Heloise

Dear Heloise: My husband and I have plans to move to our vacation home after we retire. We’re going through this large house of ours and sorting through all of our belongings one room at a time.

Our three daughters are helping because it’ll offer them a chance to take many things that have been handed down in our family. If they don’t want the fine china, the good silverware, or the candlesticks that my grandmother brought over from Italy, then these items will be sold or given away. I warned them that this is the last chance they have to take valuable things home. If they don’t, there won’t be a second chance, and I don’t want to hear about it later.

I have a stack of large boxes that they can load up and take home with them as we move through each room. If more than one of the girls wants an item, we can draw straws or flip a coin. This is great way to declutter and gives my children a chance to take what they want with my blessing. — Gloria D., in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

SEND A GREAT HINT TO:

Heloise@Heloise.com

LIQUID GOLD

Dear Heloise: If you put a jar of honey on a sunny windowsill to liquify it, make sure to place the container in a black sock. It works much faster. — Greg D., in Newton Falls, Ohio

STRAY CATS AND DOGS

Dear Heloise: People write to you bragging about how they take in stray cats and dogs. What they’re really doing is stealing other people’s pets. If they would leave them alone, the pets probably go home to their owners. Some people may be in great distress over losing a pet who got out. — Linda S., via email

Linda, a well-fed, clean animal

might be a stray who’s lost and away from home. This happens all too often. But an animal who is begging for food or is dirty and thin probably doesn’t have a home. Thank heavens for those who take in a stray animal or at least take it to a shelter where it can be cared for until it gets adopted!

Animals need to be spayed, neutered and microchipped, and they should be kept indoors. There really isn’t such a thing as “an outdoor pet.” It’s just a poor animal someone really doesn’t want. After all, a pet is a family member, and we don’t keep family members chained up outside. (No matter how much we might want to!) — Heloise

GIVING A DOG A PILL

Dear Heloise: One reader wrote in about using pill pockets with pills inside for your dog. Another way that we do this successfully is to cut up small little squares of cheese. It’s easy to embed a pill in the cheese, and our dog loves it. We love your column in the Winston-Salem Journal. — Jack S., via email

Jack, I give my dogs a pill in peanut butter or take a piece of cooked meat, make an incision on the side, and slip the pill inside of the meat. — Heloise

SHORT PEOPLE PROBLEMS

Dear Heloise: My husband and I had a bed that was really much too tall for us. We sold it and bought a platform bed with a normal mattress, and my husband sawed the legs on the wooden platform bed in half. We’re both short people. (I’m 5 feet, 2 inches tall, and he is 5 feet, 4 inches tall.) Sometimes life is a challenge for us, but we always find a solution. — Gracie N., in Los Angeles