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.