condopal's Profile

If nothing else, get rid of the flavored milk in the schools. The shot of the cereal with pink milk was disgusting. "Real" milk doesn't cost any more.

I have had one of these on my "future purchase" list for a while.

You don't need to buy special microwave popcorn. You just need to use a lunchbag-sized brown paper bag. Start with a 1/4 cup kernels in the bag and fold the top over a couple of times, and on our microwave we have a popcorn button.

Another way we use our microwave oven is to pop that lemon or lime you are going to juice in to zap for about 30 seconds first. This helps to break down the fruit a little and then you get more juice.

Ditto on the Borax. Inexpensive and comes in a cardboard box.

This is a terrific book--full of humor, common sense and good usable recipes. We are having the chicken-spinach
meatballs tonight.

$50???!!!

On the whole philosophy of whether to tie chores to allowance I come down very hard on keeping these two separate. Everyone in our house does housekeeping chores to keep the house functioning; that is just part of being a house member. It can start with laundry sorting and table setting and work from there as the children get older. BUT I never want to have those chores linked to pay. Sometimes I need one of the kids to help with an extra something around the house when I am pushed and I never want to hear, "How much will you pay me?"
My partner gets a weekly paycheck so it works out well that we all get a weekly allowance on Fridays. Some of that we set aside for savings, but the rest is ours to do whatever with.

Yes, cooktine. Isn't that the tension we all have now. I would love to have the new low-flush toilets and bamboo towels, but to throw out the old toilets in my newly constructed house and the perfectly adequate non-organic towels to make way for the greener ones is not very green.