DEAR HELOISE: After having total knee replacement surgery, I bought a small treadmill that goes under my desk. Since it doesn’t have anything to hold onto, I placed a walker over the top to steady it as I walk. It works like a charm!

• Marie G., in Connecticut

DEAR HELOISE: I hope you get many responses to your idea about using paper bags. No, no! Use reusable totes; this way, there’s nothing to toss out or recycle. Think “reduce, reuse, recycle,” with emphasis on reduce.

• Joyce L., via email

Joyce, for people who live in apartments, using a paper bag to collect and carry plastic, paper or glass objects makes recycling easier. Even homeowners will tell me that using paper bags to gather recyclable items is easier.

I’d rather see someone using a paper bag than merely dumping plastic in the regular trash, or worse, dumping it in the ocean or on the ground.

• Heloise

DEAR HELOISE: When the lights go out at our house, I use solar-charged lights but not the ones that are used to light up my walkways. There are companies that sell lights that are perfect to keep on hand for power outages, camping and many other uses. They can be charged by sunlight or by plugging them into a cellphone charger, and a charge will last for six months if the light is not used.

In addition, you can charge your cellphone from your light. There is no heat, flame or carbon monoxide. Some companies also donate their products to disaster victims.

P.S. We read you daily.

• Leon P., in Parkersburg, W. Va.

DEAR HELOISE: I am an artist who paints in acrylics and also paints the walls of an arts festival booth twice a year. Here are some painting and paint removal tips:

● I wear thin latex-type gloves when painting. If I need to take them off, I dust my hands with baby powder before putting them back on.

● I collect the plastic hair caps they hand out in hotels, store them with my paint supplies, and slip one on my head when painting.

● Before I paint, I rub a light layer of baby oil on any exposed skin, such as my legs, face and arms. Clean up is easy!

● When I do forget to wear my gloves or to follow the above tips, I find witch hazel and drop some onto a baby wipe. It’s great for scrubbing dried paint off my hands and body. When used with a nail file, the baby wipe gets dried paint out from under my fingernails.

● My favorite remover of dried acrylic paint from clothes and surfaces is an ammonia-based window cleaner. Rinse promptly and launder the clothing right away.

• Hedy B., in Laguna Beach, California

A DRAIN STRAINER

Dear Heloise: I read a letter from a reader who said that she had problems with things going down the drain and clogging it. So, she uses, among other things, the back of a cardboard cereal box! This cardboard cereal box should be going into the recycling bin, not in her sink and then the trash.

I bought a simple piece (a strainer) that goes in the sink drain, which you could buy at nearly any discount store for about $1.50. It keeps things from going down the drain, and it’s a simple solution. — S.D. Doerr, via email

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