We used Thumbtack to find our cleaners and have been very happy with them.

My adult children who live at home make a $500 a month contribution to the household. We're in a high cost of living area, rentals are high and hard to come by. They are still able to save a TON of money, so I'm hoping they'll never have to pay rent to someone else and just purchase their own homes eventually.

I keep a calendar on the wall near the fridge and record what we ate for dinner on it every night. If we ate out/had carryout, I write the name of the restaurant and draw a box around it. This aids in meal planning, budgeting (I can see at a glance how many times we've eaten out in a given month), and helps me 'remember' to serve/eat the leftovers before they get old since I know exactly how long that leftover casserole has been hanging out in the fridge. For cooks who follow recipes and measure ingredients (like me!), get a digital scale and convert your recipe measurements to grams. It's faster, easier and creates fewer dirty dishes/utensils/measuring cups and spoons to wash. Plus it makes halving or doubling a recipe super easy.

You'll feel hungry at first. After awhile (it was ~4-5 days for me), your body will figure out there's no food coming in the morning anymore and will stop sending out those hunger signals. I assume you're on winter break, so now's a great time to start. Your body should have adjusted by the time school starts back up. Also, drink water and stay active during your morning fast, to keep yourself distracted.

Something I found helpful when I began trying to meal plan is to write down what we actually had for dinner every night. I record this the old-fashioned way on a paper calendar next to the fridge. I write the name of the restaurant and draw a box around it if we ate out/got take out. This gave me something to go off of for future meal plans, and it also helps me to use up any leftovers before they go bad. I can see with a glance at the calendar what might be lurking in my fridge and exactly how long it's been there. Doing that enabled me to establish a six-week rolling menu plan.

My 'dry skin' problem turned out instead to be an 'excessive dead skin' problem-- dead skin that needed to be sloughed off. I've found that if I exfoliate thoroughly in a bath every other week, I don't need body lotion anymore.

Is getting some mid-day sunshine an option for you? If you know approximately how long it takes for your skin to burn, a rule of thumb I've seen before is to spend half of that amount of time in mid-day (11:00-3:00) sunshine with as much skin exposed as possible. So for example, if you know you burn in 30 minutes, you would spend 15 minutes outside in the sun, several times per week.

'Recipe' for Kombucha: 3 quarts filtered water, I cup white sugar, 4 black tea bags, 1 scoby plus its 'juice', and 1/4 cup of extra kombucha. Bring the water to a boil, turn off heat, add sugar and 4 tea bags. Cover. Let steep until the pot is room temperature, or just slightly warmer. Then pour into fermenting vessel (glass or ceramic -- no metal. I use a gallon size glass jar that once contained olives which I obtained from a local restaurant). Plop in scoby, pour extra kombucha on top and cover with a coffee filter secured by a rubber band. Let it sit, away from direct sunlight for 10-14 days. After that time, decant into glass bottles with lids (I use recycled vinegar bottles). If you're not immediately brewing another batch, leave some liquid in the bottom of the fermenting vessel so that your scobies don't dry out, cover the jar with plastic wrap and store in your fridge. Leave your bottled kombucha on the counter for 3 days for the second ferment (I've never added anything to flavor it, but if you wanted to, this is when you'd do that) so it gets fizzy. Then it's done and you put it in your fridge. Voila!

I cover my fermenting jar with a coffee filter secured with a rubber band.

I don't pat mine dry, but we like saucy wings. I've never tried to make them crispy. But to do so, I'd probably pat dry, brush with oil and then shake on the seasoning. I think broiling would still be your best bet for crispiness. I forgot to mention that I put the wings on a wire rack on a sheet pan to broil.

For a 4 lb bag of frozen wings, place your trivet, 1 cup of water and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Pile in the frozen wings (they all fit in my 6 quart IP), manual 10 min, quick release. Coat the wings in sauce (or shake on some seasoned salt) and broil for 5-10 minutes. A bonus-- the liquid left in your IP is now a lovely chicken stock so be sure to save it.

As in, learn the word 'renege' so you don't have to resort to using an offensive phrase such as 'indian giver'.

So you're saying gf processed foods are less nutritious than "normal" processed foods? Gf spaghetti is less nutritious than regular spaghetti? Gf sandwich bread more deficient than regular sandwich bread? A gf chocolate sandwich cookie is more lacking nutritionally than an oreo? Really? Now if you were saying the gf substitutes were less tasty and more expensive, you'd have no argument from me! I've seen this in other places as well. One pushback against non-celiac people going gluten free is that the diet is somehow nutritionally *less*. As far as I can see, that position has no basis in fact. Actually, if switching to a gf diet causes people to eschew more processed foods because the gf subs don't taste very good and are more expensive, then I'd say that's quite beneficial.

Really? The vast majority of whole foods ARE gf. I've never considered glutinous grains to be nutritional powerhouses. Subsistence staples, yes, but not nutrition-packed foods.

I absolutely adore my IP and use it constantly. But honestly, you sound pretty opposite of me. I hated cooking, have meat at nearly every meal and would never describe kitchen equipment or food I made as "lovely". I like my veggies roasted in the oven or sauteed on the stove, never steamed or boiled. For me the IP was a game changer. It totally took away the drudgery of fixing dinner Every. Single. Night.