Great Ideas!!

I thought it would be fun to share ideas we've found for things that make life easier or fix a problem we've had.  I have a couple that I've found recently and want to share with you.

The first one is cranberry juice.  When I travel long distances by car or plane, my ankles swell.  It's nasty.  I'm talking cankles!  Not wanting to suffer from this on my recent trip to Iowa, I did some research before I went.  I found the usual suggestions to get up and walk around the cabin a lot (yeah, right), and I found one that said to start drinking unsweetened cranberry juice a couple of days before the flight.  I downed one of these before going, and it worked!  I had nary a swollen ankle.

After I had been in Iowa a couple days, and wasn't drinking any cranberry juice.  My ankles did start to swell.  I think it was from the lack of altitude;)  Or it could have been a combination of heat, humidity, and other things.  Well, I went to the store and got some more cranberry juice, and guess what?  The swelling went away again.  If I skipped a day, the swelling returned.  I drank it and it went away.  I'd say this stuff works!  It's kind of hard to drink straight; it has a lot of pucker power.  I water mine down at least half and half, or just add a little bit to the water I drink throughout the day.  You can add just a little honey to take the edge off.

My second idea came from this wonderful new cookbook.  It is full of delicious recipes.  I made the recipe for skillet fried corn and DH and I were almost fighting over who got the last spoonful.  I did.  There wasn't really any fighting.  I just told him straight up that he could eat all the meat he wanted; I got the corn;)

It wasn't until I had finished cutting the corn off the cob and making a big mess that I noticed the part about putting the corn cob in a tube pan.  Doy!  This is so much easier!  Peel your corn and leave the stem on.  Stick the stem end into the middle tube and slice the corn right off.  Unless you're getting rambunctious, it mostly all lands in the pan. 

Do you have any great ideas you'd like to share?  I'd love to hear them, and I'm sure others would too!  We all need ideas to make our tasks easier.