Grandma’s Helpful Hints

DIY 3 Minutes

I found this list in my old notebook of funny emails I sister sent me years ago.  Some of these tips work well…but I can’t vouch for them all.  As with anything from the internet, take these with a grain of salt.

Colgate (or Crest) toothpaste makes an excellent salve for burns.

Instead of reaching for an expensive drugstore inhaler to clear your stuffed nose, try chewing a  couple of Altoid peppermints.

Achy muscles from a bout of the flu? Mix 1 tablespoon of horseradish in 1 cup of olive oil.  Let the mixture sit for 20 minutes, then apply it as a massage oil.

Sore throat? Mix ¼ cup of vinegar with ¼ cup of honey and take 1 tablespoon 6 times a day.

Cure urinary tract infections with Alka Seltzer.  Dissolve 2 tablets in a glass of water and drink it at the onset of symptoms.  It begins eliminating urinary tract infections almost instantly—even though the product has never been advertised for this use.

Honey can cure blemishes.  Cover the blemish with honey and place a band-aid over it.  Honey kills the bacteria, keeps the skin sterile and speeds healing.

Got toenail fungus?  Soak your toenails in Listerine mouthwash.  The powerful antiseptic leaves your nails looking healthy again.  Listerine will also clean dirty grout.

Formula 409 can double as a bug killer.  If menacing bees, wasps, hornets or yellow jackets get in the house, spray Formula 409—one shot and they drop.

Got a splinter? Pour a dab of Elmer’s Glue over the splinter and let dry. The peel off the glue and the splinter will adhere to the glue.

Got a bruise?  Soak a cotton ball in white vinegar and apply it to the bruise for an hour.  The vinegar reduces the blueness and speeds up the healing process.

Arthritis pain in your hands?  Mix 2 cups oatmeal and 1 cup water in a bowl and microwave for 1 minute.  Cool slightly and apply to your hands for soothing relief.

Dawn dish washing liquid can kill your dog’s fleas instantly.  Add a few drops to your dog’s bath and shampoo the animal thoroughly.  Rinse well to avoid skin irritation.

A few drops of corn oil in your cat’s ear will eliminate ear mites.  Massage it in, then clean with a cotton ball. Repeat daily for 3 days.  The oil soothes the cat’s skin, smothers the mites and accelerates the healing.

Beer or Cool Whip conditions the hair.  Mayonnaise will too and it also kills lice.

Pam cooking spray will dry finger nail polish and remove paint and grease from your hands.

Burn your tongue? Try a little sugar to soothe it.

WD-40 also helps arthritis (just rub it in) but it also kills insect stings.

Speaking of stings…meat tenderizer will lessen a sting.  Preparation H will help with chigger bites (and puffy eyes). 

Got a paper cut? Use a little crazy glue or chap stick.

Soaking your feet in jello helps remove odor.

Cornstarch will help cure athlete’s foot.

Peanut butter will remove sticky label residue on glass and plastics.  (I can personally vouch for this one.  I use a soft cloth and rub.)

Remove wine stains by pouring on the Morton’s salt.

To remove a wax stain, take a paper towel and iron it over the wax stain.  It will absorb into the paper towel.

Got baked on food?  Try filling the container with water and a Bounce fabric softener sheet—let stand overnight. Or you can use 2 Efferdent tablets—soak overnight.

Karo syrup removes grass stains.

Coca Cola removes grease stains.  (It even works on grease stains IN THE DRIVEWAY.)

To keep flowers fresher longer, use 7-up instead of water or add 2 aspirin to the water.

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Published by pat frederick

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49 thoughts on “Grandma’s Helpful Hints”

  2. Good morning, Miss Pat!

    Cool post – !

    I want to know more about salt and wine stains, whether to vacuum up the salt or wet it and let it dry. Wonder if it works for other stains like coffee and coke which I drink more often. Right now, I use ‘Capture’ dry powder, and its companion stain release spray, for stains and any darkened tracks through my carpet – and with only one resident and no pets – it does the job.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Citizen 817
    December 17, 2022 12:25 am

    @realDonaldTrump

    13h
    The Eric Holder/Obama disciple, Special “Prosecutor” Jack Smith (he’s no Jack Smith), has found NOTHING that I have done wrong or differently than other Presidents on the “Boxes Hoax” (Raid of Mar-a-Lago), including the fact that Presidents are PROTECTED under the Presidential Records Act, the Clinton Socks Case, & more. Now “Smith” is snooping around the PERFECT PHONE CALL I made to the Georgia Sec. of State challenging the corrupt Presidential Election results, my absolute right to do!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Citizen 817
      December 17, 2022 12:25 am

      @realDonaldTrump

      12h
      Mitch McConnell has the power to get everything Republicans want, yet he’s giving it all away to the Democrats. Why would he do that? The “Omnibus” they’re working on is a disaster for our Country, and will further destroy our economy. It is yet another total betrayal of the great voters of America. Republicans have to stay strong and wait to negotiate a proper spending bill, and the debt ceiling, after taking control of the House on January 3rd!

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Liked by 1 person

  7. Liked by 1 person

    1. Liked by 1 person

  8. so, they sued to get them FOR LEGISLATIVE purposes and now they’re deciding to release them? sounds like they lied to the court

    Vespucciland for TRUMP 2024
    December 17, 2022 3:03 am

    The last days of the current House Ways and Means Committee will meet privately Tuesday at 3 p.m. to review the tax documents and vote on whether all or a portion of President Trump’s tax returns will be publicly released. After a lengthy legal battle, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal got his hands on Trump’s tax returns in November which consist of his personal returns and returns from eight business entities.

    The crooked Democrats wrongly think they’re on solid legal footing to release the returns if the committee takes a vote. First they have to go shopping for “the holiday.”

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Liked by 1 person

      1. “What happened?

        The owner of this website (www.powerlineblog.com) does not allow hotlinking to that resource (/ed-assets/2022/12/IMG_0155-768×403.jpeg).”

        So from now on, you will have to upload to Imgur or some other pic hosting site, which is what I always do in cases like this.

        Like

    3. Since PowerLine has changed it so you can’t copy live links, I’ve uploaded a bunch into Imgur and edited your comments. Not sure which ones you wanted to post so I just picked some.

      Like

  11. they need to be revamped from the ground up…they are a mess too

    FTA
    Confidential data of about 112,000 taxpayers inadvertently published by the IRS over the summer was mistakenly republished in late November and remained online until early December, the IRS disclosed Thursday.

    Form 990-T data that was supposed to stay private had been taken offline but made its way back to the IRS site when a contractor uploaded an old file that still included most of the private information, a letter sent Thursday to congressional leaders said. The agency is required to make Form 990-Ts filed by nonprofit groups available online but is supposed to keep the form filed by individuals private; in both cases, the agency made that information available too.

    An internal programming error caused the September release of private forms along with the ones filed by nonprofit groups, the letter said. This time, the contractor tasked with managing the database reuploaded the older file with the original data instead of a new file that filtered out the forms that needed to be kept private.

    The IRS shared corrected data with the contractor on Nov. 23, but the old files had not been purged from their system. A third-party researcher alerted the IRS the files were back online on Dec. 1, and the IRS ordered the contractor to take them down immediately. Roughly 104,000 of the 106,000 forms disclosed in September were redisclosed this time.

    https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/irs-accidentally-releases-112-000-taxpayers-private-data-again

    Liked by 1 person

  12. is there anything this admin won’t lie, or mess up? overestimating jobs by over 10,000 PERCENT …not overestimating 10,000 JOBS, but 10,000%
    FTA
    A new Fed report has revealed that Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration overestimated America’s recent job growth by a staggering 10,600 percent.

    The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported that the Biden admin’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) massively overestimated the number of jobs added nationwide from March through June this year.

    The U.S. added just 10,500 net new jobs in the second quarter of 2022, according to the Philadelphia Fed.

    The figure is a far cry from the 1,121,500 estimated by the BLS monthly report on state-level data known as the Current Employment Situation (CES).

    The Philadelphia Fed used more comprehensive data from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW).

    https://slaynews.com/news/biden-admin-overestimated-job-growth-10600-fed-report-reveals/

    Liked by 1 person

  13. 15,000 at least disputed in totals…Maricopa County
    entire article

    Recently disclosed internal communications between top election officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County in the immediate aftermath of Election Day reveal that they struggled to reconcile a discrepancy of almost 16,000 in outstanding ballot totals. 

    The governor’s race in Arizona was decided by a margin of just over 17,000 votes.

    Maricopa County was plagued by numerous issues with ballot machines at many of its vote centers on Election Day, resulting in delays and long lines. 

    Prior to a Maricopa County press conference with Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates and Recorder Stephen Richer on Nov. 10, Richer sent an email to Elections Director Scott Jarrett, Gates and others about a significant discrepancy between the county’s estimated remaining ballot totals and the number reported by the secretary of state’s office. 

    Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was also the Democratic nominee for governor in the Nov. 8 election.

    “Unable to currently reconcile SOS listing with our estimates from yesterday,” Richer wrote, showing that Maricopa County estimated having 392,000 ballots left to be counted, while the secretary of state’s website said there were 407,664 ballots left. 

    “So there’s a 15,000 difference somewhere,” Richer said, although the discrepancy cited was closer to16,000. 

    The recorder’s office did not provide comment on the ballot discrepancy by publication deadline.

    The Richer email was among the communications obtained via a public records request submitted by America First Legal Foundation. The email is found on page 9 in the records below:
    File
    Maricopa County PRR 1292 PDF Export – Watermark (1) (1).pdf

    In an email forwarded to Jarrett by the chief of staff for Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Clint Hickman, a poll worker said that at their vote center, the ballot tabulators worked 75% of the time, as approximately 400 of 1600 in-person votes were “misreads and put in slot 3.” 

    “Ballots were put in the tabulator several times to get accepted,” the poll worker reported. “Ballots were flipped, put in backwards, flipped again before it might get accepted.”

    The poll worker further reported that a voter who recently moved between cities within the state received a ballot for only federal elections, not state elections. 

    “Totally unacceptable,” the poll worker commented. 

    “These errors need to be resolved,” the poll worker concluded.

    The email from the poll worker is on page 6 of the file embedded above.

    The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted to certify its election on Nov. 28, after listening to a flood of complaints from voters regarding issues they experienced trying to vote.

    Mohave County certified its election “under duress,” after being threatened with possible felony charges by Secretary of State Hobbs’ office. Cochise County chose not to certify until a judge ordered them to, following a lawsuit against them filed by the secretary of state’s office.

    According to a lawsuit filed by GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake challenging the administration of the 2022 election in Maricopa County, a poll found that 58.6% of Republican voters in the county “reported having issues while trying to cast a ballot on Election Day,” compared to 15.5% of Democrat voters. 

    The lawsuit also alleges that 59% of Maricopa County’s 223 vote centers suffered ballot printer and tabulator failures. 

    https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/election-confusion-arizona-county-officials-struggled-resolve-ballot

    Liked by 1 person

  14. GA/FL…here’s what I found on red wine and carpet…it begins with blotting and then using ammonia and vinegar. if you’re afraid that might bleach your carpet check out the bottom 2 paragraphs…talks about salt and what to do…

    Carpet drank your wine? Fumbled your glass on the way to the couch? No worries, follow these steps to get red wine out of your furniture fabrics:

    Grab a clean cloth and blot out the wine stain right away. Don’t rub! Blot or dab. Rubbing pushes the wine forward as you create pressure and can cause the stain to spread. Dabbing, allows you to suck up as much wine as possible without pushing it to new areas around the original spill.
    NOTE: do this quickly. The longer the wine has to sit and marinate in your carpet or fabric, the harder it will be to get the wine stain out.
    If your cloth isn’t big enough to cover the entire red wine spill, start from the outer corners and move your way in, this will help keep the stain to an isolated area.
    Apply cold water to the red wine stain and keep blotting. Once the majority if the wine is out, it becomes harder to remove the remainder of the stain because the area becomes dry. Adding water helps dilute the wine while increasing the volume of liquid, so you can continue to remove what is left.
    Stain removal with household chemicals:
    First, lightly spray the stain with ammonia (make sure it’s the clear type, not blue Windex or you’ll be introducing another dye)
    Quickly and gently work the ammonia in.
    Then immediately add a neutralizing solution of: 1 teaspoon of vinegar, 4 teaspoons of dish soap and 1 cup of water. Ammonia can bleach your fabric or carpet, so the goal isn’t to leave the ammonia on for long; adding the vinegar neutralizes the ammonia to saltwater, and the dish soap grabs on to any proteins or free particles making it easier to pull from the fabric.
    Dab your mixture onto the stain and let it sit for about 10 minutes, then blot with a rag dipped in cold water.
    Don’t have ammonia or nervous about bleaching your fabric? Use table salt to remove your wine stain instead. Salt will help absorb the moisture from the red wine spill. This method will not work on a dry stain, so make sure you do this while the stain is still wet!
    Let the salt sit, it’ll absorb the wine and turn pink-ish. Once that’s done, scoop away the excess salt and vacuum up the rest.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. H&HC, 2nd – 16th
    December 17, 2022 7:38 am

    If the Gubmint can release PDJT’s personal tax returns for no valid reason, they can release EVERYONES’s returns.

    No wonder they wanted an additional 87,000 ARMED IRS agents.

    Another “Instant Army” paid for us to fight against us.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. Very, very interesting open, Pat – filled with stuff I never knew or even considered! I will definitely be referring back to this one!!! And to make it easier, I’ve copied them into a document I can save. Thanks!

    Like

  18. Well, I did it – I got all bundled up and shoveled the snow from my walkway and front porch. No cookies yet….I think I froze my lips off!!! 23 and sunshine but that wind just cuts right thru me!

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