You may smile at some of these ideas, but you won't be laughing when the problem is right in front of you ... and the solution is only a hint away. Here are some of my favorite tips to common household problems:

1. Keep your brown sugar soft

You have friends coming over this evening and you thought it would be nice to mix up a batch of your favorite biscuits. You get to the part with the brown sugar and find that it is as hard as a rock. So you get out an ice pick and start stabbing into the box hoping to break up enough to complete the recipe.

Well, if you would have known to place a marshmallow in the package and close the box tightly about an hour later, the sugar would have been soft again.

2. Cook potatoes faster

You've prepared a really nice meal, but you discover you forgot to put in the potatoes in time so that they would be baked when the rest of the meal was to be served. Insert a nail straight into the potato and it will shorten the baking time by about 15 minutes. The meal is saved.

3. Get sauce out of the bottle easier

If you're having trouble getting the tomato sauce out of a new bottle, which you've been pounding on for the past few minutes, insert a straw and push it all the way to the bottom of the bottle. It will break the vacuum and you will soon have a steady flow of sauce.

4. Tell if an egg is fresh by putting it in water

Want to determine if an egg is fresh without breaking the shell? Simply immerse the egg in a pan of cold, salted water. If the egg sinks to the bottom, it is fresh; if the egg rises to the surface, it is not fresh.

5. To clean copper pots, scrub them with Worcestershire sauce.

The tarnish will fade very quickly.

6. Put marbles in a pot to tell you when the water's boiling

If you have a habit of walking away from your cooking and are constantly burning and scorching the pans, always place a jar lid, or marbles, in the bottom part of your double boiler. The rattling sound will be the signal if the water is boiling away.

7. A little vanilla poured on a piece of cotton wool and placed in the refrigerator will remove odors.

8. A stick of celery placed in your bread basket will keep the bread fresh longer.

9. Dry salad without a salad spinner

If salad greens are wet and you need them immediately, place them in a pillowcase and spin dry in your washing machine for a few seconds. This hint is especially good to know if you are serving a salad to a large crowd.

10. Truss a fresh bird with dental floss when grilling and roasting.

Dental floss does not burn and is very strong.

11. Stop the obnoxious drip sound with a string

If you can't get to sleep because the drip in your sink keeps you awake, tie a string to the tap, long enough to reach the drain. Water will run down the string noiselessly until you have time to fix it.

12. Figure out if a bicycle has been stolen

To identify a stolen bicycle, even though the serial number may have been filed off, roll a card with the number on it around a pencil, remove the bicycle's seat post and drop the card into the bicycle frame. It can easily be retrieved as proof of ownership.

13. Remove sweater peels with a razor

If you have sweaters or other garments with little fuzz balls on them, remove them by very carefully going over the surfaces with a clean shaver. It will not harm the fabric, but will remove the well-worn look.

14. Moisten your broom before sweeping to pick up dust better

For a faster working carpet sweeper, dampen the brushes of your sweeper before using. It will then do a much better job of picking up lint and string or other specks of dust.

15. To eliminate lint in your wash, try adding one cup of white vinegar to the last rinse cycle.

16. If you have too many suds in your washing machine, and it overflows, sprinkle the water with salt. The suds will disappear.

17. Boil white socks with a slice of lemon and they will look like new.

You will also save the damage which may be done by using bleach.

18. Use aluminum foil on your ironing board for faster ironing

For faster ironing, place a strip of heavy-duty aluminum foil over the length of the ironing board and cover with your regular padded cover. As you iron, heat will reflect through the underside of the garment and you'll achieve a smoother finish much faster.

19. To remove unwanted sticky tape, put a blotter against the tape and press with a warm iron, and it will be removed.

20. Keep frost off your window with rubbing alcohol

To keep Jack Frost off your windows in winter, try cleaning them with half a cup of rubbing alcohol or anti-freeze to each liter of water.

21. The next time red wine spills on your carpet or sofa, remove it with white wine.

Just pour a little of the wine over the red spill and then you can begin blotting up the excess.

Some of the best tips for caring for children are very simple, quick and save a lot of tears.

1. Fix a pesky splinter by soaking the splinter in cooking oil.

After a few minutes, numb the area with an ice cube before pulling the splinter out. This makes it an easy, painless process!

2. Polish shoes with potato

For polishing a young child's shoes that are scuffed badly and do not seem to take to polish, rub them with a piece of raw potato or rubbing alcohol before using polish. After polishing, spray with hairspray to prevent the polish from coming off so easily.

Although plants and flowers are an important part of your household decorating, they need to have a little special care.

1. To keep water from clouding a clear vase, add one tablespoon of liquid bleach to one liter of water. It won't harm the flowers at all.

2. Use salted boiling water for weed killer

Instead of using expensive weed killer, which you might worry about children getting to, salted boiling water will kill grass or weeds which grow between sections of cement footpaths.

You can also use some of the following tips for your beauty needs

1. To remove dead skin from your feet, elbows, knees and face, try rubbing a little bit of salad dressing into skin and let it dry a few minutes.

While the skin is still wet, massage it with your fingertips and rub quickly. You will be surprised at how much dead skin will roll right off.

2. For a homemade setting lotion for your hair, use a teaspoon of sugar or gelatin dissolved in a cup of warm water, and apply as you would your regular setting lotion.

Are there any other home remedy tricks you've used?

The post 27 surprising solutions to common household problems appeared first on FamilyToday.

The human body is a remarkable piece of equipment. It can stand a great deal of abuse, but not indefinitely. Like all machinery, it will eventually break down. When this happens we feel bad, we look bad and life is not much fun. Continued abuse will lead to chronic ill-health.

Some of us, it seems, are deliberately set on abusing our body. We do it in five ways: smoking, drinking too much alcohol, eating a poor diet, failing to cope with tension and neglecting exercise.

Successful people in today's busy world make us envious. How do they keep up their busy pace? How do they manage to achieve so much? How is it that they always look so good? How do they cope?

The answer to all of these questions is simple. They take care of their bodies. Many of them (top sportsmen and others in the public eye) would not survive in their professions if they did not.

People whose appearance, physical and mental ability are important to their job know that their body must be able to function efficiently if they are to operate at the highest level. They know that overeating, drinking too much and allowing their body to get run down makes them feel anything but good.

They know that to stay vital, exercise is important and that their weight must be kept in check. They enjoy good food, alcohol and lots of fun, but these outlets are kept in perspective, as over-indulgence demands a high price eventually.

These people do not have trouble sleeping. An energetic lifestyle also includes resting and recharging times. Because these people have such a positive attitude to themselves and their ability, many stand out as natural leaders and people whose example is worth following.

We can all adopt this lifestyle. All it takes is a commitment to ourselves

People have different abilities and different ways of achieving their potential, but there is one thing everybody can have, a body that is well looked after.

The ingredients for changing your attitudes to your body include:

1. Managing stress and tension

2. Eating a balanced diet

3. Getting regular exercise

4. Not smoking

5. Going easy on alcohol

6. Getting plenty of sleep

7. Having a positive attitude about yourself

Tension and stress are prime troublemakers for people who have not learned to deal with them

In many cases, the best way to shed tension is to adopt a more positive attitude to yourself, to tell yourself about your good points and tell yourself that you can do any job and do it well. Most over-stressed people who seek professional help find a simple cure. Better organization of your time and a relaxed approach to your work and leisure will help.

Eat a balanced diet

The importance of a well-balanced diet cannot be over-emphasized. A diet which includes plenty of wholegrain cereal products, fruit and vegetables, some dairy food, lean meat, fish and poultry, minimal salt, sugar and fats is a step in the right direction for good health- both physically and mentally.

Try to get some regular exercise

Make time for exercise. Regular exercise does not mean that you have to turn yourself into a prize-winning athlete. It means that you tone up the body's muscles, so that you have more energy and develop a capacity to enjoy yourself for longer in any field of activity.

Cigarette smoking has been clearly identified as a serious health risk

Apart from smoking being a costly and messy habit, it dramatically changes a person's ability to taste food. There are many programs available to help you quit smoking. Find out about one of them and enroll now. Non-smokers are not only healthier; they save money and smell nicer too.

Excessive alcohol intake has many ill effects

Too much alcohol consumption has ill-effects on your health, socially and economically too. To curb your alcohol intake, try to make each drink last a minimum of 30 minutes. After a while, you may find you can increase the interval. You will find that you can still have fun at parties. People who drink too much are usually not good company.

Plenty of sound and restful sleep really does wonders for you

It is a good idea to set a regular sleep schedule and adhere to it. Too much damage can be done to the young if tiredness is allowed to continue. A good average for young folks is eight hours a day. You can tell whether eight hours is enough for you by the way you feel when you get up in the morning. If you don't feel refreshed and wide-awake, perhaps you need a bit more shut-eye.

Positive self-evaluations and high levels of optimism can be good for you

Even unrealistically positive thoughts are deemed by experts to be better than negative ones. Apparently, optimism produces positive outcomes mainly because it catalyses action. By making the attempt you are more likely to get what you want in life.

Even unrealistically positive thoughts are deemed by experts to be better than negative ones.

If you work on adding these 7 things into your lifestyle, your body will definitely thank you.

The post Seven ingredients for a better lifestyle appeared first on FamilyToday.