Lessons from a tinkle

Yes! You heard that right! Today, it's a lesson I learned from a tinkle and it goes like this.

When I go hiking, I take a little spade with me to dig tiny potties all over the hillside. The cats, Bindi, Jeff and Squeeky think it's a lot of fun attacking the spade and recovering the hole. On one occasion, Bindi thought the hole was perfect for him and snitched it. Anyway, my bladder finds the whole process a torture.

I'm not sure what triggered the awareness (duh, it took me long enough), but despite washing my hands afterwards, I decided I needed something extra to make sure my hands were clean.

I sat wishing I had something antibacterial-wise and remembered I had a small tube of Avon's Naturals Anti-bacterial hand gel on the shelf that no one had bought yet. Notice I said "on the shelf" so I was still stuck. :]

Yes, I know. If you read the first post on my blog about antibacterial soaps, etc., you'd know I'm not fond of them, but there are moments when they can be very handy.

Anyone who's been backpacking or simply hiking knows you don't get a good handwash when you're out on the trail. You sorta make do with what you have. I've used sand, mud, rocks and other interesting items to clean my hands.

The thing is, without a good wash, you stand a pretty decent chance of giving yourself some sort of bacterial poisoning like salmonella. What's that mean? Mamash bad cramps and lots of lovely diarrhea or worse! The perfect companion on a long hike. lol

So, take a lesson from my tiny potties and play it safe by keeping a bit of antibacterial gel on hand. Remember to make sure it's one with a restoring lotion to keep your hands from drying out. :]

Now, stop sitting in front of your computer and go take a hike and get some fresh air! :]

Man! How time flies!

Man! I didn't realise it had been so long since I last posted. Sorry about that.

If you check the previous post, you'll see I was experimenting with various Avon hand lotions to see which worked best on my lovely cold damaged hands. They were all red and looked wind burnt from working on my tepee and other stuff in the woods without my gloves on.

What I found out, was neither Avon's SSS lotion, nor the Oatmeal, nor the ACE were as effective by themselves, as they were when I alternated them with my homemade healing salve that I made with a herbal learning kit from Learning Herbs. That's not a plug for the kit, it's just the way the experiment worked.

Anyway, the healing salve has an olive oil base, so it was way too oily to use during the day, so I used it at night. By morning, there was a noticeable difference in my hands.

During the day, I would use Avon's ACE. I tried the other two lotions
mentioned above, but for my skin, ACE worked best.

I had mucked my hands so bad that it took a couple weeks for them to heal.

It was a fun experiment. I learned quite a bit about how Avon's different hand lotions work under various conditions and I came to have a new respect for herbal remedies. :]