I didn’t think I would post for a couple of days, but in case you haven’t heard - Mattel is recalling millions of toys made in China with lead paint and/or magnets. The toys could be deadly.
Check on the web or get the information to protect your babies and little ones! Here is just one site to check: www.ToyRecall.biz - there are plenty of sites to check.
God bless and protect the children!
I know summer is almost over, but here is some information that could save lives if stranded in the water….
If you are far from help and need to sustain yourself DON’T try to swim to shore. Swimming accelerates heat loss….which can cause hypothermia (dangerously low body temperature). Try to
stay still, with legs together, and arms as close to your sides as possible.
Hopefully if you find yourself in this position you will have a life jacket on! This is a great time to have extra body weight as larger people cool down slower, which could help save your life.
Learn to float on your back. Learn to swim and dog paddle. Learn to keep that life jacket on!
Be SAFE and at least keep your children with life saving gear on at all times if you are boating.
I won’t be posting again until Friday or Saturday as I am a bit buried with paperwork that needs to be done one day, and my “kayak urge” which needs to be filled the other:). In the meantime, take a breath, enjoy the moments of your life. They pass quickly. Hug someone!
I recently came across these facts and found them quite interesting…was familiar with some
of them, but not “specific” numbers. Hope you enjoy!
Did you know…..
1. Your heart beat about 2,649,024,000 times in your life if you live until 70?
2. Your vascular system pumps 50,000,000 of blood and oxygen in you live
until you are seventy.
3. People own over 75 million handguns in the USA alone.
4. The Bible is still the best selling book. Has sold 2,500,000,000 since
1815! That’s a lot of books.
5. Each person in the USA (in 1996) ate approximately 145.2 pounds of potatoes.
6. There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in a human being.
7. An adult heart weighs only about 11 ounces and has the capacity to
work effectively for over 100 years.
8. In 1995 there were 960,592 people who died from cardiovascular disease. A huge portion of this number was from “preventable” causes.
9.We are a species wired for survival, yet a large percentage of us get in the habit of getting hooked on things that can literally kill us.
10. There are over 18 million people in the USA alone who have an addiction to alcohol.
I want no part of being partly responsible for the man creature!
I have never copied a story verbatim, but this I found very interesting.
WASHINGTON - Surprising research based on two African fossils suggests our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, challenging what had been common thinking on how early humans evolved.
The discovery by Meave Leakey, a member of a famous family of paleontologists, shows that two species of early human ancestors lived at the same time in Kenya. That pokes holes in the chief theory of man’s early evolution — that one of those species evolved from the other.
And it further discredits that iconic illustration of human evolution that begins with a knuckle-dragging ape and ends with a briefcase-carrying man.
The old theory is that the first and oldest species in our family tree, Homo habilis, evolved into Homo erectus, which then became human, Homo sapiens. But Leakey’s find suggests those two earlier species lived side-by-side about 1.5 million years ago in parts of Kenya for at least half a million years. She and her research colleagues report the discovery in a paper published in Thursday’s journal Nature.
The paper is based on fossilized bones found in 2000. The complete skull of Homo erectus was found within walking distance of an upper jaw of Homo habilis, and both dated from the same general time period. That makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis, researchers said.
It’s the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter, said study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London.
The two species lived near each other, but probably didn’t interact, each having its own “ecological niche,” Spoor said. Homo habilis was likely more vegetarian while Homo erectus ate some meat, he said. Like chimps and apes, “they’d just avoid each other, they don’t feel comfortable in each other’s company,” he said.
There remains some still-undiscovered common ancestor that probably lived 2 million to 3 million years ago, a time that has not left much fossil record, Spoor said.
Overall what it paints for human evolution is a “chaotic kind of looking evolutionary tree rather than this heroic march that you see with the cartoons of an early ancestor evolving into some intermediate and eventually unto us,” Spoor said in a phone interview from a field office of the Koobi Fora Research Project in northern Kenya.
That old evolutionary cartoon, while popular with the general public, is just too simple and keeps getting revised, said Bill Kimbel, who praised the latest findings. He is science director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University and wasn’t part of the Leakey team.
“The more we know, the more complex the story gets,” he said. Scientists used to think Homo sapiens evolved from Neanderthals, he said. But now we know that both species lived during the same time period and that we did not come from Neanderthals.
Now a similar discovery applies further back in time.
Susan Anton, a New York University anthropologist and co-author of the Leakey work, said she expects anti-evolution proponents to seize on the new research, but said it would be a mistake to try to use the new work to show flaws in evolution theory.
“This is not questioning the idea at all of evolution; it is refining some of the specific points,” Anton said. “This is a great example of what science does and religion doesn’t do. It’s a continous self-testing process.”
For the past few years there has been growing doubt and debate about whether Homo habilis evolved into Homo erectus. One of the major proponents of the more linear, or ladder-like evolution that this evidence weakens, called Leakey’s findings important, but he wasn’t ready to concede defeat.
Dr. Bernard Wood, a surgeon-turned-professor of human origins at George Washington University, said in an e-mail Wednesday that “this is only a skirmish in the protracted ‘war’ between the people who like a bushy interpretation and those who like a more ladder-like interpretation of early human evolution.”
Leakey’s team spent seven years analyzing the fossils before announcing it was time to redraw the family tree — and rethink other ideas about human evolutionary history. That’s especially true of most immediate ancestor, Homo erectus.
Because the Homo erectus skull Leakey recovered was much smaller than others, scientists had to first prove that it was erectus and not another species nor a genetic freak. The jaw, probably from an 18- or 19-year-old female, was adult and showed no signs of malformation or genetic mutations, Spoor said. The scientists also know it isn’t Homo habilis from several distinct features on the jaw.
That caused researchers to re-examine the 30 other erectus skulls they have and the dozens of partial fossils. They realized that the females of that species are much smaller than the males — something different from modern man, but similar to other animals, said Anton. Scientists hadn’t looked carefully enough before to see that there was a distinct difference in males and females.
Difference in size between males and females seem to be related to monogamy, the researchers said. Primates that have same-sized males and females, such as gibbons, tend to be more monogamous. Species that are not monogamous, such as gorillas and baboons, have much bigger males.
This suggests that our ancestor Homo erectus reproduced with multiple partners.
The Homo habilis jaw was dated at 1.44 million years ago. That is the youngest ever found from a species that scientists originally figured died off somewhere between 1.7 and 2 million years ago, Spoor said. It enabled scientists to say that Homo erectus and Homo habilis lived at the same time.”
Still, my friends, we are talking about 1.44 million years ago. IT’S ALL THEORY! (Well, except of course, what I believe!) 
Have a beautiful day! By the way, the author of this article was Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Science Writer.
Is he the new king or should he be disqualified like Miss America was at one time for posing nude? Actually I think it happened to a couple of Miss America’s.
Are steroids and being naked similar? Is one worse than the other? I think public nudity, in most places, is a misdemeanor…don’t know about steroids.
hmmmmmmm. What do you think? Seriously, I want to know!
Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning.
Hee hee. It is true.
Another quick thought: I’ve always believed “knowledge is power”. I think I was wrong. Someone pointed out to me that knowledge is nothing UNLESS YOU USE THAT KNOWLEDGE! Makes sense to me.
That’s it for now! CREATE a fantastic day by not letting ANYONE or ANY CIRCUMSTANCE steal your joy. It all works out in the long run.
I sat down to grab a bite of dinner and happened to turn to Dr. Phil. There was a group of people (family mostly) all together telling what they wanted - what is eating their spirits and making their lives a nightmare. What occurs to me is the first two words that
popped out of everyone’s mouth: I WANT…….
“I want peace.”
“I want to be appreciated.”
“I want to feel worthwhile and respected.”
“I want to be loved.”
Ok. It’s ok to want and desire and dream. What bothers me is that in my life, I have lived by the premise “As ye give, so shall ye receive”. To date, I have every thing I have ever dreamed of in all my life. I am not rich, but I am loved, secure in who I am, with a faithful and wonderful man, happy when I awake each morning, and grateful for all my blessings-big and small.
I was taught to open my heart and give without restraint when possible. Share what I have in energy and material things with others. That is not to say withdraw what is needed for my family survival to give to someone else, but to try to help and be generous with Spirit, love, compassion, empathy and whatever material things I could spare.
What seems to me to be a pattern in 2007 is seeking satisfaction for SELF.
We have tons of self-help books. Gyms and spa’s to help us. We go to lectures on how to improve our self-esteem. Magazine
covers scream of how to get thin and be more beautiful - how to care for ourselves.
Somehow in the search for self, (NOT EVERYONE MIND YOU), we have forgotten the simple act of GIVING OF ONE’S SELF!
The greatest gift we can give is a simple sacrifice of the SELF to aid another, or boost another’s esteem, or visit an ailing grandparent. Mama told me, “I know you love me because you sacrifice your time and energy to help me. You give of yourself!”
AND……honestly, in doing the small things I did to help her I got in return gifts untold. I learned how to age gracefully, how to handle terrible pain with a calm and empowered demeanor. I learned about unconditional love and was given the awesome feeling of having someone look in your eyes and from the bottom of their heart say “THANK YOU. You will never know what you have done for me!”
Today, lift someone’s spirits, give a bit of love, forgive someone for being abrupt or exhausted. (Forgive your SELF too Take a breath and tell yourself:
“I will feel better for sharing just a moment of my time trying to solve someone else’s challenge. I will still have time to do the
things I need to do.”
YOU WILL! I PROMISE! IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU TRIPLE FOLD….Maybe not today, but it wil for sure!!!!
(I posted this article on http://stress-management-magic.blogspot.com
a couple of weeks ago. I think it valuable enough to post here again. Hope it helps!)
Parents are all handling it differently! Some can hardly wait to send the children back to the learning environment. They envision a few hours a day with no one saying, “Mom (or dad), I’m bored”, “I’m hungry”, or even, “Can you take me to my friend’s house?”
Others are dreading the demands that children in school can bring home to the parents. The cost of books and supplies, new clothing, the tasks of shuttling children to school activities and sporting events, the required PTA, helping with homework, and all the parental duties that go along with those who have children in school.
When you begin to feel yourself paralyzed by “dread” of things to come,
do exactly what you are doing right now! Take a moment or two to do something for yourself.
Whether it’s reading a quick article, just sitting still for a few moments, or taking an unplanned trip to the store to pick up a few things you need or want!
You are DIVERTING your own attention from these dreaded fears surrounding “school is upon us”, and concentrating on something else for the moment.
Diversion is good. The definition, simply put, is “an instant of turning something aside from it’s course”. We are only capable of thinking about one thing at a time!
This does not suggest that you will never need to think about the challenges you face, but it will give you just a bit of time (while doing one of these activities or something you choose) to take a breath! When you breathe, your intellect is sharper. When you are stressed out you slow your breathing without even knowing it, which in turn stresses you out even further.
This is the bottom line. You will never complete the list of things that need to be done. When that happens it means you are dead! There are
on going demands that will bury you though, if you don’t realize that
the only way to be in charge is by making the best choices in handling
things, and then letting go.
95% of all that you spend your life worrying about NEVER COMES TO FRUITION! Honestly! Worrying about not being able to “take care of all that is necessary”, is simply a waste of your time and energy.
Prioritize, delegate, stay in the moment. You know what needs to be done and it’s about time you give yourself credit for handling so much already!
Remember that life always gives us stress to manage. We may not have the choice in what happens to us, or the demands that challenge us, but we ALWAYS have a choice in the response to these things.
It’s not necessary to implode, or explode. Loosing your cool will only worsen the scenario. When you find yourself in the position of having just too much to do, perhaps in too little time, and there is NO WAY to change it - If you are the person in charge of doing the multitude of tasks… then the only thing you can do is ACCEPT IT.
The truth is, unless you have someone you can “pass the ball to”, you’d better start using positive affirmations to create those brain cells necessary to take care of business.
Don’t let the negatives overpower you. Take a breath and think: “I will get things done to the best of my ability.” “I will take each moment as it comes and remember that I am capable and dedicated to finding resolve to challenges.” “I will remember that I can only do so much in one day, one hour, one moment.” “I will remember that my children and all the children who’s paths I cross will look to my attitude and demeanor as either horrible or positive, and they will learn from me.”
If you are a person of faith then truly the first thing that should be done is asking for help. Just as your children look to you for help and ask repeatedly for it, pray often! Of course with prayer must come letting go and letting God oversee your needs. That’s faith.
If you do not believe then your only choice is to decide whether you want to let things drive you crazy, or whether you will simply do what you have to do! Affirm your capabilities and breadth of intellect sprinkled with the right amount of emotion.
Get ready for a WONDERFUL school year. Anticipate all the positive things that will enhance your children’s lives, and remember this time is fleeting. One day soon you will recall the excitement of these days, wishing you could do it all again. Make them calm and joyous. Make your children glad to be alive and excited about it all.
YOU CAN DO IT! Take a breath and rock and roll.
