You don't need control of the House to work on bills that you don't even intend to pass until the next session of congress, though. There's nothing stopping the Republicans, Democrats, or even average citizens from writing bills right now that are intended to be voted on by future sessions of congress.
And the House of Reps voting on the bill next week is also meaningless, because the bill has a 0% chance of passing this session with the democrats in control of the senate - and the House of Reps would then have to pass it again once a new session starts. Which, they probably will - but that doesn't make the vote next week somehow less meaningless. So the headline is pure clickbait: Congress isn't about to "gift" Trump anything. The gifts will come next year.
As someone who actually weighs their liquids. it's really not. Instead of pouring liquid into a measuring cup until it reaches how much ever you need, you put a cup/bowl on the scale, tare it, then still just pour in liquid until the scale reads how much ever you need.
If anything it's easier because it's more consistent. You can also re-tare and continue pouring more liquids or other ingredients into the same cup/bowl, cutting down on dishes.
The only annoying part is the first time you do it on a new recipe, where you have to do both measurements, so you can write down the mass for future reference.