Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome to Inside Marci's Mind. My name is Marci Backus and I am your host. Well, I hope it's spring where you are, because Chicago is struggling to get into this spring session this year. We had snow flurries on our walk over to church yesterday evening. I don't know, it looks winter out, it's cold, it's damp. I leave for California on Monday and the weather looks like it's going to be pretty good there. I always laugh because my sister or my friends say well, I hope it's warm enough. I'm like if it's 60, it's going to be 30 degrees warmer than it is here. So I'll take it. You know I will take it, but yeah, that's what's going on here. So I do hope it's beautiful and spring like where you are and I hope when I get home from Chicago I mean from California Chicago decides to really embrace spring. But you know it's iffy Cancer journey is going well, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Today I start round four of my chemo, which means I'm almost done with the first four rounds of chemo. Then I get a break and I do radiation and then I go back to four more rounds, which is 12 weeks. So there's light at the end of the tunnel. I'll get a little bit of a break. Yesterday. I I felt great. Yesterday was the first day I felt actually normal in a long time, and then, of course, today I start back up with full blown chemo pills. So that's the way that goes. I go to the radiologist today and they make a cast or a mold for me so that I'm in the same position every time I do radiation. Then they do a practice run. Woo, more fun. But things are going well here in our little world. Yesterday I had a lovely luncheon Excuse me, I got to take a sip of my coffee. We had a beautiful luncheon with our pool pals, celebrated Reba's birthday and had a great luncheon. Joan's a wonderful hostess and you know, speaking of hostesses, we're going to do a little cooking and entertaining advice today, as well as some gardening advice and laundry advice. Today, as well as some gardening advice and laundry advice, it's advice advice day here on the Inside Marci's Mind.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Again, you can find my podcast. Wherever you get your podcast Spotify, apple, you name it I'm there. Share it with your friends. You can also find it on my website, wwwinsidemarciesmindcom. You can find all episodes there, as well as everywhere else. So if you've missed an episode, you can go back and catch one. If there's one you didn't hear, you can go back and listen to it. Next week I'm going to be in California, so I'm going to put up a repeat episode. I might try to pull one from my old podcast, aging Ate for Sissies.

Speaker 1: 3:08

I really feel I've heard some things again about hospice care and I think people are very confused about what hospice care is and what hospice does and when you can call hospice. Hospice is really to be called before you're at death's door, so that you can maybe not get to death's door so fast that everybody waits till the last minute. So I do have an episode on my old podcast about that. I'm going to see if I can get that put up. If not, we're going to redo that when I get back, because I think it's important to understand how hospice care works and to use it properly so you get the most benefit from it. A benefit of a day or two is not a benefit of hospice. You can be in hospice for a very long time and sometimes you can graduate out of hospice, which is not likely most of the time, but it can happen because hospice is to give you the care you need to get through it. So, anyway, I'm going to look for that episode, try to put that episode up.

Speaker 1: 4:15

Nothing really funny happened this week. I'm trying to think, oh yeah, well, patrick is laying on the windowsill looking at a spot on the window, because yesterday a little birdie, little redheaded birdie I don't know how he got up to the 36th floor, but I think he kind of ran into the window and then grabbed onto the sill outside and was trying to get his act together before he took off. And Patrick just thinks this birdie's gonna come back. And so he is sitting right in the spot where the birdie was waiting for the birdie to come back. Patrick, I don't even know how that bird got up here. Dude, like the only ones that can usually fly up here are your seagull friends, or, as I call them, the bagels.

Speaker 1: 4:53

We are very happy to be invited. Our friends Dan and Lenore are having a Seder dinner Saturday night and Craig and I have been invited. And if Dan and Lenore are listening, I want to thank you very much because that is a real honor, and Craig and I have been invited. And if Dan and Lenore are listening, I want to thank you very much because that is a real honor and Craig and I look at it as that to be invited into your home during a religious event, and so thank you for that. So I'm looking forward to that. I think that'll be a wonderful evening.

Speaker 1: 5:23

I will not be in Chicago during Holy Week. I will be at Disneyland. I know that's really bad right, but anyway, I will be at Disneyland while I'm in California. I'll be at California Adventure one day, disneyland one day, and I just hope I have the energy to keep up even a little bit, even just sitting there, and the sounds and the smells will be healing to me. I don't know, most people can't understand that, and that's okay. Disneyland is my happy place. I walk through the gates and I don't know. It's just a really good feeling. So I feel like I'm going to be healed there a little bit. Even if I, even if I don't feel great, I will get some healing.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Well, that's about what's going on around here. Patrick is still sitting here waiting for that bird Honey. He is not coming back Now, he's looking for his seagulls. And Craig is out running this morning. He runs every day. I don't know if you know that, but he does, so he's out on his run. We have a little bit of a routine here.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Craig has switched jobs, so, um, the hotel he was working down in georgia went on hold, so excuse me. So he is now going to be working for the cathedral with the remodel of the saint james cathedral. So that's exciting. It's our cathedral, it's across the street. He really loves it. It's super important to him, and I think it's. I think it's great. I think it's great to be working for the cathedral and doing something that he truly loves, a passion other than a hotel for once. Yeah, anyway, that's a change, but it's a good change. It's made Craig very happy. He's been doing a lot of work there anyways, and so now he can just focus on it full time and not have his time split, which I think for him is great.

Speaker 1: 7:34

All right, so do you kill your house plants? Do you ruin your laundry? Are you a really bad hostess? Well, if you stick with me, I'm going to give you some tips on how to maybe do those things better. All right, so do you kill all your plants? I'm pretty good at plants, and you know why I'm pretty good at plants? Because I ignore them pretty much. When they droop, I give them water and I do pretty well. There's been a few that aren't happy with that form of plant keeping, but other than that, I do pretty well. I've got plants in here.

Speaker 1: 8:11

I had to get rid of a ton of plants when we moved. I had to restart here. I bought a couple of plants after Mother's Day at Home Depot last year on sale. Like you know how they get all those like little mini roses and like these flowering plants and they sell them for Mother's Day. Well, I got a couple and let me tell you they have flowered all year. My mini rose bush has done amazing.

Speaker 1: 8:35

So my my goal is to to not overwater, because I think overwatering. So here's a tip on watering pour in water until it starts to leak out the drainage holes. So I take all my plants and I put them in the sink, and too much water can cause root rot and that is probably the biggest problem. The best time to water is in the morning or the evening, not in the middle of the day, as the air is warmer and there it'll evaporate. Well, right here, that's not a problem for me, but it might be for you.

Speaker 1: 9:11

So here's some really good stuff. If you can do more than it can do more than cure a headache. Dissolve three quarters of a pill in a gallon of water. This is aspirin. Three quarters of a pill Like who could figure out three quarters of an aspirin pill? That's ridiculous. Just do a whole pill. That's what I do and 90% of the people reading this article. Dissolve three quarters of a pill in a gallon of water and spray the solution on indoor or outdoor plants every two weeks to help ward off fungus.

Speaker 1: 9:45

Many plants produce salicylic acid that's aspirin's active ingredient. To fight disease and spray them with it can boost their defense mechanism. Well, I think that's great. I think that's a great idea, but I three quarters of an aspirin. If you can do that, you know what. You are my hero. Write me at inside Marcy's mind at Gmail dot com and tell me how you got it to three quarters of an aspirin. I'm lucky if I can get a pill in half, let alone three quarters.

Speaker 1: 10:15

All right, so here's some laundry advice. So this is really good advice, some of these tips. The first one is really important. Skip fabric softener and fabric sheets when you're washing your towels or anything that you your towels that you clean with. It leaves a waxy residue. So your towels if you're using either fabric dryer sheets like from the store or fabric softener, have a wax on them and they're not drying you as good as as well as they can, so stop doing it. If you want to run them through a load of vinegar to get the wax off, to start fresh, do that. If you're using dryer sheets and such on your cleaning cloth, same problem waxy residue. If you're going to clean mirrors with those and and you know vinegar and water, if you use that or if you use windex or whatever cleaner you use, your window, your mirrors are going to streak. Your windows are going to streak because there's wax on your towels. Another sip of coffee this morning. Coffee is important, so there's a little. That's one of my best tips right there.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Unshrink knits. Have you ever shrunk up something? If you have put it in a sink by itself, and okay. So you want to put it in the sink, fill it with warm water and a tablespoon of olive oil, okay. Swirl the solution for a few seconds and submerge your sweater for whatever you shrunk for two to three hours. Then remove it, lay it flat and reshape it and let it dry. It works great. I shrunk a sweater this year and I did use that advice. So it works great. I don't know what the olive oil has to do, other than I have no clue Soften the fibers. It worked great.

Speaker 1: 12:08

Water temperature is key to getting out stubborn stains. Now, this is a hard one because it's not the 1950s. We all don't have all day to do laundry and to do individual pieces because of this, that or the other thing can be hard. So water temperature is key to getting out stubborn stains. Use cold water most of the time, and especially on freshly soiled clothes, because heat can help a new stain set in. I think that is key. So I wash almost everything in cold water anyway. I just started doing that years ago. So I think it's important to know that warm water is going to help that stain set in, to know that warm water is going to help that stain set in. Hot water should only be used to set for stains that are already set in. As it loosens fibers it helps lift out the discoloration. So there you have it on your stains.

Speaker 1: 13:08

Remove red wine stains with shaving cream. Did you know this one? I didn't. I know shaving cream can clean because I've always been around a lot of preschools. There was a preschool attached in the same building. We shared a kitchen in my office in California and they would have. They would put shaving cream on the tables and let the kids use their hands and, you know, have fun with it. But it also then, when they wiped it away, it cleaned the tables. Head to the bathroom instead of the laundry room. Grab a can of shaving cream and this is again for a red wine stain and spray it over the stain ASAP. Sooner is always better when it comes to getting out stains. We all know this, but most of the time it happens when we're out. Let the foam sit for 30 minutes, then rinse and rub the stain with your finger. It should vanish before your very eyes. Well, since I'm not a drinker and I don't have problems with red wine, I guess, unless I had. Actually I had an experience. I know this will surprise you. I was on a Southwest flight and a steward or a flight attendant was opening one of those little bottles of red wine for someone behind me and the whole bottle tipped over and poured down the back of my outfit. I think I've told this story before. So I have had a red wine stain, but that was just. I didn't know about shaving cream. If I did, I would have been able to save that shirt.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Give new jeans a pre-wash. This is really important. Before wearing new jeans for the first time, wash them alone in cold water to prevent the color from transferring onto anything. It'll transfer onto a car seat, somebody's couch. You're sitting on your hands, your purse. So for extra protection, add a half cup of white vinegar at the start of the cycle to help seal the color in. If you ever want to seal the color in on anything that's dark dark t-shirts that are cotton the first wash should be with that vinegar, and you should wash black t-shirts or anything like that before you wear it too. But I have had my hands turn blue and my legs from wearing new jeans that I didn't wash. So wash your jeans.

Speaker 1: 15:21

I feel like we did this one. Maybe we did. Maybe I'm repeating, I might have hit us with laundry advice before, because I think I told you about artificial sweeteners for oily stains. But if I already did all this, yay, you got a reminder. If I didn't, sorry, call it chemo brain. I had everything marked for when I was going to do it. But a splattered salad dressing on your shirt while you're out for lunch, find a packet of artificial sweetener, rub it into the stain and let it sit for a few minutes and brush it off and rinse. It should absorb the oil. It's a good oil observer, oil oil absorber. All right Enough with laundry stains. I feel like we did that before and I feel like I just put you through hell. But whatever, at least you will have it twice. If I did it twice I don't know if I read it so many times I feel like I did it, but nonetheless we're going to move on to cooking and entertaining and I'll tell you, my mother gave me the best entertaining advice.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Now, craig and I, when we lived in California, we were big entertainers. We did a lot of entertaining. I wasn't a sit-down dinner entertainer. Mine were rarely sit down. I did do sit-down dinners, but mostly mine were rarely sit down. I did do sit down dinners, but mostly mine were like food and parties, like football parties, things like that. So those are different types of parties.

Speaker 1: 16:42

But my mom's advice always held true was you, if you put together a party, you give everybody. They need to have a good time. It's up to them to have a good time and not to worry about that part and having my mom told me that having parties was never a problem for me anymore because I, craig, and I always put together a great party. It was up to you, when you came, to have a good time, and I love that and I think our parties were always really great. If you're out there and you're listening, and you were at one of our parties, I think you would agree we always had a good time.

Speaker 1: 17:13

So, with that being said, you want to start with a clean slate. When hosting a big holiday or dinner party, do whatever it takes to have an empty trash can, an empty dishwasher, an empty sink, and I agree with this wholeheartedly. Start out clean. The other night I have not been doing very much cooking with going through the chemotherapy and Last Sunday I decided to do a pot roast. So I did that, but Craig had not run the dishwasher from everything he had done the day before and I couldn't get everything I wanted in the dishwasher and it just so. That is a really true thing. Make sure everything is clean and ready to go, trash cans are emptied and you have a fresh slate.

Speaker 1: 18:04

Chill your onions If chopping onions makes you tear up. You want to make sure. Oh, I love this. If you, if chopping an onion makes you tear up faster than a Sarah McLachlan's ASPCA commercial does, refrigerate that onion for an hour and then chop it should take the sting out of the sulfur compound. So that's a good tip. I didn't know that. Can't you just keep your onions in the refrigerator? I'm sure that's a no, no, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 18:38

Set up your buffet for success. This is really important. I was. I did all the events at our church for probably four years and everything was a buffet.

Speaker 1: 18:49

Setting up a buffet and the way it runs is super important. First of all, everybody looks at a buffet. Do I want that? What's in that? It takes them forever. But if you put things like condiments right at the front or et cetera, et cetera, it makes it hard. Also, napkins and silverware should be at the end. It's hard to hold all that and dish food onto your plate. So to keep the line running smoothly, stack plates at the beginning and put the silverware and the napkin tables on the dining table. If you can't do that, put them on the end If there are condiments. If you're doing like I did a lot of barbecue kind of things with hamburgers and hot dogs. I set a separate table for condiments. It gets people out of the line and away and they can dress their burger, their dog, whatever they may have to dress, even if it's a salad. If you're going to do a salad, put the dressing in a squeeze bottle. Make it super easy for people to just squirt it right on their salad. Uh, what other tips do I have for a buffet? Keep liked items with liked items, you know. Uh, if you want, you should have the salads towards the end so people can have their main course on and then find room for their salads. I know that all sounds logical, but sometimes I've been to a lot of buffets that aren't very logical.

Speaker 1: 20:07

Make a dessert board for a practically no effort. Finish for this, assemble one that you would like, just like a cheese or charcuterie board. You can do a dessert board and you can do it as easily as just do store-bought cookies and lay them out. Really fun. You can do Costco, all small Costco desserts, the little brownie bites, the cookies there's all kinds of things at Costco. I will tell you the best place to get I've done this before a dessert board is Trader Joe's. They have all kinds of little cookies and you can just do it real fun, just like you would do cheese charcuterie.

Speaker 1: 20:43

Bake pies on the lowest racks. Don't let soggy crusts ruin your good dessert. For a non-soggy bottom you want to put your pie on the lowest rack where the most concentrated heat is. Store brown sugar with an orange peel. You can let out some frustration of pounding that rock hard brown sugar. You can also put a piece of bread in there, but I think an orange peel probably sounds better. It will help it from hardening. So that's a good one. Serve pie like a fro.

Speaker 1: 21:17

Is it hard to lift out that first piece of pie? My mouth is going crazy. This is a Martha Stewart trick. Start by cutting two, says the author of this fruitcake book, who learned this trick from Martha Stewart, and you will have wiggle room to get in there. So if you start by cutting two pieces, I guess you go in for both pieces. This doesn't make it really clear. So we gave you two pie tips here about your crust and your cutting, but the cutting one I'm going to have to try. Or my sister Cindy, who probably cuts more pies than I do, you need to try that.

Speaker 1: 21:59

Poach eggs in the microwave breakfast in less than a minute, if it's possible. Line your microwave cookware. Place half a cup of water in a microwave safe bowl and crack an egg in it. Make sure that it's submerged Microwave for 40 seconds until the yolk is cooked. There you go. I don't like poached eggs. They're disgusting to me, but I know a lot of people like them.

Speaker 1: 22:27

Unstick sticky ingredients before measuring honey syrup, peanut butter, anything gooey in that measuring cup or spoon. Don't run hot water on the inside of it, don't dry it off and do your measuring. You can also spray cooking spray and it'll slip right out. That's. That's a good one too. If you don't want to do, if you don't. Well, if you don't have cooking spray, do the hot water, but I like the cooking spray. Also. If you're going to cut anything sticky, like a rice Krispie treat or a dessert that can be sticky, spray your knife or heat your knife also, but spray it with cooking spray. I'm not going to even give that tip because I don't like that tip.

Speaker 1: 23:25

Make sure for health advice. Drink water for better breath. Dehydration can be the culprit for bad breath. Did you know that I am working really hard at drinking a lot of water? I drink a cup before I drink my coffee now. Just some things. My chemo pills require a lot of water and the days I don't feel good I realize I haven't drank a lot of water.

Speaker 1: 23:49

Snack wisely before bed. One of the top suggestions is hummus and crackers. Chickpeas are high in the amino acid tryptophan, which can increase levels of serotonin. So hit that, hit that. What did I just call it? Oh, my gosh, hummus. Hit that hummus. Before you go to bed.

Speaker 1: 24:18

Here's some mindset advice. Thank your partner the right way. Try to be more specific. Before you fire off a basic thank you text I think this goes for anything Make sure you say thank you for taking the trash out, thank you for whatever it is and name what the specific. Thank you for bringing me a cup of coffee, thank you for grabbing the cream for me. This goes for kids too.

Speaker 1: 24:44

This good job I learned from Miss Donna, the preschool teacher in that preschool next door that used the shaving cream. She didn't allow anybody to say good job. She said kids don't know what a job is and they don't know what that means. Instead say I like the way you painted that butterfly, or whatever they did. Speak to what they did, and I think this goes for everyone. It goes right back to this Thank your partner the right way, but good job If you've got grandkids, stop saying good job. They don't know what a job is. They don't know what any of that is. Say I like the way you let Susie go down the slide first. Or I like the way you poured your milk. I like the way you ate your lunch. You ate all your lunch so well. Instead of just saying good job. It's one of those things that means nothing.

Speaker 1: 25:38

Rsvp without regrets. If you can't make it to something you can't, you don't owe the hostess an explanation ever and as a hostess, you shouldn't expect a reason. If someone can't make it to your event, they can't make it to your event. It's just the way it goes. Don't believe everything you think and this is really good, I like this. Don't believe everything you think, especially the negative thoughts. Don't believe them. It's your mind playing tricks on you. You are good enough, you are kind enough, you are enough. Don't let your mind play tricks on you. Find something to be creative.

Speaker 1: 26:25

Right now I am trying to crochet again. It's not going well. It's not going well, but I'm trying. I've noticed those of you that know I have crunchy hands, whole nother problem besides the cancer. Um, my hands are getting weaker. I'm finding I can't do some things. So I thought maybe crocheting would help. I want to do flowers and I can't even get the circle started. But you know what, doggone it. I am trying and I'm going to do that because being creative is really good. Well, that's my advice for today. Next week I will be out of town, but I will run a repeat episode of some sort, so there will be something there for you. Again, I'm sorry that it's Thursday, but yesterday I forgot it was Wednesday. I I've been losing track of my days and in some ways that's a good and in some ways that's a good thing, some ways it's a bad thing, but uh, anyway it is what it is. But it's out today. Uh, I'm happy to do it.

Speaker 1: 27:34

I have a fun fact for you coming up, so if you hang in there, you'll get one of my another, one of my fabulous fun facts. All right, a few weeks ago, I think, we talked about fingerprints with identical twins. They have individual fingerprints. This is an interesting one. Just like fingerprints human have unique tongue prints.

Speaker 1: 27:57

Oh my God, could you imagine if we have to start giving our tongue prints due to the distinct pattern of the small bumps and taste buds on their tongues, which can be used for identification purposes. Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine having to give my tongue for a print. The arrangement, shape and distribution of the bumps on your tongue surface create a a unique pattern for each individual, and even between identical twins, just like fingerprints. So there you go. I don't know if you knew this, but you have a unique tongue, isn't that exciting? And if they start making us do that for fingerprints, oh yo yo, I get here. I need, we need your tongue print. Come on in, we need your tongue print. I don't know A little wackadoo, but I always try to give you some fabulous information that maybe you never had before. And, with that being said, remember, go out and do something positive. Have a great week. Talk to you next week.