Benadryl saved my moms life

You would never think that after having been treated with amoxycillin (an antiobiotic) plenty of times before, you would ever have an allergic reaction to it. But that’s exactly what happened to my mother. Even stranger was that the response was delayed. Three days after she had finished the bottle according to doctors orders, she felt her throat begin to constrict.

She made it into the bathroom, not entirely sure what was happening yet but said within a matter of just moments she felt as though her soul was leaving her body. She called out to my dad who thankfully heard her and through ragged gasps said simply two words - Benadryl, Hospital.

My dad knew then that something was terribly wrong. My mom is a tough cookie so if she even mentions the word sick you know something is up. He immediately grabbed the liquid Benadryl from the bathroom cupboard and poured some down her throat (not the whole bottle of course), then proceeded to get her to the hospital where they were able to stabilize her. The attending physician told my dad he had saved her life by having that Benadryl on hand.

Now I make sure I always have some in my purse and in our home just in case. Benadryl worked for my mom and I hope it will never have to work for me that way but I’ll always have it around just in case.

September 17, 2008 | Filed Under Works for me Wednesday | 17 Comments 

Don’t trash it, donate it instead

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Around here it’s time to put away Summer clothes for next year or get rid of the ones we’ve grown out of. Every year I donate all the items we no longer use to the Salvation Army and what’s even better is that they pick all of it up. They come to our apartment and haul our bags or boxes of stuff away.

What do you do with all the clothes you get rid of on a yearly basis?

If you want the Salvation Army to pick up your items all you have to do is call 1-800-SA-TRUCK and schedule a pick up. They’ll generally give a you a 2 hour window in which they’ll arrive and they’ve never been later than that for me.

I also do most of our clothes shopping at the Salvation army store. Once a week (and the day will differ depending on your area) all clothing items are 50% off. I’ve found some amazingly cute items for me and all the kids at incredible prices. They’re cheap anyway but I always make sure to go on the day the clothes are 50% off to maximize my savings.

September 12, 2008 | Filed Under Aloha Friday | 16 Comments 

Help me with my laundry please!


Yeah, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’m not very good at doing laundry. I mean I get it done, I just don’t do anything other than throw it in the washer. See, I keep hoping that the washer by itself will miraculously take the stains out but I’ve finally come to accept that is not to be. So give me your best advice:

* What stain removers do you recommend?
* How long are you suppose to let the item chill out with just the stain remover on it?
* How about on whites? My boys wear white shirts to school and come home with markings and dirt all over them every day.
* Isn’t there some miracle product that will remove old stains or stains that weren’t discovered before the clothes were thrown in the dryer?
* Any other recommendations?

September 3, 2008 | Filed Under Works for me Wednesday | 30 Comments 

An easy way to wash your bra

Thanks goes to Hillary at Ree Writes for enlightening me on this one. Now I shall impart of my newly learned wisdom to all of you who are as clueless as I was. Assuming I wasn’t the only one. I hope. AHEM…

The easiest way to wash your hand wash only bra is to wear it while you’re in the shower!

That’s right, while you lather yourself on up include your bra. Get it nice and soapy, then take it off, rinse it well and hang it over the shower bar while you finish showering and leave it there when you’re done to dry. Tada!

August 27, 2008 | Filed Under Works for me Wednesday | 24 Comments 

Rising Prices

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What are you doing to cut down on the cost of living in your household?

We’ve started shopping at Aldi, I’ve been learning how to play the Drugstore Game and couponing big time. And all of it is paying off.

July 25, 2008 | Filed Under Aloha Friday | 18 Comments 

Reading Recommendations

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Name one novel you think I should add to my ‘to read’ list and why.

I think all of you should read The Princess Bride. I’m half way through it now and I already love it. It’s even better than the movie and I LOVE the movie!

July 18, 2008 | Filed Under Aloha Friday | 22 Comments 

More HTML Tricks!

Part I

1. Resizing an Image
Ever have a button you want to put in your sidebar but find it just doesn’t fit? There’s a way to fix that! Let’s take this random button I just found somewhere on the web. :whistle:

Let’s pretend it’s to big for our sidebar and we want to shrink it down to fit. To do this we have to edit the code (you know, that you copied and pasted into your widget) which will look similar to this:

<a href="http://designsbysummer.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee24/summeresque/designsbysummerbutton.jpg"></a>

We find the img tag right here:

<a href="http://designsbysummer.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee24/summeresque/designsbysummerbutton.jpg"></a>

Type a space after the img and insert sizing declarations like so:

<a href="http://designsbysummer.blogspot.com"><img width="100" height="100" src="http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee24/summeresque/designsbysummerbutton.jpg"></a>

Now our button looks like this:

You don’t have to use 100 by 100. It all depends on the shape of the button. You may have to play around with different numbers to get it to where it’s not distorted but you’ll figure it out quick.

2. Linking an Image
That’s right, you can turn a picture into a link with just a little bit of code. Below we have an ordinary unlinked image:

Now let’s turn it into a link. Once again, you must modify the code which will look something like this:

<img class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-702" title="sigfragcollection" src="http://summersnook.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/sigfragcollection-150×141.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="141" />

And now we are going to add our own piece of code:

<a href="http://www.urbanbotanic.com"> at the very front and </a> at the very end

So now the entire piece of code looks like this:

<a href="http://www.urbanbotanic.com"><img class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-702" title="sigfragcollection" src="http://summersnook.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/sigfragcollection-150×141.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="141" /> </a>

Obviously insert your own URL into the code instead of using the one above. One of my new favorite companies by the way! (I wasn’t paid to say that.) And here is the linked image:

3. Make a line break

Say you want to sign a post with your name and url and email address or something. And you want your name on one line, your url below that and your email address below that. Here’s how you do it. Let’s start with everything on one line:

Summer http://summersnook.com emailme@mail.com

Now it’s time to add some code:

Summer<br> http://summersnook.com<br> emailme@mail.com

Now it looks like this:

Summer
http://summersnook.com
emailme@mail.com

4. Create a copyright, trademark and registered trademark symbol

&copy; will give you ©
&reg; will give you ®
&#8482; will give you ™

5. Create a scrolling marquee

This is a scrolling marquee

I personally think they’re evil for all the time use, but they could prove useful attention getters if you’re making an important announcement on your blog. Now, how did I do it? With this little piece of code:

<marquee behavior=scroll direction="left" scrollamount="5">This is a scrolling marquee</marquee>

Just like regular text or images you can turn a marquee into a link or change the font size and color. See part I. Even change the speed at which it scrolls by changing the number next to the scrollamount tag. You can even make the marquee move right, up or down by changing the “left” to “right”, “up” or “down”

July 16, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging Help, Works for me Wednesday | 18 Comments 

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