Belle Hacks

Everyone loves a good life hack and Belle is no exception. But you know she is always going to have something to add.

The first one is something I wish I might have shared before Winter Storm Heather made an appearance. While totally appropriate to name a vicious cold snap after the original 1980s mean girls, I found this one quite timely. If your power goes out and you want to know if it's just your house or the whole neighborhood, open your phone settings and search for wi-fi networks. If your house is like mine, there are always at least a half dozen signals in range so if there are none listed, you know it's not just a blown fuse and it's time to start grousing about frozen windmills.

I don't usually talk about the environment but I have been really good about using tote bags for my food shopping since I found out compostable plastic bags buried in soil for three years can still hold a full load of groceries. So it looks like despite our best efforts to recycle, the only thing we've really mastered is making landfills look more colorful.

You might have thought toothbrush covers were a silly first-world solution but then I found out that within eight seconds of flushing, a toilet bowl can shoot a plume of aerosols nearly five feet into the air. Turns out I wasn't so crazy wanting a house with a separate water closet in the primary bathroom!

While I'm thinking about ablutions, I find it interesting that most beauty products don’t really vary much, and they’re apparently inexpensive to make. In fact, companies typically spend more money on packaging and marketing than making the product itself. Looks like my being cheap about $100 capsules of eye cream vs. my giant Costco bottle of Suave wasn't crazy either.

A pill may be easier to swallow if you turn your head as it goes down. There are a lot of physiological processes that make that happen but I am old and take a dozen pills a day so don't really care why it works as long as I don't have to feel like an ostrich swallowing a stone.

If you're somewhere between trying to keep your New Year's resolution to clean more and your annual spring cleaning, the International OCD Foundation created a nine step photo scale of household clutter to help you diagnose your habits. The QR code will help you determine where you fit. Level 3 is standard household clutter or, as I would say, "Living with kids and dogs." Scoring at Level 7 poses significant safeguarding issues, also akin to "Ready for an episode of 'Hoarders'."

If you want a question answered on the Internet, post a wrong answer first. You may have to spend a few hours suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous trolling but, in 2024, crowd sourcing information can be fun. No matter what weird question, health TMI, or psychological mishaps I search, there's always an answer. No matter how obscure I think I'm being I know whatever it is I'm worrying about, it's never just me with the problem.

If you know about revenge sleep procrastination — where you put off sleep at night to allow yourself time to enjoy leisure activity you couldn't get to during the day, you might be happy to know research shows short afternoon naps at the workplace lead to significant increases in productivity, psychological well-being, and cognition. And an extra 30 minutes sleep at night shows no similar improvements, so make sure to tell your boss you're asleep because... Science.

And finally, I think I mentioned I'm cheap so I'm recommending my new find, WebstaurantStore.com, to purchase A. Ny. Thing. for your kitchen. Those $8.99 tongs at a box store are about $2. A 12-pack of 16 oz. mason jar glasses are under $10. They even have fancy butcher blocks so you don't have to pay [InsertNameHere]-fest booth prices. And so on. Enjoy some savvy shopping!

So just a fun mix of weird ideas and I'm glad that the real life hack is your patience, dear Reader, for getting through yet another article about life hacks.

Bonus trivia: I was today years old when I found out Rocky Balboa's given name is Robert.