Getting a
Ring Off Over Your Knuckle
Take about a two foot length of string or
dental floss and slip one end under the ring band in the direction of the
palm of your hand about two inches. The long part of the string is
then wrapped around your finger going toward and over your knuckle keeping
the wraps fairly close together. Pull the short end of the string
putting pressure on the ring and as you unwrap it, taking it around and
around your finger, the ring is pushed over the knuckle by the string and
comes off your finger easily. A dab of liquid soap or soapy water
might help it come off easier if it is extremely tight.
You
should try it on a ring that isn't too tight so you are familiar with the
process prior to needing it in case of an emergency.
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Removing Label Goo
You ever get glue left on a product after to scrape off the
label? There is a product that helps remove it 98% of the time.
It is called De-Solv-It. I scrape as much paper off the label as I
can, spray some of the De-Solv-It on a rag, and wipe the rest off.
Instead of shredding old credit cards, use them to scrape goo and other
stuck-on things. They are the next best thing to fingernails!
By the way, I bought a product that had a horrible giant
label on it. I scraped and scraped and scraped at it. I wrote
a letter to the company telling them how awful it was and they sent me a
whole new one of the product for free! That leads into my next hint.
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Writing Complaint Letters
It
is worth it to write a letter of complaint to a company that provided you
with bad service or a bad product.
Probably 80% of
the time you will receive a response. More than half of those will
be a satisfactory response where you feel like they actually listened to
what you were saying and will correct the problem. Sometimes you
even get something from the company for the time you spent like free
coupons or free products.
Be receptive to how God
prompts you. Perhaps you will be the catalyst that prevents anyone
else from suffering through that problem. Perhaps the company
doesn't even know there is a problem.
Sometimes
you can contact a company through a web site or email. What you need
to focus on is not cooking them to a crisp using your anger. State
facts only. Give suggestions if you have any. Give them your
name, address, and phone number. Then re-read your letter until God
gives you the OK to send it. You may have to take out some things or
re-word them. Angry words don't go as far as just stating the facts.
Hopefully you will
have collected names of people you spoke with as well as dates and times
of your phone calls.
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Repairing a Badly Broken
Fingernail
If your fingernail breaks down into
the tender part of your finger you can create a temporary fix until the
nail grows in. You need a tea bag and some kind of quick drying glue
like Crazy Glue. Cut open the tea bag and throw away the tea.
Tear off a piece of the bag and glue it to your fingernail. Repeat
that until you have two or three layers of glued bag on the tear in your
fingernail. Save the rest of the bag in case you have to re-do it.
You can use a fingernail file and smooth off the repair.
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Grease Removers for Laundry
I used to use Simple Green on my
laundry until I discovered that some brands of grease remover that you
find in the automotive department do the same thing and are much cheaper.
If you have a grease stain you can sometimes remove it by rubbing in
baby powder and laundering as usual. This often works even if you
have dried the grease-stained item in the dryer!
Also, sometimes you can get grease out of something that has already
been laundered, even dried in the dryer, by rubbing baby powder into it
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Repotting Plants
Instead of using rocks or
broken pottery in the bottom of your plants use small pieces of styrofoam.
That makes the pot less heavy!
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Getting Medicine Into a Cat's Mouth
I had brought my cat home from the veterinary hospital with
three different liquid medicines and one pill. The hospital did not
give me any helpful hints on how to get the medicines in my cat. I
looked online and kept coming up with nothing but a joke.
I had two cats at
the time and the other, older, cat had been taking a liquid medicine once a day. I
gave it to him before he ate his breakfast so the food would take the
taste out of his mouth. Plus, he didn't run and hide because he
knew he would get to eat afterwards.
I had to
experiment with different ways to get the liquid into his mouth. I
found that the easiest way to give it to him was to
kneel down and pull his rear up against my leg so he couldn't back up.
Being right-handed, I put my left hand on the left side of his face so he couldn't turn to the
left and I tipped his head back with my left fingers under his chin. I
put the palm of my right hand against the right side of his head to keep
his head from turning right and use my thumb and forefinger to squeeze in
the drops. I just pressed the dropper against his lip until he opened
his mouth and in it went. Occasionally we ended up with some of the
sticky medicine not making it into his mouth, but most of the time it was
a pretty neat and clean way to do it.
My other cat refused to open his mouth. The
hospital gave me the plastic portion of syringes for needles to use as
droppers. The had a flat, sharp edge on them. I think they had
cut up his gums trying to get him to open his mouth because he had a hard
time eating when he came home.
Fortunately I had been saving the droppers from my older
cat's medicine because I didn't need to open a new one every time.
They had rounded tips. So, the first thing I suggest is you make
sure you get droppers with rounded tips. I had to re-mark them
because the rounded droppers were marked by mg's and the syringes were by
ml's. I just measured out the right amount of water in the syringe,
put it in a small container, sucked it back up in the dropper, and drew a
line with a permanent marker to show the right amount.
When I tried the
same method as with my older cat I had to push his gums with the dropper
to get him to
open his mouth. He flicked his tongue with the liquid medicine on it and
the medicine went EVERYWHERE. So I came up with a different way to
do it.
I tipped his head up, keeping him from backing up like I
did with my older cat, and slowly dribbled the liquid over his clenched teeth. I kept my
fingers along both sides of his mouth because the liquid would sit there
until it seeped through his teeth. My fingers kind of dammed it up so it
stayed on top of his teeth. I pushed his lips up and ran the dropper across
his front teeth and kind of poked behind his eye tooth, all the while
trying to keep the medicine from dripping down his chin. Eventually I
could feel him swallow with my left hand that was partially under his
chin. It took a while, but most of the liquid went down his throat
and neither he nor I were stressed out.
I had a warm, wet washcloth handy to clean up under his
chin because some would inevitably dribble down. Then I gave him a
special treat.
To get him to take a pill I tried two different things.
I didn't want to force his mouth open at first because his gums
were sore. So I got a pill crusher and crushed the pill into as fine
a powder as I could. I mixed it with as little water as it would
take to dissolve it. The less water the better because it takes less
time to get the cat to take it. I would then give it to him the same
way as the liquid medicines using a dropper.
To get him to take the pill whole I backed him up
against me so he couldn't go anywhere, like I did when giving the liquid. I pushed on his teeth with my left
index finger and pressed against the right side of his teeth using the pill
held in my right hand. When he finally opened his mouth I put my
index finger between his teeth so he couldn't close his mouth.
Watch
out here. Your cat might chomp down. Mine didn't. If
yours wants to chomp you will have to stick something else between his
teeth that won't hurt him. Perhaps a piece of plastic of some kind
would work.
I
dropped the pill on top of his tongue into the opening
way back in his
throat. The pill went right down. If I put it under his tongue,
however, he could fling it pretty far! Occasionally I slipped up and
didn't get the pill into the back of his throat and had to retrieve it and
try again.
Perhaps you can use these ideas and modify them for your cat. It
isn't easy being a cat-nurse!
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