Go Ahead, Enjoy the Fall Season
It is nothing new that many people love the change in season from summer to fall. With it's annual tradition of brilliant colors in purples, reds and even yellows and oranges. If you plan a road trip during this time, which I highly recommend it, go right when the tress have started changing colors. You will get the full show of the fall changes with color during this time. During this time, plan other trips as well to take advantage of the color change too. Plan trips such as hiking, fishing, canoeing and even just a drive through a different part of the country where you live.
During this season change, pumpkins are a big staple as well. They make great jack-o-lanterns for the October holiday, but they are filled with vitamins as well. Roasted pumpkin seeds and even oven baked pumpkin is a great addition to your dinner table settings.
Apples are in season at this time of year as well. Many pumpkin patches offer the “you-pick” patches of apples as well pumpkins too. Apple cider is always a welcome fall drink in our home and with a bit of cinnamon added, it's a great breakfast treat too.
Cranberries and nuts are another great fall addition. Cranberries are packed full of the "good-for-you" nutrients and, of course, eating nuts in moderation is always important. Pecans are the best nuts to enjoy this time of year and stocking up on nuts and cranberries while they are in season and adding them to your baking and cooking is a plus. Try making a cranberry apple-nut pie and pumpkin tart for your next holiday gathering to help take advantage of all that the fall season offers.
Happy Fall!
A Picture Perfect Plating
Pull out family photos or your favorite vacation snapshots and open your cabinets in search of your favorite china frames. Play with the pairing until you have a pleasing match between plate and the photo you choose. Then use a color copies r a computer graphics program to reduce the photos to fit the center area of the dish itself. To tie the images together, print them all in black and white or sepia tone. For an eclectic, collected look, choose plates or serving dishes in a variety of sized and with different rims. For a more unified appearance, choose dishes from the same patter in several different sizes and shapes. But, don't exclude turkey platters, they make great side frames to black and whites.
1. With a compass set to half the diameter of the plates center, trace a circle on the back of each image you are using.
2. Cut out the traces circle.
3. Adhere photos to the plate with double-sided crafting tape. Or you can print the images of self adhesive paper as well. The photos are removable if you want to change an image or even use the dish. Be sure and wash well before serving food on the plate.
Bring Joy to your own World
Here are twelve ideas for less stress and more connection in your life.
Sidestepping the modern, commercial frenzy that overtakes many of us at any time of the year. The sinter solstice is the rebirth of the sun into the spring cycle, when sleeping consciousness blooms from dormancy. Life connects with the subtleties of each season.
• Have a very happy un-holiday any time of year: Plan a holiday of your own that has nothing to do with any of the other already man-made holiday seasons. Surprise someone with an unexpected gift. Make you whole life a celebration of living and giving.
• Feed the Soul: Chopping vegetables takes time and forces you to be in the moment of what you are doing. You have to be right there and no where else. Like gardening takes patience and allows you to be in the moment of planting and cultivating the soil to what you want it to be.
• Share in your own values: If you feel you are not bringing forth your own values and are following someone else's, try bringing in your own at a family get-together or meal. If you don't eat meat, bring an all veggie dish. Or better yet a tofurky, which is a turkey made completely of tofu. Bringing your own values into other values allows for a more comfortable feeling with everyone.
• Give more of yourself: When you donate or help out the needy it gives more back than just your contribution. Your soul is cleansed as well. When it is someone's birthday or even at Christmas, instead of giving gifts, give to a local charity in that person's name. It will bring more to your own being more than the person receiving the gifts.
• Buy less overall: If you concentrate on what's the most important thing during the year the answer to this is clear. Buying less and still giving more in terms of yourself during the holidays it will cause less stress in yourself and everyone around you. Cook a dish or hand make something for that someone special instead of rushing out and purchasing something straight off the shelf.
• Expect less in the long run: If you have an unrealistic view have house your relative should behave that is always setting your own self up for disappointment.
• Don't set yourself up for obligations: Stop busying yourself with activities that don't fulfill you in the long run. Don't send out cards, don't bake cookies or treats if YOU don't want to. Be sure and remember why you are where you are, because of your family. So enjoy them, not the things you send them or the things you bake for them.
• Make your mind flexible: Don't try to do it all. You are one person, not the only person.
• Off the thanks: Be thankful for everything and anyone who does anything for you. Whether it's not something you would have done yourself, still be thankful they thought of you in the long run.
• Turn up the music LOUD: Song is for celebration, enjoy it, no matter where you are. Be thankful you are one of the lucky that can hear how wonderful the tunes really are.
• Act kindly whenever people aren't expecting it: When you are shopping, when you are walking the dog, a random hello is always a nice, inviting gesture.
Practicing the Art of Listening
-Sit comfortably with your eyes closed in or near a natural place like a garden or a stream. Make sure you won't be disturbed by voices, music, radios, or even TVs or phones.
Now open your awareness to the sounds around you. Don't focus on any particular sound or jump from sound to sound-just open your awareness like the lens of a camera and listen to the play of sound with your whole body, not just your ears.
Keep relaxing, letting go, and allowing listening to happen. If your awareness habitually focuses or jumps from sound to sound-just let it do what it does as you continue to relax in global awareness. You ay fins that you naturally notice other sensations as well; the contact of your body against the chair, the air against your skin. Just keep allowing the play of what is, without trying to pay attention in any way to it.
Eventually, the sense of separate experiencer may drop away, and only experiencing remains. In other words, no separating between subject and object-just this!
As you continue, you may discover that experiencing arises in a limitless stillness and silence that can't be experienced in another way. This is your very on Self, unconditional presence, consciousness without a second, the source of all experience. You can never knot it with the mind; you can only be it knowingly.
Allow everything to be as it is as you relax into the silent presence that your have always been
(Source: Some information pulled from Yoga Journal 2008)
Here are ways to Protect yourself from Identity Theft
• Protect your Social Security number. Don't carry your Social Security card in your wallet or write you Social Security number on a check ever. Give it out only if absolutely necessary or ask to use another identifier.
• Don't give out personal information over the telephone, through the mail, or over the Internet unless you know who you are dealing with directly.
• Never click on links sent in unsolicited emails; instead, type the web address you know. Use firewalls, anti-spy-ware, and anti-virus software to protect your home computer; keep them up-to-date. Visit On Guard Online for more information.
• Don't use an obvious password like your birth date, your mother's maiden name, or the last four digits of your Social Security number.
• Keep your personal information in a secure place at home, especially if you have roommates, employ outside help, or are having work done in your house.
•Be alert to signs that require immediate attention such as, bills that do not arrive as expected, unexpected credit cards or account statements, denials of credit or for no apparent reason, calls or letters about purchases you did not make as well.
• Inspect your credit report yearly from either Experian, TransUnion or Equifax. Visit Annual Credit Repot or call 1-877-322-8228, a service created by these three companies, to order your free credit reports each year.
• Review all financial statements and billing statements regularly, looking for charges you did not make and take care of them right away. Report your concerns to ftc.gov/idtheft, then file a police report right away.
Here are common ways ID theft happens:
1. Dumpster Diving: They rummage through trash looking for bills or other paper with your personal information on it.
2. Skimming: They steal credit/debit card numbers by using a special storage device when processing your card.
3. Phishing: They pretend to be financial institutions or companies and send a private message to you or pop-up messages to get you to reveal your personal information.
4. Changing your address: They divert your billing statements to another location by completing a "change of address" form.
5. "Old-Fashioned" Stealing: They steal your wallets and purses; mail, including bank and credit card statements; pre-approved credit offers; and new checks or tax information. They steal personnel records from their employers, or bribe employees who have access to these documents.
Be Merry and Motivated Throughout the Whole Year....Here's How
Your life is a sprint of exhaustion from sunrise to midnight thought-out the entire week and into the weekend. You’re working, taking care of the house, shopping, cooking, dealing with the kids and relatives. You need more energy during that run just to get simple tasks done and you need food on the fly. You grab for sugary drinks and too much fat laden foods. Here's how to keep those choices in check and still give you the energy you need to get the job done.
1. Limit yourself to one or two cups of coffee or tea. Caffeine is an effective stimulant when you are mall-hopping, but too much may shorten your fuse. Carry a water bottle and sip from it often.
2. Avoid junk food. Try filling sandwich bags with green and red pepper strips, carrot sticks, celery sticks, or a whole-grain bagel or crackers with humus, nonfat cream cheese or jam. They will keep your blood sugar even and your energy level consistent.
3. Suck on a hard candy. It satisfies your sweet tooth without a lot of sugar and calories. Sugarless gum also indulges your oral fixation.
When you get the blues you may think to go eat a gallon of ice cream or a whole box of cookies and you will feel better. There are better choices, such as reaching out to someone else. It helps the "I'm feel so lonely" feeling. Here are other ways to help cope.
1. Volunteer. Many organizations need help at any time of the year. Serve food at a soup kitchen. Pitch in at a homeless shelter. You will count your blessings, you won't feel alone, and you just might make some new friends in the proce3ss.
2. Avoid drinking too much alcohol. It may make you feel more depressed. Instead buy organic apple cider, and heat it on the stove with cinnamon sticks and cloves. Or have a cup of chamomile, passionflower or lemon balm tea, all stress relievers.
3. Take refuge in healthy comfort foods. Make a list of foods that soothe, and choose the healthiest ones. Maybe it's corn on the cob, minestrone soup or low-fat chocolate pudding.
What is you have party overload? You have tons of them over the course of the year and you are facing a nonstop buffet of tables that are temptations to overeat and over drink. Even at the office, coworkers never seem to stop bringing in the temptations. Here's how to deal.
1. Never arrive hungry. Have a salad, nuts, fruit or a whole-grain bagel before you go. If you are ravenous, it's even harder to control yourself at the buffet.
2. Before you eat anything, get a drink of seltzer, water or juice. Alcohol may interfere with judgment, and it has lots of calories. If you want a drink, have a glass of wine and sip it slowly. Better yet, add sparkling water to wine to make a low calorie spritzer. Hand on to your glass: With one hand full, it's not as easy to grab food.
3. Eat with your eyes frits. Survey everything. Decide which few things you will try, and have one or two bites of each. Eat them slowly and savor them. This way, a couple of mouthfuls can provide as much enjoyment as a whole plate. The first and last bites taste best, so leave out the ones in the middle.
4. If you find yourself reaching for too many treats, take a time-out. Step outside, walk around the block, breathe, stretch and then go back in.
Have relatives that bring you treats left and right or offer you sweets and calorie laden servings at get-together? Here's how to deal so your diet doesn't go out the window.
1. It's not about food; it's about love. When Aunt Martha says, "You've got to try my pecan pie," what she means is "Tell me you appreciate my efforts and love me." So have a bite and tell her how good it is and how much you appreciate the love that came with it.
2. Avoid the kitchen. When you are around food, you are more likely to overeat. Solution: Spend more time in the living room or den, away from the goodies.
Ear Candling Becomes a Family Affair
Ear candling is a great way to clean you ears out without using a Q-tip. You stick the "penciled" end of the candle in your ear canal, light the opposite end and wait. It creates a vacuum inside your ear so that the wax buildup inside the ear canal can then be pulled out. Skylar likes doing it because he feels brave with fire coming out his ear.
