Mrs. Meyers Clean Home:  No-Nonsense Advice that Will Inspire Your to CLEAN like the DICKENS
Life is hectic and messy. Keeping your house clean and nice is the only sensible thing to do. Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Home is two parts common sense and one part inspiration. Read it and you will learn how to clean like the dickens.
Thelma Meyer raised nine children in Iowa. As you can imagine, she has plenty of experience cleaning house. Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Home has shortcuts and tips for cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living room and shows your how to do it right the …read more

A new book by Eduardo Xol, one of the designers on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, will be out next week. Ahead of the release, I received a copy of Extreme Entertaining Made Simple to look over and review for Keeping the Castle.
In Extreme Entertaining Made Simple, Eduardo shares his philosophy of using the five senses to create and celebrate a memorable occasion. The taste, sound, feel, smell and look of an event are given equal attention according to its chosen theme. A sixth sense, intuition, is also given its due in the book.
The parties in our large extended …read more

Thanks to everyone who threw their names into the hat to win a 1-year subscription to Domino magazine!
I picked the winning comment using random.org. And the number that was picked was:

#85! Congratulations to Patti!
PattiJul 30, 2008 at 6:26 pm
This magazine is wonderful. I’ve picked it up a few times, but don’t subscribe! Thanks for the chance!

I hope you enjoy this magazine as much as I do. I will send you an email about the details.

Over the past months, I subscribed to quite a few magazines. Some of them still have to start arriving. I don’t know if I’ll eventually regret the subscriptions. If simply become clutter, I will. But my rationale is that I’m looking for one (or two) good house and home magazines. And the only way I can truly evaluate them is by trying out a subscription. Anyway, I can always cancel my subscription next year.
I took advantage of the sale on home magazines on Amazon.com to order the following:
* Better Homes and Gardens
* Domino
* FamilyFun
While I’m waiting …read more

I know about crockpot cooking and pressure cooking. But it’s the first time I’ve heard about cooking entire meals in a rice cooker. Sure, I have a rice cooker (can’t live without it!). But I use it for one thing and one thing only: cooking plain (aka steamed) rice.
I didn’t even realize that a rice cooker can function like a slow cooker, only it’s faster. Neal Bertrand shares his recipes for “60 quick, easy meals you can make in a rice cooker”, in his cookbook Rice Cooker Meals: Fast Home Cooking for Busy People. Cooking meals in a rice …read more

If you’ve been following the giveaways over the past month, then you know how this goes. First, random.org helped me pick a number:

Comment #8, who is:
Kathy ScottMay 29, 2008 at 7:36 am
Great ideas. Thanks for the chance.

Congratulations, Kathy! You’re the winner of the book, The Peaceful Nursery by Laura Forbes Carlin and Alison Forbes. Thanks to everyone for joining.

Amazon is having a sale right now on home magazine subscriptions. This is the perfect time to subscribe to the most popular home magazines. These are some of the deals I saw today on 1-year subscriptions, with as much as 75% off on a few:
House Beautiful (on sale for $12; cover price is $47.40)
Martha Stewart Living (on sale for $28; cover price is $59.20)
Good Housekeeping (on sale for $10; cover price is $30)
Domino (on sale for $10; cover price is $35)
Dwell Magazine (on sale for $19.95; cover price is $39.60)
Family Fun (on sale for $9.95; cover price is $29.90)
Family Handyman …read more

How do you define being organized? Does everything have to be neatly aligned? Do your folders all have to be the same color?

Rosemary Chieppo, a professional organizer and author of Clutter, Chaos & the Cure, defines being organized very simply:
If you can find what you need when you need it, you’re organized.

That’s it. Even if there’s a pile of papers on your desk. If you know exactly what’s in that pile, you’re more organized than someone who has everything in folders but spends 10 minutes looking for one piece of paper in them.
Here are some tips for organizing …read more

Touted as Cooking Light’s “most comprehensive and user-friendly cookbook to date”, the Cooking Light Complete Cookbook doesn’t disappoint. With more than 1,200 recipes and 600 photos, it is a hefty reference book for any healthy kitchen.
Some of this cookbook’s features are:
* a binder that wipes clean* a complete entertaining section* tips and techniques for the beginning cook* information about seasonal produce* tips for reducing your carbon footprint as you cook* a wine guide* and, last but definitely not the least, an interactive DVD

I have four products up for review this week, including two books. One is this book about Chinese cuisine, and the other is a cookbook. I also have a comfy giveaway related to one of the products so make sure you come back to check it out.
 
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
Chinese food is one of the most popular non-American cuisine in the world today. In her book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, Jennifer 8. Lee looks at how her parents’ cuisine has been re-invented and popularized, and how it has affected the fortunes …read more