Article: If you can't get a good grip on the cap, try placing a dish towel between your hand and the cap. If that doesn't work, grip the cap firmly (but not too forcefully) between the jaws of a set of pliers, then twist the cap and the bottle in opposite directions. You can also look in stores and online for bottle and jar opener gadgets. Some are textured silicone mats, while others wrap around the cap or lid like a belt. Try out different models until you find the type that works best for you. If you squeeze too hard with the pliers, you might crush the cap and the top of the bottle. This will make a mess, ruin the wine, and possibly cause injuries from broken glass.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Try a dish towel, pliers, or various bottle-opener gadgets.
Article: Improving your critical thinking skills is a commitment to yourself. This is a process that takes time. Critical thinking is a method of analyzing, evaluating, and making decisions. Most people take thinking for granted and overlook the need to evaluate thinking habits and develop new and positive ways to critically evaluate and react to daily circumstances. Realize that it takes both time to evaluate, change, and develop critical thinking skills, and practice to arrive at the level you want. Just as a professional athlete or musician continues to sharpen their talents and abilities, you can work to sharpen your thinking skills. Improving your critical thinking ability requires approaching information and decision making by avoiding prejudice, over-generalization, common fallacies or pre-determined beliefs, deception, and rigidity and narrowness in your thinking. Doing things that are concrete helps to bring your thinking processes to light, and helps you to make changes that improve your critical thinking. Any one step can be helpful, but actively and routinely practicing changes over time improves your thinking ability. Avoid flipping through channels, getting frustrated while sitting in traffic, worrying unproductively, and jumping from one activity or diversion to another without enjoying anything. Use that valuable time to ask yourself questions that can improve your approach to the next day. Ask questions that help you evaluate what you did well that day, or not so well. Consider your strengths and weaknesses of the day so far. If possible, record your answers so you can develop your thoughts in those areas even further. Set aside problems that are out of your control, and focus on the tools you need and the steps to take to solve problems within your control. Avoid becoming overwhelmed or emotional and work through the problem in an organized, logical, and thoughtful manner. Consider factors like short-term solutions as opposed to long-term solutions, the advantages and disadvantages of the solutions you are considering, and develop a workable strategy to solve the problem. Accepted intellectual standards include clarity of thought, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, logical factors, and significance. For example, during the week you focus on clarity you may want to think about how clearly you communicated something during a meeting or in a conversation with your spouse or a friend. Think about ways you might have improved on your clarity. Also consider how clear others have communicated information to you, or to a group. Clarity in writing is just as important. Evaluate your own written communications, those of others, and in published literature. Follow a pattern to your journaling, and make several entries each week. Write about situations in which you were involved, how you responded, your analysis of things apparent and hidden in the situation, and an assessment of what you learned about yourself in the process. Focus on one intellectual trait each month, including perseverance, autonomy, empathy, courage, humility, and any other traits you may admire in others but find lacking in yourself. Think about each trait and develop a strategy to improve that trait in yourself. Possibly include your progress in your journal. Keep your focus on your selected trait throughout the month. Continually evaluate your performance noting improvement, setbacks, and additional work needed. Placing bias on yourself is a natural way of thinking. Ask yourself questions to help identify situations where you may have placed too much emphasis on your own opinion. Include questions that help you evaluate any actions you may have taken based on irritability over unimportant or small things, saying or doing things irrationally to push things your way, or situations where you imposed your own will or opinion on others. Once you recognize your egocentric reactions, take steps to modify your thinking to correct those behaviors. Practice seeing the good in difficult or negative situations. Every situation has the potential to be positive or negative. Seeing the positive in a situation leads one to feel more rewarded, less frustrated, and overall happier. Take the opportunity to turn mistakes into opportunities, and dead-ends into beginnings. Evaluate situations or thoughts that cause you to feel angry, sad, frustrated, or upset. Take the opportunity to explore what is causing your negative emotion and find a way to turn that into a positive reaction. Groups have a way of suggesting certain beliefs or behaviors that are "better" than others. Analyze the groups in your own life that influence your decisions and your actions. Consider pressures placed on you by the group and evaluate those pressures as being positive or negative. Consider how you can adjust your own reaction to negative pressures without damaging relationships or altering the group dynamic. Practice your thinking skills and develop your critical thinking ability. Develop and implement strategies that use your personal experiences in order to further influence and develop your critical thinking skills.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Accept the challenge. Make use of wasted time. Solve a problem each day. Focus your thoughts each week on one intellectual standard. Journal. Reshape your character. Face your own egocentric thinking. Adjust the way you see things. Recognize your emotional reactions. Review groups that influence your life. Think about how you think.
Article: Keep your list with you and make sure you get through all of your points. If you or your mom gets sidetracked, look over your list and wait for a pause in the conversation. Then try saying, "Mom, I understand what you are saying. I still have a few more things I'd like to say." Your mom is more likely to respond positively if she doesn't feel like she's being blamed or attacked. Talk about how you feel and how her behavior is affecting you. For example, don't say, "You ruined my birthday party because you told all my friends' moms I got my period!" Instead try saying, "I felt really embarrassed when I overheard you telling all the moms about my period." Explain to your mom that your period is private. Period. Tell her you are not comfortable with her sharing personal information about you without your consent. Try saying, "Mom, I understand why you might have wanted to tell my friends' moms I got my period. But my period is my business and I am not comfortable with you telling others personal things about me." You could also say, "Mom, can you please ask me if it's okay before sharing my private business with others?" No matter what the outcome, let your mom know that you appreciate her listening to you and respecting your privacy.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Make it an intentional conversation. Use "I" statements instead of "you" statements. Ask your mom to respect your privacy. Thank her for the conversation.