I absolutely adore visiting with my husband’s family. After all these years, I have gotten used to the cigarette smoke. Some visits it really seems to aggravate my allergies. After a few days of being at home, everything is back to normal. Now it appears my husband has developed an allergy to cigarette smoke that affects him every trip. He does better after a day at home.

It seems everything smells like smoke when we return home. First thing we do to remove the cigarette smoke smell is that all clothes get immediately washed. Even the travel bag is either washed or placed outside to sun. We also shower and wash our hair as soon as possible. When we are traveling back, all clothing or any bags that we brought in are put in the trunk. This keeps the interior of the car from smelling like smoke.

For the trip home, I either keep our clothes in the car or I use a travel space bag to pack them. The space bag keeps the smoke from penetrating our clothes. The travel space bag is more convenient since you can keep all of your clothes together.

An air neutralizer can also help rid the smoke smell from a home. Something like Odo-ban works well and doesn’t leave a scent behind.

Even my camera will smell like smoke when we return back home. So take everything out of bags to let them get some fresh air. I usually just leave my purse in the car when we go for a visit but this time I brought it in. If you bring a purse, try to keep it in a room where there is no smoking. Even though smoke will travel through the vents, it can at least help make the smell not so strong.

Next time we will remember the $15 air purifier that works wonders to clear the air to help us sleep better at night. We will also pack some Claritin for the husband and allergy medicine for me just in case.

It’s always fun to go visit and to then come back home even if it takes about a day for everything to settle back down.

*photo – N vd Merwe – SoulMyst.com.

Whew! Two Christmas get-togethers down and one New Year’s Eve party to go. This time of the year is a mix between joy and survival.

We came back from visiting my husband’s family with illness. My husband is sick. Hopefully I can avoid it as I’m usually the one who needs a few day to detox from the cigarette smoke. He grew up with smokers but has developed an intolerance to it. After Rae was born, we would bring an air purifier with us. That seemed to help. Next trip we will have to remember to take one.

Now it’s time to think about the upcoming year and goals. I have plenty and have been working to free up some of my commitments to make them happen. I really want to write more here at Housewife since this is my ‘baby,’ so I’m breaking free from some other blogs. I had started writing for a few blog networks to make money when I was staying at home. Now that I’m working part-time and Rae is older, it’s time to refocus. The money is not that important and I really need to get my skills in place to do something else when she starts school. Ugh. Hard to believe that is just two years away.

Still I’m happy with my decisions and hopefully it will translate into more quality posts here and the handful of other blogs that are mine.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a great New Year.

To say that we are a tech family is putting it lightly. We have more computers than there are people that live in our household. Our favorite gifts are video games, board games, or computer accessories. So it is not surprising that Rae likes video games. In fact, she loves the Nintendo DS and even understands some games pretty well.

With that background knowledge, it should come as no surprise that we usually buy Rae toys that have some sort of learning/tech behind them. When asked if I would like to become part of the Vtech Demo team(well me and Rae that is), I thought it would be a fun experience for us both especially since we(Rae and I) were quite familiar with a lot of Vtech products.

Rae loves the Lightning McQueen Learning Laptop. She calls it her ‘po-puter’ and likes to watch movies on it. She’s referring to the starting animation. She is a little young for the laptop as it has a recommended age of 4-7 years. She just turned three but she still enjoys it a lot especially the games – imagine that. You access the games by pressing one of the three cars next to the keyboard. We play the learning games together and it creates a great learning experience that is also fun.

One thing I like about the Lightning McQueen Learning Laptop is its design. With the lid closed it looks like Lightning McQueen. Once you open it, you can remove the tire mouse that has easy to click buttons on it.

Also the display is very clear and big. There is an opening animation when you turn on the laptop. Raegan calls it a movie. The screen size is perfect to see what is going on. The audio is clear as well and you can understand every word spoken.

There are three games on it that feature the cars from the movie. To start the games, you just press one of the three characters from The Cars movie. There are also several learning activities that you use the keyboard to play. Games either deal with words, math, or logic.

The learning laptop has been a fun way to help Rae learn and something she readily enjoys playing with. The laptop keeps her entertained while helping her learn. Plus it’s very striking and feature-rich of fun games and activities.

Oprah’s favorite things is my favorite show of hers each year. But most of the gifts are way out of my price range. They are great gifts but still on the pricey side. This is why I was excited to run across this article on Oprah.com about thrifty holiday gifts. It was on her show but I missed that episode.

There are some pretty neat ideas like the swap party. It’s a good way to find someone who needs something you already have. I also like the hot chocolate mixes using icing bags.

The article is full of great ideas. Most seem to be craft-related, so it will probably take a little bit of work to get the result that is pictured. But for those who craft, it can be a lot of fun. For me it would probably wind up to be more frustrating than anything.

Tomorrow we have a playdate to make reindeer antlers that I think the three-year-old will really enjoy as she has been talking a lot about reindeer lately. So to dress up as one should be a huge hit. It’s being held at lunchtime so we were asked to bring a reindeer inspired treat.

I’m going to do something simple since I have to work in the morning before we go. I have a fresh box of Cheerios and plan to pour them in a bucket. Voia. Reindeer oats.

Apparently some kids leave reindeer food for Santa’s reindeer on Christmas Eve. We never did this. We just leave milk and cookies for the big guy. But I think it’s really sweet to leave food for the reindeer, so I think this is one tradition that we will do with Rae. Here is a ‘recipe’ for reindeer food:

1 cup sugar
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup glitter (that’s a lot of glitter!)

Since we live in the country and have all sorts of animals that pass through the yard, we will be leaving out the glitter. If you want to add color without glitter, try sprinkles.

Congratulations to Carla on winning the ‘Christmas Sucks’ book. Look for an email from me for more information.

It seems every year I have at least a half dozen ornaments that do not have a hanger. What happens to these hangers? I have no idea. It’s not like I remove them each year when I store them.

Packages of hangers are really cheap but are a mess to keep up with. They just seem to wind up everywhere. So this year I will just use an old trick I’ve done in the past to hang Christmas ornaments – paperclips.

Paperclips are nearly perfect to hang Christmas ornaments. Just straighten it out to make an ‘s’ and use one loop for the ornament. Close it together to keep it on the hook. Then use the other ‘s’ to hang it on the tree.

I have these colorful paperclips that should be pretty festive, too. At least by using paperclips I won’t be picking up countless hangers for months since they inevitably spill and scatter everywhere.

Today while sitting in the living room trying to wake up, I noticed we had a visitor in the house. This cute, little mouse peeked his head out from under the couch.

He darted off but then was soon back again. If only the cat were inside! But alas, no. It will be up to us to get rid of the mouse. According to the National Pest Management Association, 21 million homes will have unexpected pesky visitors this year. Yikes! Last year we had two mice that invaded our home.

Last year we used mousetraps with Spanish peanuts. We microwaved the peanuts(roasting) for a few seconds before placing them on the trap. This gets them really smelling and is more enticing to the mice – at least according to my dad. So I’ve rounded up one trap from last year and will set it today in hopes that it will do the trick.

Then I plan to take some additional steps to help keep out any more rodents.
– Keep trash in tightly wrapped containers
– Check for drafts around windows and other openings. Then seal them up.
– Cut back brush at least a foot from the house and clean out the gutters.

Hopefully this will our first and last rodent this winter.

There’s one big problem with spring cleaning when you live in the south. It’s that you have about a week of spring-like weather before it starts heating up. Who wants to spend those first few days cleaning, right? Not me. I always lose that window of pleasant weather. Then it becomes too hot and I definitely don’t want to clean.

So this year I’m winter cleaning. I’m going through storage boxes, deep cleaning hard to reach and overlooked spots, and rearranging furniture. Decorating for Christmas is the perfect time to do this since I’m putting away a lot of regular decorations and making room for the tree.

I just seem inspired to clean lately, so I have to go with that vibe since it doesn’t come around that often.

During the holidays, it’s nice to be able to laugh at the situations that seem to creep up year after year. Christmas Sucks is a new book that is a practical guide with comic relief to how to handle these very unique holiday happenings.

Joanne Kimes, who is the author of Christmas Sucks and Pregnancy Sucks, shares several funny antidotes in her latest book. Chapters cover everything from the office Christmas parties to Black Friday to loser gifts(a personal favorite section). Kimes touches on practically every subject and situation that we find ourselves in this holiday. Have you ever wondered the proper etiquette for re-gifting? It’s amazing how often we get gifts that just aren’t us. It’s also a subject Kimes tackles with humor and good advice.

Christmas Sucks – What to do when fruitcake, family, and finding the perfect gift make you miserable is a great read. It’s also pretty fast, which is always a plus in my book. I found this book – all 144 pages – to be a total delight. I love that the author mixes humor in with practical advice. She also does a great job of touching on every subject imaginable related to the holidays. After reading the book, I feel a little less stressed out. Maybe there is something reassuring knowing that everyone else is facing the same dreaded office parties and insane mall crowds that I am.

But don’t just take my word for it. I’m giving away a copy of Christmas Sucks to one of you. All you need to do is comment on this post with what you are either most looking forward to or dreading this holiday season. I’ll randomly draw Monday, December 8th for the winner. Deadline for entries will be Sunday, December 7th. The winner will then have 5 days to respond(I will email the winner December 8th and post here at GH) or I will draw for a new winner.

If you don’t win Christmas Sucks, you can ask Santa for it. At a retail price of $9.95, it might just be affordable for any Secret Santa you got roped into doing this holiday, too.