Works for Me - Boiling Water

I have two or three cups of tea a day. Each time, after I boil the water and fill my mug, I take my dish cloth and hang it over the kitchen faucet, and pour the remaining boliing water over my dish cloth. There you have it... this little step keeps my dish cloth fresh for the whole day. Otherwise, I go through too many cloths in one day. Simple but effective.

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Storing Dog Food

We have two dogs and a cat. I always struggled with where to keep the food so that it would be handy but invisible. One of our dogs is large and we buy giant bags of food. Once the cat arrived, and then the second dog, I was desperate. Finally... I don't know who thought of it originally, my husband or I... but we decided to keep the food in the basement laundry room. Each bag of food gets dumped into a lidded plastic bin (must be lidded or the cat would eat until he exploded), with its own measuring scoop. Wow! Bowls, water, food, everything hidden away in the basement! We keep a bowl of water in the kitchen also. And all it means is a couple of extra trips down to the basement. Well worth it, in my opinion. Visit Shannon for more Works For Me tips.

Intercom Telephone

We have a telephone that works as an intercom. The base is in the kitchen, one handset is in our daughter's room, and then other handset (which lives on the base) travels around, mostly to the family room in the basement. I can be in the basement, and connect to my daughter in her room. No more shouting at the bottom of the stairs for her to come downstairs. The ring for the intercom is different from the regular ring, so we know that it is an in-house call, not a real call. Once again, my husband proves himself right... he assured me I would really like this feature when he wanted to buy the phone. I am one to begrudge new techie purchases. Another one he assured me that I would enjoy is my mp3 player! And bingo... he was right again!

Works for Me Wednesday

I generate a lot of laundry from my kitchen. I have a home daycare, and each day, for each meal or snack, each child has his own washcloth. That alone might mean 13 washcloths in one day. I also go through two or three dishcloths and tea towels each day. Hand towels, rags from wiping the cupboards and floors... it adds up very quickly. I got so tired of all these dirty cloths each day. I wanted a way to get them out of the kitchen with as little trouble as possible. My brilliant husband came up with this idea... a laundry chute in one of the bottom cupboards! He cut a small hole through the cupboard floor and through the kitchen floor. The actual chute is a garbage bag with the end cut open to form a tube. We duct taped the bag around the hole, et voila! Ugly but very useful laundry chute! The towels and cloths end up in the laundry room and it is very convenient to pick them up and throw them in the washer.

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