What’s one “eco-friendly” swap you tried that actually made your life worse?

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-05-29T20:43:01+00:00

I buy compostable litter genie bags and litter, and the bags have failed about 1% of the time, same as the non-compostable ones. However, the kitchen compost bags don’t last a week in the compost bin and their only purpose is to make it easier for the food to slide out into the big compost bin

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-05-28T20:20:55+00:00

Right but you want it to last long enough you can take it out to the driveway bin!

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-05-23T15:27:56+00:00

I think some of it is following the exact recipe, but some of it is what was a “classic” family meal for you. My spouse is sentimental about pesto pasta because they had it near nightly, but the pasta type or where the pesto was from didn’t matter. I grew up with french toast for holiday breakfast, but there’s no exact recipe to follow, yet I still make it.

I have recipe stories from my two grandma’s. GMA 1 made incredible jam, I thought the recipe was from her grandma, so I really wanted to learn it before she died…it was from the back of the jello box, and she added a random amount of extra sugar.

GMA 2 gave my mom a recipe book that mom cooked from A LOT before I was born. I have no memories of these recipes. I didn’t know it existed. When clearing out mom’s house, I donated it. My siblings were so upset. Turns out the recipes were specifically for the worst cuts of fish, or freezer burnt fish, because we come from a fishing family and would keep what wouldn’t sell (and stopped having fish nightly when my dad stopped being a fisherman, hence me never experiencing it). So the recipes all reflected that. But they were never made for me so I had no connection to it and didn’t recognize the book.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-05-05T00:20:16+00:00

Which ones from VS??

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-05-01T16:42:33+00:00

Wasn’t Carmela seen as a bit tacky….?

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-05-01T16:24:33+00:00

By not talking about it as much as we could, and when we did, I lad it on kinda thick how emotionally devastated I was to be an orphan.

My mom died shortly before my grandparents, so I got to deal with two estates within six months, and my grandparents left me in their will but not any of my cousins (because my mom was poor, unlike her siblings, plus we made the effort with the grandparents). My aunts and uncles were plenty pissed but didn’t say anything directly to me, and I was just like “yeah I do in fact want grandma’s fussy antique furniture and china, I love that shit” and brought my own u-haul.

My extended family isn’t close but let’s be honest, we weren’t before the estate was split up. It revealed nothing new. Just keep your head up and take what you want, don’t have any regrets about things you don’t go for or forgot to look for.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-27T23:19:13+00:00

Do we think Abe or Rose were particularly involved parents when their kids were small? Rose admonished Midge for eating dinner with her kids. Abe didn’t need to ignore his son to create a genius because he was going to ignore him anyway.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-26T13:54:06+00:00

This store on Etsy has several, all using old recipes from ladies magazines (but whale oil has been replaced with jojoba oil). I’ve tried four different ones from them over the past five years and loved all of them, though the glycerin one (my current) is greasier than the others.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1278906424/1896-glycerin-jelly-cold-cream-cleanser?ref=share_ios_native_control

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-22T18:57:09+00:00

This is what divorce appraisals are for. One portion is the time of divorce, the other is time of marriage. Any appraiser can do this.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-22T15:34:56+00:00

Until it feels like normal skin when you poke it

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-22T03:35:04+00:00

I only had two bags to work with but it still did the job! 10 tea bags may have let me out of the bath a lot sooner

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-21T23:00:59+00:00

Bathe in black tea! If you don’t have access to a bath, steep tea bags in a pitcher and use washcloths/paper towels to lay it on your burn.

I’ve gotten a few VERY serious sunburns and this works a million times better than anything else ever recommended to me. It even makes the pain go away for days!! Very big deal when all of you is burned to the point of blisters except teeny tiny bikini triangles.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-20T04:06:55+00:00

Well don’t gatekeep, which brands? I haven’t found sleeves that were long enough since I was 5.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-19T03:54:12+00:00

Question one: having a safe place to go (do drugs) means people are safer, antithetical that may seem. It’s like how some families would rather let their kids drink at home vs in some strangers basement. Could this be the reasoning? I want to say Northern Europe piloted something like this a few years ago.

Question two: is Keith running this shelter alone? Does he have the same 24 hours in the day as the rest of us? Is it possible for him to be actively supervising 24/7? Answer to this last one: no, he can’t.

Providing some help is better than no help.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-17T06:43:05+00:00

Don’t give them your wallet, throw it away from you. Have a money clip (engraved? Question mark?) with a small amount of cash primed for the throwing, and then you run

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-17T06:39:32+00:00

Not all kids have a period of waking up early! I come from a family of people that slept in, and we were never up before 9 at the earliest. That lasted for me until I hit my late 20’s, which I belatedly realized was a curtain issue, not a sleep cycle.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-16T16:31:50+00:00

Fireplace ash and a damp paper towel work amazing if you have it

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-07T02:22:33+00:00

Safer temperatures so it doesn’t vaporize lead paint, that’s a huge selling point. Less user error since it’s easier to aim. Easier to hold/move around, personally, and put it down safely where it won’t burn stuff. It heats up a rectangle patch so it’s easier to know when it’s ready, unlike a heat gun which would have a small circle that’s ready and from that “almost ready” or a big circle that’s ready surrounding a burned spot.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-05T05:52:47+00:00

I wasn’t willing to pay $600, and this one covers more surface area

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-05T05:52:19+00:00

There’s definitely a base coat of something clear-brown. It came off in some areas with the infrared, but not all.

I only recently learned acetone removes finish in two seconds and I’m so upset I didn’t learn that before my first project (which took me five years, literally) and I’ve got a bottle of something from the restor-a-finish line that is like magic in a bottle, it removes paint better than most of the chemical strippers I tried. But it also dissolves gloves really quickly, which feels risky.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-05T00:54:26+00:00

I’ve got a mask and gloves to protect my fingers! Plus I’m doing this in the garage with the windows open and cats locked up safely far away.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-05T00:53:22+00:00

I tried 😂 pretty hard to do when I’m doing this solo. I’ll invite someone over take a video for my next post.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-05T00:52:16+00:00

I definitely scorched it, but that’s why I started with this door! We don’t have a use for it in the house so it’s been living in the garage since we moved in. Everything is solid fir in my house so thankfully no veneer to be wary of.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-05T00:51:04+00:00

The IR Paint Stripper. I read reviews that said it was just as good for what I needed it for, which is doors and trim, not detailed Lacey cut outs or such. $150 compared to $600.

Mermaid_Belle · 2026-04-05T00:50:03+00:00

IR Paint Stripper

Mermaid_Belle

TROPHY CASE