I have been preparing our house for the market and in doing so, I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff! I am definitely the hoarder in our house. My husband could live out of two bags, use about five kitchen items each year, and doesn’t gather anything for future use or hang on to much for sentimental value. (Which probably means the items he has hung on to mean a whole lot more!) I am always tucking something away here or stashing materials there…all in preparation for “some day.” It’s also part of the teacher in me. Do you know many teachers that don’t have a ton of stuff or utilize every bit of storage available? But, over the last several years, I’ve been fairly good about going through things every six months and weeding out a little here and a little there. Today I’ll be sharing six simple ways to declutter your home and why you should! GIVE THINGS AWAY It’s nice to make money, but sometimes you come across something that you really think someone else could use and you don’t want to throw it away. If it’s the perfect fit for that person, they may adopt the item and add their own wear and tear! Anyone that’s had children knows that kids go through things so fast and it’s nice to save a little money by taking hand-me-downs from a friend or relative. If the receiver decides they don’t want the item, let it be. They’ll either get rid of it on their own or decline the offer. If they choose the latter, maybe the rest of this list will help. PACK If you know you don’t want to purge an item from your house AND you know that you will use it in the future, but it’s not an everyday use item, pack it up. We have several containers of things in our garage that are full of items we use once or twice each year. I have added close to 100 boxes of things to simply declutter our home while it’s on the market. I took a look at everything and kept the essentials (well, maybe even more than the essentials), and packed up the rest. How does the author suggest that one can save money? Pick the correct answer from the following options:  A. by decluttering your home  B. not enough information  C. by recycling items you already own  D. by accepting used items from a friend  or a relative
D
Recently the news broke that Microsoft are acquiring GitHub. Effusive opinions flowed from all directions: some saw the acquisition as a sensible fit for Microsoft to better support developers, and some saw it as a tyrant getting their grubby fingers on open source’s ecosystem. I am thrilled for Microsoft and GitHub for many reasons, and there will be a bright future ahead because of it, but I have been thinking more about the reaction some of the critics have had to this, and why. I find it fascinating that there still seems to be a deep-seated discomfort in some about Microsoft and their involvement in open source. I understand that this is for historical reasons, and many moons ago Microsoft were definitely on the offensive against open source. I too was critical of Microsoft and their approach back in those days. I may have even said ‘M$’ instead of ‘MS’ (ugh.) Things have changed though. Satya Nadella, their CEO, has had a profound impact on the company: they are a significant investor and participant in open source across a multitude of open source projects, they hire many open source developers, run their own open source projects (e.g. VSCode), and actively sponsor and support many open source conferences, events, and initiatives. I know many people who work at Microsoft and they love the company and their work there. These are not microserfs: they are people like you and me. Things have changed, and I have literally never drunk Kool-aid; this or any other type. Are they perfect? No, but they don’t claim to be. But is the Microsoft of today a radically different company to the Microsoft of the late nineties. No doubt. Still though, this cynicism exists in some. Some see them as a trojan horse and ask if we can really trust them? A little while ago I had a discussion with someone who was grumbling about Microsoft. After poking around his opinion, what shook out was that his real issue was not with Microsoft’s open source work (he was supportive of this), but it was with the fact that they still produce... John's wedding ceremony probably lasted Pick the correct answer from the following options:  A. 20 minutes  B. 1 week  C. several hours  D. not enough information
C
*Question*
I had seen it before, those fuzzy, furry leaves and stalks, with the pretty, star-pointed purple flowers, but up until that moment that I saw them sitting in a basket at the market stalls, I admit I had never taken notice of it as a food. It grow along cracks in stone walls and along the roadside near my home in Settignano, which is blooming with spring goodness right now: robinia (black locust) trees, wild garlic (three-cornered leek) and even elderflowers are already bursting. I asked the vendor just to double check, “Is this borage?” “Si,” Came the answer, “Borragine.” He confirmed. “I’ve had it in ravioli,” I started to say, “Brava!” He said, as if we were about to start a guessing game on what could be done with it. Actually, there’s a lot that can be done with it. If you can use it as a ravioli filling with ricotta, then you can imagine it taking the place of spinach in gnudi, too, but also soups or frittata or stirred through polenta. I learned that the flowers are just as delicious, if not more interesting, for their delicate cucumber-like flavour — people told me of their use in salads or cocktails like Pimms, and someone even mentioned she freezes them in ice cubes, what a pretty idea for those first warm nights when you can dine al fresco, homemade cocktail in hand. Then there’s risotto and of course the fritters, much like these ones. Or you can simply deep fry the clusters of buds that haven’t yet burst open like these deep-fried robinia flowers. borage and ricotta crepes The problem, I was thinking, as I took home my bag of borage, is that I can’t decide what to make. There’s simply too much choice. I consulted two of my favourite books that also happen to be cookbooks. Patience Gray’s Honey from a Weed and Luigi Ballerini’s A Feast of Weeds. Both had wonderful ideas for borage (and indeed many other edible, foraged plants). Who is the vendor? Pick the correct answer from the following options:  A. a good man  B. A chef  C. a smart salesman  D. not enough information
**Answer**

D