Paypal debit card

If you carry around gift cards from relatives, you may discover, like I did, that the longer you carry them around the more the fees reduce the balance, until when you finally use it you've only got like $4.26 left to spend. Likewise, gift Mastercards are a problem because if you lose them they spend just like cash.

My new solution is a Paypal debit card, which is PIN protected. Your parent can set it up for you tied to an existing account, then transfer money to your card immediately whenever you need it. Of course, this means that they can monitor how you spend it, but you probably are going to use it for gas and food anyway, right?

More info here

Alarm clocks are better than your mom

Don't want your mom to have to keep waking you up every morning?

Then get serious about alarm clocks. Notice the "s" at the end of clocks.

I am still experimenting, but it looks now like I will need to have the one within reach with multiple snoozes, as usual, but also have to add one out of reach, preferably one that is really annoying.

I may have to get one of the models that moves around, but I really hope it doesn't come to that.

Getting the hang of laundry

OK, I know how to separate the lights and darks. I even know about different water temps. That's not the point.

Here's how to knock it out. Buy the sheets that go in the washer and the dryer. They have the laundry soap for the washer AND the fabric softener for the dryer.

Use cold water for everything. Keeping the really dark stuff separate from the really white stuff is usually best, unless you're in a huge hurry and you don't care.

Hang up the t-shirts straight out of the washer if you don't want them to shrink.

Hang everything up right out of the dryer and you won't look like a wrinkled mess, unless that's the look you're going for.

There, you're done. You're welcome.

No rest for the almost-adults

With some encouragement (OK, a lot of encouragement) I'm planning a summer that, like every summer for the past few years, is a little more work and a little less play. Is this what growing up looks like?

I'm still counting on hanging out by a pool somewhere as often as I can, but I've got a lot of ground to cover.

Getting my drivers license, a week long PSAT prep class, and two different summer camps - one for materials science (where I hope to learn exactly what that is) and the other a two week engineering camp that I actually had to compete to get into BUT the scholarship pays for everything and I get to live in a dorm and see what being an environmental engineer is like.

Eleven weeks seems like a long time at the beginning of summer, doesn't it? I'm going to make this one count.