Month: October 2020

Stressing

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Good afternoon, everyone! At least it is afternoon for me.

Some of you will see, today I am late to publish an update, but it is alright…I am well! Continuous computer problems (though this is a minor annoyance), a lot of work in the office (big annoyance, because we are short handed at the moment), try to convince my friends to dress up on Halloween, organize next week's mini vacation… (shhhh, I'm going to Tampa for the weekend!).

In short: I have not had much time for anything–not even to sleep and eat properly–not that I am missing it (hahaha, yes I am).

So, I know you are also busy, everybody has a thousand different things to do, today I will share with you one of the simplest, cheapest and most useful lifehacks I have ever come across.

Has it ever happened to you that you've run out of your shoes. Maybe I should explain. Have you ever lost a shoe on the street? I mean, has one ever fallen off (breaking a heel is the samething) as you were rushing around? Well if you have not, that my friends, is a terrible experience. First because, because you walk with a disproportionate tension, walk far and your feet and legs suffer a lot. Needless to say that this is hard on the whole body.

And that's not counting the shame of losing a shoe or the humiliation of falling down in the middle of the street, both of these things have happened to me.

It happened to me recently with a pair of shoes, which, after sending them to have their heels lowered (for a change), were super comfortable and I put them with a lot of different outfits: combining them with red, with white, with gray, with brown, with other shades of blue…they were almost perfect, but they were still too big. And it is unlikely that my feet will grow into them.

But I had the problem with them slipping off at the wrong (aren't they all wrong) time.

All we need to get the shoe to stay on when we're in a hurry is a short piece of elastic. For the color, choose the one that you like the most: the same as the shoe or go for contrast, I found it cost about 40 cents per pair of shoes, and you can pretty much find an elastic band in any haberdashery and you will also need a little glue, Super Glue of some type.

The process is simple and is as follows:

  • First: we put on the shoe and measure where we want to put the elastic;
  • Second: we make a mark with a pencil at the position on the shoe where we will attach the band;
  • Third: with glue, we apply a small amount on one of the sides;
  • Fourth: Once it is fully dried we put the shoe back on and measure the width that we are going to need, without it tightening the shoe too much, but enough so that it holds well;
  • Fifth: we mark on the other side of the shoe where the rubber will go, we cut the leftover and glue it t the shoe.

TIP: try to get the elastic band to almost go below the sole of the foot, so that we will not rub the skin on the back of our heel. I buy the super soft elastic and just replace it when it gets old.

And voila! How long did it take? Something like five minutes. And we just got to give a new pair of shoes, actually an old pair that we turned into a comfortable pair.

Can you think of any other ideas for fixing uncomfortable shoes? You know I love your comments, don't keep your ideas to yourself!

So if you liked this lifehack share it with your friends!

And enjoy, it's finally Friday!

A Thousand Ways Of Revisiting Our Roots: The Garden Dandelion

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I am thinking about looking at all of the ways we have developed as a society, the things that

Their seem to endless uses at the table for various plants that today are now no longer seen as foods.

The dandelion is one of those.

On spring days, the wind blows seeds. Among the many seeds that will come to touch the earth, there are the seeds of the "blowers". The ones we all blew as kids.

It's dandelion seeds, Taraxacum officinale. An extraordinary vegetable with excellent sensory qualities. Rich in minerals, fiber and vitamins.

Normally it is considered a weed, perhaps because it is tenacious and like few others, it resists stubbornly in the garden. Perhaps by changing our strategy we would be able to make it attractive in our eyes unlike what it appears to us today. For it once was a common summer green. Not without its fabulous quality to regrow once it has been cut.

Let's use it in the kitchen and grow it in the garden or even in pots on the balcony.

First of all the seeds are free and second it is one of those vegetables of which you can use the whole plant.

What parts of the dandelion are used in the kitchen you may ask:

  • flowers
  • leaves: eat young tender leaves in salad, or sauté then in a pan
  • flower buds: pickled and preserved like capers
  • the root

First the seeds can be recovered (some garden catalogs also sell the seeds), but how?

When you see the big beautiful puffy heads in the fields and grassy areas it's time to collect seeds. Bring along a nice piece of paper to collect all the seeds. Once you get home, make a nice ball with all the seeds from the "blowballs" or "clocks" (that is, the tufts with which the seed is carried by the wind ). Rub the seeds well using the two palms of your hands against each other. You will see all the seeds dropped on the table. Pick and sow them in pots or in the garden.

Remember the dandelion is a vegetable that you can harvest practically all year round, without interruption, because with each cut it will grow back without problems.

They have been used in the kitchen since the Middle Ages and probably long before that.