Tricks of the Trade

Especially now that I'm Mama to a toddler, I'm always looking for ways to make my daily duties more manageable, efficient, convenient and just plain easier. I love learning new tricks that cut time in half or that help things last longer (depending on the situation, of course). I thought I'd start sharing my "tricks of the trade" that I've collected over the years in hopes that readers will share their tricks with me. These handy hints may relate to motherhood, cooking, health, beauty, shopping, organizing, etc... I realize that my tricks may be old hat for some people, but I'm hoping that for others they'll be helpful, life-changing (pardon the drama) revelations just as they once were for me.

I'll start with a trick my very own Mama once shared with me. She is the ULTIMATE cook and during one of her visits with us she and I cooked a meal together and I watched and noticed her every move. One thing she did that I quickly picked up and religiously do to this day when I'm cooking is she recycled a grocery bag and used it to collect any and all trash produced during meal preparations (butter stick wrappings, eggshells, fruit and veggie casings, paper towels, etc...) in efforts to eliminate trips to and from the trash can...GENIUS!

I try hard to remember to use my cloth, reusable shopping bags when I go to the grocery store so, I don't usually have too many extra bags to collect my meal-prep garbage. Instead, I often use this washable, paper bread bag (shown above) that I found at Anthropologie.

Whether or not you could add this to your bag of tricks, I'd love to hear about something you do or use in your day-to-day life that you consider to be clever and helpful!