10 Home Care Tips to Try

1. Use soda cans to fill the bottom of flower pots instead of rocks to make them lighter and easier to move around.

2. Extend the reach of your vacuum cleaner with a cardboard tube. Crush the end of the tube to create a crevice tool.

3. Remove grease spots in your garage with kitty litter. If the spots are fresh the litter should soak up most of the oil.

4. Try a crumpled handful aluminum foil to scrub pans when you're out of a scrubbing brush or pad to get them clean.

5. Fix a slipping screw driver by rubbing a bit of chalk on the tip before using it.

6. Cover your vacuum head with cheesecloth to allow you to vacuum drawers with small items without having to empty the drawer first.

7. Keep your silverware from tarnishing by storing it on top of a sheet of aluminum foil.

8. Polish your silverware and leather using a banana skin. Just make sure to remove the stringy portions before cleaning. Buff with a soft cloth when you're done.

9. Remove coffee or tea stains from rugs with beer. Just use a light beer and some elbow grease to get the stain out.

10. Dishwasher detergent can easily be replaced using 2T baking soda and 2T borax.

I love DIY

There are many sites and blogs to show you how to do crafty things, but there is one site I have enjoyed for quite some time now. Not your typical ‘how to’ showing you how to make trinkets and decorations, Ana White shows you how to build furniture.

The list is long and varied. Everything from beds to kitchen islands. She gives you the plans as well as provides step by step instructions and a handy shopping list.

Her’s an example of her latest offering, two night stands.

Just go to her blog and she will have you building your own furniture in no time.

About

I was given the name Greg Whitaker, it has no special meaning in mythology, I was not name after an ancestor, and this, in my opinion, makes me unique. I am a closet writer, artist, photographer, musician and videographer. My life is lived to the fullest of my financial ability in pursuing this interests and my love for my wife and kids has no bounds.

My occasional forays through past records of my life, which I find written and drawn on various and yellowing scraps of paper and table napkins, are a never ending source of comedy and wonder. Wonder at the occasional burst of talent and comedy at the occasional burst of proof that I have no talent.

Living happily has been my ultimate goal and in spite of uncontrolled outside influences I believe I have managed to do so.

Utah Valley Gardens is where I practice at being self sufficient by growing my own food.

A Storied Existence allows my closet writer and artist to run free. It helps me maintain some semblance of sanity.

Are We Green Yet? Asks the question, well, are we green yet. I explore the sustainable life style, our attempts to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and how we celebrate nature and wildlife.

Disenchanted Citizen is my soapbox for political and social issues. Not for the faint of heart.

NASA Says Raw Ingredients of Life on Earth Carried by Meteorites

The chemical building blocks of life carried to Earth by meteorites may have been the seed of life on our planet, according to evidence released yesterday by NASA. The evidence hinges on the molecular structure of amino acids, the repeated chemical units that make up proteins found in all living organisms. The molecules come in left- and right-handed varieties, and only left-handed varieties are found in life on Earth.

NASA scientists had previously found a disproportionate amount of the left-handed form of isovaline, an amino acid, in a meteorite sample. The latest study confirms that the previous sample was not an aberration.

A Starting Point

I have several rooms that need some kind of order. The photos here are of a couple of walls that I have basically just begun hanging things on just to get them together while I think of a workable layout.

This wall is in the kitchen.

I figure since this blog is going to be a record of the transformation of my house from a place to just hang things on the wall and display things wherever there is an empty shelf, I may as well just get these out there.

These two photos are of the same wall in the living room.

This is something I was working on before getting interrupted by Christmas.

This is the opposite wall in the living room.

I have a few things to work with but need more shelves, which I plan on building within the next couple of months.

In addition to what I have shown here, there are several rooms where the blank walls are simply haunting me. But, hey, we all start somewhere, right?