Do we want a Making Life Easier thread?

[agate]

It's not just a preference, Virginia. I literally cannot sit in most other seats. Sometimes in the passenger seat of a vehicle I can last for about 20 minutes but any other seating arrangement just isn't possible. Pain sends me right out of the chair every few seconds.

[Virginia]

That is a shame Agate. I am really glad you got this chair.

[agate]

Our backs don't last forever, unfortunately. Some are lucky enough not to have back problems with aging but I've heard that most people do develop back "issues" as time goes on.

For the last couple of weeks I've needed the rollator just to get around the apartment but in the last few days that situation has improved, and I don't need it nearly as much. I'm about to do a happy dance about this as I don't have to be so slow now.

[agate]

I'm doing something to make life easier, once again. I do that a lot.

Recently I had to change my diet somewhat because of a problem with not having enough potassium. I decided that one way to get more potassium would be to eat more the vegetarian burgers that can be bought frozen. You can microwave them or heat them in a skillet. I've found that the skillet version turns out better than the microwaved one.

So I returned to doing these veggie burgers for dinner, using the one skillet that works well for their size, a 7" enamel-on-cast-iron skillet I've had for 48 years. It has a nonstick surface that takes special cleaning efforts. I've been buying special sponges for cleaning it over the years but each one of them seems to be a one-use-only thing because they're not very reusable, and so that is a nuisance and spendy.

The other day I realized that the skillet is a bit heavy to handle as well as being a cleaning problem and wondered why I couldn't replace it when I remembered that it had been around since 1975.

I've tried to hang onto every piece in that set that I bought so many years ago, probably taking advantage of a special sale because this type of pots and pans is always regarded as top of the line--and way beyond my reach financially. So when I bought them I made up my mind to take really good care of them. The two Dutch ovens vanished some years ago (one cracked in an earthquake) and the larger skillet is gone, as is the little saucepan, but I still have this one skillet and its lid. The other items lasted for about 30 years, and so this was really good stuff, durable and serviceable.

So I'll be saying goodbye to this last piece, which is very discolored by now and the nonstick surface is probably marred by the times when I was stupid enough to use steel wool on it (that probably happened a few times). I'm getting a new pan, enamel on cast iron throughout and so no nonstick surface to worry about. It will be a bit smaller and I hope somewhat easier to handle.

I thought long and hard about just getting a standard cast-iron pan without the enamel overlay. It's the kind I had for many years and my mother before me used them all the time. But ideally they should be seasoned often, and seasoning them is one more job to have to do. So I'm opting for the enamel coating even though some of the reviewers mentioned problems with cracks in the coating that would probably make the pan unusable. However, the pan is on sale, and so if there's cracking, I'll just replace it with an ordinary cast-iron pan.

Like most cast iron pans, the handle on this new one will get hot, and the pot-handle covers I've also had for many years are really shabby by now, and I'm getting a couple of brightly colored new ones. They are another way of making life easier, come to think of it.

If your pot is too hot to handle but you need to grab it and have to reach for a potholder, you're wasting valuable time. These little handle covers are like built-in potholders that sit on the handles of the skillets and you can pick up the pot any time you want without having to find and position a potholder or mitt. I avoid oven mitts as they seem clumsy to me.

I think it pays to think kitchen needs through very carefully because it's a place where you can easily have a serious accident. I have had some bad burns and bad falls in the kitchen. And I know of people whose relatives have declared that it's not safe for them to be in a kitchen and have seen to it that they're deprived of one by moving them to assisted living where there isn't one or having the stove removed if they're staying where they are. I don't want to be one of those people.

[Virginia]

Sounds like you did a thorough research on your new skillet you are getting. I got a new 7" frying pan over a year ago and I really enjoy it. First new small one I had bought in years and I don't know why I waited so long. Hope you enjoy it.

[agate]

I'm eating a veggie burger that resulted from my first use of the new skillet, and it turned out nicely. The pan is a real keeper.

The handle covers weren't keepers though. In fact I'm requesting a refund. They turned out to be made of some rubbery stuff they're calling silicone. I find it hard to believe that this stuff won't melt, and it's not comfortable to hold. Also, this one I ordered is much too big for this pan though that is my fault for not reading the product description carefully enough.

I'll stick with my old fabric handle cover. I got it many years ago from a place in Wisconsin that dealt only in a few fabric items (aprons, potholders, kitchen towels, etc.) and it has lasted and lasted. It's a bit shabby and old but it does the job.

[agate]

I don't know what happened but at least this place is back. Thank you to whoever fixed the problem some (all?) were having with a message alerting us to a problem.

I could use this space to prattle on about yet another of my fixes. So here goes.

A while ago I parted with the huge shopping cart I've had for 40 years. I replaced it with a considerably smaller one but it is so small that it isn't quite right for hauling laundry loads to and from the laundry room here. So I've been improvising with my rollator. The seat area on it was just a bit too small for the plastic laundry basket I've used for many years, which is also sizeable.

So I just took a laundry bag with me and piled the dry clothes into that bag and wheeled the whole bundle around in the rollator, with the "important" clothes that needed to be on hangers right away just piled up on top of that bag.

I don't know how many times the whole tower of laundry fell onto the ground. I haven't enjoyed picking items up with my reacher and laboriously putting them back on top of the rollator, then hoping I could get home without any more accidents.

So (drumroll please!) I decided to look for a slightly smaller laundry basket. I scoured through Amazon's offerings, pages and pages of plastic baskets, but had to look fairly long before I found one. I measured my rollator and measured my existing laundry basket because the new one needs to fit inside the old one.

Why not toss the old one? That was my original plan--until I remembered that every day I turn it upside down on top of my bed so I can elevate my legs for at least 15 minutes. A physical therapist told me to do that to prevent leg and ankle swelling.

She used a foam block in the PT sessions but I never could find a foam block that would have worked, and so I improvised with the upturned laundry basket. Nothing else around here would work nearly as well.

For a wonder, I found a plastic laundry basket that is just a couple of inches smaller all around than the old one, and so far it's been working fine. It will fit on the rollator, and I haven't had any more incidents where clean laundry ends up on the ground.

Life is easier when it's laundry day now. Just today there were a number of people in the laundry room at the time when I had to take my clothes out of the washer, and it was a very tight situation with little room to maneuver.

I ended up balancing the new plastic basket on the windowsill and unloading my wet laundry into it while making sure it didn't fall off the windowsill by hanging onto it. This wasn't easy but I did it.

I almost had to do this because there were other walkers in there, other people loading and unloading, and yet someone might have been waiting for me to empty out that washer without waiting around.

So the new laundry basket has passed through a number of trials and hasn't let me down.

[Virginia]

Agate, why not start a business and call it "Agate's Innovative Solutions". You could charge by how hard the problem is to solve.

Pretty neat solution for the laundry problem.

[agate]

There seem to be quite a few experts on organizing out there already or at least I'm always finding out about their books or podcasts or Ted talks. But golly gee, I could get rich overnight!

Let the good times roll!

[agate]

Time to dredge up this thread again, maybe.

I've been hobbled considerably in the last three weeks with my thumb in a splint and my lame foot. One routine activity that is next to impossible is washing my hair. The thumb problem makes it difficult, and I don't want to disturb the head bandage either. It's partly in the scalp, and so a shampoo has to be very sketchy. I did it once or twice but the other day I tried a no-rinse shampoo I happened to have around here.

I don't think I'd ever used it before. It actually seemed to do the job. You just wet your hair with it and towel your hair dry. I'd say it got my hair passably clean.

It's another shortcut for the collection.

[flatcap]

Strap Wrenches

It might be said that this is more for the guys than it is for the gals, but I thought I would post it anyway. I hope it is of some interest to everyone.

Strap wrenches come in handy when opening a stubborn jar and similar items. They are usually sold in pairs. You can hold onto the jar with one of them as you twist off the lid with the other.

The type of tool most commonly found for this purpose is sold singly. You are supposed to hold the jar with one hand which, depending on your strength, can be impossible. In addition, their capacity to remove large lids and so forth tends to be limited to the extent that the tool won't work because it won't open wide enough. The Craftsman-brand strap wrenches I use never met a lid too large in diameter to handle.

Strap wrenches can take some time to get used to, but once you have they are easy to use. They are inexpensive (~ $20 a pair), so it doesn't cost too much to find out if they will work for you. I recommend at least trying a pair. I don't have the strength I once had, and they have saved me a lot grief.

Hope this helps.


Craftsman Strap Wrenches
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[Virginia]

The wrenches are interesting because on numerous occasions I have just reached over in my tool box and got one of the regular wrenches out to open different things. I thought I was being resourceful and all along this is what people do with wrenches designed just for this.

[agate]

If/when I get the Internet back I'm going to look into strap wrenches. I routinely try pliers, a nutcracker,and several types of opening gadgets. Products are packaged so cleverly that they're almost impossible to open.

[flatcap]

I hope your ISP issues are resolved soon.

I thought to add more info about strap wrenches, so I searched YouTube for relevant videos.

The first one that came up that included the word "jar" shows how not to use strap wrenches. The guy tries to use them backwards and they don't work, so he gives up and goes back to prying the lid with a spoon. That doesn't work either, and the video ends.

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Thankfully, there a lot of videos showing how to use strap wrenches correctly.

This is just one of them.

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Another shows a very brief shot of a pair in use opening the lid of a container.

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[agate]

The Internet came back in mid-morning. I've pointed out to Century Link that they really owe the affected customers a bit of a refund for the loss of the connectivity we're paying for, for well over an entire day. In my case it would amount to only a couple of dollars but the Internet doesn't come cheap.

They're considering a refund of some kind.

So now I'm catching up because a smartphone just isn't as efficient as a PC for my purposes. Entering content is SO slow in spite of the handy way the system anticipates what word you're about to type.