Start Everyday With A Smile

How often do you get up on the wrong side of the bed? There are a few steps to make the chance of this happening a little less likely. Try these four simple steps to make tomorrow a great morning. You can learn more atApartment Therapy.


Make your bedside a soft transition into a good morning (and day)

Let the good vibes roll from the very first minute you open your eyes, stretch and step out of bed. Have a soft, fluffy rug by your bed that you step onto. Have a bouquet of flowers or something scented to wake up beside. Make sure your first view is of a clean, organized room decorated in a way that motivates you. Immediately pampering yourself as soon as you wake up will send a signal to your brain that the day is going to be enjoyable (and the feeling just might last).


Drink a glass of water

Senior writer Jennifer tried out this 10-second trick over the summer, and the results were simple and effective. How could this keep the grouchiness at bay for the rest of the day? Well no one likes to be dehydrated, and downing a glass of water in the morning will get you back on the track of hydration for the rest of the day, making sure you operate optimally.

Make your morning nutrients easier to get to

While in Europe we noticed a trend on the rise, and that's making breakfast a slower, more enjoyable part of the day. So decide what it is that you love the most about your ideal breakfast — is it a healthy omelet? A nice cup of coffee? Decide what is it you love to eat and drink in the morning, and then make it easier on yourself. Chop your omelet veggies the night before. Assemble a nice array of coffee and tea supplies that even in a sleep state you can use. And take time to savor whatever it is you choose to eat or imbibe to start your day.

Have everything you need for the day already assembled in your entryway

Save yourself the time and frustration of searching for your briefcase, laptop, keys and whatever else you might need in the morning, by making sure they're all ready to go and in one place (preferably in your entryway or near the door you leave out of).

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Do you have your green on today? How do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day?

Fix Your Household Pet Peeves

Do you have pet peeves throughout your home? These could include a crooked picture, clothes not staying on their hangars, or bunched up duvets.Apartment Therapy has 11 easy fixes to get rid of your home pet peeves. These will only take a few minutes, and it will give you some time to focus on other household chores.

Every household has minor, but needling, annoyances that repeatedly drive you crazy. Picture frames that won't stay straight, bunching duvet covers, and wobbly furniture are first-world problems to be sure, but exasperating nonetheless. A few quick fixes and modifications can relieve your pain, and make your home enjoyable instead of endlessly frustrating. Here's how to fight back against some common pet peeves, in five minutes or less.

1. Crooked Art or Picture Frames: Solve this nagging issue by putting rubber feet on the back corners of each frame. They will provide enough friction to prevent them from sliding around on the wall.

2. Clothing Slips Off Closet Hangers: Wrap rubber bands around the ends of each hanger to prevent especially slippery materials from sliding right off and onto the floor.

3. Losing the Start of the Tape: After you tear off a piece, wrap the end in a toothpick or paper clip to mark the spot. You'll won't have to run your fingers around the roll, feeling for the start.

4. Stuck Drawers: Aim a heat lamp at the affected furniture to slowly rid the wood of its moisture, which is the usual cause for wood expanding. Or use a toilet plunger for extra traction needed to pull it open by force. Once you've coaxed the drawer out, apply soap, paraffin, or paste wax to the runners and sides.

5. Sticky Price Tags: Once again, put heat on the job! Hold a hair dryer up to the sticker for about a minute, then test a corner of the sticker and see if it peels away easily. If it doesn't, continue the hairdryer treatment until the residue loosens. Work in sections if you have larger stickers.

6. Sliding Dish Towels: A lot of people hang kitchen towels over stove and fridge handles. And then constantly have to pick them up when they slip off. To remedy this, attach strips of velcro on each end of the towel and loop it around the handle.

7. Bunched Up Duvets: When left to their own devices, duvets constantly creep and migrate to the middle of the duvet cover. Stitch two pieces of ribbon to each of the corners of the duvet cover. Tie the ribbons around the corners of the duvet to make it stay put.

8. Stubborn Trash Bags: This is a two-parter. If you have a suction issue that prevents you from removing the bag easily, drill holes in the bottom to relieve the pressure. To prevent liners from slipping into the can, attach the bag to the can with clips. Or, if you have a metal can, fold the bag over the top, then use magnets to hold it in place.

9. Errant Cushions: Try putting some rubbery non-slip drawer liner, or a cut up rug pad, underneath. We've also heard to stick strips of velcro on the sofa and the cushions helps prevent the slide.

10. Wobbly Table: Before you do anything, try rotating the table around and see if that helps. Sometimes uneven floors will cause furniture to wobble, and shifting the legs around can help you find the sweet spot where everything is level again.

11. Squeaky Door: Remove the hinge pins one at a time and lightly coat them with petroleum jelly, soap or wax. Reinsert the pins, wipe off any excess, and open and shut the door a few times to distribute the lubricant.

5 Online Shopping Tips

Are you an avid online shopper?  Even if this is your first time browsing Amazon, these tips can help you get the best deal.  There are many ways to get the best deal and the best product that you are looking for.  Keep reading these tips, and you can learn more at Apartment Therapy.






Even if you consider yourself a serious shopaholic, picking out the perfect thing online is a whole new set of skills. Lucky for you, we're here to help with these smart strategies so you can easily get what you need at the best price.

Adjust your monitor


It sounds too simple to work, but the first defense against buying the wrong thing is to simply make sure you're getting an accurate representation. Nothing can compare with seeing an item in person, but making sure your computer's colors are on point can go pretty far. If you suspect that the site's photography may be wonky, search that product to see if you can find another photo elsewhere for comparison.

Figure out the "real price"


Remember, your total charge will be the price you see, plus tax, plus shipping. If you need to return, that could be another fee. So do your math and determine if the savings you'll get online are really savings at all.

Double check the return policy


Even if you think you know it, check. Even if you know the store's brick and motar policy, check the site's language, too. The last thing you want is to get stuck with something that wasn't what you expected or wanted.

Brand loyalty will serve you well


That is, if you're familiar with a certain brand's sizing, finishes or fabrics, buying online will usually work out just fine. But if you're trying something new, it's more of a gamble. If you can make the extra effort to see your item in person, it might be worth the hassle of mailing back a return.
Price match


Our favorite dirty little online shopping secret? Stores want you to buy from them. So much so that they'll often match another, lower price elsewhere. No guarantees, of course, but it's well worth it to ask. Another get-the-right-price-trick? Alerts! There are tons of apps that will let you know when the price of an item you're eyeing has dropped to a must-buy amount. Use them. Use them now.

For the Love of Pittsburgh

Food and friends are the best way to get over your winter blues.  Make sure to come to the Pittsburgh Public Market on February 8^th.  This local food tasting will feature breweries, wineries, chefs, local markets, and more. You can learn more at Living Pittsburgh.

WHEN:

February 8, 2015 @ 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm

WHERE:

Pittsburgh Public Market -

COST:

$10 - $25

CONTACT:

 Event website 

buy local pittsburgh farm to table pittsburgh featured love of food pittsburgh

Come warm up to some local food in the middle of winter!  This Local Food Tasting will feature farms, local food producers, wineries, breweries, chefs and more.

Improve Your Ramen

Do you enjoy Ramen? Chef Masa Hamaya is helping you make the best ramen for dinner. Follow these five steps next time you open one of your many flavors of Ramen. You can learn more at Apartment Therapy.


Even though chef David Chang proclaimed that ramen is dead, I have to beg to differ. With the proliferation of ramen restaurants cropping up near me in San Francisco, it's hard to escape this complicated but soul-satisfying Japanese comfort food. To put it bluntly, everyone's serving it!

If you're brave enough to attempt making ramen (and not the instant kind) at home, here are five tips from chef Masa Hamaya to help you put together the perfect slurp-worthy bowl.

5 Expert Tips for Making the Perfect Bowl of Ramen

1. It's all about the noodles and broth.

Hamaya said that if the noodles and broth are perfect, toppings are pretty much unnecessary. Focus on getting your broth full of flavor and richness, and take your time doing it. If you're not making noodles from scratch, source the best possible ones you can find and buy them fresh.

2. Flavor and body in the broth come from lots of ingredients.

A lot of bones (and vegetables if you want to do a vegetarian broth) need to go into the stockpot, and he means a lot. You can't get good flavor and a thick broth without lots of ingredients and time to extract all the flavors. The stockpot should be packed full of ingredients before water is added, and a few gallons of water should reduce to only a few liters of broth when it's ready.

3. Never season your broth.

The broth is never seasoned because it is combined with a seasoned base (tare in Japanese) when individual bowls of ramen are composed. The base can be the braising liquid from meat, soy sauce, tamari, dashi, or countless other things, but salt is never added to the broth itself so that the seasoning in the final bowl of ramen comes from only one source.

4. Never salt the ramen noodle cooking water.

For the same reasoning as why the broth is never salted, Hamaya says that ramen noodles are never cooked in salted water. This is a departure from the Italian pasta cooking technique, but he was emphatic that again, the soup base seasons both the broth and the noodles when everything is combined together.

5. Cook the noodles properly.

Ramen noodles should be just cooked through, similar to cooking Italian pasta al dente. Undercooked noodles will be floury and tough, but overcooked noodles will be soggy and pasty. Cook your noodles at the last second when everything else is ready, keep a watchful eye on the time, and make sure you keep tasting the noodles so that the second they are ready, they come out of the water.

Clean Out Your Old Food

Is your pantry too full? Cleaning out your pantry can give you more room for fresh food and new ingredients. However, if you do not clean your pantry regularly, you are taking up room with duplicate items or expired food. Keep reading and you can learn more at Apartment Therapy.



1. Stale or Expired Food: Just because it’s a dry good or non-refrigerated item doesn’t mean that it won’t go bad. Inspect any containers or packaging left open, and toss anything that is no longer fresh. Nuts and oils especially have a tendency to turn.

2. Duplicate Items: Take a second to consolidate all those diced tomatoes, and get rid of anything that you have excessive amounts of. Donate to a food bank, or swap with a neighbor for something you don’t already have, and free up a lot of space.

3. Anything Unappealing: Everyone has random consumable gifts that linger, and that you have no desire to eat. It’s okay if you don’t like that vanilla jam you get from Aunt Edna every year. Again, donate to a food bank if you don’t see yourself using it at any time in the future.

4. Infested Dry Goods: This is the time to check out your bulk foods and flours for pantry moths and/or other kitchen pests, and throw away anything you suspect might be infested.

5. Old Spices: I tend to think that powdered spices have a longer life than Rip Van Winkle, but I’m also totally wrong; they definitely don't last forever. If you’ve had that cinnamon since before Y2K, it’s time to toss it and give yourself the gift of actual fresh flavor.

6. Random Non-Food Items: Pantry space can quickly become general storage, and is often overrun by cleaning supplies, ladders, and all the detritus that accumulates in our lives. Find another spot to stick this stuff, and make it easier to access what you really need. That broom will no longer hit you on the head when you reach for the pinto beans, and you’ll have free rein to find your nori sheets.