Uh oh! Looks like my time outside yesterday left me sunburnt — entirely my fault, of course, as I didn’t update my sunscreen application as the day went on. So now here I am with hideous white stripes on my back where my tank top was and bright red patches everywhere else the sun hit. I partially blame the unusually nice weather in mid September for my screw up. Shouldn’t it be Fall right now? I haven’t even broken out my sweaters yet.

Don’t have an aloe plant? Here are some other around-the-house tips for treating a sunburn without having to invest in nasty chemicals or lotions. They worked very well for me, try them out yourself!

• Use honey as a salve — put a healthy smear of it onto the burnt areas. It apparently helps ease the pain and helps to encourage the healing process.
• Liquify some potatoes. I know, sounds weird, right? But potato paste can be applied to the sunburn and when it dries, it sucks all the excess moisture (what’s keeping it hot and burning) out of your skin.

These more eco-friendly ways to treat a sunburn have the added benefit of having great odds of being in your home just when you need them. I don’t always have pain killers or burn spray in my medicine cabinet, but 99% of the time I have potatoes!

Time for a very unconventional recipe. I’m pretty sure i’m the only one that eats these sort of treats — I’m one of those “what do I have left in the fridge and how well will it combine to form a mega snack” kind of people.

That being said, this is delicious. Well, I think so at least. Let me know if you’re brave enough to try it

Ingredients:

• 4 Flour tortillas
• 2 tb Butter, melted
• 2 tb Cane Sugar
• 3/4 ts Cinnamon
• 2 c Strawberries, chopped
• 1 tb Chopped fresh mint
• 1/2 ts Grated lime rind (I’ve used lemon rind and juice before and it tastes just as good, I promise)
• 1 tb Lime juice
• 1 1/2 ts honey

Method:

Brush both sides of each tortilla with butter. Combine sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over each side of tortilla. Bake on lightly greased baking sheet in 375 degree F oven for about 10 minutes or until crisp and golden. Cut into quarters.

Combine strawberries, mint, lime rind and juice and honey; cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Put the salsa in a bowl and dip your tortillas in it. Yummmmy!

In case you haven’t been following the news, there is significant worry behind declines in the bee population, which spawned other problems like bee theft.

Now, as if that weren’t scary enough, we have to worry about new reports from Reuters that huge colonies of bee-eating Asian Hornets are spreading like wildfire through southwestern France!

These hornets are said to be able to wipe out an entire beehive in 48 hours — eep! And since the bee population is already under significant stress right now, that’s a much greater threat.

Let’s get together, folks. There are plenty of calls to action in the Twittersphere and we all know that social networking can be great for working together to get things done. Häagen-Dazs has been working to save bees for a long time now as they recognize that a whopping 1/3 of the world’s food supply is dependant on bees.

They currently have a 7-Day Go Natural Challenge going on that is not only delicious, but extremely helpful — and you could win a year supply of Häagen-Dazs! (I don’t think they know what they’re getting into, I can eat a lot of HD in a YEAR, heh).

Spread the word!

I know, I know — the title makes it sound a little alarmist. Like your garbage can will become a ticking time bomb or the garbage bags will transform into monsters at the curb… but that’s definitely not what I mean. (But that would make oatmeal pretty cool, wouldn’t it?)

The Daily Green has posted an article discussing 12 Surprising Uses for Leftover Oatmeal — and it really is surprising!

My favourites include:

• Odor absorbtion – put a container in your fridge! Line your ashtrays (yes, really – ha!)
• 1 cup of milk, 2 cups of uncooked oatmeal and a tablespoon of honey in a luke warm bath apparently works to moisturize and rejuvenate your skin! (And you’d look like my breakfast.)
• Non-toxic crafting clay!

Check out the website for more cool oatmeal uses.