pic credit PhotoJunkie

So your family, your pancreas, your teeth, your dignity, and your liver have made it through another Halloween. Now to deal with the fallout.

My mother would give us each five pieces of candy on Halloween itself and keep the rest to sort through overnight, checking for pins in apples, etc. We never did get a bad piece, but once I turned eight I sort of realized that the volume of candy was substantially reduced the next day. After that I insisted on staying up and auditing her candy check. You can’t pull a fast one on raincoaster, nosireee. Well, not EIGHT years in a row!

But now it’s Halloween Hangover day and time to clean up. Gather candy wrappers from pockets and flowerpots, wash the soap off the windows and eggs off the car (presuming you ran out of candy and didn’t give the universal Jack O’Lantern Gone Dark signal), and dispose of the Jack O’Lantern itself.

Hummingbird604 has some tips:

People tend to forget that they have to dispose of the pumpkin once the Halloween celebrations are over. So, when you think about disposing of your pumpkin, remember that you can

– Compost it – Cut it in very small pieces and throw it in the composting bin.

– Dispose it in the organic section of your trash bin – Don’t forget to separate organics from inorganics!

Given how many households and businesses carve pumpkins, I would appreciate if you thought about the negative environmental consequences of inadequate disposal.

Ah, but he’s left off the best way of all: baking! Contrary to popular opinion, there’s no actual law preventing you from making and serving pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie and pumpkin cupcakes or even pumpkin stew on non-holiday days, and given the price of a good, thick pumpkin I’d be looking at recycling it in this way before using it to nourish my night-blooming gardenia garden. Toss the carbon-coated lid and anything that doesn’t look fresh and roast/bake/puree away! Just be sure to do it within 24 hours.

Winter is coming, and we all know what that means.

Dry, flaky skin. The stresses of being exposed to dry heat inside the house and then outside in the cold are enough on their own to cause your skin to freak out. Add to that all the extra handwashing we tend to do during cold season, and you’ve got yourself the makings of a possible skin disaster.

It can creep up on you quickly, and before you know it, you’ve got red, irritated skin that’s starting to crack. Ouch!

What can help heal your hands lickety split?

The consensus seems to fall on L’Occitane Shea Butter Hand Creme as being the best out there. It’s a tad pricey at around $25, but a little bit goes a very long way. It’s thick but not too thick and has a light, pleasant scent.

On the value side of things, the winner is Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream. It can be had for around four dollars a tube, and each 2 ounce tube contains 200 applications! It’s fragrance-free and although it goes on a bit heavy, it absorbs quickly and does indeed deliver a high dose of hydration.

Care to share your favorite hand lotion?