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Dry cracked skin

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Talk about strange internet searches. Earlier today I found myself on Amazon looking for Udder cream.

Why?

Well a long time ago my mom brought home this cream that she’d purchased while she and my dad were vacationing in Texas. My mom used to always get dry cracked skin on her heals and in the winter the skin on her hands, especially her fingers, would get so dry that sometimes it would crack and bleed.

So she found this cream that was originally made for putting on cow udders or teats to keep them from cracking.

Now this was back in the 80’s or maybe early 90’s … before it became quite common for people to use products made for cows.

Anyway .. back to my search for udder cream. I kept getting results that brought up face cream but of course that wasn’t what I wanted at all. I eventually found the exact product that my mom used 20 or so years ago and it’s Bag Balm. Hey … I was close … udder, bag … LOL

I was looking on Amazon, because, even though I could remember the exact name of the product I knew I could find it if I saw it in a department store or drug stores beauty aisle, but I haven’t seen it. Unfortunately for me, Amazon.com doesn’t ship this product to Canada. Hmmm.. I forgot to check on Amazon.ca but then they don’t have half the stuff that the US site does so they probably won’t have it. Now at least I know the name of the product and I can ask around.

I hope I find some soon … my heels are awful! No matter what I do I always get hard skin on the edges of my heels and the sides of my feet … I think that if I can get my hands on some Bag Balm or a similar product it might help.

Anyone know where I can get some Bag Balm in Canada? Toronto to be exact?

How do you take care of your skin?

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I guess I’ve been fairly lucky to be blessed with good skin. Actually my whole family has nice skin and I guess you could say good genes as far as aging goes, because everyone in my family, from my parents to my brothers and sister all look at least 10 years if not more younger than they actually are.

Oh sure, I had some skin problems when I was a teenager. A little bit of acne and some blackheads but nothing too bad.

I do battle enlarged pores on a constant basis though. If I don’t take care of my skin -well, especially on my nose, I’ll get some blackheads.

Lately I’ve taken to cleaning my face with Noxema. I did that when I was a teen and about a month ago I started using the skin cleanser again.

What I do is get a face cloth and wet it with hot water. I then place the hot cloth over my face to open up the pores. Then I gently massage some Noxema into my skin and rinse it off with a warm cloth. When I’m done cleaning my face I rinse the cloth out in cold water and pat my face with the cold cloth to close my pores.

My skin always feels fresh and tingly clean when I’m done. I like washing my face that way in the morning because it’s invigorating.

At night I usually just wash my face with a mild soap and then use facial creams that are meant for night use.

I guess that since I have Crohn’s and I’m sick quite often it’s at least nice that I have fairly good skin and look younger than I am.

How do you take care of your skin? Have you had problems with acne, blackheads or enlarged pores?

How do you deal with comment spam?

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I’m so sick of spam and comment spam. I should be … I’ve been dealing with it for close to 20 years!

I was an early internet or shall I say World Wide Web user (1991 – remember BBS) and I started my first website in 1995. That’s a long time to have been dealing with spammy emails and now that I blog (my husband and I have 19 blogs between us) I have comment spam to deal with as well.

I’m so tired of getting emails and comments on my sites that are full of keywords and multiple links. You know … if the comment or keyword had anything to do with my article or post I might let it get by and I do occasionally … but most of them have nothing to do with the topic of my post.

I’ll write about my dog and get people leaving keywords and links for scammy products that will make you rich on the internet. I write about my dog and I get weight loss and lipofuze reviews links. I write about my garden and get spam comments filled with real estate or finance links and keywords.

Arghhhhh!

We changed all of our blogs over to DoFollow three years ago and since that time the spam comments have quadrupled!

So how do I deal with it? I moderate comments on our blogs heavily. If a comment is clearly spam, doesn’t make sense, has nothing to do with the topic of the post or simply says “nice post” or a new one – I’m having trouble viewing your sight with such and such browser It goes directly to the Akismet spam pile.

If a comment is somewhat on topic but full of keywords I’ll edit the comment to remove extra links (or nofollow the ones that are kind of relevant to my topic).

If someone is clearly spamming … such as hitting several of my blogs within an hour or two I might leave their comments if they are on topic but I delete their name link and any extra links. People that hit a good chunk or all of our blogs within a few hours are clearly going through a DoFollow list.

I mean, our blogs cover a variety of topics – two are humor blogs, two are guitar and music related, one is about my garden, another about organic gardening, one is about web design while another is about blogging and tech gadgets and two are personal, another is about celebrity news etc … most people aren’t interested in all of those topics on the same day let alone within an hour or two! LOL

As for email spam … well I used to get over 1000 emails a day thanks to all of our websites (plus mailing lists that i run that are associated with three sites) and the spam that they seemed to generate (as well as genuine email requests). Now I run our main email accounts through Gmail and forward the mail back to our email accounts and Google filters out most of the spam.

How do you deal with comment spam on your blog or website? Do you moderate? What’s your policy?

I know that my way of dealing with comment spam is likely a lot harsher than others, but with all of our websites and blogs we get anywhere from 50 to hundreds of comments each day … For me, the way I’ve described how we deal with comment spam above, is the best way, but it may not be the best way for you and your site.

How to get the smell of cigarettes and cigars out of the house?

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It looks like we’re going to be having house guests again in about a month. My husbands brother is going to be coming for a visit from Chicago. Just for the weekend … but it will feel like a week. LOL

When my husband and his brother get together it gets really loud and smelly in here! My brother in law smokes roll your own cigarette and occasionally a cigar … I think he smokes tatuaje cigars but whatever they are, along with the cigarettes … that’s all my house smells of for a week or so after he’s left.

My husband and I smoke as well, but Canadian cigarettes don’t smell quite as much as American ones do. Oh don’t get me wrong I know they smell, but there’s a distinct smell to American cigarettes and cigars.

My brother in law knows he’s not supposed to smoke his cigars or cigarettes in the house. He can smoke our cigarettes … but not his. Still .. after a few drinks and when my husband and him get going out comes those stinky things and I’m stuck with the smell. Grrrr

So how do you get the scent of cigars and cigarettes out of a home? I’d love some good ideas. I put out little dishes with diluted white vinegar and that helps a bit, but not enough. Suggestions?

How not to sell a house!

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Last week our neighbors house, which is for sale (remember the bad renter neighbor stories?) had an open house. Just for the heck of it my husband and I decided to take a peek at the house.

I know the house hasn’t had any renovations … possibly since it was built in 1927 … but we were still curious to see if our neighbors family had decorated the house to prepare it for sale … Uh … the answer is NO. A big no!

The house is mostly empty … which is fine. I don’t think a house necessarily has to be dressed up when it goes up for sale … an empty house can allow prospective buyers to picture their own furnishings in the home.

However I don’t agree with what our neighbors family did. As I said they left most of the house empty, but they put what appears to be office furniture in the living room and dining room.

It just looks … odd.

They also took out all of the appliances! Why? I’m fairly certain that if you’re trying to sell a house for a good price you’re probably more likely to make a sale and get your asking price or higher if you have all the appliances (washer, dryer, fridge, stove etc) in place.

This is definitely an example of how not to sell a house! LOL

I guess it will be a while before we have new neighbors!

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