Summer Cucumber Delight

One of my favorite parts of summer is the chance to cook with vegetables and fruits from my garden. Nothing tastes better than food that you grew yourself. After last year, with oodles of cucumbers, I learned a FANTASTIC cucumber recipe from my boyfriend's grandma, Mary. This is super simple, tastes amazing and last for ages.

Summer Cucumber Delight

• 1 large mason jar
• 1 onion sliced  (large or small according to your preference, I prefer large slices)
• 1-2 cucumbers sliced (depending on size of cucumber)
• 1 small can Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon sugar

--Add all ingredients to mason jar. Add vinegar to fill the jar. Seal lid onto jar and shake to mix ingredients. Let sit in fridge for at least 2 hours for best taste. I love to add more vinegar as the liquid level goes down in the jar.

There are many varieties for cucumber/vinegar solutions but this is the one I've found most tastiest and learned first hand.

Share your favorite cucumber recipes!

Bug bites go away!!!

Summer is the time when we are lucky enough to spend time outdoors, yet there are so many pests that we often times tell ourselves it's a better trade off to stay indoors instead of receiving bug bites that seem to last forever.

Myself, personally, must be a bug magnet. Every weekend after camping and/or hiking I am covered in fresh spider and mosquito bites. My boyfriend seems to attract the ticks while I attract the mosquitoes and spiders, I would trade him in a second!

Very recently I became horribly fed up with always itching myself (to what felt like my death) and so I started researching and experimenting with a variety of remedies for bug bites. This is what I found.

First of all, bugs in the city are different from bugs in the country even if they're technically the same type of bug and so the following suggestions are relative to where you'd be receiving the bites (ie, the country or the city).

In one of my previous posts about vinegar, I recommended vinegar as a good solution for treating bug bites. I still stand by this suggestion but have found this only works on city bug bites, more specifically mosquito bites. I have had some success with vinegar on city spider bites as well. My boyfriend swears by a mixture of vinegar with mustard on city bug bites and I've found that has helped me on several occasions after sitting on the porch too long on a nice night.

In one of my recent fits of itchiness I was complaining about the severity of the bites to my Chemistry lab partner. He told me to try 'Tea Tree Oil'. At first I thought he was just giving me some BS hippie remedy but the next time I was at Wal-Mart, I broke down and bought a bottle of it. The bottle is just under $5 and found in the first aid section. The label has no official uses on it and is 100% natural. The bites I was suffering from at the time were spider bites from a farm house in northern Nebraska. (We forgot to set off a bug bomb when we first got there, silly us!) We got home from the store and I instantly put the oil on my worst spider bites at the time and found relief in a matter of a minute. It didn't have a cooling property like some treatments but it worked almost instantly.

The next time we were camping, as always in summer camping, there were loads of flies during the day swarming our camp and harassing us non-stop. I'm not sure why I decided to do it, but I put some dabs of tea tree oil on my skin that wasn't covered with clothing and I noticed that the flies stopped being as obnoxious. They would come near me but wouldn't land on me or would only land on my clothes; which doesn't bother me because I couldn't feel it! This will also work on country mosquito bites. Basically any issue you're having with bugs in the country, this will work. Of course, it also works on city bugs but is truly a miracle worker when you're out in the woods. Make sure to re-apply it after swimming for continued coverage.

Another remedy I know we've all heard of is 'Calamine Lotion'. This has been a go-to for ages and does work pretty well. I've found that if I have bites which are oozing or I've scratched to the point of bleeding, then Calamine is a great option. It does have the cooling effect you would hope for in most bug bite treatments and is dual purpose in case you run into an poisonous plants while you're on your outdoor adventure. However, it seems like Calamine lotion has become more liquid-y over the years as I remember it being thicker when I was younger. For proper application, you must make sure you bring cotton balls along with you. I would say any sort of soft material would work but the lotion clings to towels and makes toilet paper fall apart. Cotton balls are the most useful for application of this remedy. Calamine Lotion works great on city and country bugs and bites of all types. The one downfall I've found is that I will need to re-apply Calamine more often than the tea tree oil as the effects of the tea tree oil seem to last longer than Calamine.

On my camping trips I always bring tea tree oil and Calamine lotion. These are my "go-tos" after a night of viscous bug bites. You would think the smoke from the campfire would keep them away but they just migrate to your back instead!

Of course there are many bug bite treatments like Benadryl cream, Hydrocortisone cream and various bug bite treatments found in the camping section of any store but these are the 3 which I have found work most effectively for me. Since I'm camping almost every weekend, bug bite solutions are a must! No one enjoys being itchy.

Do you have your own bug bite remedies?? Please share!!

Kindness, it spreads.

Growing up, my mom taught me to never judge people by their outward appearance or a moment of short temper because you never know what they're going through in life. You never know their back story or what has been happening to them. Instead, treat those people with kindness. You may not make much of an impact at all or you just might completely uplift their world when they need it the most.

Vinegar-- the DIY miracle worker

 Most of us are generally aware that vinegar is not just for cooking but actually a great tool around the house. However, hundreds of uses exist for vinegar and sometimes it can be difficult choosing methods that are truly useful. In order to make this easier, I have created a list of my top 10 ways to use vinegar for your home, vehicle and office.

1. Cleaning your electronics -- especially your computer. Using a 50/50 mixture (vinegar/water), wet a clean cloth in the solution then wring out as best as you can and start cleaning our electronics. Cotton balls and Q-Tips are excellent tools for getting in those "hard to reach" spaces. NEVER CLEAN WHILE ELECTRONICS ARE TURNED ON!
2. Rid yourself of bad odors (smokey and otherwise). We all have cooked, spilled, dropped, opened or been in the presence of unwanted odors. To rid your home, dorm or wherever of these smells, place a bowl filled 1/3 of the way with vinegar in the room where the smell is the strongest. This is a great tool when moving into older apartments, dorms and houses as well as when you accidentally overcook your dinner or have a visitor who smokes cigarettes. FOR ODORS IN SMALLER SPACES--- soak a piece of bread in vinegar and then place in the area overnight to rid yourself of that odor FeBreze wouldn't kill. This works especially well for closets and car trunks.
3. "Un-Stick" stickers, glue or other sticky items from a surface. As a huge fan of stickers, I have often times placed stickers on surfaces which I later regretted. I also hate sticky things like syrup or crappy price tags so when I want to rid myself of these sticky problems, I use either vinegar or rubbing alcohol. On the sticky spot, spray or pour enough vinegar to cover the sticky area. Let vinegar sit for 30 seconds to 1 minute (longer if a stronger type of stick) and wipe clean with a cloth. Rubbing alcohol does not have as long of soak time and can be used to remove sticky items almost instantly.
4.  Remove carpet/rug stains. Myself, being a college student, I have spilled my fair share of food, drink and other staining items on the carpet and/or rug in my vicinity. Often times stains on carpets and rugs are met with negative hopes of removing the new stain, but vinegar can bring a positive solution to this as well.
   -- Rub light carpet stains with a mixture of 2 tablespoons salt dissolved in 1/2 cup white vinegar. Let the solution dry, then vacuum.
   -- For larger or darker stains, add 2 tablespoons borax to the mixture and use in the same way.
   -- For tough, ground-in dirt and other stains, make a paste of 1 tablespoon vinegar with 1 tablespoon cornstarch, and rub it into the stain using a dry cloth. Let it set for two days, then vacuum.
   -- To make spray-on spot and stain remover, fill a spray bottle with 5 parts water and 1 part vinegar. Fill a second spray bottle with 1 part nonsudsy ammonia and 5 parts water. Saturate a stain with the vinegar solution. Let it settle for a few minutes, then blot thoroughly with a clean, dry cloth. Then spray and blot using the ammonia solution. Repeat until the stain is gone. (Source:150+ Household Uses for Vinegar)    
5. Prevent frost from developing on your windshield in the winter. If you live in an area where you experience winter, then you've experienced the anger at discovering stubborn frost on your car windows when you're running late for work or class. Until now you probably had no idea you could do something about this... but you can! Next time, in preparation for frost, spray vinegar solution of 3 parts vinegar to 1 part water on your windows. Apply several coats for the protection from frost to last longer (up to several weeks).
6. Everything you would ever want to clean or disinfect in your kitchen.
   NOTE: This also works for appliances in dorms!
   There are many individual uses for vinegar in your kitchen and I've decided to lump them into one here.
   --Refrigerator:  every fridge will develop weird odors and sticky residues over time. The easiest way to resolve this is cleaning your fridge with equal parts vinegar and water. Make sure you get all far corners, storage bins and the dust that collects on your outside of your fridge as well.
   --Microwave: if the fridge has a rival for most disgusting, you know the microwave is it. Place a bowl of 1/4 cup vinegar with 1 cup water in the microwave on HIGH for 5 minutes. After the time is up, use a cloth dipped in your solution to easily wipe away grime.
   --Disinfect Cutting Boards: Personally, I'm never very good at making sure I clean my cutting boards as well they should be. Usually I just rinse it off and start cutting something else, rinse, repeat. But you can easily disinfect your cutting boards (especially useful for wood) with full strength vinegar. Full strength vinegar has excellent power against E. Coli, Salmonella and Staphylococcus.
   --Coffee Maker: One of the greatest tools of college students and full time workers alike is the coffee maker and while we're generally in a hurry to make the coffee and run, coffee stains and build-up can turn your coffee maker into a bacteria maker. How to easily avoid this? Pour a solution of 2 cups vinegar and 1 cup water into the water chamber. Put a coffee filter in the machine. Turn on the coffee maker and let it run through its full brew cycle. Remove filter and add new, unused filter. Run 2 more brew cycles, adding a new filter each time, with only water in the water chamber. Viola! Clean coffee maker :)
7. The amazing all-purpose cleaner.
   NOTE: My personal favorite all-purpose cleaner is called 'LA Awesome'  and is found at "Dollar Tree - Where everything is $1". It's great for laundry, walls, sticky stuff and more. The solution has a reputation for being organic, non-acidic and non-oil.
   --Glass, Stainless Steel and Plastic Laminate surfaces: Fill spray bottle with 2 parts water to 1 part distilled vinegar and a few drops of dish soap.
   --Walls and Painted surfaces: Mix 1/2 cup vinegar, 1 cup ammonia and 1/4 cup baking soda in a 1 gallon milk jug (thoroughly washed out) and pour into spray bottle.
8. Reduce sunburn and itching. Dab burned or itching area with soft cloth (old, clean t-shirts work great) or cotton balls. During the summer months this is especially useful.
9. Brighten clothes. Washing machines are a great modern tool that is part of our every day lives but we do not always have control over the quality of the machine we are using or have the money available to afford "nice" laundry detergent (I swear detergent gets more and more expensive every time I have to buy it). I know from living in dorms, I struggle with keeping my colors bright as the washing machines are old and my detergent is generally average in quality. Adding 1/2 cup of white vinegar to wash loads will brighten colors in each load used.
10. Remove wrinkles without ironing. Many of us don't have time or the desire to spend time on ironing our clothes, or the money to spend on dry cleaning. The next time you need to remove wrinkles from your clothes on short notice, do not panic! After drying your clothes, simply mist the item with a solution 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water. Hang the item to air dry and you're ready to go--wrinkle free!

I hope you've found some use from my top 10 uses for vinegar. Please share any of YOUR favorite uses and/or ones you found don't work as well as claimed.

Sources:
150+ Household Uses for Vinegar
101 More Uses for Vinegar

Beautiful photo, wonderful inspiration.

Mount Rainer, Washington, US

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."
~ John Muir  

At times, all of us become stuck indoors, plagued by all the things we "should" do. But sometimes it's better to day dream for a minute, imagine the places you would like to go or relish in the beauty of nature if only through pictures. Take time to notice the things outside of your cubicle, your living room, your car. Appreciate nature taking it's course all around you and recognize that this exists and continues to change even when you're not paying the least bit of attention to it.

One of the best things you can do for yourself is to take breaks and spend time in nature. For me, this is really easy because I work on a beautiful campus with lots of green space. For others this may not be as easy (due to a lack of green space in most places) but I recommend looking at the landscaping, smelling the flowers, listen to the wind blow through the trees. Even 5 minutes in city-nature can help make you feel refreshed and ready to continue on with your day indoors. Nature is a very positive power and has been proven over and over again to be good for our mental health. So do your mental health a favor, go spend 5 minutes outside!!

Heat Burst in Hastings, NE

(Click on image to see larger version)

This morning around 4am, a thunderstorm induced a heat burst in Hastings, NE raising the temperature from 85F to 97F in a matter of a couple hours. Lincoln is definitely feeling the heat today as well with a predicted high of 95F-100F this afternoon. This quite a difference from the summer we've been feeling so far-- the kind of late spring where we were still wearing jackets. I think we'll be missing our jackets very soon!

From seeing this Hastings heat burst report I became more curious about the exact definition and what drives them. (I had forgotten from my meteorology classes) The following is a really great explanation of heat bursts from Wikipedia and I thought I would share with my blog viewers.

"In meteorology, a heat burst is a rare atmospheric phenomenon characterised by gusty winds and a rapid increase in temperature and decrease in dew point (moisture). Heat bursts typically occur during night-time and are associated with decaying thunderstorms.[1]

Although this phenomenon is not fully understood, it is theorized that the event is caused when rain evaporates (virga) into a parcel of cold dry air high in the atmosphere making the air denser than its surroundings.[2] The parcel descends rapidly, warming due to compression, overshoots its equilibrium level and reaches the surface, similar to a downburst.[3]

Recorded temperatures during heat bursts have reached well above 90 °F (32 °C), sometimes rising by 20 °F (11 °C) or more within only a few minutes. More extreme events have also been documented, where temperatures have been reported to exceed 120 °F (49 °C). However, such extreme events have never been officially verified. Heat bursts are also characterised by extremely dry air and are sometimes associated with very strong, even damaging, winds."

 And there you have it, now you know why a heat burst occurs and you have added it to your wealth of knowledge with the quest of becoming more weather-wise.

Another thing Rain Girl loves to do....

2 moose give each other the stare down as they enjoy the morning water and fog.
Very cool!!

One thing that I love to do is discovering beautiful nature photography. I will often share them either here or on one of my other social media sites. My Tumblr also has loads of beautiful nature photography so check that out if you would like to see more!

Source: US Dept of Interior