
Well, ladies, this is my final post. Not my final-forever post, I hope, just my final post for Live Lazy, Live Large: Tips for Making Life Fun for Us Ol’ Ladies.
I’ve written other blogs (mostly about writing and now in book format) as every now and again, a blog idea strikes me and away I go spending weekends sharing what I’ve learned on my journey and blah-blah-ing away about this and that.
I could carry on and on and on with household tips but there’s no point in overlapping what most of you have mastered since your arrival on Planet Earth. I mean, you could give me ten times as many ideas. If I keep going, I will only start re-waxing the same tables you guys probably have been doing since you were kids.
Hints and Tips
These hints will be in random order. This is to keep you awake and alert while you go through them. [*snort*] Or perhaps to be annoying to readers who insist on order. Which I have been saying all along not to do; that we must put aside the idea of having to always do everything the same way.
Just do it.
How to exercise: Stand up straight. Straighten your legs/knees. Shoulders back. Feet pointed out. Breathe. Try it for longer and longer each time.
My computer desk has a shelf under the main desktop. (Elbow level. Ex-typesetter Smart Move!) On this, I keep my keyboard. Beside my keyboard is one of those “frilly duster” things. I not only use it on my keyboard but also on my computer screen, desk, printer(s)… Oh, look! I’m passing by the coffee table to go look out the window—remember taking those breaks for our eyes?—I might as well bring the frilly duster with me and get the coffee table and the window sill and… See what I mean? Tada. Some dusting done and out of the way.
Just do it as you see it. Don’t say, “Oh, I’ll wait until dusting day.” Screw that! Get ’er done!
If you have several things to do—and I cut up used paper into handy-sized bits and write on the backs—make a list. Leave the list at your wrist. Do NOT make long lists. Only the “couple of things” you definitely WILL get at “today.”
When you have a to-do list set up, do the sh*ttiest thing first.
Another hint along those lines is, when you have several things to do that are similar, like shelling peas or snapping beans, organize these into “length of time required” and do them from longest time required to shortest. That way gives us hope. 😀
You don’t have to like it. You probably won’t like it. Just get ’er done.
One new hobby might be to try making different recipes from different cultures. If it turns out that you don’t like it, you’ll be the only one complaining.
When I say different recipes, I mean from scratch. Example: I make my own hummus. I soak my own chick peas overnight. I cook them myself. I also make my own tahini that goes in it. (Tahini is sesame seed paste.) Toasting sesame seeds is one of the most exciting (read, stressful) things I’ve ever done in the kitchen. Ditto toasting pine nuts. Chaos addicts take note.
I make my own pasta sauce from canned tomatoes. (NOT the cans that have been pre-flavored (= salted all to hell!) but the plain ones.) I used to grow my own tomatoes when I lived in the country.
Making things from scratch eliminates aaaalllll that toxic crap “they” put into food now to addict us to their brands.
By the way, food does NOT equal love! Food equals calories. We need only so many calories per day to sustain life. Back in my New Age days, someone told me that when we are babies if, every time we cried, no matter what was going on—a pin stuck in us, actual hunger, boredom, fear, etc.—our mothers just popped a bottle into our mouths, we would forever reach for food (or drink) when anything bothered us. (Think about that one, eh? Yikes!) And this, too, would program us to associate food with “love” even though it wasn’t love at all, it was Mom’s inexperience (bless her heart).
Back in… I think it was 2008, I was way over my recommended weight. I had stopped smoking and had gained 80 pounds. I’d actually been anorexic since my teen years, a walking skeleton with skin, so it was kind of exciting when breasts sprouted—Wow! What are those things?—but then everything else sprouted too. Eek!
What did I do?
I used my head. I found out how much I should weigh for my height. Then I found out how many calories I needed to maintain that weight. Then I cut that number in half and went all OCPD on reading labels and researching the calories of everything that was going to be entering my mouth…
NOTE: You will freak out totally when you read what actually is in “food.” They will list salt. Then they will list “flavoring” which includes salt again. I recommend a TV program called, How It’s Made. Just Google it. I think you might be able to download episodes. But be prepared to be grossed out when they show how food is made. Dog food is a thousand times healthier and that’s because we love them. Should we not love ourselves, too?)
Then I ate whatever the hell I wanted to eat but kept it under the 1,200 calories per day. Example: Instead of hotdogs with buns, I trimmed off the crusts from actual bread and wrapped my dogs in that. Bingo. 100 calories for that “snack”. (I mentioned in a previous post that I’m a grazer.) I went only by calories. That was it. Nothing else. I ate what I wanted. I had ice cream daily. But only a wee bit at a time. Six “meals” at 200 calories per = the 1200 calories I was allowing myself. Twelve “meals” at 100 calories per … 😊
Within four months I had lost 40 pounds. I was now at what I should weigh. No more anorexia. I finally had breasts! No more eating to fill a void. I was in total control of me! Yay.
The more you dislike something, the sooner you need to get ’er done and out of the way.
From an episode of the TV series, Forged in Fire: “With that many years of experience, you learn to work smarter instead of harder.”
Most of the hints and tricks here are well-nigh impossible unless we live alone, but do not ever play the blame game. The blame game makes humans bitter and maintaining bitterness inside can cause illnesses. (Scary, yeah. But true.)
Wipe out the microwave after every use. My microwave’s door opens down. Look at all that moisture on the door!

I keep a clean/separate dishcloth at hand and use it pretty much every time. (One thousand and one, one thousand and two.) Hey. My microwave is state-of-the-art = $$$ so I want it to last as long as possible, right? Remember the term “built-in obsolescence”? I wipe the sides, too, if there’s a lot of extra moisture. (One thousand and three, one thousand and four, then one thousand and five for the “ceiling.”)
By the way again, I can’t use my apartment stove’s oven. No matter how I clean it, it sets off the fire alarm. (Long boring story about why I won’t ask for a new one. It’s OK. It’s OK. I’m good. 😊 ) Ergo, I use my microwave which is also a convection oven, a steamer and a griller. Hey. Why not, eh? But it’s tricky to do cakes in. But since I rarely bake cakes anyway…
Speaking of moisture and how moisture can cause damage, we might as well clean the shower stall walls while we’re in there, right? I keep a sponge—yes, one of those “enchanted sponges”—and wipe the walls as far up as I can reach every few showers or so. (But be sure to hold onto the bliddy railings when you’re doing this! If you don’t have railings in your shower “at your age,” get some installed! Very important. When we old ladies break a hip, it’s downhill into the grave from there. Seriously!)
Take a minute to save two.
Don’t make a mess in the first place. VITAL!
Get a vacuuming robot (mine’s name is Cecil) and/or floor washer robot (mine’s name is Brendan). But unless we declutter before getting one of these, they’ll be essentially useless so a waste of money.
Laundry ideas: I have lots of undies and t-shirts so I’m not forced to do laundry constantly.
I take the laundry out of dryer right away so it won’t wrinkle. If it’s still slightly damp—slightly damp, never wet—I can spread things out on my bed or couch to dry out better. I prefer to use my bed so I will definitely have to fold them and put them away before I can go to sleep at night. [*winks at mean trick done to self*]
Chop up your dental floss before discarding it. If it goes into the dump as a long string, it can harm wildlife.
Leave “signals” for yourself. Example: Whenever I take my morning meds from my pill thingey, I make sure to have the other side facing out so when I look at it, I will know I haven’t taken my evening meds yet. When I take my painkillers, I turn the bottle upside down so I’ll know, Yes. I took them already.
This is my breadmaker’s pan. It’s very hot when the bread is done so I set it aside and put hot water into it to soak the flipper at the bottom of it. The flipper usually has bread stuck on it.
So I won’t forget that it needs to be cleaned, I leave the handle pointed away when it’s dirty and toward me when it’s clean. When I pour in the flour, I always make sure the handle is toward me as I can pour the flour in better that way. Handle close to me? Ready to go.


Do things in batches: shop, cook, clean up; a big freezer is important; deep clean spring and fall in one shot rather than haul everything out several times.
Organize Ziploc and Tupperware containers inside bigger ones.
Keep cookbooks in the same place.

I don’t throw out my old electric toothbrushes when they’re past their best-by dates but still have power left. I use them to clean around my taps and the edges of my sink(s) and other things. The ones without batteries, I use to clean the filters for my aquariums. Toothbrushes are handy for lots of things. Just don’t mix them up.
Clean something when you SEE IT! Not “every Tuesday” after a week’s accumulation. 1 min x 7 as opposed to 15 min x 1 is a savings of 8 minutes a week.
Don’t leave dishes in the sink. Immediately after use, fill what you’ve just used with hot water, squirt in a drop of soap, maybe place the utensils inside. Let this soak until you come into the kitchen the next time. Rinse. Dry. Put away. And especially, always before bed! (So it will feel like the elves were in overnight. 😊 )
Twice a year, my plants inspire housecleaning. The housecleaning part isn’t part of the passion though. Trust me on that. Moving the plants outside toward the end of May leaves that area of my living room clear for moving furniture so I can get in there and deep clean and deep vacuum everything, and wash the big picture window. Before the plants come back in around mid-October, that spot gets another deep clean.
And while I have all that stuff out: vacuum cleaner, water pail, paper towels, window cleaner, floor cleaner, furniture polish, floor wax, etc., I might as well do the whole living room, right? In fact, if I take, let’s say, the entire day, I can probably get my entire apartment spiffy-clean to the point where my dear late mother would approve. I’m going to be moving furniture anyway, right? Might as well just get ’er done. (I’m talking about a deep get ’er done when doing this, eh?)
Stop work at “quitting time.” Set time limits for yourself and when the clock comes around, “punch out.” You don’t have obligations to anyone other than to yourself. If you have nothing else to do, start a hobby. (I started aquascaping about three years ago. Four years? I’ve lost track because of Plague Lockdown. But why not?)
Speaking of hobbies…
Grow plants. I actually have a date tree that I grew from a date pit. Yes I do.
I’ve tried to grow oranges and tomatoes and other things from seeds, too. Most were not successful because “they” do things to the plants so only “they” can grow them. $$$ But why not give it a shot anyway. It’s fun and when they actually sprout, it’s such a nice feeling. ♥
Set up an aquarium or aquascape and grow more plants in there.
Start tai chi.
Dance.
Take regular walks. Walk faster and faster and faster until you’re able to do that weird Olympic wiggle walk.
Be sure to have your hearing aids in every time you go outside so you can snicker away when people talk about you behind your back,
“I swear that old lady must be right out of her mind. Aren’t they supposed to be at home rocking in their chair and knitting or crocheting blankets for their grandchildren or something?”
Salute them with the one-finger peace sign and carry on! ♥
This week’s tip: Hints and Tricks for Gettin’ ’er Done, Part 2.
Fare well, ladies. Live long and prosper.
Oh. And as “promised”… What is a 3Cs? Now remember, this was in my day, and I blame it entirely on society (religion): a 3Cs was a Cooking, Cleaning, C*m-Bucket.
Illustrations from https://www.needpix.com/
Photos by Sherrill Wark
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