New Book of Days

Assorted lifehacks and oddities. NO KINGS

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    • Water Conserving In Potted Plants

      Water Conserving In Potted Plants

      Jul 9, 2024 by HTV9

      This is a pepper plant. I ripped up paper sandwich bags to top the soil and covered that with some mulch. You could probably use grocery bags and ripped up cardboard instead but oddly, I had none. The real heat of the Texas summer hasn’t hit yet but so far it seems to be helping me space out how often I need to water, so instead of watering about once every couple of days I can go with maybe twice a week. It seems to be working well so far.

      Update 1/23/25: This did not work out how I’d hoped. Texas summers are infamous for a reason and I spent a lot of last year schlepping outside to water, and water. Therefore despite my efforts at water conservation it makes more sense to set up sprinklers and a timer system this year. Plus use a whole lot of mulch if I can get it and some way more drought resistant plants. That’s the plan.

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

    • Pond?

      Pond?

      Jul 9, 2024 by HTV9

      This black plastic pot liner thing is my version of a birdbath and water feature. It fills with rain, and sometimes I dump it out and wash it with the hose by jamming my thumb in the hose end to create more pressure from the hose. When it dries out for weeks or a month the sun kills off germs as well as it can, which in Texas I assume is decent. Practically speaking aside from ensuring the neighborhood cats get water it’s has no real obvious purpose but it has one I really like which I also put a plate on the outdoor table for. I get to see what the wind and weather is like at a glance. No need to look around the backyard or garden that much, just peer at the surface of the water and see how much it’s moving, how bright the light reflecting off it is, or whatever. Plus it reflects the sky at all times so it’s nice.

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

    • Microwaved Vegan Cheese Sandwich

      Microwaved Vegan Cheese Sandwich

      Jul 9, 2024 by HTV9

      This is what a microwaved vegan cheese sandwich looks like. The cheese is a brand I choose not to name, as I suspect many will behave like this one. As you can see, it’s melted. I’ve had experience with vegan cheeses in just about everything else, and they often refuse to melt, particularly in a sandwich. I’ve sauteed them, panini pressed them, tried to cook them in a lidded skillet, whatever. No dice. But one minute in a microwave and it’s completely gooey. Maybe it’s one synthetic abomination playing nice with another, but whatever, it works. The bread, however, is another story and is a gummy sacrilege.

      For your synthetic abomination and gummy sacrilege sandwich, may I suggest a jarred pasta sauce dipping sauce? It is:
      About a cup of pasta sauce, warmed in a lidded saucepan on low heat while you create your microwaved… thing
      Hefty sprinkling of garlic powder
      Smidgen of italian seasoning
      Mix well

      Now you could warm up the sandwich in a lidded skillet and get less cheese meltage and more sandwich bread flavor but where’s the fun in that

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

    • An Attempt At Reusable Kitchen Washcloths

      An Attempt At Reusable Kitchen Washcloths

      Jun 19, 2024 by HTV9

      This might not be the most accessible post but it is what it is. Here was my idea: what if I cleaned up the washcloths already in the kitchen, sterilized them, then kept them in the kitchen and used them only to clean said kitchen and its surfaces, cleaning them in the dishwasher in between? That could cut down on paper towels. I thought. So what I did was this.

      1. Wetted down the towels with dish soap and warm water and squeezed it out a few times under running water. This would be more effective if I had filled the sink first to squeeze the rags in, but I didn’t care.

      2. Stuffed the kitchen sponge and the rags in two bowls and a mug, boiled water, and poured it over. Used the opposite side of a wooden spoon to push the rags and sponge under the water a few times.

      Here’s where it started to go wrong. First, I didn’t boil enough water the first time so it got all lukewarm before I could add more. Drat. Waited a few hours then dumped the gross water out. I then completely forgot about these in the sink overnight. The next day, or was it two days later, I fixed my original mistake and boiled a whole bunch of water in the kettle, which took a while, then poured it over. And then promptly forgot all about them, again. One day later I dumped all the water out, wrung out the washcloths, draped them over the sink and decided they’d just go in the dishwasher next time. And then I forgot to put them in there. So that was um, not very effective, but I think they’re probably good to go. Now if I had had a non-jerk brain I would’ve shoved the still-lukewarm damp washcloths in the dishwasher with the dishes, then wrung it out and let it dry til use. That would’ve ensured they would actually be disinfected before contacting well, dishes. As it is I’m gonna use them anyway.

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

    • News regarding upcoming book

      Jun 4, 2024 by HTV9

      Due to surprise circumstances, I will be releasing the book not in a year since I started the blog but four or five years from now or so. The reason is as follows: it’s a lot better than I thought. This way I can also cram a lot more in there and a lot more resources, and make sure it’s not well, bad, when it’s finally released. This also gives me an extra one or two years to figure out the business side of things. This is all a worst case scenario estimate. I hope to make the blog worth your while until then and apologize for the delay.

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

    • Cereal Box Cord Organizer Design 1

      Cereal Box Cord Organizer Design 1

      Jun 4, 2024 by HTV9

      The other day my husband tripped on all the cords coming out of this octopus type multi-charger thing. Not for the first time. Since that’s a safety hazard I decided enough was enough. Here’s what I did:

      1. Grabbed a pair of scissors and a small serrated blade knife

      2. Cut the box down along where the edges met to roughly equidistant levels on all 4 sides, using the writing listed on the box to help figure out how far down to cut. Halfway through I figured out that you can use the scissors to cut on the outside a little to mark where you’re going to cut to. This is faster than marking with a pen.

      3. Push down the sides, starting with the thinner ones, and not folding yet

      4. Fold the thin bits and then the fat bits, adjusting to make the sides roughly the same height, then fold down well.

      5. Cut a hole in one of the sides for the charge cord portion of the octopus charger using a cooking knife. Trash the cardboard bit from that.

      6. Unplug the octopus charger from the main charge cord then re-plug it in the box; I noticed that this left some of the cords at an awkward angle and bent some of the charge cables so that’d put pressure on the usb ports one way or another, so

      7. I got a reusable battery container about the size of a deck of cards and put that on the bottom, then twisted the octopus thing on its side.

      8. Cram all the excess cords in there except the one you’re using and pull it up to a desktop. Done.

      This is probably a fire hazard, but considering that this was a. a trip hazard and b. collecting a lot of dust it was probably a fire hazard as it was anyway. Maybe next time I’ll build something like this out of modular building toys or something.

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

      cardstock organizing

    • Lemonade Cold Brew

      Lemonade Cold Brew

      May 14, 2024 by HTV9

      The original idea here was to fill up ice cube trays with undiluted lemon juice and sugar mix but the ice cube trays aren’t clean now so that’s out. So here’s what’s going on. This contains the juice of 1 lemon freshly squeezed, about 2 tablespoons of sugar, some tap water to fill up to an inch below the top of this container, and two tea bags with the paper pulled off. I put the top on there and stuck it in the fridge to retrieve after like 8 hours. You could probably make this in a mason jar too as long as you left enough room up top for reason of: after a day of brewing this is going into the freezer. Then, I’ll be thawing it for 20 minutes and putting it in a pitcher of tea to see if it improves the flavor. Will try this with lukewarm or cold tea since I don’t want to crack the pitcher.

      May 16, 2024 Update: After fishing out the teabags with a fork, then freezing this for a couple days, then taking it out and making it thaw til it could come out of the container, which took 40 minutes not 20, and plopping it in the pitcher, which created a splashback mess, I was anxious to taste this stuff. This was a royal hassle to make, so today with great anticipation I took the first sip and… Absolutely pointless waste of time! Don’t make this.

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

    • Edited: It doesn’t work! No-Sew T-Shirt Bag

      Edited: It doesn’t work! No-Sew T-Shirt Bag

      May 1, 2024 by HTV9 in Upcycling

      Here’s a T-shirt that is super worn out. There are a bunch of tutorials online for making sewn T-shirt shopping bags to replace plastic/paper ones, so I initially thought I’d try that. Then I realized due to no sewing machine that would take about five hours per bag, hand sewing. No thanks. Here’s what I came up with instead.

      Step 1: Flip the worn-out T-shirt inside out. Make 8 roughly 6-inch cuts up from the bottom using whatever scissors you have. Start right next to the seam on either side of the t-shirt, so you get 2 flaps on front and back first and have something neat to start with. Then do the middle cuts, then the middle of those. I like to use the scissors with my dominant hand while stretching out the fabric using my other hand, kind of cradling my dominant hand while pulling on the fabric with the other on both sides of the scissors. Makes the fabric easier to cut while keeping the lines kind of straight. Or, use whatever fabric cutting method you’re more comfortable with. Then, cut 6 (note that the picture might not be perfect here but you get the idea) roughly equidistant lines about 6 inches down from the top of the t-shirt, avoiding the sleeves and their seams. Do this on both sides of the collar.

      Step 2: Tie the bottom flaps together in the order shown with square knots. Try to keep it roughly symmetrical.

      Step 3: Tie the flaps in the middle of the collar on each side together as shown with square knots. This step exists because I learned the bag stretches then splits right down the middle easily if you don’t.

      Step 4: Tie the remaining flaps together around the sleeve on each side, keeping the flaps on each side of the collar on that side of the collar. Also with square knots. Flip it inside out and see how much it can carry.

      How well does this work? Not sure yet. Will update this post when I find out.

      Edited on December 20, 2024: It doesn’t work! My husband said it ripped when trying to carry groceries. Darn.

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

    • Acorn Starting Site

      Acorn Starting Site

      Apr 15, 2024 by HTV9

      This is my acorn starting site/oak tree seed starting setup, such as it is. It consists of some potting soil I had leftover, acorns spaced out about 3 inches from one another about an inch and a half beneath the surface, and pea gravel from the top. The pea gravel came from a big box store in a fairly small bag, it’s aquarium gravel. The potting soil is my usual favorite, you can use any you like as long as it doesn’t have mulch; seeds generally are hard if not impossible to start in that. The interesting part was collecting the acorns. Thing about my yard: It’s hard to find trees that fit the dimensions of the space and most oak trees get HUGE. So while I was on a trip to enjoy a meal at a favorite chain restaurant guess what I saw just sitting there in the parking lot? A reasonably sized oak tree with plenty of acorns on the ground beneath. Gathered a bunch of them, planted them that day. As I understand it this doesn’t have a great chance of success, but it may take two or even three years (!!!) to see results, just keeping this thing from drying out by watering it during dry spells and keeping it outdoors. So I’ll see what happens. Planted these about a month and a half ago, the acorns were definitely subjected to some cold temperatures this spring and if I’m lucky, next spring I may see some growth. Provided some industrious squirrel doesn’t eat it all first, hence the need for gravel to help hinder that.

      Notes 2025: No sprouts yet. Hmmm. We shall see if next year anything comes up.

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

    • No visuals: Sowing Wildflower Seeds With Limited Mobility

      Apr 3, 2024 by HTV9

      Here’s the method I developed to sow wildflower and flower seeds at the edges of the backyard. It’s simple. First, communicate with family to ensure they mow 8 inches away from the perimeter so stuff can grow there. Second, scatter wildflower seeds sparingly along the perimeter, right among the grass. For larger stuff like sunflower seeds and sweet peas, I kneel and push the seed into the dirt between blades of grass, then cover it up with more dirt using my thumb. Then, I hope for rain!

      Pros: Doable. Worked last year to give me at least some flowers. Flax, cosmos, and a sunflower grew and survived here despite a serious batch of heat waves and drought.

      Cons: There were only one of each that survived and the sunflower and cosmos died after roughly the beginning of July. The flax managed to make it til late October, though, which was impressive. Grass along the fence line squicks me out and can hide snakes, bugs, and worse… will be using as much mulch as i can this year to smother that around each flower that makes it through the grass thatch.

      Notes 7/10/25: There really were snakes in the back corner of the yard. That had to get taken care of. With this method it really seems that an inch is quite sufficient in terms of space near the fence line so planting it that close is important. That way mowing just an inch away gets you some wildflowers but not unwanted wildlife, or at least too much of it

      © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024