Cucumber The Great

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I can make all sorts of jokes about the benefits of a whole, raw cucumber, but it’s not that kind of party today, at least not with this post. As it turns out the good ole’ cucumber can serve a lot of other purposes…

I was sent this information that was featured in The New York Times sometime late last year as part of their “Spotlight on the Home” series, that highlighted creative and fanciful ways to solve common problems.

I haven’t tried them all yet, but maybe I’ll pick up a couple long, thick, firm ones and put them to a different type of use today

1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber.  Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.

3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower?  Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.

4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds?  Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long.  The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.

5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool?  Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite.  Works great on wrinkles too!!!

6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache?  Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free.  Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!

7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge?  Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explores for quick meals to thwart off starvation.

8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don’t have enough time to polish your shoes?  Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge?  Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!

10. Stressed out and don’t have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa?  Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber with react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown the reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.

11. Just finish a business lunch and realize you don’t have gum or mints?  Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

12. Looking for a ‘green’ way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel?  Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but is won’t leave streaks and won’t harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake?  Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!

Chomp, chomp. Tasty!

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Thanks for looking out Gis!

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Making light of it all

You know that feeling you get when you realized that something just went terribly wrong?

For example the one that you get when you realize that you just royally destroyed something that’s not yours, either something you borrowed or something that you are supposed to keep safe for someone. Fear, panic, and maybe somewhere long after you get a flash of intelligence where you actually do something that can alleviate the situation perhaps. Then of course you have more fear. What is your friend going to say? How are you going to apologize? Then you start thinking down the line, how will this affect the friendship? This series of questioning is often followed by resignation, where you just take a deep breath and face your friend dead on, with your head hung in shame.

It’s been said that life is a tragedy in the short term but a comedy in the long term, especially where it concerns material things. Hindsight is really 20/20.

Thing is, even though in the moment you feel as though you just want to crawl through the crack in the floor and die, if you choose to retell the story to someone else, it would be almost impossible for them to resist the urge to laugh. And then, though you may be annoyed at first that the person isn’t taking your misfortune seriously, you can eventually see the light dawn in the horizon and you start to laugh yourself.

How silly you were! Trying to turn the electric burner off without using the knob, duh things will catch a fire. Eventually, things don’t seem that bad at all. Actually, you then realize that things could have been a whole lot worse. 

A gentle smile sometimes helps to diffuse difficult situations. The ability to laugh at one’s transgressions is truly indicative of one being comfortable with oneself – and with others. We are not perfect. Bad things happen, or at least they may seem bad at the time, but really things are not usually as bad as they seem.  So you stub your toe on the end table. After you stop rolling around on the ground, look back and try to see the humor in the situation. A good laugh at oneself never hurt anyone.

As a matter of fact, laughing is said to be very good for the soul. A smile is said to use less muscles than a frown. (okay but can some one please explain what good are those horrid laugh-lines are for? What the firetruck purpose does that serve? Every time one is seen, a frown soon follows, go figure.)

And if you are a regular here you will appreciate me putting in this: The Mona Lisa is a piece of art that always brings a smile to my face. In fact I must confess that I have spent many an hour standing in front of a mirror trying to perfect that very same smile.

As it turns out laughter is also used as an anesthetic. The dentists give you nitrous oxide  so that you can ‘laugh’ through the pain of a root canal, although the pain that lingers after the nitrous oxide wears away is nothing to laugh at.

All of this can be backed up scientifically. One Dr. Provine states that:-

- The much vaunted health benefits of laughter are probably coincidental, a consequence of it’s much more important primary goal: bringing people together. In fact, the health benefits of laughter may result from the social support it stimulates.

- Laughter plays a big role in mating. Men like women who laugh heartily in their presence.

- Both sexes laugh a lot, but females laugh more–126 percent more than their male counterparts. Men are more laugh-getters.

- The laughter of the female is the critical index of a healthy relationship.

- Laughter in relationships declines dramatically as people age.

- Like yawning, laughter is contagious; the laugher of others is irresistible.

So you see even the scientists are laughing. It is after all the best medicine.

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Forward ever…

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Source: The benefits of laughter.

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