New Year's Resolutions – Ever had pepper stuck in your nose?
I wanted to start off the year with my New Year’s Resolution of zero boxed or canned food.
Chopped red bell pepper for the bison chili – done!
Chopped onions and poblano pepper for the cornbread – done!
Despite the fact that tears were streaming from my eyes by the time my knife came down on the last piece of onion on the cutting board, I was excited about the makings of a great meal. Thanks to the onions, however, I couldn’t see or smell. I knew that after handling peppers, I couldn’t touch my eyes before scrubbing my hands, but I figured I could address my runny nose by grabbing a super thick Puffs tissue and blowing.
The burning sensation was excruciating! I started crying. With my eyes shut, I scrubbed my hands with soap and warm water, and then blew my nose again – hoping that I was only imagining that pepper molecules got into my nose. I was wrong.
“My nose is on fire!” I screamed to my husband. “What’re you supposed to do when you get pepper in your nose?”
“Put milk on it!” came his immediate advice.
He poured some milk into a finger bowl – how appropriate. I stood over the sink and splashed milk all around my nose and in it.
The fire grew stronger.
“Please! Use the Google machine!” I frantically cried to my husband.
He came back to the kitchen and informed me that the capsaicin from peppers is not water soluble. The capsaicin will, however, stick to the fat in milk or olive oil, and then you can use water to wipe the milk or oil away. Since neither almond nor soy milk worked, we moved to olive oil. I’ve never been so relieved to have EVOO slathered all around and in my nose. The 10-alarm fire came down to a 5. Then a 4. And after about 20 minutes, it was down to a 2, then 1.
By the time the chili and cornbread were done cooking, my nose fire was out. And the meal was delicious! Despite what I went through to prepare that meal, I made the same kind of cornbread only four nights later – this time, without a nose fire.
How Are Your New Year’s Resolutions Coming Along?
It’s at this time in January when New Year’s Resolutions start to lose their appeal because they feel uncomfortable or they’re just plain not fun. But if we examine the good that will come from achieving our goals and learn from the mistakes we make along the way, we’ll be much more likely to be successful with those New Year’s Resolutions.
Hopefully, reaching your goal of saving money, losing weight, spending more time with your kids, improving your time management…or whatever your goal may be…will not be as painful as my first attempt to make cornbread from scratch. When you hit a bump in the road, I encourage you to persevere; you’ll be happy with yourself because you did.
For more productivity tools and tips from time management trainer Helene Segura, click here.
(Note: I normally credit the appropriate party when I’ve learned new information, but my husband can’t recall the website he went to, and he couldn’t find the site in the search history. Whoever you are, thank you for your pepper information!)
