Search Results for: blog fix up those finds

The Supervising / Enforcing Personality Type

The “Supervising / Enforcing” Personality Type, or the ESTJ personality type, describes a person who is an Extrovert (E), who perceives the world through Sensing (S), who relies on Thinking (T) to problem solve and make decisions, and who views the world from the vantage point of Judgement (J). If you are an extrovert, you enjoy interacting with the outside world around you, as well as the people in it. You thrive from this interaction, and very much prefer it to being alone with your own thoughts. You like to use your five senses to identify what the facts of … Continue reading →

New Uses For Everyday Items

I’m always looking for ways to make cleaning easier and less of a hassle and I love when I find unusual ways to clean ordinary things. Here are some of my most recent finds: *Baby oil to polish chrome. You can use this on everything from hubcaps to faucets, pretty nifty. You can also use it to shine a stainless steel sink after you clean it. It might be my imagination but it seems to keep it cleaner longer as well. *Broom to dust. You know those out of reach cobwebs and light fixtures? Just wrap your broom with an … Continue reading →

The Temptation of the Farmer’s Market

At first, I was just there for the vegetables. But that is how they get you. The next thing you know, you are bringing along the kids and your husband. Now the whole family is involved. What was once a simple basket of fresh green beans for $2 has turned into a $25 shopping spree of artisan bread, granola and fancy $5 scones. What ever happened to the vegetables? The farmer’s market was such as a good idea at first. My favorite farmer grows his produce organically and has wonderful prices. I’ve gotten fresh peaches that melt in your mouth … Continue reading →

Epic Mickey

One of the things I like best in a video game is a good story. Developers make use of advanced computer technology to program sometimes 20-minute-long animated movies to appear throughout certain video games, especially at the beginning and end, to make the experience as much about hearing a story as about playing a game. And those are my favorite games. Foremost of them all, in my opinion, are Kingdom Hearts I & II, which fuse the world of respected Japanese gaming franchise Final Fantasy with Disney. The player’s character travels to various Disney locales like Atlantica from “The Little … Continue reading →

Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg

I know I promised to review “Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg” about a month ago, but it’s taken me that long to get my hands on a copy. Now I have, so I can bring the first story of Tinker Bell’s solo adventures in Neverland to you. Actually, “Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg,” the first of the children’s books Disney commissioned to kick off its Tinker Bell/Pixie line even before the home-release movies, doesn’t star Tinker Bell. Our main protagonist is newly-born Never Fairy Prilla; Tinker Bell is the most important of the secondary … Continue reading →

Ks to Give Your Marriage a Kick

Okay I’m back on my alphabetical marriage hints. This time K is the main star. So here are some Ks to give your marriage a kick. Kindness One of the basic tools in any relationship needs to be kindness. So this week try and incorporate little acts of kindness , doing jobs for your spouse, maybe fixing that leaking tap or sowing that button on or picking up some shopping on your way home or sorting out the finances if your spouse finds it stressful or helping with the dishes or cooking a special meal or whatever it might be. … Continue reading →

Giving It All Away

One of the negative things that is sometimes associated with living a frugal lifestyle is the idea that frugally-minded people are also tightwads or stingy. That is, if you wash out your ziploc baggies, shop at thrift stores or lower your thermostat in the winter, then you must be a miserable person with no thought for others. Remember Ebenezer Scrooge? But I think that frugal people are in a unique position to be able to be far more generous than the average person. Frugal people have learned how to save money, stretch those dollars and finds ways to make something … Continue reading →

Home Week in Review: January 7 – 13

As things wind down and we begin a new year, trying to get back to normal, there are lots of things we may want or need to do around our homes. Mary Ann and I hope you’ll find these articles useful: Organizing the Family Room (3) Don’t miss this great series: Organizing the Family Room (1) Organizing the Family Room (2) Organizing the Family Room (3) Organizing the Family Room (4) Organizing the Family Room (5) We’re still in holiday mode to some degree. Considering Post Holiday Let Down and taking care of those Returns and Refunds may leave many … Continue reading →

Smoothing Out Misunderstandings

Even those people who fancy themselves great communicators occasionally run into situations where they get into misunderstandings with customers and clients. For the rest of us, who might not kid ourselves into thinking we are excellent business communicators, misunderstandings can be a regular occurrence. So, what can be done to address and smooth out difficulties when misunderstandings occur? For some reason, I am one of those people who often finds myself in a peace keeper role. It happens less now that I am working on my own than it used to. In my many years of working with nonprofit organizations, … Continue reading →

How Not To Give Advice

If you want to know how not to give advice, take a look at the book of Job. For anyone who finds themselves in a counseling situation, this book is invaluable. We have been studying the book of Job in our home bible study group. Rather than going through it in a chronological way, we were encouraged to read the book through to get an overview, then we have been looking at each of the characters and what they have to say. Job’s wife is only seen once during this book. It is far from a flattering picture. She is … Continue reading →