Happy Thanksgiving from My Family to Yours!

There is always a lot of conversation bout the Turducken at this time of year.  This amazing entree deserves an amazing dessert and to that end I present to you "Charles Phoenix's Cherpumple: The "Monster" Pie-Cake"
Hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

A Dual-Edged Roller Knife To Make Your Chopped Salads Easier

With the Oxo Salad Chopper, making chopped salad for the family and/or friends is both faster and safer.
Using a dual-blade roller knife similar to a pizza cutter, the ergonomic Salad Chopper cuts lettuce, vegetables, fruits, meats and nuts with just a few rolls.  There's no need for a separate cutting board (and no worries of slicing a finger).
Made from stainless steel, the angle-handled roller is built to trace the curves of the accompanying Oxo bowl. The blades remain in constant contact with the plastic and the rim has a built-on grip to help you get a handle on your work.
The 5.5-quart bowl is big enough for 6 servings and is dishwasher-safe.  Oxo says you can serve in it, too, but that's up to you.
Trade in store-bought salad bags and opt for something fresher.  Oxo's Salad Chopper sells on Amazon.com for $25.

Cool Tools : Color This! Shows How Paints And Colors Will Make A Room Look Good

Visualizing a home in different colors can take a good eye and strong imagination -- especially when you're house-hunting and the home's effects are of someone else.

Yet, we wonder:

• What would the bedroom look like in blue?
• How would the kitchen look in yellow?
• What if the foyer wall was accented in red?

At the Better Homes and Gardens website, you can answer those questions and see the results for yourself. Using the Color This! tool, website visitors can mix-and-match swatch colors, then apply them to a room's walls, floors, trim, cabinets and accessories.

Don't just get a mental picture of a room -- get an actual picture.

The Better Homes and Gardens site requires a basic, non-intrusive site registration to use the Color This! product suite. It's also available for home exteriors and window treatments, too.

7 Ways To Protect Your Credit Score For Better Mortgage Rates

As mortgage lenders tighten approval standards in Pennsylvania and nationwide, the importance of a good credit score is rising. Credit scores not only make the difference between a mortgage approval and mortgage turn-down, but they also play a large role in determining your actual mortgage note rate.

In the 3-minute piece, the NBC Today Show talks about 7 ways that homebuyers ruin their credit -- often by accident. Some of the highlighted mistakes include:

• Closing open credit cards
• Making appliance buys on credit prior to closing
• Asking creditors to lower credit balances prior to closing

In general, a 740 FICO will insulate a borrower from the higher costs and/or rates associated with low credit scores. Below 740, though, every 20 points adds to the damage. Watch the video and apply what you can to your own situation. The more you know, the more you can save.

2 Days to Thanksgiving - Do You Have Menu?

Thanksgiving is Thursday. If you're cooking for group (or a crowd) and you haven't yet put your menu in order, click on through Bon Appetit's Thanksgiving Menu Planner.

Answer 3 basic questions and Bon Appetit serves up a list of dishes and their respective recipes.

1. For how many people are you cooking?


2. How much time do you have to cook?


3. What's your style?

The dishes range from the simple (Pumpkin Pie with Spiced Whipped Cream) to the sophisticated (Herb Roasted Turkey with Apple Cider Gravy). There's even a menu for vegetarians.

It's not too late to host a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. Bon Appetit can get you moving in the right direction.

Or if you're a lucky guy like I am, maybe someone else will be cooking and all you'll need to do is show up, be thankful, and eat! What ever you're doing though - be thankful for what you have - its probably much more than some others have. And if you really want to be grateful - how about helping some one else? All you need to do is to click on the link to the right and change the world for someone by making a small donation - maybe give up a couple of movies so a little girl can go to school - or don't - its your choice.
I've already made mine.

Chemical Free Ways to Weed Your Lawn

In every yard and every garden, weeds happen. It's a fact of horticultural life.

There's no way to prevent weeds, but there is a proper way to treat and remove them. Chemical treatments like Round-Up are one option, but many gardeners prefer pulling weeds by hand. I only know these things from hearsay, since I am not, by any stretch of the imagination a gardener - however, through the magic of the Internet, I can find stuff to blog about and seem to be an expert - even if only an expert at finding things to share with you.

In this short video from Expert Village, Doug Smiddy shows us how to properly remove a weed by it roots to prevent regrowth. All it takes is a simple hand-tool to do the job right.

He also reminds us that having a weekly weeding schedule makes the job easier to finish.

Great Gadgets for Mother's Day or Father's Day!

After attending the International Home and Housewares show, The Today Show filmed a 5-minute segment called "Housewares You Won't Be Able To Live Without".

The title is somewhat over-the-top but don't let that turn you off. The gadgets reviewed are both practical and inexpensive. They include:

1. Make-no-mess vegetable peeler for the kitchen
2. Efficient kabob tool for the grill
3. Grow-In-Your-Kitchen garden that grows like an outdoor one

Of over 2,000 products at the show, NBC selected seven. Watch the video to see them in action.

Gadgets don't improve a home's value but they can make life easier sometimes. And for homeowners, easier is often better.

9 Steps to Spring Cleaning!

With the official start of Spring came the official start of Spring Cleaning Season nationwide.

In some homes, Spring Cleaning is an annual ritual, tackled within one sweat-filled, rubber-gloved weekend. In other homes, it's a less serious endeavor.

Either way, it helps to have a game plan.

Courtesy of Martha Stewart's website, the Spring Cleaning Organizer is a 9-step checklist covering all of the basics.

• Clean shades and windows


• Sort through wardrobes


• Clean and rotate mattresses and cushions

Most of the checklist items can be retired with household cleansers and vacuums. A few, however, require heavy-duty appliances that you may not have at-home. For example, cleaning carpets and rugs is best-handled with a steam cleaner; and, washing windows may be too dangerous, depending on your home.

If you don't want to rent cleaning equipment from your local hardware store just for Spring Cleaning, consider hiring an Angie's List contractor to do the job for you. It will cost more money than doing it yourself, but the job will get done right (and your home will be clean).

The Spring Cleaning checklist also reminds homeowners to check the batteries of in-home safety devices like smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, and flashlights. And its a great time to get rid of the things you don't use or need, either through a garage sale or a donation to a charitable organization. Some of those things you have cluttering up your basement or garage can find new life and utility in someone else's house, giving you more storage space and less clutter.

(Image courtesy: Junk Bee Gone)

Keeping a Clean Fridge!

Food-borne illness is three times more likely to occur at home than in a commercial kitchen. It's a fact that surprises a lot of people and one that experts attribute to a myriad of blunders including the improper storage of food, lack of cleanliness and unsafe food handling.

As it turns out, keeping your fridge clean and orderly is just a start.

Here's a few other helpful tips:

• Produce for salads often grows low to the ground and, therefore, is exposed to fertilizers. Wash thoroughly before placing in the produce bin.
• Never put washed produce back into its original, contaminated container.
• Even if fruit comes with a "peel", wash it. Whatever's on the outside transfers to the inside when you cut it.
• Keep milk and cold cuts off the refrigerator door -- it's the warmest part of the interior.
• Adhere to expiration and "use by" dates.
• If you see mold on bread, throw out the entire loaf.

Lastly, remember to wash your hands before handling your food. You don't have to be playing in dirt to get your hands dirty. The simple act of typing on a keyboard is enough to spread germs.

Clean food + dirty hands = dirty food.

Source
I love you ... Let's clean out the fridge
Kristen Browning-Blas
Denver Post, February 11, 2009
https://www.denverpost.com/ci_11666028

Vacuum cleaners are meant clean our homes, but in addition to picking up dirt, dust and mites, most vacuum cleaners also spread harmful bacteria.

As revealed in this this 4-minute video from NBC's Today Show, E. Coli, salmonella and other virus-causing entities are commonly found on vacuum cleaner under-bristles and, in some cases, bacteria can be 100 times more concentrated than on a public toilet seat.

The video goes on to give some general rules to limit indoor germ exposure -- some more practical than others. The rules include:

• Avoid wearing shoes indoors
  
• Wash your hands after playing on the carpets and rugs
  
• Don't stop vacuuming

And, of course, having the right hardware can help, too.

If it's time to replace that old vacuum, start your search online with a discount store like GoVacuum.com. Most online sites will have a wider selection than your local hardware store and shipping is usually free.

Not Caulking Your WIndows? Might As Well Leave Them Open!

Image via Wikipedia

If the amount of air that leaked from a typical home's gaps and cracks was measured, it would equal the amount of air that leaves through an open window.

This is why so many Home & Garden experts recommend a recaulking of your home prior to the Winter -- a solid caulk job can reduce a home's Winter energy bill by 20 percent.

In this 2-minute video from Home Depot, learn how you can to identify leaky windows, and then how to fix them using caulk, putty knives and a host of other tools. Or, if DIY is not your style, find a competent contractor online.

The project is small so the costs should be low.

Real Estate Definitions: Amortization

In the widest definition possible, amortization (pronounced: am-ohr-tih-ZAY-shun) is the scheduled process by which a loan's principal balance pays down to $0.

The opposite of an amortizing loan is an interest only loan for which there is no scheduled principal repayment schedule.

With respect to mortgages, amortization is what determines how much of a monthly payment goes to principal, and how much goes to interest. Amortization schedules are the same for all fixed rate, non-interest only home loans including 15- and 30-year fixed rate mortgages, as well as all non-interest only ARMs.

Monthly principal and interest payments on a mortgage are based on the mathematical formula above, where:

• P = principal
• A = payment
• r = monthly interest rate
• n = number of payments

Now, if you've ever paid on an amortizing home loan, you don't need to use the formula to know that mortgage amortization schedules are dramatically front-loaded with interest.

In other words, in the early years of loan, the interest due on a mortgage is relatively high versus the principal due. And, if you've ever heard someone say, "You don't pay down much of a loan in the first few years," now you know -- mathematically -- why that is.

This interest-heavy mortgage repayment schedule helps banks to collect as much loan interest as possible up-front, offsetting potential loan losses.

But, just because the bank sets an amortization schedule doesn't mean that a homeowner can't change it. In any given month, a borrower can prepay extra principal to the lender, thereby changing the formula and accelerated the loan payoff date.

There are calculators online that do the prepayment math for you, but before making extra payments, talk with your loan officer or financial advisor first. Prepaying your mortgage could trigger a stiff penalty from your lender, or put your liquid assets at risk. Prepayment is not a bad plan, but it may be a bad plan for some.

(Image courtesy: Mortgage News Daily)

A Video Tutorial on Cleaning Your Gutters

When functioning properly, gutters can extend the life of a home. By directing water away from the physical structure, gutters protect a home's foundation, its siding, and its landscaping. 

The key to reliable gutter performance is simple -- keep them clean.  Twice annually, experts recommend a thorough gutter cleaning and the project can be a do-it-yourselfer,  if you're so inclined. 

The basic toolset is likely already on hand:

• A ladder
• A scoop
• A trash bag
• A garden hose
• Protective gear

Watch the video above for a quick tutorial, or if DIY is not your thing, reach out to me anytime. I'd be happy to refer you to a reliable professional in the neighborhood.