DIY Life

Today's New York Times features an article about exhausted travelers catching sleep while stuck at airports. One enterprising gentleman, Frank Giotto, is even selling an airport camping kit. The "Mini Motel" includes a tiny one-person tent, air mattress, pillow, sheet, alarm clock and eye shades, plus some other extras.

So... how do you fall asleep in an airport? (Assuming the Mini Motel is nowhere to be found.) An awesome list of tips can be found at The Budget Traveller's [sic] Guide to Sleeping in Airports. Top tip: bring an inflatable pool raft so you can spread out on the floor in comfort... if security will allow it. It's cheaper and lighter than a regular air mattress.

You've done it again. After writing your long letter to Aunt Martha -- on your homemade fabric flower cards, perhaps -- you've sealed the envelope, only to realize that you've forgotten to include little Harry's latest school photo.

You could either rip open the envelope, pop in the picture, and tape it closed, or you could try a sneaky way to open the envelope -- an undetectable way.

There's always steaming open the envelope, TV detective Veronica Mars' method of choice. This is wet and messy, though, so you may want to try putting the envelope in the freezer instead. Just a few hours in the zero -- or subzero -- environment, and the envelope should open on its own. You can reseal it after you put in Junior's picture.

I hope you aren't getting any illegal ideas, now that you're an expert at this....

I am one of the lucky ones. I grew up with my mother reading to me constantly, and since I always saw my parents reading, I had good examples (ah, the power of modeling). Reading was an innate love for me.

What if you found reading later in life? Is it possible to become well read without that solid foundation? Or what if you got lost in mundane life tasks and put reading by the wayside for a while? Can you still be well read?

In my opinion, as an avid reader, someone who holds a degree in English literature, and a former reading teacher, the answer is yes. It's never too late to start reading regularly, and it doesn't take much to catch up, so to speak. Thankfully, there is a pool of amazing books from which to choose.

After the break, you'll find my tips on how to become well read.

This DIY children's book is a great way to teach your little one about the day. It could be a great transition tool for outlining how preschool days will go, or other routines that they might struggle with. If your child has difficulty getting in gear for school, take pictures of each step: Getting up, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, getting dressed, walking to school, hanging his coat, greeting the teacher and so on. Print out these free comic captions to animate the story. As you narrate the steps, they'll have fun with the pictures and captions. This will reinforce routine and help them prepare for the coming day.

I know the intention here is to make a book that teaches daily routines, but I'd also make a few just for fun. let your little one dress up as a super hero and add cations to their universe-saving story. These Batman style bubbles will be really popular with the kids and you'll have fun sharing the story too. You can laminate and bind the book or just use a flip photo book. Have fun with this one.

Privacy is such a great thing, and something some people get very little of. We live in a small house, so if one of us wants privacy, we have to go into a different room. Some people might not be so lucky to escape into a different room, or even be able to leave the premises, and that's exactly what privacy screens are for.

A privacy screen can be strategically placed in a large room to give the appearance of two smaller rooms, or even just placed somewhere that you don't want others seeing what you have. If you have a business that has no room for a private office space, a privacy screen can separate you so that your customers aren't all up in your, umm, business. They're also very easy to make and you can find easy instructions and a video at thisoldhouse.com. All you need to make them are some old shutters, hinges, and soft vinyl furniture floor glides that will protect the floor if you decide you need to move your privacy screen.

This project is very easy to do, taking up about 1 or 2 hours of your time. The cost will vary, depending on where you get your shutters and hinges. I would end up painting the shutters to give them a new look, so they don't look like I just got them out of my neighbor's garbage or from the salvage yard.

It wasn't so long ago that well-meaning parents, scholars, and knee jerk social engineers were pointing at the dawning of the computer age and claiming that computers were going to usher in increased illiteracy. These people had visions of video screens full of pictures which were activated by keystrokes, and they foretold the rapid demise of the written word. In bold defiance of that warped assertion, I kindly write this blog post.

These days, any person with a computer available to them has many virtual libraries right at their finger tips. These painstakingly assembled databases are growing daily and are providing hungry readers with every type of literature you could imagine. From pulp romance to legal text books and everything in between, it's now more readily available to the average reader than ever before. Let me provide you a few good examples: