From the The Universal Household Assistant or What Every One Should Know (1884), posted for xhappyx:

Headache — new remedy for. — A new remedy for headache has been found by Dr. Haley, an Australian physician, who says that for some years past he has found minimum doses of iodine of potassium of great service in frontal headache; that is, a heavy, dull headache, situated over the brow, and accompanied by languor, chilliness, and a feeling of general discomfort, with distaste for food, which sometimes approaches to nausea, can be completely removed by a two-grain dose dissolved in half a wineglassful of water, and this quietly sipped, the whole quantity being taken in about ten minutes. In many cases, he adds, the effect of these small doses has been simply wonderful, as, for instance, a person, who a quarter of an hour ago was feeling most miserable, and refused all food, wishing only for quietness, would now take a good meal and resume his wonted cheerfulness.    Headache and Cold Feet. — There are many who suffer from headaches and cold feet. If they would plunge their feet in cold water every morning, and use the flesh-brush every night, it would relieve them both.    Headache — several cures for. — 1. Coarse brown paper soaked in vinegar and placed on the forehead is good for a sick headache. If the eyelids are gently bathed in cold water the pain in the head is generally allayed.    2. In Potosi the most violent headaches, so very common there, are cured by putting the feet in hot water.    3. A mixture of ice and salt in proportion of one to one-half, applied to the head, frequently gives instant relief from acute headache. It should be tied up in a small linen cloth, like a pad, and held as near as possible to the seat of the pain.    4. We have known some extreme cases of headache cured in half an hour by taking a teaspoonful of finely powdered charcoal in half a tumbler of water. It is an innocent yet powerful alkali.    5. For sick-headache, take a tumbler two-thirds full of finely crushed ice, the juice of one lemon, and one teacupful of white sugar. The mixture, eaten by degrees, or all at once, will allay the feverish thirst, and quiet the disturbed, qualmish stomach, as it is not sweet enough to be nauseous.    6. Sick headache can often be greatly relieved, and sometimes entirely cured, by the application of a mustard plaster at the base of the neck. The plaster should not be kept on more than a quarter of an hour.    Headache (Billious) — cure for. — Dissolve and drink two teaspoonfuls of finely-powdered charcoal in half a tumbler of water; it will relieve in fifteen minutes. Take a seidlitz powder an hour afterward.    Headache (Nervous) — relief for. — Many persons find speedy relief for nervous headache by washing the hair thoroughly in weak soda water. I have known severe cases almost wholly cured in ten minutes by this simple remedy. A friend finds it the greatest relief in cases of "rare cold," the cold symptoms entirely leaving the eyes and nose after one thorough washing of the hair. The head should be thoroughly dried afterward, and avoid draughts of air for a little while.

As insomnia likes to point out, LiveJournal is shrinking. Many blame SixApart and SUP for this decline, and it true that the actions of those corporations have contributed to the slow bleed of users. However, I believe the root cause is much deeper.

The tone of the LiveJournal community has changed. It has become more vicious, more snark-centric, more hateful and cliquish. There has always been drama on LiveJournal, but it has not always been like it is now. Often now one misspoken word in a community or the mention of a viewpoint out of the mainstream will be taken out of context and a flood of mean-spirited attacks will flood the comments of a post from users mobbing in from any one of the countless snark communities that have cropped up.

I've been on LiveJournal almost 7 years at this point, and this increasing ugliness has me more concerned for LiveJournal than anything SixApart did or SUP is doing. Neither SixApart nor SUP are LiveJournal, LiveJournal is the community that inhabits this virtual place and that community is decaying. I'm sure I'm far from the only long-time user who is disenchanted by the current LiveJournal environment and I don't see what the motivation would be for many new users to become part of it.

I have not been involved in any drama around here recently, so this post hasn't been triggered by a specific event. The problem is that LiveJournal doesn't seem like a community anymore, at least not a communities that I want to consider myself part of. I don't intend on leaving completely, but I've been spending a lot less time here. I've got other things to do.

I think it may be time to put the coats in the basement for the season.

I planted the oriental poppies today. I'm afraid I may have damaged one badly, I hope it recovers. The other 5 went in well and I have high hopes for them. I got to use the compost finally. I put it down around the poppies and through some of it around the back yard in places that I'm not going to plant but still hope will become lush with life. I hope everything grows well.

I've noticed my opinion of humanity tends to be inversely proportional to the amount of time I've been spending online.

rm wrote a post criticizing "unimaginative heteronormative romance novel crap" in Jack/Ianto fanfic in which she said:

"So, can we please stop writing fics that involve Jack cooing over how adorable Ianto is? or making him breakfast in bed? Or saying 'I love you' every two seconds?"

I had to go to photoshop. I posted the resulting image as a comment to rm's post, but purpleglitter tells me I should post it here as well. So here it is:

It's spring and my life is waking up. Just a few years ago, my life was extremely turbulent and my mind was an unpleasant place to be in. Everything was always in flux, but far from always in a good way.

This past year has been calmer, quieter, so stable it has bordered on a bit boring. But, it's been something I needed.

Now, things are beginning to pick up again. However, this time it's different. I can feel the motion of before, but things are clearer. This past year gives me a platform from which to launch from. It has been a place of stable mind and thought that has let me ground and center. The loops are still there in the background, but I know how to work them now. I am not afraid. My eyes are opening. I am awake.

Lake has been nagging me to change my journal theme for some time. She never thought the old one fit. I finally did. What do you all think of the new theme?

ganked from evilgrins:


Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

The Cassini spacecraft detected warmth, water and organic chemicals, the basic ingredients for life on Saturn’s small moon, Enceladus, reinforcing scientists’ believe that our solar system has favorable conditions appropriate for living organisms to develop. full story

Shocking!

Amazing!

This solar system may actually have life in it!

I hear there is this place called Earth that they should check out.

March winds bring April showers
April showers bring May flowers

Poll #1160899 June
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

May flowers bring _____

I sincerely doubt that any chemist, psychiatrist, or dope peddler could find a more effective antidepressant than a good cigar.

ganked from jennasu:

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Good Friday always makes me think back to the First House of Clocks. One of the more notorious parties we had there was the Be Bad on Good Friday Party. We crucified Ian and played Pin the Nail of Jesus. I remember someone shouting "the beer's on fire!" and rushing to put out the flames. You know it's a real party when you have a beer fire.

We had music in the old tinfoil covered playroom. The old playroom was crazy. I mean, really crazy. Tinfoil walls, strange paintings along with random items screwed into the ceiling. I had written on the walls and the floors. Blissfully hopeful things and abysmally awful things. The pictures on the walls didn't match up spatially with their frames. A Twister mat was the table cloth. It was me. Me then. Strange, cluttered, mismatched, bright, stark, broken, glowing, and scary. I'm different now. I am no longer that room. I am breaking out of a chrysalis, not sure yet of what I have become.

I've started making candles again. My new idea is flower candles.

I bought some flower shaped flexible cupcake molds. Planning on taking advantage of the contraction of the cooling wax, I filled in the depressions that form at the top of the solidifying candles with a different colour wax. I had hoped they would look like nice flower centers. However, the wax didn't fill evenly, making for extremely irregular centers that don't really say "flower" at all. For my next batch, I'm planning to pick up some metal rings at the hardware store that I can use as a secondary mold for the center. If they turn out well, I'll post pictures.

Spring has arrived. Soon, the plants my sister and brother are sending me for my birthday will start arriving and I'll be able to put the compost to good use. They are sending me 3 butterfly bushes, 3 red latham raspberry bushes, and 6 oriental poppies. I'm very excited about gardening this year.

I haven't done any gardening since I rented the house in Columbia, Missouri and grew carrots out back. It was a very small house with a small yard, but it was a house with a yard and it was $185/month. Wow, that price seems great now, I couldn't rent a room for that around here these days. It's a different season here, in more ways than just not being winter anymore.