In the Kitchen : Easily Clean Up Egg Yolks

You were trying to crack the egg into the pan, but you ended up with egg all over the floor.

Take some salt and sprinkle it over the mess. After about ten minutes you will be able to sweep up the mess with your broom.

Egg yolk is full of lipoproteins, when you add salt these dissolve leaving the egg less gooey and easier to clean.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Find Your Direction Without a Compass

You've been hiking all day in Colorado and you thought you were on the right trail, but for some reason it's longer than you expected. You can go any direction you want from the trail and you just want to get back to the car, but how do you tell with way is south?

All you need is your analog wristwatch. Point the hour hand of the watch at the sun. The point in the middle of the hour hand and the number twelve is due south. This works regardless of the time of day.

When you are in the northern hemisphere of the world the sun is usually to the south of you. The relationship between the placement of the sun and the time of day correlates so that an noon it is most accurate. It is accurate to within 20 degrees of true south.

Around the House : Clean Up Candle Wax

The power went out last night and you had to light candles. Daylight the next day reveals a floor covered in candle wax.

Sometimes dry wax can be picked off a surface, but when that doesn't work a piece of paper towel and an iron will. Place the paper towel over the wax and iron over it smoothly with a hot iron.

Paper towel is made to soak up liquids. When heat is applied to the wax it melts and is soaked up by the towel from the other side.

Around the House : The Key to Streak less Windows

Between finger prints on the inside and water marks on the outside how are you ever going to get your windows clean and free of streaks?

Newspaper is the key. Use newspaper with water or glass cleaner and you will find that your windows are clean and streak free.

Newspapers are made of newsprint which is full of lignin, a super absorbent substance. Lignin is usually removed from paper because it discolors it. Newsprint is made to be cheap and so the lignin is left in it.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Keep Wind From Blowing out Your Candle

You want to have a romantic dinner on your balcony, but the wind is making it impossible to light the candles.

Wrap your candles in paper. Newspaper, loose leaf, or magazine paper, it all works. Just wrap it tightly and make sure that the edge of the paper rises above the wick.

If the wind is allowed to blow directly across the flame it doesn't have a chance of staying lit, regardless of how big the wax is. The paper shields the wick and saves the candle from blowing out and the wax from getting all over the place, shortening your candles life.

In the Kitchen : Clean Tea Stains From A Mug

You enjoy drinking tea, but if you don't wash that mug soon after you finish your drink, it gets stained. What do you do with all those stained mugs?

Take an orange or lemon peel and put some salt on it. Rub the peel over the stains and watch them disappear.

Oranges and lemons are acidic and oily. This acts as a stain remover and the abrasive salt scours the mug clear of stains.

Around the House : Remove Carpet Lint

Regardless of what type of carpet you have, you are bound to have it covered in lint, dog hair, or even human hair from time to time. How do you clean it without having to pull out the vacuum cleaner, or worse yet, what if you don't have one?

Take an empty roll of paper towel and wrap eight rubber bands around it spreading them out across the face of the tube. Roll the tube across your carpet and watch as it grabs onto the lint and hair on your rug or carpet.

The elastic bands stick and grab the lint and hair and keep it attached to the cardboard tube. There is also static build up generated which attracts the hair.

In the Kitchen : Eliminate Tupperware Odor

It doesn't matter what sort of stinky food you put in your Tupperware, the chances are it is going smell for a long time. Is there any way to get rid of that smell?

The secret is cabbage. Chop some up and put it into your stinky Tupperware. Leave it overnight or about half a day and you will find the smell is gone.

Cabbage has enzymes and other compounds made of sulfur that eliminate things causing the smells. When you chop the cabbage you increase it's surface area greatly, which helps it to absorb the bad smells in the container.

Laundry Tricks : The Secret to Fresh, Dry Shoes

If you wear a set of shoes long enough they are bound to develop a certain stink. SO how do you keep your shoes from stinking up your shoe rack?

Take old newspaper and roll it up. Place the rolls in and around your shoes.

Newspaper is great for absorbing moisture. The smells come from mold, which thrives in a moist environment. Take away the moisture and the moldy fungi will leave with it.

Around the House : Keep Your Plants Fed While on Vacation

You're headed for a nice relaxing vacation, you don't have pets, but you have a few plants and you'd rather not pay someone to take care of them for the week.

Take a disposable baby diaper and soak it in water. Place the plant on the diaper and it will slowly water it throughout the week for free.

The absorbent part of a diaper is made of polymer powder and cotton to keep a baby dry. This surface can hold a lot of water and doesn't give it up easily. The hydrophilic material is a perfect babysitter for your plants.

Around the House : Remove Stickers From Any Mirror

You've just moved into your dorm room and you find the ugliest stickers on the bathroom mirror. You've tried everything, they just won't come off.

Take some mayonnaise and smear it on a paper towel, or a tissue. Rub over the sticker or sticky film and then use a knife or another piece of towel to clean.

The main ingredients of mayonnaise are vegetable oil and egg yolks. It's the oil that does the work to dissolve the adhesive, making the sticker lift from the mirror. The thickness of mayonnaise also makes it a great applicator for any surface.

In the Kitchen : Keep Your Soda Carbonated For Longer

Large bottles of pop are the cheapest way to buy soda. Unfortunately, they usually go flat long before you finish them.

After you open and pour your drink, before re-sealing the bottle give it a squeeze. Closing the bottle after crumpling it will make that soda last much longer.

Carbon dioxide dissolved in water makes carbonic acid. The result is carbonation. When you open the bottle of soda you release the gasses and speed up the flattening process (known as effervescence). When you squeeze the bottle and cap it quickly, you slow the process down again and your soda is preserved for a longer time.

Around the House : Revive Your Old Toothbrush

Everyone knows that when your toothbrush bristles begin to fray, it's time for a new brush, but is there a way to extend the life of your toothbrush?

When your toothbrush looks frayed and you want to keep on using it, just run it under hot water for a minute or two and straighten out the bristles by stretching them. You will find the heated bristles respond well to it.

The reason the bristles become pliable after heating them is because they are made of thermoplastic. When this plastic is heated it is easily manipulated. Once it cools again, it will be as rigid as it was before being heated.

Around the House : Bring a Dead Plant Back to Life

Your plants are looking wilted and mildewy, but you can't make the sun come out and renew your little buddies.

Garlic is the answer. Grate a clove with a couple cups of water and use that to water the roots of your wilted plant. Your dead plant will have new vigor.

When a plant isn't getting enough sun it often contracts fungus. Garlic contains phytoncide which is and anti-fungal agent that stops the fungus and prevents it from returning.

Around the House : Shine Up Your Silver Jewelry

Your family is coming to town and you know your mother is going to want you to wear that silver bracelet she got you last year. Unfortunately you've let it tarnish because you haven't worn it all year.

Boil water and add a sheet aluminum foil to it. Add baking soda and some salt to the water and throw in your bracelet on top of the foil. After a few minutes your bracelet will look as good as new.

When sulfur attaches to silver it tarnishes. The result is a blackened coating that covers the silver. The ingredients of the boiling water and the aluminum foil create an electrolytic current which separates the sulfur from the silver.

Around the House : Keep Birds Off Your Windowsill

Birds are wondrous creatures when they are not roosting on your sill, pooping and making a racket. What's the best way to be rid of these pests for good?

Sharpen up some pencils and tape them to the ledge where the birds roost. You'll find that pigeons and other birds aren't as interested in your sill.

Birds usually look before they land, especially pigeons. Once a few of them realize that they can no longer sit on your windowsill, the rest will follow. Larger buildings use spikes and nails to produce the same effect.

Around the House : Homemade Roach Trap

It doesn't matter how it happened, if you have roaches, you know it. Greasy fingers and spilt food are the main causes, but what is the solution?

Place bowls filled half way with soda and leave near the entry ways and any cracks in your walls. You'll find your roach buddies enjoy the sweet pool.

Roaches are attracted to soda as much or more than any of the grease, but the difference is that they can't swim. It's not an appetizing soup to look at, but it gets the job done.

Laundry Tricks : Write on Your Clothes Without Smudging

You've bought a plain shirt so you have have some fun marking it up with permanent marker, but every time you try and write it smudges and crinkles making your art look more like chicken scratch.

Take some hairspray and soak the surface of the shirt you want to write on. You'll be able to write as easily as you would on a piece of paper.

Hairspray contains copolymer, an oil blocker that will prevent the marker from spreading between the fibers. Once dried the spray also keeps the shirt rigid, so it won't crinkle.

In the Kitchen : Make an Egg Salad Without the Chopping

You enjoy an egg salad sandwich, but all that chopping of the eggs makes you less likely to make it.

Take an old mesh bag that held oranges from the supermarket and simply squeeze the hard boiled eggs through the bag. The result is finely chopped eggs without the chopping.

The mesh bags, made of durable polypropylene, have perfectly spaced holes which chop soft objects like hard boiled eggs to a nice size for salad.

Around the House : Make Your Soap Bigger

Bar soap has great lather, but when it shrinks it is hard to use and often ends up in a pile at the corner of the shower. Can those pieces be re-used?

Sure, simply toss your tiny piece of soap into the microwave and turn it on. You will find that your soap grows!

When you heat conventional soap in a microwave it expands. This is because the air and water within it. As the soap heats it softens and the pressure created by the pockets of air and water push through the soap and make it bigger. The end result is a lumpy bar, but it will be larger, and useable.

All About Beauty : Smooth Skin at the Joints

Every winter you end up with the same problem, rough and dry skin on your knees and elbows making them pale and flaky compared to the rest of your skin.

Avocados aren't just good for making guacamole they can also smooth the skin. Take the rind of an avocado and rub it gently across your rough skin for several minutes. You may re apply this treatment as often as you like.

Sterolins, or plant steroids, help the skin repair itself from a variety of ailments such as scaring, sun spots, or dry skin. These oils are abundant in avocados. As well as sterolins, avocados contain many lipids, which are easily and readily absorbed through dry areas of the skin such as the knees and elbows.

Laundry Tricks : Remove Cigarette Smells

Every time you go out to a bar you have the same problem. All your clothes smell like cigarette smoke by the end of the night. Is there a way to freshen up the shirt?

Place a moist towel over the soiled shirt and iron it. You will find that the towel smells bad, but the shirt is nice and fresh.

The steam from the moist towel and hot iron react with the tar on your shirt, lifting out the smell and depositing it on the towel. The molecules of stink are not gone, but they aren't on the shirt anymore.

Laundry Tricks : Eliminate Dirty Cuffs

You always wear nice collared shirts, but you find that even if you don't sweat, the cuffs and ends of the shirt get soiled. Do you really have to dry clean those shirts everyday?

Protecting those problem areas is the key to keeping them clean. Baby powder does the trick. Simple dust some over the areas that are likely to soil and you will eliminate unwarranted soiling.

The oils on your skin collect dirt much more easily than your clothes. The baby powder, which is not going to hurt the clothing, acts as a barrier between these oils and your shirt. Whether it's on the neck or the cuffs, a little bit of baby powder will go along way to keep those areas looking great. Because baby powder is white, it doesn't work as well on dark colored clothing.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Keep Your Shoes From Slipping When it Rains

It's wet and rainy outside and your on your way to work, but your work shoes slip all over the place in the rain.

Band-aids are good for more than just covering up boo-boos. Apply one to the heel and one on the ball of the shoe and you will find that your shoes are as stable as rain boots.

The reason your shoes slip is because the water gets in between the sole of the shoe and the street. The gauze of the band-aid absorbs the water and helps the shoe retain it's natural grip.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Stay Standing on a Crowded Bus

Your morning and evening bus rides are the worst part of your day. It's busy and stuffy and to top it all off, you keep getting pushed over every time the bus stops and starts.

Stand facing the front of the bus with your feet at a 45 degree angle. Teach others around you to stand in this fashion and everyone's ride will be a lot smoother.

The stance is the key. Sports professionals use it, why not you? Not only is it the most sturdy position for your feet it is also the easiest to change your position from. Facing front will allow everyone to see what's coming and prepare for it.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Keep Fog Off Your Glasses

You've just bought a cool new set of glasses, but every time there's any moisture in the air, they fog. How are you going to wear them to see when if they keep on fogging up?

Egg whites can help. Crack into a bowl leaving the yoke intact. Take your fingers and use them to apply a thin coating of egg white to each glass. Enjoy your new fog-free glasses.

Proteins are the primary building block of egg whites. The protein, being super water soluble, provides a barrier to the steam build up.

In the Kitchen : Keep Pasta in the Pot

Pasta is one of the easiest dinners you can make, except when you leave it unattended and your pot boils over. You'll have a mess all over your stove and you'll end up spending more time cleaning up the mess than eating the pasta.

Take a regular ashtray (makes sure it's clean!) and put it face down in the pot before you begin to boil the water. The bubbles won't be able to reach the top.

The reason that a pot boils over is all based in the bubbles. When they have trouble popping, they stack up. The starch in the pasta makes the bubbles last even longer, so they continue to stack up on the surface instead of popping and dissipating. The ashtray at the bottom of the pot holds the bubbles and forces the air together creating larger bubbles that are less durable and rise to the surface more slowly to pop.

Around the House : Remove Permanent Marker From Glass

You left a permanent marker on the coffee table and your child went to town on your living room window.

Use chalk and you will be able to scrub the windows clean, though you will have to explain to your child why you didn't like their art.

Calcium carbonate, the main ingredient of chalk, contains sharp grains which rub the marker from the glass. It's the same ingredient used in toothpaste and not abrasive enough to ruin your window.

Around the House : Clean Up Shards of Glass

There is nothing worse than having broken glass all over your floor, but how do you clean up all those shards when your broom doesn't seem to do the trick?

Use bread. Place slices of bread over the glass covered areas.

Because of the porous nature of bread, even tiny pieces of glass will lodge themselves into the it. This makes bread perfect for making sure your floor is completely free of glass.

Wow Your Friends : A Backwards Swim

You want to make an impression at the lake this summer, but you don't have any special swimming skills. You can't dive well, or swim fast. Is there any way to get noticed in the water?

Grab a kick board and head into the water. Instead of pointing your feet when you kick, flex them towards your knees. You will find that you aren't going forward, but backwards!

When you flex your feet the natural reaction of the legs is to kick away from you. This reaction results in a reverse of motion and you go backwards. It isn't easy to perfect, but if you can you will find people marveling at your skill.

All About Beauty : Smooth Skin at the Joints

Every winter you end up with the same problem, rough and dry skin on your knees and elbows making them pale and flaky compared to the rest of your skin.

Avocados aren't just good for making guacamole they can also smooth the skin. Take the rind of an avocado and rub it gently across your rough skin for several minutes. You may re apply this treatment as often as you like.

Sterolins, or plant steroids, help the skin repair itself from a variety of ailments such as scaring, sun spots, or dry skin. These oils are abundant in avocados. As well as sterolins, avocados contain many lipids, which are easily and readily absorbed through dry areas of the skin such as the knees and elbows.

Wow Your Friends : A Backwards Swim

You want to make an impression at the lake this summer, but you don't have any special swimming skills. You can't dive well, or swim fast. Is there any way to get noticed in the water?

Grab a kick board and head into the water. Instead of pointing your feet when you kick, flex them towards your knees. You will find that you aren't going forward, but backwards!

When you flex your feet the natural reaction of the legs is to kick away from you. This reaction results in a reverse of motion and you go backwards. It isn't easy to perfect, but if you can you will find people marveling at your skill.

Around the House : Remove Carpet Lint

Regardless of what type of carpet you have, you are bound to have it covered in lint, dog hair, or even human hair from time to time. How do you clean it without having to pull out the vacuum cleaner, or worse yet, what if you don't have one?

Take an empty roll of paper towel and wrap eight rubber bands around it spreading them out across the face of the tube. Roll the tube across your carpet and watch as it grabs onto the lint and hair on your rug or carpet.

The elastic bands stick and grab the lint and hair and keep it attached to the cardboard tube. There is also static build up generated which attracts the hair.

Wow Your Friends : Improve Running Speed

You want to run with your friends, but you know that they are much faster than you. They've invited you for a jog, but you don't want to fall behind the group and end up taking a cab home.

Hook a rubber band from your ankle to your big toe. Twist the band once so that is looks like a figure eight.

Having the extra tension of the band around your foot allows it to flex further than it normally would. This increase in flex will allow you to have a greater push off the ground as you run. You will find it easier to run faster, longer.

All About Beauty : Smooth Skin at the Joints

Every winter you end up with the same problem, rough and dry skin on your knees and elbows making them pale and flaky compared to the rest of your skin.

Avocados aren't just good for making guacamole they can also smooth the skin. Take the rind of an avocado and rub it gently across your rough skin for several minutes. You may re apply this treatment as often as you like.

Sterolins, or plant steroids, help the skin repair itself from a variety of ailments such as scaring, sun spots, or dry skin. These oils are abundant in avocados. As well as sterolins, avocados contain many lipids, which are easily and readily absorbed through dry areas of the skin such as the knees and elbows.

Wow Your Friends : A Backwards Swim

You want to make an impression at the lake this summer, but you don't have any special swimming skills. You can't dive well, or swim fast. Is there any way to get noticed in the water?

Grab a kick board and head into the water. Instead of pointing your feet when you kick, flex them towards your knees. You will find that you aren't going forward, but backwards!

When you flex your feet the natural reaction of the legs is to kick away from you. This reaction results in a reverse of motion and you go backwards. It isn't easy to perfect, but if you can you will find people marveling at your skill.

Wow Your Friends : Improve Running Speed

You want to run with your friends, but you know that they are much faster than you. They've invited you for a jog, but you don't want to fall behind the group and end up taking a cab home.

Hook a rubber band from your ankle to your big toe. Twist the band once so that is looks like a figure eight.

Having the extra tension of the band around your foot allows it to flex further than it normally would. This increase in flex will allow you to have a greater push off the ground as you run. You will find it easier to run faster, longer.

All About Beauty : Have a Hot Spring in Your Tub

When you get home from a hard day, there isn't much better than having a hot spring to jump into. Of course, unless you live in a pretty remote area, your not likely to find one so close. There must be some way to enjoy an all natural hot spring at home.

Run a hot bath and add radish leaves, iris leaves, yuzu, Epsom salt, ginger, sake, and even peach leaves. Enjoy a real natural therapeutic hot spring in your home.

The radish leaves will keep your body warm, while the iris leaves relax tense muscles. Ginger gets the blood flowing and yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit, is a nice aromatic. Sake helps to exfoliate the skin, but it should be used lightly. Epsom salt is good if you have inflamed joints, and peach leaves can help with heat rash.

All About Beauty : Steam Facial at Home

Steam is amazing for opening pores and creating a clear complexion, but how can you get the same effects at home without spending loads of cash?

Get into a hot bath and hold an umbrella over your head.

The canopy of the umbrella traps the heat and humidity creating the same effect as a sauna for free. You'll feel like you just went for a run or like you spent 15 minutes in a real steam sauna.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Cure Stiff and Sore Muscles With a Touch

Over time we all become more prone to sore and stiff muscles. Typical ailments include a stiff back, sore neck and shoulders, dizziness, chills, and even constipation.

Applying pressure to the correct point or tsubo (pressure point) will leave you feeling refreshed and renewed the next day.

The theory behind pressure points is that, because the body is all connected through the nervous system, certain spots effect certain other areas of the body. These areas can be very far from each other. The techniques have been discovered through hundreds of years of trial and error. Most of these points are in and around your hands and feet.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Stopping Insomnia

If you've ever had a sleepless night, you know how devastating it can be. You try and count sheep, or watching a documentary on the reproduction of fruit flies, but nothing works.

Eat a nice hot bowl of oatmeal before you get into bed.

Tryptophan, an amino acid present in oats, increases the bodies serotonin levels. Serotonin is the chemical in the body that relaxes the brain. Adding milk to the oatmeal will increase the speed as which the tryptophan is absorbed speeding up the effects. Tryptophan is found not only in oatmeal, but yogurt, turkey, and even bananas.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Eliminate Body Odor

Even if you bath with strong soap every morning you can still stink by the end of the day. Using deodorant masks the smell for a while, but it doesn't solve the problem.

Take baking soda and dust your pits. Then rub lemon juice over the baking soda. After, pat dry with a towel and you will eliminate your BO.

The lemon juice changes the PH balance of your skin making it unlivable for most odor causing bacteria. The baking soda kills any existing bacteria. Together these ingredients form a strong barrier against body odor.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Loosen up Tense Shoulders

You've worked all day, just like you have for years, and the result is stiff, achy shoulders. Massages are great, but they take time out of your day, and can cost a fortune.

Grab some tape and stick a couple pieces from the edges of your eyes, to your temples. The tape should be taught enough that it pulls gently on the area near your eyes.

More often than not, shoulder tension is rooted in your whole upper body being stiff. By gently pulling the facial muscles near the temples it relaxes the forehead and in turn the entire upper body, including those tight shoulders.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Stop Frostbite on Your Feet

You have poor circulation and every time you walk in the cold, your toes and feet freeze. Sometimes they can even turn purple!

Take a chile pepper and inside your sock where it gets the coldest ﾖ usually at the toes. This will keep your feet from freezing.

Capsaicin, a chemical secreted by the chile pepper, makes your body feel warmer. This is the same ingredient that makes us sweat when we eat it. The effective heat isn't as substantial as eating a pepper, but because the chemical is secreted by the plant, the warmth is felt.

Wow Your Friends : Carrying Heavy Loads Easily

Moving, or helping someone move, is always a chore. Sometimes we overfill our boxes making them strenuous to carry, but how do you lift them without injuring yourself?

Take the heavy box and place it on top of an empty one. Hold the bottom box as you carry it and you will find that the weight doesn't seem as large.

How heavy as object is to lift depends on it's center of gravity, among other things. When you carry it higher, it actually feels lighter.

Wow Your Friends : Stop a Crying Baby

Babies are incredibly cute, but when they cry it can be a real headache.

Make the sound one would produce during the 'mouth feel' stage of wine tasting and you will find that your baby is at ease.

While in the womb a child can only hear sounds from the six thousand to eight thousand MHz The sloshing sound of liquid through the mouth is placed at around seven thousand MHz This brings back the comforting memories of the womb and soothes the baby, thus stopping the crying.

Wow Your Friends : Improve Running Speed

You want to run with your friends, but you know that they are much faster than you. They've invited you for a jog, but you don't want to fall behind the group and end up taking a cab home.

Hook a rubber band from your ankle to your big toe. Twist the band once so that is looks like a figure eight.

Having the extra tension of the band around your foot allows it to flex further than it normally would. This increase in flex will allow you to have a greater push off the ground as you run. You will find it easier to run faster, longer.

Wow Your Friends : Repair a Scratched Disc

Your favorite CD has been everywhere, your car, your house, and your friends place. Now it skips because it's scratched and you can't find another copy anywhere.

Using a small amount of toothpaste on a cotton ball, softly rub the scratched surface of the disc. Be sure to stroke from the center to the edge in an outward motion. Rinse off excess toothpaste with water and re-insert into your player.

CD's and DVD's are read using a laser. When there are scratches on a disc is refracts the beam and causes the wrong information to be read. Toothpaste acts as an abrasive to the polycarbonate plastic surface, which evens out the disc so it can be read properly.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Eliminating Hiccups

You've tried everything, but you can't find a way to get rid of your dreaded hiccups. You've drank water in interesting ways, but that's only made you need to use the bathroom.

Take a cotton swap, cue-tip, or pencil eraser and stick it at the end of your throat. You will feel like gagging at first, but your hiccups will disappear.

Poking at the back of the throat stimulates the flap of skin known as the uvula. This activates the gagging sensation and interrupts hiccups resonating from your diaphragm. At last you will be able to breathe in peace.

In the Kitchen : Keep Your Soda Carbonated For Longer

Large bottles of pop are the cheapest way to buy soda. Unfortunately, they usually go flat long before you finish them.

After you open and pour your drink, before re-sealing the bottle give it a squeeze. Closing the bottle after crumpling it will make that soda last much longer.

Carbon dioxide dissolved in water makes carbonic acid. The result is carbonation. When you open the bottle of soda you release the gasses and speed up the flattening process (known as effervescence). When you squeeze the bottle and cap it quickly, you slow the process down again and your soda is preserved for a longer time.

Wow Your Friends : Carrying Heavy Loads Easily

Moving, or helping someone move, is always a chore. Sometimes we overfill our boxes making them strenuous to carry, but how do you lift them without injuring yourself?

Take the heavy box and place it on top of an empty one. Hold the bottom box as you carry it and you will find that the weight doesn't seem as large.

How heavy as object is to lift depends on it's center of gravity, among other things. When you carry it higher, it actually feels lighter.

All About Beauty : Have a Hot Spring in Your Tub

When you get home from a hard day, there isn't much better than having a hot spring to jump into. Of course, unless you live in a pretty remote area, your not likely to find one so close. There must be some way to enjoy an all natural hot spring at home.

Run a hot bath and add radish leaves, iris leaves, yuzu, Epsom salt, ginger, sake, and even peach leaves. Enjoy a real natural therapeutic hot spring in your home.

The radish leaves will keep your body warm, while the iris leaves relax tense muscles. Ginger gets the blood flowing and yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit, is a nice aromatic. Sake helps to exfoliate the skin, but it should be used lightly. Epsom salt is good if you have inflamed joints, and peach leaves can help with heat rash.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Stopping Insomnia

If you've ever had a sleepless night, you know how devastating it can be. You try and count sheep, or watching a documentary on the reproduction of fruit flies, but nothing works.

Eat a nice hot bowl of oatmeal before you get into bed.

Tryptophan, an amino acid present in oats, increases the bodies serotonin levels. Serotonin is the chemical in the body that relaxes the brain. Adding milk to the oatmeal will increase the speed as which the tryptophan is absorbed speeding up the effects. Tryptophan is found not only in oatmeal, but yogurt, turkey, and even bananas.

In the Kitchen : Make an Egg Salad Without the Chopping

You enjoy an egg salad sandwich, but all that chopping of the eggs makes you less likely to make it.

Take an old mesh bag that held oranges from the supermarket and simply squeeze the hard boiled eggs through the bag. The result is finely chopped eggs without the chopping.

The mesh bags, made of durable polypropylene, have perfectly spaced holes which chop soft objects like hard boiled eggs to a nice size for salad.

Wow Your Friends : Stop a Crying Baby

Babies are incredibly cute, but when they cry it can be a real headache.

Make the sound one would produce during the 'mouth feel' stage of wine tasting and you will find that your baby is at ease.

While in the womb a child can only hear sounds from the six thousand to eight thousand MHz The sloshing sound of liquid through the mouth is placed at around seven thousand MHz This brings back the comforting memories of the womb and soothes the baby, thus stopping the crying.

Wow Your Friends : A Backwards Swim

You want to make an impression at the lake this summer, but you don't have any special swimming skills. You can't dive well, or swim fast. Is there any way to get noticed in the water?

Grab a kick board and head into the water. Instead of pointing your feet when you kick, flex them towards your knees. You will find that you aren't going forward, but backwards!

When you flex your feet the natural reaction of the legs is to kick away from you. This reaction results in a reverse of motion and you go backwards. It isn't easy to perfect, but if you can you will find people marveling at your skill.

Around the House : Remove Carpet Lint

Regardless of what type of carpet you have, you are bound to have it covered in lint, dog hair, or even human hair from time to time. How do you clean it without having to pull out the vacuum cleaner, or worse yet, what if you don't have one?

Take an empty roll of paper towel and wrap eight rubber bands around it spreading them out across the face of the tube. Roll the tube across your carpet and watch as it grabs onto the lint and hair on your rug or carpet.

The elastic bands stick and grab the lint and hair and keep it attached to the cardboard tube. There is also static build up generated which attracts the hair.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Loosen up Tense Shoulders

You've worked all day, just like you have for years, and the result is stiff, achy shoulders. Massages are great, but they take time out of your day, and can cost a fortune.

Grab some tape and stick a couple pieces from the edges of your eyes, to your temples. The tape should be taught enough that it pulls gently on the area near your eyes.

More often than not, shoulder tension is rooted in your whole upper body being stiff. By gently pulling the facial muscles near the temples it relaxes the forehead and in turn the entire upper body, including those tight shoulders.

Around the House : Revive Your Old Toothbrush

Everyone knows that when your toothbrush bristles begin to fray, it's time for a new brush, but is there a way to extend the life of your toothbrush?

When your toothbrush looks frayed and you want to keep on using it, just run it under hot water for a minute or two and straighten out the bristles by stretching them. You will find the heated bristles respond well to it.

The reason the bristles become pliable after heating them is because they are made of thermoplastic. When this plastic is heated it is easily manipulated. Once it cools again, it will be as rigid as it was before being heated.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Keep Fog Off Your Glasses

You've just bought a cool new set of glasses, but every time there's any moisture in the air, they fog. How are you going to wear them to see when if they keep on fogging up?

Egg whites can help. Crack into a bowl leaving the yoke intact. Take your fingers and use them to apply a thin coating of egg white to each glass. Enjoy your new fog-free glasses.

Proteins are the primary building block of egg whites. The protein, being super water soluble, provides a barrier to the steam build up.

Laundry Tricks : Eliminate Dirty Cuffs

You always wear nice collared shirts, but you find that even if you don't sweat, the cuffs and ends of the shirt get soiled. Do you really have to dry clean those shirts everyday?

Protecting those problem areas is the key to keeping them clean. Baby powder does the trick. Simple dust some over the areas that are likely to soil and you will eliminate unwarranted soiling.

The oils on your skin collect dirt much more easily than your clothes. The baby powder, which is not going to hurt the clothing, acts as a barrier between these oils and your shirt. Whether it's on the neck or the cuffs, a little bit of baby powder will go along way to keep those areas looking great. Because baby powder is white, it doesn't work as well on dark colored clothing.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Cure Stiff and Sore Muscles With a Touch

Over time we all become more prone to sore and stiff muscles. Typical ailments include a stiff back, sore neck and shoulders, dizziness, chills, and even constipation.

Applying pressure to the correct point or tsubo (pressure point) will leave you feeling refreshed and renewed the next day.

The theory behind pressure points is that, because the body is all connected through the nervous system, certain spots effect certain other areas of the body. These areas can be very far from each other. The techniques have been discovered through hundreds of years of trial and error. Most of these points are in and around your hands and feet.

Around the House : Remove Stickers From Any Mirror

You've just moved into your dorm room and you find the ugliest stickers on the bathroom mirror. You've tried everything, they just won't come off.

Take some mayonnaise and smear it on a paper towel, or a tissue. Rub over the sticker or sticky film and then use a knife or another piece of towel to clean.

The main ingredients of mayonnaise are vegetable oil and egg yolks. It's the oil that does the work to dissolve the adhesive, making the sticker lift from the mirror. The thickness of mayonnaise also makes it a great applicator for any surface.

Around the House : Clean Up Candle Wax

The power went out last night and you had to light candles. Daylight the next day reveals a floor covered in candle wax.

Sometimes dry wax can be picked off a surface, but when that doesn't work a piece of paper towel and an iron will. Place the paper towel over the wax and iron over it smoothly with a hot iron.

Paper towel is made to soak up liquids. When heat is applied to the wax it melts and is soaked up by the towel from the other side.

Around the House : Make Your Soap Bigger

Bar soap has great lather, but when it shrinks it is hard to use and often ends up in a pile at the corner of the shower. Can those pieces be re-used?

Sure, simply toss your tiny piece of soap into the microwave and turn it on. You will find that your soap grows!

When you heat conventional soap in a microwave it expands. This is because the air and water within it. As the soap heats it softens and the pressure created by the pockets of air and water push through the soap and make it bigger. The end result is a lumpy bar, but it will be larger, and useable.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Eliminate Body Odor

Even if you bath with strong soap every morning you can still stink by the end of the day. Using deodorant masks the smell for a while, but it doesn't solve the problem.

Take baking soda and dust your pits. Then rub lemon juice over the baking soda. After, pat dry with a towel and you will eliminate your BO.

The lemon juice changes the PH balance of your skin making it unlivable for most odor causing bacteria. The baking soda kills any existing bacteria. Together these ingredients form a strong barrier against body odor.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Keep Your Shoes From Slipping When it Rains

It's wet and rainy outside and your on your way to work, but your work shoes slip all over the place in the rain.

Band-aids are good for more than just covering up boo-boos. Apply one to the heel and one on the ball of the shoe and you will find that your shoes are as stable as rain boots.

The reason your shoes slip is because the water gets in between the sole of the shoe and the street. The gauze of the band-aid absorbs the water and helps the shoe retain it's natural grip.

In the Kitchen : Eliminate Tupperware Odor

It doesn't matter what sort of stinky food you put in your Tupperware, the chances are it is going smell for a long time. Is there any way to get rid of that smell?

The secret is cabbage. Chop some up and put it into your stinky Tupperware. Leave it overnight or about half a day and you will find the smell is gone.

Cabbage has enzymes and other compounds made of sulfur that eliminate things causing the smells. When you chop the cabbage you increase it's surface area greatly, which helps it to absorb the bad smells in the container.

Wow Your Friends : Repair a Scratched Disc

Your favorite CD has been everywhere, your car, your house, and your friends place. Now it skips because it's scratched and you can't find another copy anywhere.

Using a small amount of toothpaste on a cotton ball, softly rub the scratched surface of the disc. Be sure to stroke from the center to the edge in an outward motion. Rinse off excess toothpaste with water and re-insert into your player.

CD's and DVD's are read using a laser. When there are scratches on a disc is refracts the beam and causes the wrong information to be read. Toothpaste acts as an abrasive to the polycarbonate plastic surface, which evens out the disc so it can be read properly.

Around the House : The Key to Streak less Windows

Between finger prints on the inside and water marks on the outside how are you ever going to get your windows clean and free of streaks?

Newspaper is the key. Use newspaper with water or glass cleaner and you will find that your windows are clean and streak free.

Newspapers are made of newsprint which is full of lignin, a super absorbent substance. Lignin is usually removed from paper because it discolors it. Newsprint is made to be cheap and so the lignin is left in it.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Stop Frostbite on Your Feet

You have poor circulation and every time you walk in the cold, your toes and feet freeze. Sometimes they can even turn purple!

Take a chile pepper and inside your sock where it gets the coldest ﾖ usually at the toes. This will keep your feet from freezing.

Capsaicin, a chemical secreted by the chile pepper, makes your body feel warmer. This is the same ingredient that makes us sweat when we eat it. The effective heat isn't as substantial as eating a pepper, but because the chemical is secreted by the plant, the warmth is felt.

Around the House : Keep Your Plants Fed While on Vacation

You're headed for a nice relaxing vacation, you don't have pets, but you have a few plants and you'd rather not pay someone to take care of them for the week.

Take a disposable baby diaper and soak it in water. Place the plant on the diaper and it will slowly water it throughout the week for free.

The absorbent part of a diaper is made of polymer powder and cotton to keep a baby dry. This surface can hold a lot of water and doesn't give it up easily. The hydrophilic material is a perfect babysitter for your plants.

Around the House : Bring a Dead Plant Back to Life

Your plants are looking wilted and mildewy, but you can't make the sun come out and renew your little buddies.

Garlic is the answer. Grate a clove with a couple cups of water and use that to water the roots of your wilted plant. Your dead plant will have new vigor.

When a plant isn't getting enough sun it often contracts fungus. Garlic contains phytoncide which is and anti-fungal agent that stops the fungus and prevents it from returning.

All About Beauty : Smooth Skin at the Joints

Every winter you end up with the same problem, rough and dry skin on your knees and elbows making them pale and flaky compared to the rest of your skin.

Avocados aren't just good for making guacamole they can also smooth the skin. Take the rind of an avocado and rub it gently across your rough skin for several minutes. You may re apply this treatment as often as you like.

Sterolins, or plant steroids, help the skin repair itself from a variety of ailments such as scaring, sun spots, or dry skin. These oils are abundant in avocados. As well as sterolins, avocados contain many lipids, which are easily and readily absorbed through dry areas of the skin such as the knees and elbows.

Around the House : Keep Birds Off Your Windowsill

Birds are wondrous creatures when they are not roosting on your sill, pooping and making a racket. What's the best way to be rid of these pests for good?

Sharpen up some pencils and tape them to the ledge where the birds roost. You'll find that pigeons and other birds aren't as interested in your sill.

Birds usually look before they land, especially pigeons. Once a few of them realize that they can no longer sit on your windowsill, the rest will follow. Larger buildings use spikes and nails to produce the same effect.

Around the House : Homemade Roach Trap

It doesn't matter how it happened, if you have roaches, you know it. Greasy fingers and spilt food are the main causes, but what is the solution?

Place bowls filled half way with soda and leave near the entry ways and any cracks in your walls. You'll find your roach buddies enjoy the sweet pool.

Roaches are attracted to soda as much or more than any of the grease, but the difference is that they can't swim. It's not an appetizing soup to look at, but it gets the job done.

In the Kitchen : Clean Tea Stains From A Mug

You enjoy drinking tea, but if you don't wash that mug soon after you finish your drink, it gets stained. What do you do with all those stained mugs?

Take an orange or lemon peel and put some salt on it. Rub the peel over the stains and watch them disappear.

Oranges and lemons are acidic and oily. This acts as a stain remover and the abrasive salt scours the mug clear of stains.

In the Kitchen : Keep Pasta in the Pot

Pasta is one of the easiest dinners you can make, except when you leave it unattended and your pot boils over. You'll have a mess all over your stove and you'll end up spending more time cleaning up the mess than eating the pasta.

Take a regular ashtray (makes sure it's clean!) and put it face down in the pot before you begin to boil the water. The bubbles won't be able to reach the top.

The reason that a pot boils over is all based in the bubbles. When they have trouble popping, they stack up. The starch in the pasta makes the bubbles last even longer, so they continue to stack up on the surface instead of popping and dissipating. The ashtray at the bottom of the pot holds the bubbles and forces the air together creating larger bubbles that are less durable and rise to the surface more slowly to pop.

Around the House : Clean Up Shards of Glass

There is nothing worse than having broken glass all over your floor, but how do you clean up all those shards when your broom doesn't seem to do the trick?

Use bread. Place slices of bread over the glass covered areas.

Because of the porous nature of bread, even tiny pieces of glass will lodge themselves into the it. This makes bread perfect for making sure your floor is completely free of glass.

All About Beauty : Steam Facial at Home

Steam is amazing for opening pores and creating a clear complexion, but how can you get the same effects at home without spending loads of cash?

Get into a hot bath and hold an umbrella over your head.

The canopy of the umbrella traps the heat and humidity creating the same effect as a sauna for free. You'll feel like you just went for a run or like you spent 15 minutes in a real steam sauna.

Laundry Tricks : Write on Your Clothes Without Smudging

You've bought a plain shirt so you have have some fun marking it up with permanent marker, but every time you try and write it smudges and crinkles making your art look more like chicken scratch.

Take some hairspray and soak the surface of the shirt you want to write on. You'll be able to write as easily as you would on a piece of paper.

Hairspray contains copolymer, an oil blocker that will prevent the marker from spreading between the fibers. Once dried the spray also keeps the shirt rigid, so it won't crinkle.

Laundry Tricks : Remove Cigarette Smells

Every time you go out to a bar you have the same problem. All your clothes smell like cigarette smoke by the end of the night. Is there a way to freshen up the shirt?

Place a moist towel over the soiled shirt and iron it. You will find that the towel smells bad, but the shirt is nice and fresh.

The steam from the moist towel and hot iron react with the tar on your shirt, lifting out the smell and depositing it on the towel. The molecules of stink are not gone, but they aren't on the shirt anymore.

In the Kitchen : Easily Clean Up Egg Yolks

You were trying to crack the egg into the pan, but you ended up with egg all over the floor.

Take some salt and sprinkle it over the mess. After about ten minutes you will be able to sweep up the mess with your broom.

Egg yolk is full of lipoproteins, when you add salt these dissolve leaving the egg less gooey and easier to clean.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Stay Standing on a Crowded Bus

Your morning and evening bus rides are the worst part of your day. It's busy and stuffy and to top it all off, you keep getting pushed over every time the bus stops and starts.

Stand facing the front of the bus with your feet at a 45 degree angle. Teach others around you to stand in this fashion and everyone's ride will be a lot smoother.

The stance is the key. Sports professionals use it, why not you? Not only is it the most sturdy position for your feet it is also the easiest to change your position from. Facing front will allow everyone to see what's coming and prepare for it.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Eliminating Hiccups

You've tried everything, but you can't find a way to get rid of your dreaded hiccups. You've drank water in interesting ways, but that's only made you need to use the bathroom.

Take a cotton swap, cue-tip, or pencil eraser and stick it at the end of your throat. You will feel like gagging at first, but your hiccups will disappear.

Poking at the back of the throat stimulates the flap of skin known as the uvula. This activates the gagging sensation and interrupts hiccups resonating from your diaphragm. At last you will be able to breathe in peace.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Get Gum out of Clothing

There is nothing worse than sitting down on a bench at the park and finding you've sat in someone's old gum. Not only have you sat on something that was in a strangers mouth, you've also ruined your pants.

You may not be able to save your pride, but you can save the pants with some cold tequila. Pour the alcohol over the affected area. Once it soaks in wipe it with a piece of paper towel until it's clean.

The temperature of the tequila will harden the gum making it easier to remove, but the secret is in the alcohol. The alcohol molecules have ends which attract gum and pull it from the fabrics surface.

In the Kitchen : Clean a Blackened Pot

You use your favorite large aluminum pot daily and it's turned black in the process, not to mention a little crusty.

Fill the pot with enough water to cover blackness and add some thin slices of apple. Bring the pot to a boil and simmer for at least ten minutes. Wash the pot normally with soap and water and you will find that the stains disappear.

Malic acid, a component found in apples, makes apples tart and loosens grime on your pots. Apples work better for aluminum pots than they do for stainless steel ones.

In the Kitchen : Turn Clumped White Sugar Back to Grains

You want to bake some cookies, but when you go to measure out your sugar you find that is all clumped together and won't fit properly in your measuring cup.

Put a piece of bread into your bag or jar of sugar and in about six hours the sugar will be as soft and grainy as it was when you bought it.

The reason sugar hardens is because it gets dry. Once it begins to dry the grains of sugar stick together creating the large clumps that you found when you went to use it. Adding something with moisture in it, like a piece of bread, to the sugar increases the moisture levels and allows the sugar to re-granulate. If you don't have bread handy, a piece of peeled fruit or damp paper towel will also do the trick.

All About Beauty : Repair a Broken Tube of Lipstick

Like most women, you have several shades of lipstick in your purse. They go everywhere with you, even if you know that you aren't going to need them. But what happens when the cap falls off, or you forget to put it back on and you end up with you favorite color of lipstick broken at the bottom of your purse?

Take your hair dryer and use it to hear up the remaining base of the lipstick tube. This should take less than 30 seconds. When it starts to melt place the broken top back onto the base and continue to heat as the pieces meld together. Smooth the edges with your finger and then place the tube in the freezer for about half an hour. When you take it out your lipstick will be good as new.

Applying heat to the oily, pigmented lipstick turns it into a soft putty that can be easily molded. Cooling lipstick has the opposite affect, hardening it. Using these principles you can fix almost any broken tube of lipstick.

Laundry Tricks : No More Underarm Stains

You wash your undershirts, but some of them aren't coming clean anymore. How can you stop having to buy new shirts just because they have stains in the arm pit area?

Take your new undershirts, without stains, and spray the underarm area of the shirt on the inside with an adhesive spray. Iron the shirt from the outside and you won't get those unsightly stains again.

Most dirt and stains are caused from dirt in and around the fibers of you clothes. This is washed out fairly easily. The stains under your arms are different. They get into the shirt fibers and leave permanent marks ﾖ pit stains. The glue spray will seal the area so that the bacterial stains cannot get in. Sort of like waterproofing for your underarms.

Laundry Tricks : Naturally Shine Black Leather

You've bought a nice new leather jacket, but you notice that whenever you wear it out, it ends up dirty. Professional cleaning is costly and not always necessary and you are looking for something you can do at home to keep that jacket looking it's best.

A nice rub with a banana peel will do the trick. Let the peel sit overnight and rub the inside of the peel over the jacket the next day. After rubbing it down with the inside use the outside as a buffer. Your jacket will come out looking as shiny as the day you bought it.

Tannin, a leather cleaning agent, is abundant in banana peels. The peels are made of up to forty percent of it naturally. The outer layer of a banana peel is a wax coating, making it perfect for buffing. The process of drying the bananas overnight improves it's ability to do both jobs.

Around the House : Homemade Scratching Post for Your Kitty

Cats have a natural way to sharpen their claws, but using your furniture to do it isn't acceptable. How do you stop your cat from scratching your table legs without buying an expensive scratching post?

Make your own by wrapping the legs that your cat loves in rope. Wrap it tightly around your table legs and tie at both ends so it isn't easily loosened.

Cats enjoy scratching anything of the right feel. Rope is much like fabric and provides exactly what you cat is looking for. You can also use cardboard though it is less easy to wrap your legs in.

Around the House : Secret to Green Grass... Again

Your yard can take a beating. If you leave something on it too long or if there is a spill, or even if you have a pet, chances are you are going to have yellow dead grass. Is there a fix for that?

Your grass is thirsty that's all. Take some beer and pour it over the affected areas making sure that the suds cover it. You will notice your lawn is greener than ever.

Beer is basically fermented sugar, which plants love. It acts a lot like fertilizer, the dying grass will feast on the sugar bringing them back to life. Beer also kills fungi that may be causing the problem.

Wow Your Friends : Getting Drunk Quicker and Cheaper

Your weekend has finally come around and you are ready to get smashed, unfortunately you are short on cash. How do you make a small amount of alcohol go a long way?

When you go to grab whatever booze you can afford, also buy an energy drink or two as a mixer.

Tourine, an amino acid used in energy drinks, speeds up the metabolic process. This means that your body will be able to in take and process the alcohol you drink more quickly than normal. The result is feeling more drunk faster.

Wow Your Friends : Speed Up Your Sled

You take your favorite sled out to the hill and are all set to bomb down it at amazing speed. Unfortunately the snow is slushy and you cannot gain any speed.

Spray the non-stick cooking spray over the bottom of your sled and speed down the hill faster than you've ever done before.

The cooking spray works just like ski wax. It provides a greasy slippery buffer between the sticky wet snow and your sled making you go zoom!

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Prevent Snoring

Having a partner that snores can be like having a herd of upset cattle in the bed next to you. Every so often the snore or cattle rears it's ugly head waking you up from your peaceful dreams. This can make for a rough morning.

When it's bedtime tape a spherical object between the snorers shoulder blades. This will prevent the snorer from rolling onto their back.

Sleeping on your back relaxes throat muscles and causes the natural airways to become restricted. When this happens snoring occurs as we try and get enough oxygen into the lungs. If you prevent the snorer from sleeping in that position, you simply prevent the snoring.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Remove Surface Splinters

You have one or more splinters in your hand and arms and you don't want to spend time trying to dig each one out separately.

Dip your finger, hand, or effected (and hairless) area in regular liquid glue. Let the glue dry and peel it away. The surface splinters will come out with the glue.

The glue will form around eve the smallest splinter. The spines in the splinter are caught in the glue anchoring them together. When you peel the glue away from your skin the splinter has no choice but to follow as the glue provides a more solid anchor than your skin.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Stop Athlete's Foot

The feeling of having a fungus between your toes is unsettling and gross. Unfortunately, playing sports often has this consequence.

When you get home from exercising, or even after a hot, sweaty day, soak your feet in a pan filled with hot water and cloves of garlic.

The mini bath for your feet will feel great and prevent the growth of fungus. The key is the garlic cloves. They are full of active chemicals that destroy the foot fungi. Garlic is also great for lowering blood pressure and preventing cancer!

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Relieve a Sore Throat

Your throat aches and you feel full of phlegm, but lozenges and over-the-counter medicines aren't working and out of your budget. You do have a towel and bottle of distilled alcohol.

Sprinkle the towel with the liquor (shochu is a popular Japanese choice) and wrap it around your neck.

When the liquor is applied to the neck and throat it irritates the skin causing an increase in blood flow. This increase in blood will hasten the healing process in much the same way as a fever helps to combat a virus. Just don't ask us to help you when you have to explain the alcohol smells.\

Laundry Tricks : Get the Stink Out of Your Socks

It doesn't matter how many time your wash those old socks, they still come out smelling like dirty feet.

After washing soak those stinky foot warmers in some water and vodka.

Some types of foot bacteria will cling to fabric even after you have washed it with detergent. Alcohol, specifically vodka, contains ethanol which disinfects and removes odor. If you don't want to waste the vodka, then use vinegar. The results will be about the same, though the vinegar uses a more fermented version of the ethanol.

Laundry Tricks : Re-shape a Sweater

Your grandmother has knitted you a sweater, but when you try it on it is so lumpy and awkward than you don't feel comfortable in it.

Toss the misshapen shirt in a tub of soapy warm water. Slosh the sweater in the water pulling the suds through it several times. Wrap it up in a towel like you would a roll of sushi and then lay out flat. You will be able to reshape it with your fingers.

The suds on the sweater allow the fibers to stick together and become pliable. As the fibers come together they will begin to weave, changing the shape of the fabric to your desire.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Keep Warm After Bathing

The relaxing feeling of a nice soak in a warm tub or shower is always quenched by having to get out of the water and into the cold. There must be a way to keep that warm relaxed feeling going.

Keep a couple of ice cubes handy and suck on them a few minutes before getting out. This will allow that warm feeling to linger with you a lot longer.

When you leave a bath or shower your body cools as a results of the evaporation of water from the skin. The ice cubes, like ice cream or a cold drink, cool your body from the inside and decreases the difference between the cool air and your warm body. Your body is warm, but you feel more comfortable with the cooler air around you.

In the Kitchen : Sweeten Sour Mangoes in Minutes

You thought you bought nice juicy mangoes from the grocery store, but when you open the first one you find it tastes more like a lemon.

Bathe your mangoes in a tub of hot tap water for about ten minutes and your mangoes will be as sweet as ever. Be careful not to overdo it as they will begin to prune.

Mangoes, unlike most fruit, continues to ripen after it is picked. When they are placed in hot water, this process speeds up saving you says of waiting. WARNING: If the water is over 110 degrees it will harm the fruit.

Around the House : Instant Feather Duster

Not matter how hard you try, dust is always going to build up on you. How do you clean it once and for all, without simply dusting it into the air so it can simply land back on your stuff?

Take a wire hangar and stretch it so that the hook is your handle and the hangar has a diamond shape. Drape a nylon over the hangar and you've made your own feather duster.

Stockings or nylons have a large amount of static which attracts dust. Rather than simply moving it around you will be picking the dust up and removing it from your house for good.

In the Kitchen : Say Goodbye to Garlic Breath

Your on a first date and the pasta was full of garlic. It was delicious just like the waiter said, but the garlic taste is lingering in your mouth. How are you going to get close to your date with garlic breath?

Have some tea. Drink a cup of green tea after any meal that leaves you with an unwanted garlic aftertaste and you'll freshen your breath.

Green tea contains catechin which prevents the spread of odorous bacteria in your mouth. Small particles of the tea also attract the bacteria and shrink them. The result is fresh breath.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Homemade Mosquito Repellant

You are having a barbecue in your backyard and everything is going perfectly, except for all the mosquitoes. You can't find your repellant and people are getting annoyed.

Lavender oil should do the trick. Just add it to some water and wipe down your surfaces. You can even use it on your skin if you like.

Mosquitoes hate the smell of lavender like we hate the smell of garbage. The mosquitoes will abandon your furniture, table, and guests in favor of a better smelling meal. Plus lavender has the added bonus of smelling great.

In the Kitchen : Freshen Up Old Coffee

Everyday you wake up and go through your routine, which always includes buying a coffee, but you never find time to drink it and once it's cold, it's bitter not worth drinking, right?

Try adding a few grains of salt and then heating it in the microwave. You just brought your coffee back from the dead.

When coffee cools down it gets stale and bitter. The salt reduces the bitter taste allowing the original aroma of the coffee to revive when it's nuked.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Eliminate Poison Ivy Itch

You've taken a hike through the woods and decided not to stay on the main trail. Unfortunately you didn't notice the poison ivy and poison oak plants and you've now got red legs that won't stop itching.

White shoe polish will work. Just spray or rub it over the affected parts and the itch will disappear.

Traditional show polish has clay, specifically pipe clay, which coats the itch and acts like calamine lotion to soothe the itch.

All About Beauty : A Manicure, To Go

You have everything all planned for a perfect evening, but you are running out of time and, like always, you haven't painted your nails. Is there a way to do it in the cab, bus, or subway?

Sure, before you leave grab your nail polish and a tennis ball, yes ﾖ a tennis ball. Hold the ball in your hand and face your nails towards you. Start at the base of the nail and sweep the polish across the nails for a perfect polish regardless of how bumpy the ride.

Gripping a soft object like a tennis ball steadies the hand and prevents the moving and shaking that would usually occur. If you don't have a tennis ball handy, you can use any small round object of similar size.

Wow Your Friends : Keep Your Picnic Blanket Secure

You have a romantic date all planned, but when you get there, you find that you cannot set up because as soon as you lay down your blanket, it flies away.

Take rubber bands and tie them to each corner using about an inch of the blanket, then fold the corners underneath. You will think you have put cement blocks on your blanket.

The reason your picnic blanket floats away is because air gets caught underneath the mat. Securing the corners will keep air from entering underneath the blanket, thus securing it to the ground.

All About Beauty : Keep Your Bath Hot

There is nothing like a nice hot bath a night to sooth and relax your body. The problem is that the water never says hot for long. There's only so much water in your hot water tank, so how do you keep your bath toasty for a nice long soak?

Dry orange peels in the sun for a day and then wrap then in a cloth bag. Add the bag your bath and let it float around with you.

Orange peels have citrus oils, which help the body circulate blood, making you feel warmer, longer. The oils also produce a film on the surface of the water allowing less heat to be lost from the water.

In the Kitchen : Lose Your Extra Beer Foam

It has happened to every beer drinker. You pour and all of a sudden your glass is full of foam.

Drip a few drops of olive oil into your mug and the foamy bubbles will be gone before your eyes.

All oils have hydrophobic sides which attach to the proteins creating the bubbles and rip them apart. If you don't have any oil, the natural oils of your skin work as well. Just touch the tip of the foam with your finger to get a similar result.

Laundry Tricks : Keep Pants on the Hangar

You like to hang your pants, but every time you browse through your closet the pants fall off the cheap plastic hangars.

Cross the pant legs over each other and you will find that it is much harder to knock them off.

Pants have more weight at the waist than they do through the legs. When you simply fold them in half over the hangars the weightier side takes over if it's knocked. Hanging the legs over in a cross pattern locks them on the hangar. If your pants are slippery they will also have increased friction between the legs keeping them safely on the hangar.

All About Beauty : Get Rid of Acne

Not matter what age you are, we can all get zits. Expensive acne creams dry out the skin and can leave it feeling more irritates than clear. Is there a better solution?

The trick is apple cider vinegar. Dab a small amount onto a bit of cotton and rub your zit.

The acidity of the vinegar acts like a chemical peel, disinfecting the area and removing the dead layers of skin. WARNING: Use cautiously as vinegar can irritate sensitive skin.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Curing a Stuffed up Nose

It doesn't matter what medicine you've tried, your nose is clogged and your sinuses ache. You are ready to try anything to relieve the pressure.

Take a pair of green whole green onions and slice the top of the fronds. Stick the onion in your nose, bulb out, and watch as your nose and sinuses magically clear. As a bonus the nose plugs stop the dripping snot that usually accompanies a stuffy nose.

Green onions, or scallions, like all onions contain compounds (sulphuric amino acids) that make your eyes water when cut and tongue sting when tasted. The same is true for the nose. Exposure of these compounds to the nasal cavity promotes running and relieves the built up pressure.

All About Beauty : The Secret to Glossy Nails

You work hard all day and no matter what you do, your nails look dull and rough.

Take a recent receipt from a store and rub it across your nails in a buffing motion.

The standard paper used for receipts today is called thermal paper. The best are usually found at gas stations or when you use your credit card. The paper, which is heat activated, has microscopic bumps on the surface. This texture is a great buffing surface and will bring out the true shine of your nails.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Revive a Dead Car Battery

You get to the parking lot late after a long day at the office only to find that your car battery has died. No one's around and you don't want to wait for a tow truck.

You'll need a screw driver and a few tablets of aspirin. Open the battery cover and put a couple aspirin into each side. You will be able to start your car in a few minutes.

Aspirin contains an acid (acetylsalicylic acid to be precise) similar to the sulfuric acid in your car's battery. These acids combine and stimulate electrolytes within the battery which helps it to start. WARNING: Opening a battery can be dangerous so be careful. The aspirin will boost your battery for a short while, but it is bad for it's longevity.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : De-Rust Your Bicycle

You hardly use your bike and last time you went to go for a ride, you found it was rusted and full of squeaks. It's getting so bad you have trouble changing gears.

A simple mixture of salt and lemon juice can rub out the rust. Mix on part lemon juice with three parts salt and apply the paste to a smooth rag. Rub the bike down where it's rusty and rinse with water.

The citric acid found in the lemon juice reacts with iron oxide (or rust) and dissolves it. The salt adds texture to the juice helping it to penetrate the rust covered areas without damaging the good metal.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Keep Warm When it's Cold

You love being outside in winter, but you hate that prolonged exposure to the cold makes you shiver. You are looking for a quick solution that doesn't require bringing many extra layers with you.

Bowing is an ancient Japanese custom that is used for more than showing respect. It can also help you to keep warm when it's freezing. Take 10 deep and slow bows. You will feel warm not only physically, but spiritually as well.

Moving when you are cold will always combat condition. Bowing is more effective than most movement because it stimulates the larger blood vessels (arteries) and receptors (nerves) to increase blood flow. The main body arteries are contracted and relaxed, like flexing, which directly increases circulation.

Wow Your Friends : Bring a Ball Point Pen Back to Life

You are down to your last pen and it has suddenly failed on you. How do you finish writing down that cute guy's phone number?

Tape a rubber band to the middle of the pen and twist it in a winding motion. Release the rubber band and the pen will twirl back until the rubber band is no longer twisted. Try the pen now.

Most of the time when a pen runs out of ink, it is not - in fact - out, it is blocked. The twirling motion that the rubber band provides unclogs the blocked pen and allows ink to reach the tip. WARNING: Be sure the cap is on tight before you begin to twirl.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Stop a Fever

Not only are the kids sick, but you feel horrible. Your hot, sweaty, your temperature is through the roof.

Soak your feet in hot water, then put on some wet, cold, cotton socks and cover with some dry wool ones. This will lower your temperature by several degrees, quickly.

As your body attempts to warm your feet, it sends the warm blood and lymphatic fluid. This lowers the overall body temperature and kick starts the healing process. The medical term for this process is hydrotherapy.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Stop Doors From Freezing

You've just bought your first car and it has run great all summer. Now that it's winter you find that every morning your doors are frozen shut.

During the day grab some non stick cooking spray and coat the area where the doors meet with it. Particularly looking for the rubber gaskets between the doors.

The oily cooking spray lubes the surface of the doors and gaskets stopping water particles from freezing in between the doors. It's the same reason a pan that has been sprayed with oil will bead off any water dropped on it.

Wow Your Friends : Singing High Notes for Karaoke

You really want to be able to sing your favorite song in karaoke, but the highest notes of the chorus have you coming up short.

Take a full bottle of when and hold it up to your chest as you sing. You will find those high notes are much easier to hit.

Weight lifting tenses up your muscles. Your vocal cords, which are muscle, react in the same way. The stretching of the cords allows the larynx to vibrate more quickly. This allows you to sing higher and with more clarity. WARNING: extensive use of this can strain the vocal cords and cause them to tare and scar.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Keep Your Wound Closed

Often times you injure yourself in areas that move like your knees or elbows. Every time you move the joint the cut is reopened. How is it to heal properly if it is continually being broken open?

Once the bleeding has stopped and clotted, seal it with superglue.

Superglue has a hold like no other. It will bind with the naturally forming scab and peel off in much the same manner. The advantage is the strength in the glue. If you are worried about the chemicals of the glue you should know that cyanoacrylate, the active ingredient in glue, is the same fluid that you produce to create a scab.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Stop Mosquito Bite Itch

Every spring and summer it's the same thing, you get mosquito bites and they itch like hell. You've tried every conventional method to relieve the itch, but nothing works.

There are two methods you might try. You can simply stick some tape over the affected area to relieve the itch or suck out the itch with a straw.

The science behind this techniques is based in distraction. The tape covers the whole area and applies pressure which relieves the itchy feelings. Sucking at the bite with a straw pulls the tension caused by mosquito in the opposite direction and therefore alleviates it.

Laundry Tricks : Turn a Shrunken Sweater Big Again

It's happened to everyone. You forget that your wool sweater was in the wash and you toss it in the dryer with everything else. The result is a sweater than looks made for a toddler.

Grab a bucket of water and add hair conditioner. Throw in the sweater and let stand for about 30 minutes. Your sweater should be back to it's original size.

The reason wool shrinks is because the fibers tangle. Conditioner has amodimethicone, which untangles hair. It works the same for fabric to untangle the wool and restore it's size.

Around the House : Untangle Your Necklace

While searching through your jewelry box you find an old necklace and want to wear it again, but it's tangled up with all your other discarded jewelry How do you separate the piece you want from the bigger mess?

Just add baby powder. Sprinkle some powder over the heart of the tangle and watch as it disappears

Baby powder is made of very small granules, mostly talc and cornstarch. These slide easily into any crevice. They penetrate the knots and tangle like a lubricant softening them and making the tangle a snap to undo.

In the Kitchen : Remove Burn Marks From Your Pans

No matter what you make in a frying pan you are bound to end up with burn marks on it after continual use. They usually start at the rim of the pan.

Take an egg shell and crumple it against the marks on the pan buffing it to a shine like it was new.

Due to the calcium carbonate, a large component of the shell, crushed egg shells act as a buffing agent to a pan. Left over egg white residue on the inside of the shell also helps trap burn particles on the pan and remove them.

Around the House : Keep Your Bathroom Mirror From Steaming Up

When you get out of the shower and want to look at your beautiful self, you always have the same problem. You have to wipe the mirror off because of all the steam.

Take a sliced potato and rub the fleshy side against the mirror.

A potato is made mainly of starches and proteins, both of which absorb moisture. This helps clear the water from your mirror. Potatoes also have a substance called lecithin that repels water and prevents it from rebuilding on your mirror.

Wow Your Friends : Blowing Up Water Toys Easily

You are at the beach with friends and family and you find yourself with a dozen donuts, beach balls, and other toys to blow up. How do you do this quickly and without passing out from oxygen deprivation?

Wave a garbage bag around to fill it with air. Tilt the blow up toy upwards and place a straw in it's air hole. Place the garbage bag over the opposite end of the straw and deflate the bag slowly.

When you wave the garbage bag around you fill it air. The straw allows you to clamp the air over the deflated toy so that it can be used to fill it. This will fill an air toy until it is almost full of air, without ever having to blow into it.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Remove Gum from Your Hair

Bubble gum is great for blowing huge bubbles, but sometimes this bubble blowing fun can backfire. What do you do when you blow a bubble so big it pops right into your hair?

Ice it. Take an ice cube and press it on the hair gum for several minutes. It will harden and become much easier to remove.

When gum is warm it sticks and stretches marvelously, but when cooled it becomes hard and brittle. Once the gum hardens and breaks into pieces it also loses it's stickiness.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Keys to a Clean Windshield

Even if you use wiper fluid the edges of your windshield are always dirty, and full of grime.

Using the tape from an old cassette, assuming you have some around, and an old stocking you can create your own window wiper. Ball the tape and stuff it into the stocking, tie off the stocking and use it to clean your windshield.

The ferric oxide dust found on most cassettes, as well as cobalt, is the same stuff used in finishing polish. The stocking keeps the tape in a ball to maximize it's cleaning ability.

Tackling the Great Outdoors : Waterproof an Old Cloth Jacket

You've been using the same jacket season after season and now it's leaky and moist every time you use it. Do you have to go buy a new one or is there some hope left for this old treasure?

After wearing the jacket in the rain, blow dry it. Blow drying the outer surface of the jacket evenly will re-waterproof it.

Most jackets that are made to handle the rain have a DWR (durable water-resistant) outer layer. With use this layer becomes flat allowing the water to enter the jacket making it, and you, wet. When you heat the layer with a blow dryer it re-activates the fluorochemicals in the DWR layer restoring it's water repelling qualities. If you don't have a blow dryer on hand, you can use your clothes dryer on high heat. Just toss it in for about 30 minutes.

Laundry Tricks : Homemade Shredder

So you have some papers that you don't want anyone else to see, but taking the documents to the office to shred them is too risky.

Take the papers and toss them into a stocking. Tie it up and throw it in the wash.

After a full wash cycle the paper will be shredded and the ink should be illegible. The pieces will have rounded corners and be impossible to reform, just like you shredded it in a professional paper shredder.

Laundry Tricks : Whiten Dirty Socks

Socks take an incredible beating during a day. It is almost impossible to keep a white set from getting stained. Once the washing machine stops getting out the stains are those socks done for good?

Not if you have a few marbles around. Dump some glass marbles into each sock and tie them with rubber bands, sealing in the marbles. Do laundry as usual and you will find those stained socks aren't stained anymore.

The marbles help clean in a couple of ways. They break the soap bubbles into very small bubbles which increases their cleaning ability. The marbles also help by rubbing the socks from in inside like agitators do. WARNING: Some front load washers may have too much force and smash the marbles.

Laundry Tricks : Remove Red Wine Stains

There is nothing worse than having your favorite white shirt or dress ruined by spilling some red wine on it. Are you suppose to stop drinking wine all together?

Take liquid soap and some hydrogen peroxide and mix it together. You will have a great homemade red wine remover.

Peroxide, among other things, is a bleaching agent. It turns the color compounds of red wine from red to white. The reason wine is so hard to get out is because it is not water soluble. The soap, having both hydrophilic and hydrophobic ends, grabs the color compounds and allows the peroxide to act on them and remove them from the clothes.

In the Kitchen : Chill Champagne in a Flash

Why is it that every time you get a bottle of champagne you always forget that it needs to be chilled until it's too late?

Instead of putting the bottle on ice, put it on salt and ice. Layer the salt and ice in the bucket and the champagne will be chilled and ready to serve in much less time.

When ice melts into water it dissolves the salt. This mixture of salt and water actually has a lower freezing temperature than normal water, this melts the ice faster in a process known as latent heat fusion. The faster the ice melts the cooler it makes the bottle.

In the Kitchen : Easily Peel a Boiled Egg

Hard-boiled eggs on toast would be a great breakfast if you didn't have to peel the shell off of every time.

The trick is loosening the skin of the egg. You do this by putting the eggs into a hard plastic container filled with water and shaking it around for a few seconds. The shell will crack making it much easier for you to peel.

Hard-boiled eggs are so hard to peel because the shell and skin stick to the white of the egg. Shaking them in a container full of water cracks the surface letting water and air into the space between the white and the skin which makes them easy to peel.

Around the House : Make Your Own Karaoke Machine

You're sitting at home and getting bored, but you don't have much cash and you are looking for some quick entertainment. Listening to your favorite album with your oversized headphones just isn't cutting it at the moment.

Plug your large set of headphones into the microphone jack on your PC. Use a music playing application to amp the headphones and turn them into your own mic, perfect for some karaoke.

The technology of headphones and microphones are pretty much the same, except in reverse. All it takes to make headphones into a mic is a reverse in the current that feeds it. This is exactly what your mic jack does. It takes the current produces by your voice on the headphones and turns it into sound.

Around the House : Long Lasting Fresh Cut Flowers

You've been given a beautiful bouquet of flowers and you want them to last as long as possible. Is there a way to prevent them from wilting and drying out so quickly?

A few drops of bleach is the answer. The affect is the same as the solution they give you at the floral shop. Just add a few drops to the water. If you don't have bleach handy, you probably have a penny. Just drop it into the water for the same result.

Household bleach, or chlorine bleach, prevents the growth of fungus on the plant stems. This keeps the flowers looking fresh and healthy for longer. The copper within a penny is also a fungicide and will do the trick too.

Around the House : Stop Runny Soap

Soap bars are widely used, but they all have one common problem. When they sit in a wet environment they run and leave soap scum all over.

Add an aluminum strip underneath your bar of soap and it won't run.

The foil undercarriage reduces the surface area at the bottom of the soap. This prevents it from getting to wet and running. If you lack aluminum foil, try cardboard or even plastic.

Around the House : The Secret to a Clean Toilet Bowl

Cleaning the toilet is one of the ugliest jobs in the home. The question is how do you get it clean without exposing yourself to toxic chemicals in all those harsh cleaners?

Add a cup of mouth wash to the water in the toilet. Let it stand for 15 minutes or so and then go at the bowl with your brush using the water in the bowl. One flush and your done.

Mouth wash is meant to disinfect and clean your mouth and that's exactly what it will do to your toilet. Not only will your toilet shine, you won't have to deal with harsh chemicals in your house.

Around the House : Remove Coffee Stains From a Rug

You've got a beautiful piece of carpet or rug and your mother spilt her coffee all over it, is there a way to get the stain out?

Leftover water from boiling some spinach is the key. Dip an old toothbrush in the spinach water and scrub the stain. A towel should be sufficient for absorbing the excess water and coffee as it lifts off your carpet. Repeat these steps several times and the coffee stain should be nothing more than a memory.

Conventional cleaners don't work as well on coffee because it has tannins and polyphenols in it. These acids require a neutralizing agent like oxalic acid, found in spinach, to remove them. WARNING: The spinach water may have an adverse effect on white carpets. Chlorophyll in the water may leave your carpet with a green stain instead.

All About Beauty : Shine Your Hair to the Max

Whether you've dyed, permed, or blow dried your hair into a frizzy mess, one thing is clear. You want to get a glossy shine back into your hair and you don't know how to do it.

Take a mixture of one part vinegar to eight parts water and use it to rinse your hair and scalp after you've washed it with shampoo. The result will be a nice glossy shine to your hair.

Making your hair shine is all about having healthy cuticles. When they are open they make your hair look stiff, dull, and disheveled. Closed cuticles give your hair a glossy finish that can't be beat. The vinegar removes excess build up around the cuticles allowing them to close tightly. This will result in a beautiful mane of hair.

All About Beauty : Remove Pen From Your Skin

You wake up from a long night of partying and besides a bar stamp, you have a number written crudely along your fore arm. How do you remove it?

Make some tea and use the left over tea bag to rub the penned area. The pen will be gone and you will have a nice cup of tea to nurse your hangover with.

The non woven fabric of the tea bag is a great scrubber and the catechin within the tea bag reacts with the oils and pigments of the pen to bring them to the surface.

Wow Your Friends : Become a Bowling Ace

You love bowling, but your just not as good as you want to be. Your friends keep asking you to go, but you are embarrassed that you won't be able to keep the ball from the gutter.

Take your household iron with you to the bowling alley. Use the second set of arrows on the alley and point the iron towards the second arrow on your right as you begin your bowling swing.

Pointing the iron at this particular angle results in having a perfectly straight bowling swing. Once you have mastered this angle, you will only have to account for the weight of the ball.

Health Tips for Days When You Feel Sick : Get Rid of Back Pain

You have been travelling all night overseas and the plane ride was less then enjoyable. Not only could you not sleep, the awkward positions you have been sitting in have crippled your back and spine.

Make a paste consisting of one part mustard ﾖ yes, mustard ﾖ and two parts flour. Smear the paste over a towel and drape it over your aching back with the paste facing out.

The ingredients of mustard can slightly irritate the skin increasing circulation and causing a light tingle. This historic remedy is also known as a mustard plaster. WARNING: Over exposure to mustard can cause skin irritation. Do not let the paste directly contact your skin.