"To grasp at straws" means to be so desperate that you try anything to help yourself in a difficult situation.

Something that is "in your blood" is a quality or ability that you get from -- and share with -- your family.

"Mom-and-pop" is a phrase used to describe a small business owned by a single family.

Giving someone a taste of their own medicine means doing something to another person because he or she did it to you.

If you "play it by ear," you wait to decide to do something until a situation develops.

"The jury is still out" is an expression from the courtroom. It means the group has not yet reached a decision. But you can also use this expression to refer to anything that remains undecided.n

If you are "all ears," you are very interested in hearing something.

So when you bend over backwards for another person, you do a lot of hard work for them.

If something is described as tacky, that means it is of poor quality or just shows bad taste.

"Old habits die hard" is used to express how hard it is to stop doing things you have been doing for a long time.

If you are "having a blast," you are having an intensely good time.

"By the skin of my teeth" means to narrowly or barely escape something bad

To be "off the grid" means to be in a place far away from services most people use every day.

To "churn out" means to produce a lot of something -- sometimes very quickly and without much care.

If you "take something with a grain of salt," you listen to something with suspicion and doubt.