The Family First
Newsletter
Promoting family unity one issue at a time
Vol. 10 Issue 13 - Week of March 26, 2007
ISSN: 1527-6201
©2007 - Joyce Pierce --All Rights Reserved
In this issue:
Create a Feel Good Home and Keep Your Life On Track
Come To Your Husband's Rescue
Pickled and Ready For Burial
Get your Recipes Together!
Good morning!
My son and his wife are expecting twin girls next month. Recently the doctors discovered that there is a problem with one of the twin's heartbeats. They think that once they're born things may work out on their own, but they'll be having a heart specialist there at delivery just to make sure. If you could keep our son's family in your prayers, I sure would appreciate it. We just ask that both babies are healthy and strong, and that their mother can endure these next few weeks.
I have two friends who are sacrificing a lot of time and effort into helping raise money for charities. My friend Deana is running for leukemia. I have a friend who died of leukemia a couple of years ago, so I appreciate all Deana's doing to help wipe out this form of cancer. If you'd like to make a contribution to this effort, you can do so through this link: http://www.active.com/donate/tnttxgc/DeanaRichmond
My friend Janna and her husband have
been participating in the MS150 for the past few
years. This year their daughter and
son-in-law are joining them. Janna alone is
committed to raising $400. My daughter has
been having tests run for the past year to try to
determine if it is MS that is causing her health
problems. I'm sure you know someone who's been
affected by MS as well. If you'd like to
contribute to this worthy cause, here's Janna's
link:
http://ms150.org/edon.cfm?id=194271
Whether you choose to support my
friends, or support someone locally is totally up to
you, but don't sit back and do nothing.
Enjoy your week. Give gratitude
for what you have.
Please forward
this issue to someone who may benefit from it!
Joyce Pierce
P.S. If you have a need for an
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Create a Feel Good Home and Keep Your Life On Track
by Cari Vollmer
I'm not getting all Martha Stewart on you. But, if you want to get, and keep, your life on track, you need a home base that feels good and inspires you; body, mind and spirit.
What does your home say about the life you are creating? Take a look around. Does it feel unclear, without direction and a little drab? Is it stuck in the past? Or, is it fresh, inviting and purposeful? Does everything have a place? Are there well appointed places to relax, entertain, take action and connect?
Your house, given the chance, has the power to lift you up. It can also serve as a powerful anchor; a visual reminder of the life you want and are creating.
Think of your home as a big energy field. Like all things, everything in your home vibrates energy. Some of this energy will feel good to you and some of it will feel bad. For example: clutter. How does it make you feel when you see a room full of clutter? Zapped, right? Clutter drains energy for lots of reasons; it represents an unfinished job, old stuff and the past. It reflects indecision and holding on.
On the other hand, how does a clean, uncluttered room feel? Ahhh... fresh, open, alive. An uncluttered room feels purposeful. It also represents "space". And in that space new has a place to enter.
The key to creating a "feel good home" is to remove what feels bad and add what feels good.
The following tips will get you started.
1. Simplify
Clear the clutter. Remove the old, broken and out of date. An easy rule of thumb to follow is to get rid of anything you haven't used in the last six months. Attack each room and divide the things in it into three categories; keep, donate and trash. Simplify your home every six months.
2. Refresh
Nothing feels better than a fresh coat of paint on lifeless, dingy walls. Paint, clean your carpets. Heck, CLEAN! Open the windows. Shake out the rugs. Replace the furnace and air filters. Have your vents cleaned.
3. Go Natural
Let some fresh air in. Buy fresh flowers. Get a few house plants. Surround yourself with the colors of nature; green, sand, ocean blue. If you can afford it, replace flooring with natural wood or stone. Get a water fountain for the corner of a room.
4. Go Light
Open the blinds or drapes. Paint the walls in lighter shades. Cover the windows in sheers to let in diffused, yet natural light.
5. Add Inspiration
Add inspiring works of art. It doesn't need to cost a lot. Go to your local museum store and buy postcards and have them matted and framed. Check out local galleries for pieces made my local artists. Decorate an area in your house with reminders of the life you are creating. (Remember, for every new piece you bring in, get rid of something old!)
A final word: sometimes we don't give ourselves permission to have the kind of home we really want. We hold back and come up with excuses why we shouldn't spend the money or time. If that's the case, how do your feelings about your home mirror the feelings you have about other areas of your life?
If you feel like you don't deserve the home of your dreams, could it be at a deep level you feel like you don't deserve the life of your dreams?
Investing in your home is an investment in your dreams. If you create a home environment you love and that makes you feel good, it will inspire you to create beauty in all parts of your life.
You don't have to spend a lot of money; you just have to look at your home consciously. You get to choose what you surround yourself with. Make it all feel good!
Your home, given a chance, has the power to lift you up. Let your home help you create the life you really want.
"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." William Morris
LifeOnTrack Cari Vollmer may be contacted at http://www.lifeontrack.com
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Come To Your Husband's Rescue
Laura, a UK-based school professor was blissfully unaware of the messy state of her husband's financial affairs until one dark day, she was jolted by the threatening phone calls from a finance company demanding immediate return of the money lent to her husband. She was in for more shocks... The jewels in the locker of their safe was missing! It was only then Laura came to know of the financial mess her husband was in. He had heavily borrowed for unexplained reasons and sold the jewels to raise finance.
She felt so devastated and betrayed that she started disparaging and grilling him. Her daily grilling was so traumatising that her husband threatened to stay away from home and his health deteriorated. She panicked and realised that the confrontational attitude and the constant running him down was only making matters worse and may even lead to disastrous consequences. It did not take her long to decide that she must play a constructive role so as to raise her husband's dipping morale.
Better Half - Best Support
Problems in the workplace, tottering business and consequent financial problems, legal wrangles, implication in a crime, downslide in career, complicated extramarital affairs - these are some of the crisis factors that entangle the victim in a traumatising situation. The more sensitive and chicken-hearted a person is greater the psychological damage suffered by him. The sad fact is that in many a case the woman is kept in the dark and the gravity of her husband's predicament is revealed to her only at a later stage.
Some men, especially the introverted and uncommunicative ones keep their women totally in the dark and hide the crisis from her. A sense of guilt and shame prevent many from disclosing the facts of the situation. They prefer suffering in silence rather than disturbing her peace. "My wife is too nervous and fretful to bear the blow, hence I avoid confiding in her and play down the seriousness of the problems on my career front," says David, a marketing company employee.
Those who cannot bottle up the inner conflicts and anxieties and who depend a lot on their wives' support make a clean breast of every bit of the crisis and share all their woes with her. What about couples who don't get along well with each other, between whom a wall of bitterness exists? In such cases, the husband may totally exclude her from the messy goings-on or provide her as little insight as possible into his troubles. But the fact is the wife can exercise a major influence and can be the instrument of arresting her husband becoming a wreck. She can make or mar the chances of his recovery.
Rise Up To The Challenge
Having lived with the man under the same roof for years, the wife cannot fail to notice unmistakable symptoms of disturbed state of the man's mind. According to Dr Meenakshi Martins, a psychiatrist and member, State Commission for women, the first sign of mental disturbance is listlessness and other early symptoms are withdrawal from everything, eating too much, spending a lot of time with the Internet, sleeplessness, heavy drinking, etc... As for long-term signs, Dr Martins warns of hypertension, diabetes due to prolonged stress and mental illness if there is a family history of mental illness and also .. depending on the level of stress and his emotional coping ability.
Hypomania which is less harmful than full mania, suicidal tendencies, irrational behaviour and emotional violence on women are described by her as some of the serious symptoms.
Even if she does not have a clear picture of the whole mess; even if she is not fully aware of what he is passing through, the early symptoms of his inner turmoil should be enough to alert the wife and make her rise to the occasion.
Here are a few important tips for successfully guiding your man through the morass of complications, apprehensions and uncertainties bogging him down:
Be all ears and eyes so that you are able to detect when and if anything about him goes amiss and you can step in at the right moment and even rescue him from what is threatening to be a grave crisis. There are cases of women taking up the cudgels to redeem the honour of their husbands. Even if he is not forthcoming, and suppresses serious facts about his predicament, draw him out of his shell. Put your heads together and explore various options to come out of the mess.
It is at times when the person's morale is at its lowest, it requires a lot of concern and care to boost his morale. Psychologist Diane Papalia says, "Spouses can help each other deal with stress by showing their love and support and by helping each other understand what is happening and how to deal with it." Avoid putdowns and demoralising remarks and help him to cultivate positive outlook.
Men with low self-esteem and very little self-confidence may require counselling sessions or psychiatric help during the crisis. Dr Martins points out that if the stress is mild, emotional support can go a long way in de-stressing but if the stress is serious, medical intervention with the help of mental health professionals is required. But as Martins remarks, "The most difficult situation is convincing the man about the need for treatment." The man's ego comes in the way of admitting the mental illness or depression.
Martins who deals with cases of abused women points out that the affected men don't want to accept the mental illness and accuse the wife of being paranoid and ask her to have a check-up. Timely steps taken to revive the tumbling morale and boost his spirits as soon as the symptoms are manifest, will go a long way in preventing his turning into a wreck and who else but the man's life partner alone can do that.
Michael Douglas is a relationship expert and the webmaster of http://www.datersmanual.com where he provides relationship advice for women on how to survive your husband midlife crisis and help you in re-establishing trust in relationships.
Michael Douglas is a master coach and relationship expert who is committed to help people building healthy and successful relationships. He has written several informative articles about love, dating, marriage and relationships and he also owns a website Love-Lectures.com where you can learn more about him and his most popular write-ups. Also don't forget to visit his blog at Love-Lectures.com/Blog
Michael Douglas may be contacted at http://www.love-lectures.com or info@love-lectures.com
by Michael Douglas
I make my car payment by working at home.
You can, too!
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Pickled and Ready For Burial
by Lena Sanchez
Pickled and Ready For Burial © By Lena Sanchez
“Pickled and Ready For Burial” could be your epitaph if you habitually ingest Equal, Nutrasweet, Equal Measure, Spoonfull or Canderal in any form!
Those sweeteners contain a full 10% methanol. Methanol is what wood alcohol contains and I have seen alcoholics die from drinking wood alcohol. Methanol is absorbed faster when heated to 86 degrees or greater before being ingested. That is barely warm! The delivery truck heat far exceeds those temperatures making the product lethal when it hits the store shelves!
Methanol readily breaks down into formaldehyde and formic acid in the body.
Formaldehyde is what the undertaker will use to embalm you after death, so don’t do their job before it is needed!
Formaldehyde is accumulative in the body, therefore if you routinely ingest foods and/or drinks with those artificial sweeteners you are doing the undertaker’s job and pickling your brain. Formaldehyde is a neurotoxin (brain poison) that will drown your brain when the accumulative process builds up, creating all types of brain diseases!
Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen and known to cause retinal damage to the eye. It also interferes in DNA replication causing birth defects in infants. Because humans are lacking in certain enzymes due to the lack of minerals and nutrients in our foods we can quickly absorb the formaldehyde and formic acid into our body…
Formic Acid is used to remove epoxy and urethane coatings, which is definitely not a health food! It too is a cumulative toxin. It also inhibits oxygen metabolism. Oxygen metabolism is extremely necessary for a healthy brain to make correct decisions and your heart to keep beating… Imagine what is happening to your tissues and veins as it collects in them as well. Peeling away healthy tissue and depositing toxic poisons!
Aspartame’s other 90% phenylalanine and aspartic acid, and when taken into the body without food, is totally neurotoxic… Diet drinks are more often taken into the body devoid of foods thereby making the body toxic and increases damage to the total body…
Aspartame only came on the market after a new FDA Commissioner overruled the objections of the scientists and FDA board of inquiry that found the stuff poison to human and animals, but he approved it anyway. It had been beaten back for more than eight years by the objections of the scientific community and the thousands of documents showing the dangers and poisonous makeup of aspartame. The head of Searle went to our then president (1981) and heads rolled at the FDA. A new FDA commissioner was installed giving the green light for aspartame to be sold. That commissioner then quit the FDA, once his ruling took effect and he went to work at Searle for an exorbitant salary. You don’t have to go to the movies to see such things occurring. Simply read our governments history…
The people who are consuming the diet sweeteners are at the highest risk of toxic poisoning. They are usually dieting and devoid of nutrients making the poisons more absorbent and setting that person up for the undertaker a few years down the road and a very ill end of life.
Could the epidemic increases of Alzheimer’s, brain cancer, newborn defects and seizures in the last twenty years be due to the popular use of aspartame in all kinds of foods?
Signs of aspartame overload/poisoning comes in the form of headaches, mental confusion, seizures, faulty balance and fainting. If you are having blackouts or mental fuzziness and drink diet sodas or eat processed diet foods you are a heart attack waiting to happen or a long very ill life.
Don’t buy something that says sugar-free without checking out the label to see what it is sweetened with! Neither Sweeta or Splenda are alternatives as reports come in that the same dangers exist with them!
Make smart food decisions!
Lena Sanchez, a retired Medical Office Nurse, Health Consultant and Author of several How-To health books online at http://www.antibiotic-alternatives.com also she is Editor of "A Natural Environmental Health Facts & Your Home Business Coach" ezines subscribe mailto:anehfacts-subscribe@envirodocs.com Lena Sanchez may be contacted at http://www.antibiotic-alternatives.com
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Get your Recipes Together!
by Monica Resinger
Get your Recipes Together! By Monica Resinger http://homemakersjournal.com
Here a few methods I have found to organize recipes:
PHOTO ALBUMS Your can place clipped recipes and recipe cards in a any type of photo album (hint: go to the thrift stores and pick up inexpensive albums) although the type of albums that you can add pages to would be best because this will help you organize the album better. You can place tabs on pages to divide the album into categories then simply place your clipped recipes into the appropriate category. This method is a great way to keep all loose recipes together. The plastic protection will help keep your recipes clean.
A RECIPE FILE Get an accordion-type file to organize clipped recipes and recipe cards. Label each section with a different recipe category then simply file your recipes. This method will at least keep them all together and is quick, but you will have to sort through all the recipes in a certain category when trying to find a particular recipe.
A RECIPE BOX With a recipe box, you can put different categories onto tabbed dividers and you can buy more dividers if necessary. You can file clipped recipes but it is neater if you write them onto recipe cards which is time consuming. As with the accordion file, you'll have to sort through recipes in a category to find one.
A COMPUTER RECIPE PROGRAM If you have a little spare time this is a great way to compile all of your favorite recipes--including ones in your recipe books. These programs are pre-formatted so you just fill in the blanks. It can get time consuming entering in all your recipes, but if you stick to entering in 1 or 2 recipes a day, you'll make some progress.
There's a number of benefits using this method, one being that you can easily find recipes and print them out. You can print out recipes and make homemade cookbooks to give to your friends and relatives. The program will figure the nutrition information for your recipes. Some programs offer a menu maker and a shopping list. It's also easy to locate certain recipes with certain ingredients. For example, if I have ground beef on hand, I can do a search for ‘ground beef’ and the program will bring up all recipes with ground beef in it. Also, these programs come with recipes--so if you don't want to enter your own, you'll still have a great cookbook to use all these features on.
A THREE-RING BINDER I use the three-ring binder in conjunction with my recipe programs. I have put tabbed page dividers into it and labeled each divider with its own recipe category. Whenever I print out a recipe to use from my recipe programs, I punch holes in it and place it into the appropriate category in the three-ring binder. This eliminates the need for me to re-print the recipe later. I hope this article gives you some ideas for organizing your recipes. Recipe collecting can be a fun hobby especially if it is organized!
BENEFITS OF RECIPE E-BOOKS: ~ Rather than lugging out a cookbook and turning pages for hours searching for the perfect recipe, simply click open a recipe e-book on your computer, do a quick search for an ingredient or key word, then print your recipe! ~ Get your cookbook dirty & it's ruined; get your printed recipe from a recipe e-book dirty, simply print a new one! ~ Make your own customized cookbook by filing your favorite printed recipes in a 3-ring binder with dividers! ~ Print favorite recipes for your friends & family, or even make them a homemade cookbook! ~ Save all that valuable space those cookbooks are taking and use recipe e-books instead!
Get 17 recipe e-books FREE!! Click here for details: http://homemakersjournal.com/ebooklets.htm Get Monica's FREE e-zine for homemakers! To subscribe, just send a blank e-mail to: HomemakersJournal-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Monica Resinger may be contacted at http://homemakersjournal.com or Plantldy98@aol.com
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