Patricia McLinn | Romance Novelist

Never throw away containers! You can always use them for something else around the house. For example I made gift bags at Christmas time by cutting a cereal box at the top, taping pretty magazine print around it, and then punching holes at the top to string yarn through. It cost me nothing to wrap/bag my gifts this past Christmas. :)

Water plants by taking plants into the shower with you (maybe not cactus.) The plants love it.

I'm trying to shop smarter. Last week I bought a large ham that was on sale. We had it for dinner 2 nights, made sandwiches for lunch the next day and I served it with scrambled eggs for breakfast. I left some for extra sandwiches and cut up the rest and put in plastic bags and froze to make ham salad. I passed the bone along to my mother so she could make pea soup.

Aim to buy only what’s on sale at the grocery store. Stock up when necessities are on sale, so you never have to buy them full-price.

Freeze produce that’s in danger of going bad and having to be thrown away (or composted! See below.) Try strawberries or blueberries spread out on a cookie sheet. Once they’re frozen put them in a freezer bag or other container.

Start a soup bag in the freezer and add carrots, onion, celery, beans, corn, etc., as you have them. When you cook a whole chicken or turkey, use the bones to make stock, throw in the veggies and voila! You have soup.

Turn the thermostat up in the summer (use electric fan, running it only when you’re in the room) and down in the winter (wear more clothes.)

Never buy something just because it’s on sale. If you don’t need it, no sale is good enough to make it worthwhile.

If you are offered a rebate, make sure to send in for it. Keep a copy of what you’ve sent in and if you don’t receive it in a timely fashion, track it down.

If you don’t use your cell phone much, look at an inexpensive pre-paid service.

If buying a big ticket item (appliances, car, carpet, etc., etc.) don’t hesitate to negotiate. The price on the price tag isn’t necessarily the final answer.

Shop at multiple places and give each of them the chance to beat the best price you’ve been offered to that point. Once you have that price, go back for a second round.

Same idea with getting estimates for work on your house, yard, car, etc. If you have three estimates for $500 and the worker you like the best comes in at $600, ask him/her to match the other estimates. If s/he says no, then decide if s/he is worth the extra money.

When you hit the bottom of the bottle/tube of lotion/moisturizer, add a little water. Shake it up and you’ll have more to use (beware it will be runnier). Do the same thing with laundry/dish detergent.

Use vinegar! There are a million uses. For starters, use white vinegar with newspaper to wash windows, in laundry to combat hard water, full-strength to kill weeds (best on a sunny day, and it will kill whatever plants you pour it on.) Spray diluted apple cider vinegar on roses to combat black spot.

If you’re a gardener, make your own compost instead of buying bags of the stuff. (You can be gung-ho or do it low-key. Every little bit helps.)

Use used coffee filters in the bottom of plant pots. (And the coffee grounds are good additions to the compost pile.)

Many mentioned reading while curled in front of a fire or with a cat or while drinking hot chocolate, coffee, or tea. Baking usually involved brownies or cookies. (Good choices!)

If I had cable TV, I would spend most of my life watching HGTV (love, love, love “Designed to Sell,” “Curb Appeal,” “Freestyle,” and more)

My hometown, Lombard, Ill., is the Lilac Village. At various times I recall lilac colored water tower, trash receptacles, police cars with crossed stalks of lilacs and many lilac-decorated flags. But the May festival, with Lilacia Park as its headquarters, is the lilac peak in Lombard.

As a kid, I remember busloads of garden groups asking if I was a native lilac-ian. (Lilacia is pronounced Lie-Lay-Sha.) I also remember being told that we had the third-largest collection of lilacs in the world. I’ve never seen that confirmed, but I do see that both Canada’s Royal Botanical Gardens and Rochester, N.Y., claim the largest collection in the world, so that might leave the way clear for Lombard’s claim.

Lilacia Park began existence as the home of Col. William and Helen M. Plum. (No kidding – Colonel Plum.) He’d been a telegrapher in the Civil War and graduated from Yale Law School. He came to Illinois, stumbled onto the village of Lombard, some 25 miles due west of Chicago, and decided to settle there. He and his wife built a white frame house atop a rise. The Plums bought their first two lilacs bushes in 1910 in France after visiting the famous gardens of Victor Lemoine. And they kept planting and planting lilacs around their home.

Helen died in 1924 and the Colonel in 1927. His will left the house as a public library in honor of his wife, and the grounds as a public park. The first festival was 1930, with a parade and the selection of a queen. The famous landscape architect Jens Jensen was commissioned in 1929 to design the park. (If you read my BABY BLUES AND WEDDING BELLS, you might remember Fran and Miss Trudi’s excitement at discovering Jens Jensen had a hand in Bliss House’s gardens.) Jensen built winding paths, a lily pond and a waterfall that remain today, as well as adding tulips along the edges of the paths in front of the banks of lilacs.

Somewhere there lurks film of a certain 4-year-old author-in-the-making dressed in her spring best beside her cousin and buddy Rick, looking equally natty, posing angelically before those blooming tulips and budding lilacs. Then, apparently under the impression that the camera was off and all adults were distracted, our young heroine and hero faced those tulips and – whap-whap-whap – used their cherubic little hands to send petals flying. Officials never learned of this transgression, so I’m happy to say I was not banned from Lilacia Park.

Lilac Time now is a two-week festival with varied activities. Check out the Lombard Park District site for photos, information on this year’s schedule, activities and the all-important Bloom-O-Meter.

The Helen M. Plum Memorial Library remained in the Plums’ frame house for nearly half a century. I remember walking between stone pillars, up a slanted walk flanked by lilac bushes, then climbing broad steps to the porch. Inside it smelled wonderfully of old wood, old books and new worlds to explore. The floors creaked with a marvelous sound that made me feel as if each step were an adventure. A blocked off stairway seemed to dare a kid to venture into forbidden territory. The children’s section was to the right – I have a vague impression it was once the front parlor. Kids were supposed to stay in that room, but I was known to wander. My older sister would check out selected adult books for me. (Not too adult – I am her baby sister after all.) I missed the old building when they tore it down for a modern looking (and in my mind lackluster) building. Okay, the plumbing was better, which I did eventually appreciate when – in my first job beyond babysitting -- I worked as a page at the library. But it lacked the romance of the house the Colonel and Mrs. Plum had surrounded by lilacs.

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WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?

This is dedicated to Lombard, Illinois, my hometown.

To its people, past and present, who have been true friends. And to the Helen M. Plum Memorial Library, which has fostered many a reader over the years. Keep those lilacs blooming!

Some of you know that I’ve been sending books and other packages to our troops serving in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lt. MaryAlicia Verdecchia is one of “my” soldiers, who has become a friend. Click here to read an address by Lt. MaryAlicia Verdecchia, U.S. Army, at the May 2005 Women Veterans’ Week in Branson, Missouri.