I’ve always been a huge Grinch fan if you couldn’t tell from my Grinch gift exchange, my Grinch themed Christmas punch game, and the various Grinch recipes on my site. I even made Who pudding last year! There’s just something fun about one of Sr. Seuss’ most iconic characters. Maybe it’s the green. Maybe it’s him realizing the true meaning of Christmas at the end of the story. Or maybe it’s all of the fun renditions that have been made over the years that just keep the story alive and coming back over and over again....

When hamstrings are weak, they can cause knee pain and increase the possibility of strain, says Maggiacomo. A lot of times, this weakness stems from muscle imbalance, when your quads, the muscles that run the length of the front of the thigh, are more dominant than your hamstrings. This phenomenon is typically more prominent in women than in men. When your muscles are imbalanced in this way, “you’ll have a hard time achieving proper form for exercises, and it will have an adverse effect on your running form if you’re relying solely on the quads for stability and power,” Maggiacomo explains, noting that you want to make sure you’re working the quads, hamstrings, and glutes equally to address muscle imbalances....

On This Episode Buying your first home is already a major money milestone—but having to do it on your own in an uncertain housing market can make it feel even more overwhelming. In this episode, host Stefanie O’Connell Rodriguez interviews real estate expert and mortgage lender Nicole Rueth about how to navigate the home-buying process as a single person—including the options and alternatives available to single buyers who fear being priced out of this hot housing market....

“Two-thirds of what we buy in the supermarket we had no intention of buying,” says consumer expert Paco Underhill, author of Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping ($16, amazon.com). Supermarkets not only rely on such behavior-they encourage it. Every aspect of a grocery store’s layout—from the produce display near the entrance to the dairy case in the back to the candy at the register—is designed to stimulate shopping serendipity....

What Are the Different Types of Cabbage? Cabbage belongs to the same family as Brussels sprouts and kale. It evolved from a leafy mustard plant, and this is why it has a light natural pepperiness. Cabbage, though, also has hidden umami and sweetness that can come out with cooking. There are three main kinds of cabbage: red, green, and Savoy. Green is a mint-green that often shades to white in some parts....

“Apply multiple colors and sit with them for a few days,” recommends Erika Woelfel, Behr color expert. “Test them in multiple different parts of your room with different lighting to help you to better visualize what the color will look like in your space at any time of day.” Nicole Gibbons, the founder and CEO of Clare, shares similar advice: “Make sure you love your color both under daylight and in the evening when the sun is down and the artificial lights are on in your home,” she says....

Sometimes manufacturers will throw the everyday shopper a bone, putting the more common name in parentheses next to the scientific name, like this: tocopherol (vitamin E). But without that nudge, an ingredients list often just looks like a string of long unfamiliar words separated by commas. Instead of doing detective work, it can be easier to follow popularity and opt for skincare products (and ingredients) with a cult following, especially in the age of beauty influencers....

Whether you’ve invested in a high-end hair dryer such as the Dyson hair dryer, something mid-level like the T3 hair dryer or Chi hair dryer, or even a more moderately priced brand like a Conair hair dryer, if you fail to properly maintain it, it will most certainly stop working at some point. Furthermore, using an attachment such as a hair dryer diffuser can add an additional reason for your dryer to become too hot....

Rinse shellfish under running water to remove loose sediment, discarding any with broken shells. (Healthy shellfish close their shells when firmly tapped.) Transfer shellfish to a large pot of cold salted water (like their natural environment). Refrigerate, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes. Just before cooking, lift the shellfish out of the water by hand, so that the sediment remains at the bottom of the pot. Mussels sometimes have small, fibrous “beards,” which you should pinch off....

How to Tell If You Have Mold in Your House “Visible growth may seem like an obvious sign you have mold, but don’t forget to use your sense of smell,” the team at NADCA says. Sometimes a small amount of mold is assumed to be dirt, or mold may be lurking out-of-sight in your HVAC system—this is where your sense of smell comes in. “Is there a strange, earthy smell in your home that won’t go away, no matter how much air freshener you spray?...

And while we love sipping our tea, this ingredient is vastly under-recognized for its use in cooking. Tea—especially one as fragrant as Earl Grey or as complex as matcha—can elevate a dish more than you’d think. Its rich, herbal taste makes it the perfect “secret ingredient” in baked goods like cakes and cookies, marinades, glazes, and so much more. Try infusing tea with fresh herbs to yield a flavor-packed cooking liquid for fish, or adding chai to a hot toddy for a sweet-and-spicy aromatic cocktail....

Earlier this year we installed an outdoor brick oven in my parent’s back patio area, and it’s been a total game-changer for the space. We’ve made brick oven pepperoni rolls, apple crisp, chicken, and so many more delicious brick oven meals. But that brick oven was looking a little lonely on the back patio, so we decided it was time to create an actual outdoor entertaining area to go with it....

Why Everyone Should Floss Yes, brushing your teeth is important, but there’s something brushing can’t accomplish on its own. “When you brush, the brush can’t get between your teeth,” Dr. Manz says. “It’s that area between the teeth—where the teeth are touching—we need to be able to clean. The simplest, easiest, and most efficient way to do that is with floss.” Both flossing and brushing work to rid your teeth of plaque (among other things)....