25 Tips for Practical Living (Set 1)

25 Tips for Practical Living 

This is a continuing list of practical household management tips, which can be easily followed, and shared with the members of your family, friends, in the school and community. Learn and perfect each tip through demonstration. Illustrate or photograph each tip. Compile these tips into a manual. 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Protect tip of pencil with rolled paper. This serves as cap to extend the life of the pencil, and prevent accident.

There are ten (10) pillars of Practical Living as a way of life and philosophy.

1. Save, save, save 
2. Live simply 
3. Attain self-sufficiency 
4. Learn science and develop your skills 
5. Share with your community 
6. Keep your surroundings clean 
7. Systematize and organize 
8. Believe in serendipity and providence 
9. Sacrifice want in favor of need 
10. Set goal for the succeeding generations 

1. When dust gets in your eyes, blow your nose.

2. When an ant has entered into your ear, close the other ear and it will come out by its own. 

3.  Press the base of the nail of the large toe to wake an unconscious person.

4. Gulat ang gamut sa sinok. To stop hiccup, jolt the person.

5. Press the base of the jaw joint to relieve toothache.

6. Sterilize handkerchief with hot iron in the absence of cotton gauze and bandage.

In an emergency case, or for simple treatment, this is what you can do. Get a clean handkerchief and iron it repeatedly at high temperature for a duration of five minutes to seven minutes. To save on energy, you may prepare two or three handkerchiefs for the purpose. 

7. Lighted candles drive flies away.

8. If the father or mother leaves the house, place the clothes he or she last worn beside the sleeping child so that he goes into deep sleep. This is pheromones in action. Pheromones are chemical signals for bonding in the animal world, and among humans. Like the queen bee that keeps its colony intact through pheromones, so we are attracted by a similar odor, although of a less specific one. People are compatible through smell. Pheromones are left in clothes and other belongings, so that a baby may remain fast asleep as if he were in his mother’s or father’s arms.

9. Prevent drinking glass from breaking, by first putting a plastic spoon before pouring the hot liquid.

10. Chopped banana stalk makes a cold pack to reduce fever.

11. Rub table salt on the cut stem of newly harvested fruits to hasten their ripening.

12. Incense (resin) rids chicken of lice. It also calms them down.

13. You feel you can’t hold it any longer. You are about to sneeze and you are in a conference. Press the base of your nose; hold it there until urge subsides.  Find excuse to leave the room, then explode.

14. Cut you finger and it’s bleeding? Raise hand above heart level while attending to it. Keep this position steady until bleeding stops. Immediately seek medical treatment for serious cases.

15. To keep coffee hot longer, first pour hot water to preheat the cup. Empty the cup and pour in the real coffee. Enjoy.

16. If you are using glass for coffee, place a spoon first before pouring in the coffee. The metal absorbs sudden and excess heat that may cause the glass to crack.

17. Be sure oil is hot enough before putting into the pan the thing to wish to fry, say meat or fish. A drop of water will readily splatter when introduced into the pan. Be careful.

18. Get rid of ants in the kitchen. Wipe table, floor, and other surfaces with diluted natural vinegar. Vinegar freshens the smell of the kitchen as well.

19. To know if the honey you are buying is genuine or not, place it in the ref. Real honey does not solidify and has no residue. Fake honey does. Sugar in adulterated honey settles as thick residue.

19. Serve lemonade without tasting and know its sweetness is just right. Stir with calculated sugar. When seeds float, it’s too sweet. If they settle down you need more sugar.

20. To make potato fries crispy on the outside and soft inside, immerse in ice water for a minute or two. Proceed with usual deep frying. Do the same with kamote or sweet potato, gabi (taro), and ubi and sinkamas (yam)

21. Wood ash from firewood and charcoal for cleaning. Removes slime when scaling fish, cleans metals and utensils, and eases disposal of pet droppings. Gather ash after cooking and store in a convenient container. Dispose ash after use as fertilizer; ash is rich in potassium, a major plant nutrient.

22. Keep salt in glass container snugly closed every after use. It is hygroscopic, that is, it absorbs humidity causing it to become soggy. Coffee cakes when exposed, so with sugar. Spices lose their essence.

23.Hang in dry and cool place garlic and shallot onion in bundles to prolong shelf life. In the province. the bundles are hanged above the stove. Smoke is a natural protectant against pests and rot.

24. To hasten the ripening of fruits like chico, mango, guyabano, atis and caimito, rub a little salt at the base of the peduncle (fruit stem). For nangka, drive a stake of bamboo or wood 
2 to 3 inches long through the base of the stem. As a rule pick only fully mature fruits.

25. Collective ripening of various fruits is hastened with the inclusion of banana in the plastic pack or container. Explanation: the trapped ethylene gas emitted by banana catalyses ripening.