hurricanelea's Profile

A note about the 3M hooks -it's a great suggestion, and I've used the 3M products all over my apartment, but sometimes they fall down. I've got pictures without glass in the frames all over my apartment due to this. :-( Even after cleaning the wall with alcohol (as recommended), the humidity in my poorly insulated, drafty, 1920's southern apartment literally just melts the 3M off the wall. Particularly if you have high gloss paint, as is often the case on window frames.

Don't put anything valuable under the curtains, but maybe the humidity in Boston isn't as bad as south eastern Virginia? Good luck!

Also, I get really annoyed by people who eat lamb and beef but can't stand the sight of a sheepskin and criticize leather. Vegetarians who hate animal skins are exempt from my distain, but everyone else should really examine their value systems, and come to grips with the reality of meat = dead animal.

When they first see it, a lot of my friends ask whether my sheepskin is polar bear. Anyone else ever get this?

I LOVE this post. Often when I'm browsing AT, I begin to think I must be an incompetent, infantile idiot to have dishes spill out of the sink and into the surrounding counters, a constant pile of clothes at the foot of my (otherwise beautifully made) bed, and that pile of stuff that somehow never makes it to the thrift store.

Now I know you all just obsess about it, look the other way, and clean for the photos. Brilliant!

I know this isn't as exciting as the other sets, and it doesn't have the flatware and glasses, but Target sells a great, sleek white set -Moon Coupe. Wide soup bowl, dinner plate, salad plate, and big mug. Sturdy enough to be as careless as I am washing dishes, delicate enough to showcase food. $40 for a setting for four -I just bought my third set for a big upcoming dinner party.

My friend's family buys her a Costco membership, so she shares with most of her friends, and we do the same thing -splitting the gigantic bags of spinach, taking one each of a 2 pack of bottles of ibuprofin, etc.

Some things are worth stocking up on. TP will never go out of style, and I always buy a case or two of wine when we hit Costco.

As a young woman living alone, I've had to stare down the milk and cheese problem, particularly since I try to buy organic. A quart of organic milk is only about 50 cents cheaper than the half gallon. But I'm not going to drink the whole half gallon, no matter what. Even though it bothers me to feel like I'm getting ripped off, each ounce of milk consumed ends up costing the same, so I'd rather spend more for less and not waste.

very pretty, but please, keep it for spring! the beauty of asparagus is its fleeting availability; don't encourage stores to carry tasteless, expensive stalks shipped from Argentina!

oddly, my kitchen is one of the most organized rooms in my apartment. when I moved in (four months ago), the kitchen was the first room I unpacked, and with all my fresh energy, I put a lot of time into organizing and cleaning.

I think my own reaction to replacing the toilet seats (seriously??? get over it!) may stem from my history of frequent moves. Like a few of the previous posters, I was raised a military brat, and if you're moving every six months to three years, you GET OVER IT. It would be impossible to live in a perfectly disinfected environment with a new toilet seat when you're living out of boxes for months on end while waiting for your new housing, staying in other people's houses, in hotels, in hostels, or in temporary housing.

And for everyone who's so squeamish they hover in public restrooms and wait until they get home to sit down -how on EARTH do you people travel? I love Spain, but the bathrooms in some of the places there would make a germaphobe faint. And the more rural inns in Japan literally have a hole in the ground for a toilet. So people have squatted there before. Big deal! Think about what they were doing in the bed!

I've been trying to move completely away from paper towels, but once I dirty all the reusable cloths I have, I can't figure out how to clean them! I live in an apartment without a dishwasher or a washing machine, so any time I need to wash something, I have to lug everything down to the laundromat. I really don't want to wash my cleaning cloths with my clothes, and I can't afford a nearly empty load of just cleaning cloths. Washing them by hand never seems to get them clean enough. Suggestions?

I love this. Probably would never do it, but if you're the kind of person who lives to crack people up, this is perfect!

I second rebecca_f -we take decorating too seriously, trying to make our homes look like pictures in magazines. Some people only feel comfortable with picture perfect and spotless rooms, but a lot of people like to keep around bobblehead dolls that make them laugh and ugly quilts that their grandmas made.

Unfortunately, most HOA's would never allow this, and any city with a beautification program (my own included) would probably make you take it down as well. :-/