natural yoghurt. that's it. yoghurt. mix the medicine in to some natural yoghurt. dogs love yoghurt. well, the gigi does, she loves anything, even wood which might be the reason she ended up with colitis in the first place.

i put the medicine in the yoghurt and she licked the bowl clean from one side of the patio to the other. ok, it's a small patio, but she was pushing that bowl around with her tongue like crazy.

and if it's tablets you are giving the dog, i find that they wolf it down if it has a bit of cheese wrapped around it.

so there you go. cheese and yoghurt. yoghurt and cheese.

how to find out if there's an annoying yappy dog in the vicinity when you want to buy or rent a house

2006-05-11T14:09:00.000+10:00

so there's this house that you want to rent, or buy. you hate noisy dogs, and you want to make sure there's not going to be an annoying one nearby.

this is really easy. and simple. i can't believe you haven't thought of this before.

first, get hold of one of these:

or these:

i myself use one of these, which is quite effective:

this is the gigi. can you feel the gigilove?

then you need one of these:

attach to the dog like so:

do i have to tell you everything?

and go walk in the street where you want to check out a particular property. whenever we walk around the streets all manner of dogs come the howling, the baying, the snapping, the rowfing, the yap-yap-yapping. it's like a kids' book, with all the different noises that come from behind fences when we walk past.

and then you know where they are. works every time, 100% guaranteed.

the world of vinegar

2006-05-08T11:31:00.000+10:00

check out this online reference for ways to use vinegar around the house, for cleaning etc. i am off to clean two showers with vinegar right now.

vinegar book

bead city

2006-04-12T15:39:00.000+10:00

if you need flat-backed beads or really any other type of beads, try

maria george
179 flinders lane
city

tel 9650 1151

you can buy in bulk or they will let you have smaller quantities.

there's also a good bead shop at southland. not sure which level, but it's there. they don't have flat-backed, just ones with holes in them.

air freshener without chemicals

2006-04-06T13:28:00.000+10:00

if you're like me and want to try and limit the chemicals in the home... er, sorry forgot to introduce myself. rosemary margan*, here. how do you do.

no just kidding, it's me, melbournegirl.

in the toilet i keep a spray bottle with water in it and some drops of essential oils, ti tree is good. and spray to odorise. it works well and i feel good not spraying chemical yucks into the air. also i don't want my loo smelling like a norwegian pine forest. i want it to smell like the ti trees down at mt eliza on a hot summer day.

i want to clean the showers, the tiles are yuck, the grout is yuck. what's a good way to clean them without chemicals?

* On the show of 5 March 1975 Kennedy imitated a crow ("faaaaaark") during a live read of a Cedel Hairspray advert by Rosemary Margan.

coathanger iss-ews

2006-03-26T20:17:00.000+11:00

i have got mostly wooden hangers in my cupboard. now, i know i have said so before, but they all face the same way, ie with hooks facing backwards. but that's neither here nor there.

i need help. can anyone suggest an easy yet effective way to stop things sliding off the fuckers?

i reckon if we could come up with something, it would save the sanity of people worldwide. i am sure i'm not the only one who swears at the cunting things when my bits and pieces fall off them.

and then if we could be bothered we could manufacture these things, whatever they would be called, stop-slips, market them and make a fortune.

if we could be bothered is the operative phrase here.

but seriously now. does anyone have an idea?

and don't talk to me about those strips of ribbon or cord that you can find inside the shoulders of certain chick clothes. i know you are meant to wind them around the top of the hanger to keep the item on. but i cut them off cause they are so damn annoying.

those annoying little balls that form on the surface of different fabrics, or PILLING

2006-03-20T12:11:00.000+11:00

last night i was lying in my bed. our bed. of freshly laundered linen which had hung on the line in the sun. there is nothing like the smell of the sun on sheets. i don't like tumble dryers, because they are bad for the environment, expensive and just don't smell like the sun.

i became aware of a mass of pilled sheet under my feet. i had noticed this last week, as i ran my hand over to my honey's side. he wasn't in the bed but i like to stretch out when he leaves for work. and i felt these little balls.

that night we had a conversation about why his side of the bed had pilled, while mine hadn't. we talked body hair, body weight, nocturnal body movement. it was puzzling yet fun and light-hearted.

until i realised that when we made up the bed, the pilled area was still there, and it was under my legs instead of his back!

i suggested we get up and remake the bed.

he laughed at me. i laughed too. we were in a good mood, we had just been watching curb your enthusiasm, and i realise i am both like larry david and his wife. if that's possible.

then my honey said something most interesting.

"shave them off," he said. "that's what you're meant to do to fix that."

once i had established that he wasn't shitting me, i got up and fetched a razor. a lady shave, unused.

i scraped away at the section of the sheet with the pilled balls. i went lengthways a few times and lo, bits of fluff were lifting off. we scraped them off. i put the razor into my bedside drawer and got back into bed.

yes, i couldn't feel the balls. they were gone.

then we talked about my new blog, big tips. john laughed and said well of course, you do have big tips.

so this, i believe, is a very fine tip, and i enthusiastically present it here.

can you help me?

2006-03-19T23:52:00.000+11:00

i was thinking it would be good to have a spot where people can exchange advice and tips about all the things we need to make happen in our lives.

for example, my hand towels in the bathroom always look dirty, even when they're clean. i prefer white, but can anyone tell me where to get good handtowels that don't go scuzzy? i have tried sheridan, and they are no better than anything else. any brand tips?

a similar question. which do you think is the best linen you can buy? brands?

thank you.

please ask here if you have any questions.