Dear Heloise:

Dear Readers:

When you take your family on a vacation, make sure each person has his or her own bag. Each bag could be a different color to make them easier to keep track of. When you check in or check out of your hotel, assign your children to count the bags on the way into the room and count them again when you leave to be sure that all of them are in the car before you take off! That way nothing will be left behind.

— Heloise

before they are open fully and tie the stems tightly with a piece of twine or dental floss. Hang the flowers upside down in a dry, dark space. The darkness will help to preserve the colors of the flowers. When they are completely dry, arrange in a vase.

— Heloise

Mouth on fire from eating a jalapeño?

Q. How do you stop the heat and pain from eating a jalapeño pepper? A. drink milk B. drink cold beer C. chew on ice If you chose A. drink milk, that is the correct answer. Milk will soothe your mouth. Also, if you have been cutting hot peppers and feel pain in your fingers, soak them in milk! It works.

— Heloise

I love to drink iced tea during the hot summer months, but I don’t like the watereddown taste it gets when regular ice cubes start to melt. What can I do about this?

When the weather heats up, brew several batches of tea. Pour one of the batches of cooled-down tea in ice-cube trays and freeze. Then you can use these ice cubes to cool down iced tea, and it won’t be diluted. If you like lemon in your iced tea, freeze lemon juice in an ice-cube tray. Pop one or two into your tea for a nice, lemony flavor.

— Jane in Texas Heloise Dear Readers: — Heloise —

When you are going to be grilling outdoors during the summer months, you don’t need a lot of special cleaning utensils to scrape off food debris and grease. Instead, use this low-tech trick: Scrunch up a wad of aluminum foil and rub over the grates until you can see that all the crud has disappeared. Then wash the grates in hot, soapy water, dry and rub the surface with a bit of cooking oil.