Freddie MacDonald

One more cheap win: if your shelves are bare or stained wood put an inert barrier between the books and the shelf (acid‑free liner or polyester/Mylar sheet), since wood off‑gasses acids that speed yellowing. Try to keep them away from exterior walls, attics, and basements where temps and humidity swing more. And pull out any receipts and newspaper clippings, or sticky notes tucked inside - those acidic papers can create yellow “ghosts” on the pages.

Adding one thing - To keep it screen-free and on pace use a 45-minute playlist as your timer: track 1 = bathroom and water, track 2 = stretch while coffee brews and middle tracks = eat and five-minute tidy, last track = shoes and out. Reduce friction the night before: clothes laid out, breakfast prepped or portioned, kettle filled, keys and bag staged. For the tidy, pick one zone and use a one-touch rule so five minutes makes a visible dent. To dodge burnt toast, set a middle shade and finish in short pulses if needed, or switch to no-toast backups on tight mornings.

Adding one thing - Make sure your hair is completely dry before you straighten; even slight dampness makes strands grabby and more likely to snag. A pea-sized amount of silicone-based heat protectant or serum on dry hair adds slip without getting tacky. Try the comb-chase method: run a fine-tooth comb right ahead of the iron so each pass is perfectly detangled. Also close the iron and look for gaps or uneven contact along the plates - misaligned or non-floating plates will catch no matter what and that’s a return-worthy defect.

Good call on grip and using a wall outlet. Also check the removable rear filter and the area behind it - fine lint packs in there and even a clogged concentrator/diffuser can choke airflow so try medium heat with high airflow or remove the nozzle. If it still trips after a thorough clean and the thermal cutoff is probably getting weak and it’s safer to replace the dryer.

I totally get your worry, we had the same setup with our little one upstairs and us down below, and that static drove me nuts too and look for something with a solid range, like at least 1000 feet, and maybe one that doesn't rely on WiFi so it stays connected no matter what. Video is a game-changer, being able to see her little face when she stirs helps so much, especially with night vision for those dark hours. We found that ones with good battery life let us sleep better, no constant recharging. And don't skimp on the signal strength, it's worth a bit more for peace of mind. Hang in there, you'll find something that works great.

One more angle. Sometimes Alexa says offline while the device app still works because the cloud status lags after a brief Wi Fi hiccup. If you can control the plug in its own app right away the Alexa side will usually catch up in a minute or two. That said, the root cause is almost always the router doing something clever at night, so keep 2.4 simple and fixed, stretch the DHCP lease, disable scheduled optimizations, and update firmware on both sides which, yeah i did those and the overnight dropouts vanished, and I did not have to move the router or anything.