DEAR HELOISE: Regarding funeral flowers, I was a funeral director for over 40 years and can tell you that nursing homes and hospitals do not want any flowers that even remotely look like they came from a funeral (for obvious reasons). I did not have the time or vehicle to transport them elsewhere after the ceremony. To hire someone would have been an added expense.

I would always suggest donations in lieu of this as an alternative.

— Barbara Ann Condon, Formerly of Condon Funeral Home,

in Kearny, New Jersey

DEAR HELOISE: A reader suggested turning off your main house water supply before going on vacation. This is only if you have forced air heating. If your furnace is a water based-boiler system (hot water baseboards, radiators, etc.), it automatically feeds water from your main supply. If it can’t get the water, it could overheat and cause a fire.

— Mark Rust, via email

DEAR HELOISE: I read the letter from Georgia N. regarding hints on what to do when traveling. I have an additional suggestion:

When my husband and I travel, we always take a picture of the pickup station close to where we park our car. Then I turn around and take a picture of our car from the station to show the direction it’s parked in. I also take a picture of our row number, and last of all, I take a picture of our license plate.

If something happened to us on a flight, heaven forbid, people would have no idea how to find our car in a large airport parking lot without these photos.

— D.S., in Omaha, Nebraska

DEAR HELOISE: When dipping pretzels in chocolate, I tried using a long, thin-tine meat fork. I put the pretzels on the outside tines in as long of a row as is manageable. Just dip them into your pot of melted chocolate, tilting the pot a bit to cover them completely. Then slide each pretzel off the meat fork and onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

This saved me so much time! I could get two dozen mini pretzels at a time on the meat fork.

— Melissa McCluney, in Houston

DEAR HELOISE: To the lady who mixes up left and right when trying to open lotion bottles, my wife also gets left and right confused sometimes. But she doesn’t confuse clockwise and counterclockwise. So, try remembering clockwise is lock-wise; to open it, you’ll have to turn it counterclockwise.

— Mike S., in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Send a money-saving or time-saving hint to Heloise@Heloise.com. I can’t answer your letter personally but will use the best hints received in my column.