LITTLE ROCK — DEAR HELOISE: I’m a mother with sons slowly moving out of the house, going to college and getting apartments, but they still come home for food and laundry. The laundry I can handle; the food ... well, after losing a lot of plastic containers, I found it better to use freezer bags.

In one day, I cook a lot of different dishes and use the bags, labeling them according to each child, and freeze. When they come to visit, they always know where to go in the freezer, and I get to keep my plastic containers.

- Veronica, San Antonio

DEAR HELOISE: Place a dish towel under a pillbox when refilling. Pills will not bounce off the table onto the floor.

- Lynn W., Staunton, Va.

DEAR HELOISE: I previously wrote that an inexpensive foam paintbrush has just the right pitch on the tip for cleaning the louvers on the metal door that protects a home’s air filter. I since discovered that a 4-inch bristletype paintbrush was easier to use and almost as effective. After using it dry, I moistened and repeated, then wiped down the door with some folded bath tissues.

I also find it useful to put the date on the filter when I install it. I suggest marking the first Saturday of the month on the calendar to remind yourself to change the filter.

- Ken French, Brenham, Texas

DEAR HELOISE: As an old field engineer who has cleaned remotes in the past, the simplest rule is to place controllers on a pad upside down. By the time accumulated dirt becomes a problem, the controller has become broken or obsolete.

- Tom Hartman, via e-mail Send a money- or time-saving hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, Texas 78279-5000; fax to (210) 435-6473; or e-mail HELOISE@CompuServe.com

Weekend, Pages 36 on 10/08/2009

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