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Post by scamp on Jan 27, 2013 18:56:27 GMT -6
Did you have to eat bugs and other icky creepy-crawlies to survive? Actually, grasshoppers taste pretty good, sort of like green peppers -- just remember to remove the legs because they have barbs on them which mess with your throat. And it wasn't for survival -- I was traveling and was served them as a, er, um, treat.... scamp
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Post by Phalon on Mar 26, 2014 18:02:22 GMT -6
This might have been posted in here before, but I saw it the other day on a show on the History Channel - history's greatest little gadgets or some such thing. Duct tape made the list. I think Scrappy once told me that either WD40 or duct tape can fix anything.
Duct tape's most famous use was aboard NASA's Apollo 13 flight when it was used to build a makeshift air filter after the cabin started filling with carbon monoxide. All NASA flights carry duct tape.
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Post by stepper on Mar 28, 2014 21:53:46 GMT -6
Among the zillion uses for Duct tape....
Removal of skin tags. What the holistic site said was to cover skin tags with a small piece of duct tape. Leave it alone - when the tape loosens the skin tag should come off with it. If it doesn't work the first time, try it again. I have no idea how well it works, but they had quite a few methods for elimination of warts, skin tags, black heads, etc.
They also had a couple of good methods for non-chemical elimination of ants.
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Post by Phalon on Mar 29, 2014 7:43:09 GMT -6
Yes, I've heard their legs can be bound with duct tape to prevent them from crawling into your house. The tricky part is slapping a piece of duct tape across their mouths so they can't call out to their brethren to save them.
You know how cross-stitch samplers always seem to have a quote, or the alphabet on them? This dates back to the 1700s, when a girl's education included learning household tasks like cooking and sewing. The samplers were a double-duty educational tool - they taught the girls sewing skills and how to read at the same time.
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Post by stepper on Mar 29, 2014 13:57:20 GMT -6
No no no! That’s where so many people go wrong. You don’t duct tape their mouths shut. You WANT them to call out to their brethren so as to trap even more of them.
Or, you hire a flea from the neighbor’s dog to join the ant commune. The flea tells you where the nest is, and then flees for the nearest creature (which should not be you – just saying) – while you take action. You put out cornmeal for the ants near the nest . Since they think it’s food but they can’t digest it, they go on a amazingly effective and fatal diet. Cornmeal is safe for people and pets but no so good for Them.
A useful pastime that has fallen by the wayside. Today’s girls can neither sew, nor read the markings on an engine dip stick. Of course, I can’t exactly sew either – not so’s you’d recognize the article as being more than a rag or an old towel that somehow found it’s way into hot water and is no longer fuchsia, teal, mint, or Harlequin but is fit only for automotive repair use. I can replace a button, attach stripes and name tags and such. But I can’t really ‘sew’. My earlier statement is perhaps a bit too hasty since Steppet’s mother can sew, but at the age of 91 she doesn’t feel the need to bother with it any more. And one of her sisters can sew – and most of the family depends on her for legitimate repair work when it’s necessary.
Amazingly enough, the other day I found “shop rags” for sale in the auto parts store! I remember thinking “Why the heck would someone buy rags from a store?” Shoot, just get out of the way and let me do the laundry! I’ll fix you right up with new rags in no time. And very shortly thereafter you’ll find nice new towels by the shower too!
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Post by Phalon on Mar 30, 2014 8:55:29 GMT -6
I don't sew at all save for the occasional button or small hole. I know a lot of people that do, though. My boss does amazing quilt work, gorgeous stuff much of which is sewn by hand. She's in quilting clubs and actually many of the members are quite young. Now Xena Sis - she's a seamstress, and does a dang good business doing alterations from her home. I was just over there last night to see this bridesmaid dress she's been working on; during the past week we've both be trying to come up with ideas about how to "fix" it - it's for the 16 year old daughter of the bride, and is also dubbing as her prom dress. Mom wanted it more modest, but it still had to be promlike enough to fashionable. Xena Sis did an amazing job with a bit of cascading material - the finished alterations looked better than before she started. We still have not figured out what to do with a bride's dress for a different wedding; the dress is a size 6, the bride is a size 4, and the dress has eight layers of tulle and lace. Though I have no sewing abilities what-so-ever, it's been fun helping her in the idea department.
An yes, using "good towels" for rags - I must have heard that complaint 80 million times from Mom growing up; my brother was the villainous towel thief. He didn't even bother to ruin them in the laundry first - he'd just grab a fresh one every time he needed a rag in the garage. Mom would later find them covered in grease and give him hell, but he never seemed to learn.
I've also seen those boxes of rags for sale - not in an auto parts store, but in the home improvement center. Actually, I had my own experience with rags for sale this winter. I've been going through boxes, getting rid of a bunch of old stuff no longer needed, a lot of which I've sold on ebay. When I do laundry and end up with unmatched socks, I just throw them in a bag to be matched whenever the mate turns up the next time I wash clothes. A lot of times, I never find the matching sock. For whatever reason one of these bags of unmatched socks that were the girls ended up in a storage box. For the hell of it, I decided to list the lot of them on ebay; people buy and sell the weirdest stuff. I had gobs of socks, most of them were colorful and patterned, and I figured they could be used for crafts or rags...which I put in the listing. I even drilled uses for old socks, and came up with hundreds and hundreds of sites that have creative ideas for the lowly sock - some of them are pretty cool. Four dollars, I decided was a "fair" price for sixty mismatched socks, never thinking I'd get even a nibble - I was mostly doing it for my own amusement, just to see what kind of strange cr@p people would buy. They sold for over $30.00!!! I figured someone was making crafts to sell at a bazaar or something, and would make a nice profit turning used socks into whatever. I happily boxed up the socks and shipped them off.
But curiosity got the better of me a couple of days later when I started wondering why someone would pay a lot of money for used socks - I think actually, that's the exact wording I used in the drill "why would someone pay money for used socks?" OMG!!! I wanted my girls socks back immediately!!! I was horrified! I was mortified! How could I be so damned naive?!!! Some sicko had bought my babies' socks for some weird used sock foot fetish!!!
Possibly. Although there seems to be a large market for used socks to satisfy those with foot fetishes, I still like to think the girls' socks were turned into something nice like a rag rug, or crocheted hat. And I suppose it really doesn't matter - as LX said, "Calm down, Mom. It's not like you sold our socks with us still in them."
But still....ick, ick, ick.
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Post by stepper on Apr 3, 2014 18:33:11 GMT -6
Sock puppets - they're nice friendly children's sock puppets - a charity group glues on eyes and noses - and they'll be given out in children hospitals for the kids to have 'someone' to carry on conversations with when no one is visiting. Keep telling yourself, it's okay.
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Post by Phalon on Apr 6, 2014 6:45:06 GMT -6
Yes, sock puppets for the children...sock puppets for the children...sock puppets for the children; I feel better already. Maybe a few sock monkeys too.
Did you know that Sock Monkeys have been around since the 1800s. They reached their height of popularity though, during the Depression. It was around that time that someone made a Sock Monkey out of a pair of Rockford Red Heel Socks, and sent it to Nelson Knitting Mills, the company that made the socks....and the first company that produced socks worldwide. They thought it was such a cool idea that they began including Sock Monkey instructions with every pair of socks.
Though Nelson Knitting Mills was sold in the 90s, included with every pair of Red Heel Socks are still instructions for Sock Monkeys.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 13, 2016 9:28:02 GMT -6
Graham crackers were developed in the early 1800s by a Presbyterian minister. Reverend Sylvester Graham concocted his cracker recipe (then an unsweetened biscuit made with unbleached flour, wheat germ and bran) as part of what would later be called the "Graham Diet", a bland diet without white flour or spices. His diet, he believed, would purge from its followers the greatest scourge ever set upon the earth: self-abuse.
Which at the time, was an euphemism for self-love, which is a euphemism for *gasp* masturbation.
His followers, called Grahamites, were saved eventual blindness and insanity by munching on Graham's crackers of blandness.
The good reverend is most certainly turning in his grave at today's version of Graham crackers.
Oh! What about s'mores? Chocolate, of course, is an aphrodisiac. ACK! Mixed messages!
Marshmallows, btw, were once considered so indulgent that in ancient Egypt, they were only reserved for gods and pharaohs.
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Post by stepper on Feb 13, 2016 11:21:24 GMT -6
One wonders how he found research subjects to validate the hypothesis.
Did I mention that I like sinnamon crackers for the crust when I make cheesecakes?
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Post by Phalon on Feb 14, 2016 8:44:09 GMT -6
If you're going to use sinnamon, you might as well put in some nutmeg too.
Ba-da-boom. <----the sound of another nail being pounded in the good reverend's coffin.
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Post by stepper on Feb 14, 2016 18:08:56 GMT -6
That's beginning to sound like something for Halloween. Next thing you know you'll be mailing creepy @ss dolls to people so you can scare them. Thank goodness you're not like that! Nutmeg makes people do strange things - like eat orange colored gourds.
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Post by stepper on Feb 14, 2016 18:17:19 GMT -6
You know, when I was mowing the yard yesterday, it occurred to me that this is strange. No one balks at being a master carpenter working with wood, or a master plumber working with pipes, or a master baker making cakes and cookies, so what's wrong with being the best fisherman?
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Post by Phalon on Feb 15, 2016 8:48:09 GMT -6
Who are you trying to bait with that one, you Master Baiter, you?
Just don't wait for an answer with bated breath....you're not that bendy.
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Feb 15, 2016 9:00:35 GMT -6
*groan
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Post by Spock on Feb 15, 2016 12:17:02 GMT -6
You know, when I was mowing the yard yesterday, it occurred to me that this is strange. No one balks at being a master carpenter working with wood, or a master plumber working with pipes, or a master baker making cakes and cookies, so what's wrong with being the best fisherman? I think I would balk at being called a Master Baiter ...
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Post by stepper on Feb 15, 2016 14:16:35 GMT -6
But I make good soft pretzels.
I suspect that would be a prevalent reaction.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 15, 2016 22:39:19 GMT -6
Why the change of spelling within the quote?
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Post by Phalon on Feb 16, 2016 7:27:58 GMT -6
A bit of Black History, Women's History, U.S. Postal History, Wild West History, and Expelled Nunnery History all rolled into one: Stagecoach Mary.
Sounds like a great name for an outlaw, doesn't it? Mary Fields kind of was...at least in the eyes of a bishop at St. Peter's Mission in Montana where she was employed as a domestic worker; he kicked her out of the convent for gun-fighting. Gary Cooper, a native Montanan once said of her "Born a slave somewhere in Tennessee, Mary lived to become one of the freest souls ever to draw a breath...or a .38."
A pistol-toting, whiskey-swilling, cigar-smoking, 6 foot tall, and 200 pound 60 year old, in 1985, she became the second woman, and the first African American woman to work for the U.S. Postal Service. She beat out the other applicants because she was the fastest to hitch a team of six horses. Through rain, shine, snow or sleet for nine years, she delivered the mail by stagecoach, earning her nickname - and if the snow got too deep for the horses and coach, she delivered it on snowshoe.
Despite all her toughness, or maybe because of it, she was well loved and respected in the town of Cascade, Montana where she lived. Each year on her birthday, the town's schools closed to celebrate, and when Montana law forbade women to enter drinking establishments, the Cascade mayor granted Mary an exemption.
After retiring from the Postal Service at the age of 69, she became a restaurant owner for the next thirteen years; she died at age 82.
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Post by stepper on Feb 16, 2016 19:18:04 GMT -6
What a coincidence! I send out a weekly e-mail at work and within the past couple weeks I included a short piece on her, including a picture.
I did a quick spell check in word - maybe it corrected it for me, but I don't know why that would have happened since both words are in the dictionary. You're right - it doesn't make much sense.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 5, 2017 8:02:10 GMT -6
Came across this in a book the other day....
In 1925 'everything goes in Los Angeles, or so it may be thought; but here are some things forbidden by city ordinance':
Shooting rabbits from streetcars. Throwing snuff, or giving it to a child under 16. Bathing two babies in a single bathtub at one time. Making pickles in any downtown district. Selling snakes on the streets.
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Feb 5, 2017 8:11:25 GMT -6
Huh. I can only imagine the catastrophe that occurred to cause those laws to be written.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 5, 2017 8:22:28 GMT -6
Apparently, the streets of L.A. at the time must have been overrun by rabbits, snakes, pickle vendors, and dealers wantonly throwing snuff to babes fresh from shared bathtubs.
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Feb 5, 2017 8:25:03 GMT -6
Yes. It was chaos all around!
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Post by Phalon on Feb 8, 2017 7:43:25 GMT -6
Another tidbit I ran across was that Phillips-head screws and screwdrivers weren't named for Phillip's head, which was obviously pointy and not flat. Neither was it invented by a guy named Phillip.
The inventor was John Thompson who got screwed out of a namesake and loads of money when he sold the design to Henry F. Phillips. Phillips names the screw and its driver after himself, promotes it as the creme da la creme of screws, and gains a huge customer in General Motors; they in turn use it in the production of Cadillac models in 1936.
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Post by Mini Mia on Feb 16, 2017 20:29:50 GMT -6
I don't remember where the 'doll' conversation is, where I posted a video of Grav3Yard Girl and her room of dolls. So I decided to put this here:
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Post by Phalon on Feb 19, 2017 7:07:39 GMT -6
Oh, yes - I remember that girl. You posted it was in the 'kitchen sink' thread, Joxie. A 30-some minute video though? Unless I'd freak out in the first few minutes of watching it, I wouldn't be part of the 99%.
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Post by Mini Mia on Feb 19, 2017 19:23:45 GMT -6
I almost put it in that thread, but changed my mind at the last minute. She's moving, so she gave a tour of the whole room before boxing it all up. And I think you'd love to watch the whole video. I swear she dumpster dives, she has a number of old furniture that I think you'd envy.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 20, 2017 9:25:40 GMT -6
Ok, then, I'll give it a watch....probably late tonight when it's assured that even if I normally would not freak out, I'll be in with the 99 percent!
And oh! Speaking of old furniture....I finally found some hairpin legs that I've been looking for during the past month or so; I was dropping some things off at the Humane Society resale shop Saturday, and this table was just sitting there, with legs exactly the same height as I needed, begging to be taken home. Only $4.00! The least expensive hairpin legs I found on-line were close to $50 on Etsy. I dismantled the table, and my "new" creation is in my "new" sitting room now. (I should take a picture for the DIY thread; I really like the way it turned out.)
And oh, oh! It's trash day! This morning on the way to coffee at Xena Sis's, I passed by a wooden door set out on the street - a gorgeous 5-panel solid wood door with a beautiful finish that I just could not let end up in a landfill. It's from the old church around the corner that a couple bought a number of years ago, and converted into their house - the renovations have been ongoing; the second major push started last fall. Since there was no way the door was fitting in my car, I parked, and carried the door home...of course, it ended up being heavier than I expected after carrying it for a block.
(And I thought it was weird to see a cat at my window at 3am. I wonder what people thought when seeing a door float down the sidewalk at 7:30 in the morning?)
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Post by Mini Mia on Feb 20, 2017 17:20:47 GMT -6
I needed that laugh.
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