waffle tip

take a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of jam and melt them together in the microwave.  mix up the now liquid and use it as a topping on a waffle.  hella good!

cake tip

when you make a cake, don't grease the sides.  only grease the bottom.  the reason is if you grease the sides the cake batter doesn't stick to it as it's baking and the middle of the cake ends up being really high.  when you don't grease the sides the cake is able to climb up the sides and you end up with a must more even cake instead of a pitcher's mound.

frosting tip

don't use vegetable oil to make frosting.  i baked a strawberry cake today from a mix.  the box had a pic of a slice of strawberry cake with white frosting and i thought, "mm, that looks mighty tasty!"  i find a recipe for white frosting and it says to use shortening.  ok, what EXACTLY does that mean?  i look it up in the dictionary and it says butter or vegetable oil.  because veggie oil mixes easier than butter, i use it.  i add vanilla extract, almond extract and tons of powdered sugar.  but when i'm mixing, it's not smooth at all.  so then i decide to microwave it for 30 seconds which melts the sugar but for some reason the vegetable oil keeps separating out!  so it looks like icing and a blob of oil sitting on top.  i use some icing on a couple slices of cake.  it tastes good, just like regular icing but i can't manage to get over the fact that the oil is sweating out of the sugar concoction.  eventually i decide to dump it.   next time i'll use butter to make frosting.

scanner tip

not only can you use the library barcode scanner to scan the barcode, but you can also use it to scan an isbn as well.

the uglies

i think as kids you're very often taught that someone who's ugly can have a heart of gold.  that may very well be true, but keep in mind that someone's who's ugly can also be totally mean!