After not wearing contact lenses for years, I decided to give them another try. My problem with them was the my eyes were always dry because I work in front of a computer all day.

I tried a pair of Acuvue Advance that worked really well. The contacts are still a little dry every once in a while, so I just use a few rewetting drops to remedy the situation. But then I remembered a piece of advice from a former co-worker about dry eyes.

Her optometrist had told her to start taking Evening Primose Oil to ease dry eyes. I have taken EPO before but not for dry eyes. I had read that EPO was good in aiding to get pregnant. We tried several things when getting pregnant, even progesterone cream. Taking the EPO wasn’t bad, and since it’s readily available, I plan to start taking it again to see how well it works with my dry eyes.

My co-worker swore by it, and she wore contact lenses. EPO isn’t expensive, so at least if it doesn’t work I won’t be out much money.

This past week I spent some time planning our summer. Since Rae is almost three, there are a lot of fun activities that we can do within an hour or two where we live that I think she will enjoy.

While it may not be as complicated as say Las Vegas travel, we do have to make plans and set aside enough money to take all the small trips.

We plan to do something every other weekend. Even some of the trips will cost very little since admission to some attractions is free. I’m most looking forward to the trip to the Natural Science Museum to see the robotic dinosaur exhibit. Rae likes dinosaurs, and I think she’ll enjoy seeing them ‘move.’

Rae has been talking about the beach for the past couple of days. Her cousins were going to the beach Memorial Day but we couldn’t make it. Ever since then, she has been wanting to go although she has never been to the beach. I think she’ll like it since to her it will be a huge sandbox.

I love having a kid. I’m going to get to do some things I haven’t done in a while and even do more things that I haven’t ever experienced. It should be a great summer.

Last month, I wrote about some advice I read that Listerine kills mosquitoes only to go to Snopes and find it to be false, or at least according to them. After doing some more digging on the subject for my new blog that Listerine may in fact might work to kill mosquitoes.

Apparently what works with Listerine or even the generic brand is the ingredient Eucalyptol. It’s an active ingredient in Listerine(.092%), and that has been proven to work well to kill both mosquitoes and their larvae. There were a few journal articles, and all I could read was the summary or pay $30 to read the entire thing. But from the summary you could tell that there was proof that it help curve the mosquito population.

I found on Amazon a repellent spray – Repel Lemon Eucalyptus. You can buy Eucalyptus oil, so in theory, you could make your own mosquito repellent that is a higher percentage of the ingredient that is suppose to work on them. It’s definitely something I will try this summer as we have a terrible mosquito problem.

When I cook, we always have leftovers. Usually I save them because it seems wasteful to throw out good food. The problem is that my husband does not eat leftovers, so it falls on me to eat them. Yea, me! Sometimes I do not finish all the leftovers or forget exactly how long they have been in the refrigerator.

I have come up with a new system for storing leftovers. I buy those Rubbermaid storage containers that have the colored lids. At certain times of the year, the lids will be different colors like for Halloween they were orange. I thought about buying some containers with different colored lids and then use one color for each day of the week. This way I will know when leftovers were put in the fridge.

If I can’t find enough colored lids, then I can get some of those colored stickers used to price items for rummage sales and assign a color for each day of the week. Then just place that color on the lid when I store leftovers. I could even write the date on the sticker since sometimes I go for a week longer without cleaning out the fridge.

We went to visit family over the long Memorial Day weekend. It seemed we packed enough for a two-week stay when we were only staying two days. I took my laptop and didn’t even turn it on. I didn’t read a book or any of the magazines I brought. With all the stuff I did take, it’s amazing I forgot some things.

We had planned on just eating sandwiches on the road to save money and time. Well, it’s kind of hard to do that when you forget the luncheon meat. Not only did I forget the meat but I forget the hotdogs that I bought to bring for the Memorial Day cookout. That’s not all either. I had bought some 2-liter Cokes on sale to take with us. So, we wound up spending more money than we anticipated.

And that my friends is why it is always wise to make a detailed list of everything you want to take on a trip. Had I had the above items on a list, then I surely wouldn’t have forgotten them. We usually just buy food when we get somewhere but I had found such great deals that it made it worth the effort to haul it with us. Now my great deal is just extra money I really didn’t need to spend. Looks like we’ll be dining on sandwiches and hotdogs for the next few days.

After looking for a few weeks for this item, I finally found a mini muffin pan at Wal-Mart in another city. I had been wanting one ever since a co-worker brought mini cupcakes to work. It was like a light bulb went off in my head and I was struck with a great idea.

I love the hostess 100 calorie cupcake packs. There are three cupcakes filled with a creme topped with chocolate icing. How can all of this goodness have just 100 calories? Well there are only three and they are tiny. But they are very satisfying. Seeing the delicious treats my co-worker brought to share made me realize that I could make these at home in any flavor that I wanted. The key to the 100 calorie pack snacks is portions, so I can figure out how much the cake has and then divide by the number of cupcakes I have. Who knows. I might can have 4 cupcakes instead of 3!

Also while I was buying the pan, the cashier told me that she bakes brownies in hers since they come out the perfect size for her daughter. I made some yesterday as my daughter loves brownies, too. They came out really well. Also I plan to back some strawberry cupcakes today.

The only drawback is getting that tiny bit of batter into the cups. I tried a ladle spoon but it’s still messy. It seems I have a pancake batter cup with a special spout somewhere that I might try next.

So, while it’s a little more work to get the mix into the mini muffin cups, it’s worth the effort since you can have a bite-sized snack of your favorite sweets without a lot of calories.

Baking is not one of my strong suits but I just couldn’t pass this up, especially since I have wanted one for a while.

While I will probably need a cake carrier three maybe four times in a year, it’s one of those items that there’s not much that you can substitute in its place. I did get a good deal on it. It was $4.50. It was regular price but it just seemed like a bargain.

What also sold me on this cake carrier is that it can also be used to store crafts or anything else really. I like versatile items, especially if I seldom or hardly use it then there is something else I can use it for.

Too bad it doesn’t fold down and take up less space. At least it will be easy to find in the cabinets.

I must confess that I do not enjoy housework. I put off doing dishes, vacuuming, and mopping for as long as possible. It seems that when I do clean I spend way more time that I want or need to. I found this tidbit of advice something that I plan on implementing.

Take your kitchen cooking timer and set it for 15 minutes. When the timer rings, take a break from cleaning. This way you break up your cleaning chores and can keep focused on cleaning. I always watch the clock when I clean. By setting a timer, I don’t have to worry about the time and can concentrate fully on cleaning. I should get a lot more done in less time.

Honey is just one of those kitchen staples that I seldom use by always have on hand. When I was a child, my mom would heat up honey to soothe my sore throat but thats about the only time I remember eating honey. I bought some for a recipe, used it once, and now it just sits on my shelf since I’m not sure what to do with it.

That is until this weekend when I was at a friend’s home. She was talking about how her soon-to-be husband it borderline diabetic, so they have changed their eating habits drastically. One change they made was to get rid of the sugar and replace it with honey. But not with just any honey but honey made locally.

I was intrigued since I always like to support local farmers but what she said next had me sold on it. She said that since they’ve been adding local honey to their tea, etc. that their allergies have improved greatly! Hearing her explain why really makes sense. Local bees visit local flowers and then make the honey. You eat the honey, giving your body exposure to those allergens while giving it time to build up an immunity. That makes sense because flu vaccines contain a small amount of the flu.

Here are some honey recipes from the Honey Association. You can replace sugar with honey in any recipe but remember the honey is much sweeter than sugar, so use less.

So, now I’m on the hunt for local honey. Of course, Wal-Mart didn’t have any but some of the local grocers might. If that fails, then I’ll try the local fruit stand or a local farm that we toured last October.

I’ve been looking for foods that burn more calories than they actually have. These are the foods that I really want to include in my daily diet. These fat burners would hopefully help me lose weight and still eat most of the foods that I love.

Here are a few foods that I have found:

Carrots
Soybeans
Blueberries
Watermelon
Chillies
Apples

Also, apparently dairy is once again good for your diet since it help to breakdown fat.

I’m going to play Menu Planning Monday this week, so I’ll have to keep these foods in mind and plan accordingly.