Dear Heloise: Friends often call to tell me that they are closeby and want to drop by for a visit. Somehow my house always seems to be messy when they call. How can I get things in order quickly before the guests arrive? -- Terry D., Waukesha, Wisconsin Terry, take a look at your house from ...

Dear Annie: I’m knee-deep in a demanding job, and I absolutely love it. The problem is, I can tell my health is slipping. I’m not getting a lot of sleep, I rarely have time to hit the gym, and my meals usually consist of fast or frozen food due to time constraints. My body is starting to ...

Dear Heloise: I’m responding to Katharine B.’s letter about nail-biting that ran in a recent column. I used to bite my nails, too, so what I did was get “acrylic nails.” You can’t bite through those things! Then I tried “gel” nails, and you can’t really bite though them ...

Dear Annie: I want everyone to keep their germs to themselves. I am carefully training my children to avoid any contact with dirty hands or saliva when handling communal food. Unfortunately, few people in my world share my view. My mother and mother-in-law routinely share their germs while ...

Dear Annie: I just read the letter from “Anonymous” concerning his alcoholic wife and his inability to help her. This hit home for me 100%. Ten years ago, I divorced my alcoholic husband after 25 years of marriage (28 years together) due to his alcoholism. It’s not that I didn’t love ...

Dear Heloise: It’s right about this time of year that scammers start targeting elderly people with various schemes to cheat people out of their savings. They might contact you in-person or by telephone, email or letter. If they contact you by letter, you will most likely see what looks like ...