3331 What I had for lunch

As I noted in September, I decided to lose weight (my 20 blogging pounds) by paying attention to food triggers that made me more hungry. I've lost 17 lbs. and lots of inches where I blog. I've learned to eat to love some foods I'd almost never eaten before, like greens and peppers. Collard greens, turnip greens, bell peppers--red, yellow and orange, and lots of onions. The greens are high in anti-oxidants which help fight all kinds of degenerative diseases and contains trace minerals and calcium. Collard greens (1 cup) have 118.9% of the daily value for vitamin A and 57.6% of vitamin C. But turnip greens are even better with 158.3% of vitamin A and 65.8% of vitamin C. If you have thyroid or gallbladder problems (which I don't) you might want to be cautious about greens, according to The World's Healthiest Foods.

It's awfully hard for one person to eat a bunch of greens before they would go bad, so here's my trick: I lightly saute them with onions in a small amount of olive oil and put them in small individual packages for lunch and freeze them. I don't like those dull, limp, gray blobs you see on steam tables, so these stay bright green.

Today I quickly grilled with a touch of olive oil about 1/2 cup of frozen organic sweet corn with one of my packages of turnip greens and onions, and about a fourth of a red pepper--maybe 1/4 cup. The corn adds a touch of sweetness to the turnip greens which aren't as mild as the collard greens. The mild peppers add color and crunch, and are also excellent sources of C and A. If I were eating a cup, it would be even higher than the greens. My, it was so colorful. Just a pleasure to eat with my book.

With lunch, I was reading The Trouble with Africa, by Robert Calderisi, a Canadian who has worked in Africa since 1975. Africa has received some $600 billion in aid since 1960, yet it has actually gotten poorer since then. It's no longer useful to point fingers at colonialism or slavery, the Africans themselves are making a mess of things, and foreign aid seems to be part of the problem.

For dessert I had fresh pineapple. . . and a Christmas cookie.

3330 So you want to be a writer

A snippet from a poem by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), who published his first book of poetry when he was 39. To support his writing, I think he must have worked every job except library clerk.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.

unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

I think this applies to bloggers too, although he was writing about poetry. I've seen a lot of blogs with only 4 or 5 entries over months and years. Bukowski went on to write more than 45 books. I like to write; hate to publish.

Tomorrow I will start working on Poetry Thursday and won't do Thursday Thirteen for awhile. I'm about out of lists.

thursday thirteen
Poetry thursday
Charles Bukowski
writing
poetry

3329 WSJ features two stories about libraries

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal featured librarianship in its Career Journal section. Gee, most of this good news should have been withheld or the profession will never get the new blood. Must have been a woman writer (see my previous article here).

The writer opines (parentheses are my comments):
1) An aging profession (therefore, there must be opportunity--and haven't we been hearing that since the 1960s when I was in grad school?).
2) Low salaries (you don't want to know how bad they are).
3) Limited opportunities in desirable areas (in rural areas it's $25,000/year and all the snow you can shovel).
4) Expensive advanced degree requirements--ca. $20,000 at a top school like my alma mater. (It's not unusual to find librarians with 2 or 3 advanced degrees because they keep going to school while job hunting.)
5) 80% of the profession is female. (This always depresses salaries and causes a problem in a field that increasingly is computer dependent, a field dominated by men).
6) 89% of the profession is white. (It's not called welfare for the middle class for nothing!)
7) The better salaries are in the private sector (i.e., corporate, but the profession tends to be anti-capitalism).

Then today there was a lengthy opinion piece in the WSJ by someone named John J. Miller, who suggests that libraries should hang on to Hemingway, Proust, and Solzhenitsyn even if it means crowding out the latest John Grisham and David Baldacci. He uses the Fairfax Co. VA system which apparently has installed a circulation system that will flag books for withdrawal (that's the librarian's sexy term for "dump it") when it hasn't circulated (librarian's term for check-out a book) for two years. He thinks libraries should be cultural repositories because they can't compete in today's world of Amazon.com, i-Pod and MP3.

". . .librarians should. . .discriminate between the good and bad, the timeless and the ephemeral . . . as teachers, advisers and guardians. [They shouldn't be] clerks and stock boys at grocery stores."

Oh dear! Sometimes it is hard to know if someone is writing tongue in cheek. He apparently doesn't realize that librarians already are acting as guardians of the public welfare. They are more liberal than the ACLU or Barbra Streisand and Tim Robbins combined. Just go look at the issues and forums on the web page for the American Library Association and read the Bush bashing.

E.S. Browning pitches like a girl

Several times I've written posts about the differences in writing style between men and women. Most of my examples come from the Wall Street Journal. Women staff writers of this publication use fewer idioms, less colorful language, and usually include more direct quotes. Their articles also contain a "yes, but. . ." lead if they are presenting anything positive about the economy or culture. Or they hate to commit. The good news will be placed near the bottom, if you persevere through their stodgy style. Let me offer some examples by writers whose names clearly indicate their sex.

First the guys in yesterday's paper:

"The hedge-fund locomotive ran into some impossible obstacles but for the most part kept chugging ahead in 2006." Gregory Zuckerman

"Latin American stocks surged to a 4th straight year of double-digit increases, their longest streak in at least 19 years, as global investors increased bets that big economies such as Mexico and Brazil have bid "adios" to a rocky past of one crisis after another." John Lyons

"The deal-making world can hardly suppress its glee about 2006, which will go down as the best year to date. Business has been so good that some are gritting their teeth, afraid their luck may somehow run out." Dennis K. Berman

And now the ladies:

"Bond investors enter 2007 divided about the prospects for the U.S. economy. They will find out in the coming months which camp has it right." Serena Ng

"Asian stocks logged another year of gains, but it wasn't an easy ride for investors." Laura Santini

"As the air rushed in and out of the crude-oil market in 2006, the breathless rise and surprising fall dominated discussion of whether the commodity boom could last." Ann Davis

Notice the next time you read WSJ, Forbes or Business Week: The men who write about business, politics and economics heavily use gambling, sports, technological, automotive and agricultural idioms, anecdotes, methaphors and analogies. They play games with words and tease the reader just a bit--using double meanings, puns and ambiguities. They coin new words, invent proverbs, use slang, and get sloppy with foreign words, like using "adios" in my second example (for Brazil it should be Portuguese, not Spanish).

The women, on the other hand, are more literal, timid and bland. If they do use figurative language, the phrase is probably so commonplace, we don't even notice, i.e. they are as dull as dishwater but hit the nail on the head. They tend toward touchy-feely and weakly emotional words to humanize the markets--"disappointing performance," "hoping it starts strongly," "outlook is cloudy," "could fizzle," etc.

So all this leads me to E. S. Browning. He writes like a woman. The exception that proves my rule. In fact, because of his use of initials (his friends call him Jim according to one article I Googled), I'd always figured he was a female--that and his straight-forward, gloomy, no-nonsense writing style. He's a 27 year staff writer veteran for the Journal and is the writers' union representative, according to articles that quote him.

"Investors are approaching 2007 with a high degree of optimism--perhaps too high, some skeptics worry." E. S. Browning

3327 Today is the day

to send thank you notes for the gifts you received, the parties you enjoyed, and to the people who were a bit less fortunate, losing a loved one over the holidays or experiencing a reversal in good health or personal life. And I don't mean e-mail. E-mail just doesn't cut it for special occasions, sympathy, or sincere thank yous. Open the desk drawer, pull out a card, find a pen and a stamp. Then you can lie awake at night solving the world's problems without these details popping up. If you're a Democrat, write a note to remind your congressperson about all the promises made. If you're a Republican, drop a note to those who are still in the game about why the others were voted out. Those guys don't need paper and stamps--send e-mail--it will all go in the circular file anyway.

Oh yes, and take down your outside lights.

3326 Losing weight isn't rocket science

says Tara Parker-Pope, the health writer for the Wall St. Journal. Make tiny changes she says, and see some amazing results. If you love a daily Starbucks Grande Latte (260 calories) on your drive to work, switch to coffee three times a week, and you'll save 21,840 calories, or 6 lbs a year. Skipping shredded cheese on your lunch salad is 10,000 calories a year, or another three pounds. There--you've got a good start on the next holiday season.

3325 Correcting the myth of DDT

Steven Milloy of Junk Science.com had a letter in the WSJ last week correcting the myth of thinning bird eggs that had appeared in one of their articles.

I can't find the letter online, but he essentially provides the same argument in this Canadian publication, "Bald-eagle DDT myth still flying high."

As early as 1921, the journal Ecology reported that bald eagles were threatened with extinction – 22 years before DDT production even began. According to a report in the National Museum Bulletin, the bald eagle reportedly had vanished from New England by 1937 – 10 years before widespread use of the pesticide.

A 1984 National Wildlife Federation publication listed hunting, power line electrocution, collisions in flight and poisoning from eating ducks containing lead shot as the leading causes of eagle deaths. In addition to these reports, numerous scientific studies and experiments vindicate DDT.

So millions in Third World countries needed to die and continue to die for lack of DDT, and birds' eggs weren't even thinning. Where are the bleeding heart liberals when the poor and brown of the world need them? Probably off somewhere supporting Castro and grieving for Saddam.

3324 Columbus' first baby of 2007

is Miguel Angel Naranjo. His parents Maria and Rodriguez left Mexico four months ago. Fearing a birth defect that runs in the family, they wanted the good care their infant would get in the the USA.

No word on legal or illegal entry, or whether they are married, or how they made their way to Columbus, Ohio, or who is paying for this. On the plus side, the child didn't have the defect, so we've been saved that cost and the child has been saved corrective surgery.

Cross posted at my blog on illegal aliens, Illegals Today.

3323 Listening to beautiful hymns

The hymns sung for the President's funeral have been wonderful. Right now, I'm listening to "For all the Saints." It makes me wonder if today's thingies sung at contemporary church services, the "it's all about me 'n Jesus" repetitious choruses, will ever sound this good if repeated often enough?

3322 Art is an investment

in beauty, the future, and good thoughts. We buy a lot of art. In fact, we have so much art we didn't know what we had until we threw an art party in December 2001 in our former home and set everything out for display, including t-shirts with original screened art for Bible school.

However, we don't buy and collect for investment. I don't envy our daughter trying to figure out what to do with it after we're gone and she and her brother have their walls and closets full. We already store some of my husband's paintings on their walls. At Christmas our son was "loaned" a golfing painting and a fishing painting for his house.

The December 18 WSJ had an article on investing in the art market. Art is illiquid, unregulated, commissions can eat you alive, galleries do not need a license, the art indexes do little, and no one seems to track unsold art. Whew! So much for investment value.

Our way is much better. 1) Buy what makes your heart skip. 2) Buy from artists who are also your friends. 3) Buy from a menu of representational and realistic art, with an occasional "mystery meat" to spice it up. 4) Buy small enough so it can rotate in and out of the storage closet. 5) Buy what works with your tastes and decor--it's your home, not a museum or gallery.

I've updated my spread sheet on artists and media, and we have 70+ artists in our collection--each one a little treasure. Friday we're taking down a show, and bringing one home that my husband bought from another watercolorist--I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure I'll love it.

3321 WTVN drops Glenn Beck

And they hear from me. (I've yet to find that writing a letter does any good, but I do it anyway.)

Program Director
WTVN 610 AM Radio
2323 W. 5th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43204

Dear Sir,

When I heard last week that you were dropping Glenn Beck for a locally produced talk segment, I couldn’t believe my ears. I immediately started switching to 700 am in Cincinnati just to see what was available nearby. And although it is irritating to hear all the commercials and announcements for events or companies I’ll never patronize, it will be better than listening to more hours like the Saturday morning guys who call Bob Connors to whine about the Buckeyes or pot holes .

My husband and I were furious when you dropped Dr. Laura in the fall of 2001, apparently for her opposition to gays adopting infants, because nothing else she was saying was politically charged--unless it was urging people to be faithful to their spouses. I suppose that might have offended some of your staff. When I called the station to complain, I got no response except “We’ll pass your comment along.”

It took awhile to get accustomed to Beck‘s style, but I do listen about 3 out of 5 days, depending on what my schedule is, and always in the car during drive time. I’m tired of being jerked around for whatever your program director’s personal biases are. I appreciate good business methods, and Beck was #1 in this market. Hello! Get smart this time. You’ve got a winner on radio!

You’ve lost this listener, not just for this time slot, but for others like Connors and Corby. I can get great talk shows from California on the Internet. I’m not going to take a chance on being part of your audience in this time slot again.

Glenn Beck
talk radio
WTVN Columbus
Dr. Laura

Monday Memories

In honor of the Dream Girls movie, which I wrote about here, I'll throw in a memory from the mid-60s when we were briefly landlords. The movie is based on the Broadway musical, which is loosely based on the lives and careers of the women in the Supremes.

Our first home in Champaign, IL, purchased in 1962, was a duplex--not a real one--it had been converted from a one family house, so the renters had 2 bedrooms, living room, bath and kitchen upstairs, and we lived downstairs. After we bought our home on Charles St. in 1965 we rented both units, and that paid for both mortgages.

Although we really didn't want to rent to female students (we preferred married couples), after a few weeks of no rent for one unit, we relented. Not. A. Good. Idea. Oh, did they party (we found out later from the other renter). And didn't pay their rent. Finally, they just left, owing back rent. When we let ourselves in, things were a terrible mess. Spoiled food. Dirty clothes. And bills from the local hospital for food poisoning. Also bills for pregnancy testing and services. We weren't the only people in town these girls stiffed. I called their parents (on their university records) who were clueless--thought they were enrolled at the university living in a dorm. They had left behind all the "free" records on a membership in a record club (33 1/3 at that time), including the first by the Supremes. We may still have it somewhere.

This record by the Supremes was a keepsake of our years as landlords and I got a lot of enjoyment from it. Wikipedia lists the songs as:

Side one
"Love Is Like an Itching In My Heart" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
"This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak For You)", (Holland-Dozier-Holland, Sylvia Moy)
"You Can't Hurry Love" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
"Shake Me, Wake Me (When It's Over)" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
"Baby I Need Your Loving" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
"These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" (Lee Hazlewood)

Side two
"I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
"Get Ready" (Smokey Robinson)
"Put Yourself in My Place" (Holland-Dozier-Holland, John Thornton)
"Money (That's What I Want)" (Berry Gordy, Jr., Janie Bradford)
"Come and Get These Memories" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
"Hang on Sloopy" (Wes Farrell, Bert Russell)

View More Monday Memories Participants
My visitors and those I'll visit this week are: Anna, Becki, Chelle, Chelle Y., Cozy Reader, Debbie, Friday's Child, Gracey, Irish Church Lady, Janene, Janene in Ohio, Jen, Katia, Lady Bug, Lazy Daisy, Ma, Mrs. Lifecruiser, Melli, Michelle, Paul, Susan, Viamarie.

3319 Judith Who?

Reviews of the this Prada look-alike book almost make me wish I liked fiction:

From Booklist--[Bridie] Clark, who once worked for publishing mogul Judith Regan, makes her debut in a devilishly funny companion piece to Lauren Weisberger's Devil Wears Prada (2003), substituting the book business for the fashion industry. Claire Truman, who works for a top-tier New York publisher, is about to lose her beloved mentor to retirement. Then she runs into her old college crush, wealthy Randall Cox, who begins squiring her to all the trendiest restaurants in town and lands her a job interview with Vivian Grant, a highly successful publisher known for churning out best-sellers on porn, pulp, and politics. Things start promisingly, especially when Claire is given the go-ahead to sign up talented first novelist Luke Mayville, but Claire soon starts receiving midnight phone calls full of impossible demands from her imperious new boss. Faced with a soul-crushing workload and a marriage proposal from her too-good-to-be-true boyfriend, an overwhelmed Claire must suddenly make some life-altering decisions. This entertaining novel rises above its predictable plot and sometimes-flat characters on the strength of its humor--Vivian's vitriolic tantrums are laugh-out-loud funny. Joanne Wilkinson

According to Readers Read, "Judith Regan had no comment about the novel, no doubt because she's busy getting ready to sue HarperCollins for millions of dollars for wrongful termination, slander, libel and who knows what else."

I thought there must be something other than the O.J. debacle that led to her demise.

3318 New treatment for wrinkles approved by FDA

Possibly you were too busy over the holidays developing wrinkles and frown lines while buying gifts for the in-laws and anticipating those January bills to notice that the FDA has approved a new treatment for those deep lines--something that lasts longer than Botox and Restylane. It's called Radiesse and is produced by BioForm Medical Inc.

And if you don't care about lines and wrinkles, you might use it to plump your retirement portfolio (while it flattens your wallet). Sales are expected to rise 15% annually through 2010--just 3 years away-- to $935 million.

Cross posted at Growth Industry, the blog I write for people over 50.

3317 Can universities tolerate free speech?

Mike Hardin's column in yesterday's Columbus Dispatch would indicate that some Ohio State officials can't handle criticism. You're aware that each time you buy a t-shirt, ball point pen, tail-gate supplies, necktie, billiard balls, floor mats, shower curtains, thermometers or piece of stationery bearing your college or university logo, you are buying into a license agreement that the vendor has to obtain. In towns like Columbus, this is a huge business ($5.7 million in royalties last year to OSU with 500 licensees) and if a local vendor would lose the right to OSU logo merchandise, his business would be in huge trouble. AP story on sales.

Hardin reports that a west side vendor, Mike DiSabato asked questions in the Dispatch about Nike's attempts to get an exclusive sweetheart deal with the university which would cost him 56% of his business in jerseys. He was terminated as an OSU licensee. He had also been attempting to get permission from the university to use the logo and name to donate some of his proceeds to a local charity, a fund raiser to honor an OSU athlete killed in Iraq. A percent of sales would go to the Ray Mendoza charity. Mendoza, 37, a former OSU wrestler, was killed on his third tour of duty. Two of Mendoza's brothers work for DiSabato. 5 page form for a proposal

Rick Van Brimmer, Director of Trademark and Licensing at Ohio State, refused to comment according to Hardin, so we haven't heard OSU's side. It will need to be really good to clean up this PR mess. In 2003 Van Brimmer, whose deceased wife Barb was a university librarian and curator of special materials in the Health Sciences Library, and who worked with me in planning the new Veterinary Medicine Library, developed an innovative program, "Treasury of Fine Art," to license the various art stored in the university libraries. Whether the OSU Libraries gets a percentage, I don't know.

DiSabato and his brothers are former OSU athletes. He also believes the athletes should be getting some of the license fees (in a trust fund), which obviously wouldn't make him too popular with Van Brimmer.

3316 Happy New Year!

Now there's an original post. As I drifted off to sleep about 11 p.m. last night I said to my husband, "Remember when we stayed up to watch the millennium events of 2000 . . . zzzzzzz."

3315 You are so blessed

This one will make you think about your blessings as we enter 2007.

You are so blessed

3314 Dream Girls

is the movie I wanted to see this week-end, but there is wall to wall football, and you know what that means. A stunning review in Rolling Stone.

My husband says it's a chick flick, and even if there were no football he wouldn't see it. What do you think?

3313 Does this book make me look fat?

This surprised me a bit. Not sure how to take it.

"As a woman ages, she lets up a bit on what she sets as her ideal body weight. Systematic studies have found that over the age of 30, a woman will rate her ideal figure as significantly larger than that perceived as most attractive to men." p. 146, The Longevity Bible.

I like to think women over 30 are just less influenced by what the ad agencies say look good. What do you think? If I weighed what I did in high school--120--which was fine for a 17 year old, I'd probably be rushed to the hospital.

body image, self perception, attractiveness

3312 Friday Family Photo

Our fifth Christmas in the condo.

Christmas Eve 2006

Christmas 2001, our 34th and last in the house where the children grew up

Thursday Thirteen

Having the New Year's Talk about Finances

About once or twice a year we go over our finances. The upcoming new year is a good time to think about projects and special gifts that dip into our savings account. So this week we had "the talk."

1. My husband is going on a mission trip to Haiti--or as our daughter has reminded us since she heard, "one of the most dangerous countries on the planet." However, he isn't going to Port au Prince. Then our son-in-law chimes in with snake stories even though we tell them he will be in the city. He will be helping with construction projects for a Christian school where one of our pastors is teaching that is closer to the border with Dominican Republic than to the capital (which really is crime ridden).

2. Special one time gift for our church which seems to have hit a financial rut in the road to support three campuses and eleven Sunday services.

3. Annual gift for the Lakeside Association, the Methodist Chautauqua community on Lake Erie where we own a cottage.

4. IRA contributions for our children.

5. New stove top for the kitchen. This has been on the list for two years. Only two burners have a work ethic--the other two work when they feel like it.

6. Repaint the bedroom. It looked pretty good to us when we moved here compared to the dark brown and gray living room, orange dining room, electric yellow guest room and red family room, but now the dark blue faux stripe walls are looking a bit, um, dark (male decorators used to live here). We'd like to find a color that will work without replacing the carpeting. I asked my husband if he'd like to do the painting himself, and he quickly and emphatically said, NO.

7. Replace the ceiling fan in the bedroom. We really need the fan because it gets hot in the summer. It works fine, but has an ugly problem. Are there attractive ceiling fans? I've never seen one.

8. Replace the cheap medicine cabinet in my husband's bathroom. It's so cheap the door bends when you open it. Add a second mirror with a nice frame.

9. Replace the light fixture in the bathroom, which doesn't cover what it replaced.

10. Find a better bookcase for the bedroom (I've rearranged it and it looks better, but I have to leave it on the list or I won't have 13).

11. Try to find a head board for our bed that matches resembles our 1963 oiled walnut contemporary dressers. I believe this was on last year's list.

12. Find new bedding that works with the new wall color and the new headboard.

13. Replace the wall mirror in the dressing room area which has become streaky with age and can't be cleaned up.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave a comment and I'll add your name and URL. View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
Visited and visitors last week and today:Alison, Amber, Amy Christopher, Anale, AnnaMary, Beth, Bookworm, Bubba, Carol, Caylynn, Celfyddydau Chelle Y. Cheryl, Chickadee, Cinderella, Cindi, Christine, Dane Bramage, Darla, East of Oregon, Gracey, JAM, Jane, Janeen, Janet, Jen, Julie, Katia, Kitty, KT Cat, Lady Bug, LaughingMuse, Laura, Leah, Lisa, Ma, Mar, Melissa, Mikala, Misti, Momtoanangel, N. Mallory, Pippajo, Rashenbo, Sanni, She, Shoshana, Silver, Skittles, Something Blue, Sonny, Southern Girl, Smurf, Sparky, Staci T, Susan, Susan (Mustang), Teena, Terrell, Terri, Tiggerprr, Wackymommy, West of Mars.

3310 The MSM dissing President Gerald Ford

No, it can't be about him or his family, it has to be their agenda--anti-Bush, anti-war. I'm thoroughly disgusted that our media can't let the man's body even chill, can't get him brought home to Michigan. Just jump right in--it's all about you guys, right? It's not like you haven't had six years to beat this monotonous drum. Ford deserved better. We the people deserve better.

I listened to Sam Donaldson (former news grump) interviewed on radio yesterday. Of course, he had to mention it was a kinder, gentler time back then when Ford was president, that the 70s weren't like today--much less partisanship! Huh? It was Watergate, Sam. It was the Vietnam War, smug face John Kerry, the protestors, the failure to protect millions of our allies when we cut and ran. So Sam doesn't recall how the press was all over Ford for pardoning Nixon? Sam! What planet are you living on these days?

And then WaPo and Bob Woodward decide the day after his death is the day to release comments he didn't want published while he was alive. What'd they do? Post someone at the door of the bedroom and text message it in? And then ABC News had an interview with some idiot professor who taught History of the American Presidency who just guffawed about what an "ordinary" president he was, and how clumsy he was even though he was our most athletic President.

You guys ought to be ashamed.

Gerald R. Ford

I was surprised when the tears came. He was a fine man who dedicated a large part of his life to his country. His memorial site.
The Ford family in 1976

3308 No more fat lips

My daughter gave me a lip restorer for Christmas. Yes, when I was young having fat lips was not in style, and now that they are and women pay a lot of money for all sorts of unhealthy enhancements, mine have pretty much disappeared (it's called aging). I don't try anything new without reading the ingredients--especially on my mouth. It's a two part system. In the first part I noticed "benzyl nicotinate." Sounds nasty, doesn't it, like it might be from tobacco? So I found this neat site called, "Science Toys" which I think is for kids, and it explains various chemical ingredients. It's a B vitamin, and a vasodilator, so I suppose that's what its purpose is in a lip plumper (doesn't that sound funny?)--opens the capillaries and makes the skin red.

Then in part 2 I found an ingredient called butyro spermum Parkii. Now that really sounded gross until I looked it up and its common name is Shea's Butter. It comes from a tree in Africa, and you can buy it in bulk to make your own cosmetics, or in health food stores, and you can even buy it fair traded from cooperatives like you do coffee.

The print is very small and I have another 10 or 20 to look up. But the next time you see me I just might have my fat lips back.

3307 Not everything grows old gracefully

When leaving the public library this morning, I walked by the reference/ reserve section for . . . well, children I suppose. But very old children. When I was the librarian in the Veterinary Medicine Library at The Ohio State University, I was horrified by the science fair projects that brought school children to my library. Because school children can't get there on their own, they were usually with their parents and if I was on duty I could warn the parent that the project was not appropriate (if it involved the health and well-being of an animal). At that time, I looked at what was available in the public library so I could make referrals to better sources, but discovered many hadn't caught up with the times in terms of animal welfare.

So I stopped and looked again today. Here's the copyright dates I noticed--1950 [outdated even when I was in school], 1962, 1970, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1984. There were many from the early 1990s. But I was really stunned to see "Science projects with computers," with a 1985 copyright date. These books belong in a history of science teaching collection.

Although the general concepts and plans can remain the same in the revised editions, the bibliographies and web content information needs to be updated--many of these books pre-dated the web--and also this visually sensitive generation needs illustrations that don't look like mom and dad or grandpa when they were kids. I use a very well-heeled public library--it can afford to print color bulletin board displays that reproduce book cover images on deep hue backgrounds that must require gallons of ink. Surely it can spring to update the science fair collection and withdraw or send to storage the out of date materials.
Borrowed from a Manitoba science fair


science fairs
public libraries
children's books

3306 Three Silly Chicks

is the name of a group blog effort that reviews funny books for kids. The three contributors are also authors of children's books and have their own personal journals. Stop by here--if you have children, or grandchildren, and you love to put books in their hands, you'll really enjoy this site.

Top 10 New year's Resolutions

Will you be making any New Year's Resolutions for 2007? Even if we don't keep them, it's always useful to reflect on our habits and lifestyle to assess what might need a change. The only resolutions I ever kept for any length of time were 1) to stop biting my fingernails, and 2) always put my keys in the same place in my purse. Those two tiny changes made a huge difference in my appearance, and my frustration level--and I did it about 30 years ago. There is nothing more off-putting than watching someone nibble at their hands (unless it is watching them smoke or getting smashed). By not digging many minutes a day in my purse, I bought myself a lot of time.

These are from Goals Guys website, and the original article, with permission to reprint, is much longer, but I've shortened for use here, adding a few asides.

Top Ten New Year Resolutions

The following list is the result of our extensive survey, which consisted of over 300,000 responses worldwide.

1. Lose Weight and Get in Better Physical Shape

Are you ever going to be fit again as long as you live? The answer is unless you make a resolution to get fit – you’re never going to be fit – ever. The choice is yours; it begins by opting for the stairs instead of the elevator, fruit in place of chocolate, and active rather than sedentary activities. I've lost the weight, now I need to add the exercise. I'm wearing my new pedometer I got for Christmas!

2. Stick to a Budget

The good news is that most people find the longer they can stick to a budget, the easier it becomes. We had to do this for a few years when my husband started his own business; wasn't that hard because we'd always been careful. But we are going to sit down together and review our year's expenditures.

3. Debt Reduction

Make a resolution now to stop charging anything and to get financially stable. If you can't pay cash for it, you don't need it, make it just that simple and you will find yourself out of debt in no time at all. We have no debt, so I can skip this one.

4. Enjoy More Quality Time with Family & Friends

Starting right now, you can begin to make choices and take day-to-day actions that will create nothing short of a phenomenal family. You can choose to have one if you just resolve to do it and know where to put your focus. Making our families stronger and healthier is important to our communities, our state and our world. We'd love to spend more time with our friends, but we seem to have more time than they do--grandchildren! Thinking about inviting a few folks in before I pack up the Christmas dishes.

5. Find My Soul Mate

Soul mate relationships Marriage gives both partners the fulfillment that deeply satisfies them and makes them feel that they have found the most wonderful person in the whole universe. I did this many years ago, and I think "soul mate" is an inaccurate, misleading term, so I struck it out. Soul mate sounds awfully narcissistic to me--not for the long term.

6. Quit Smoking

Becoming a non-smoker is probably one of the best decisions you can ever make, and is a life changing as well as a life saving decision. I am so thankful that I never got mired in this mess--in fact, I'm not sure I even feel sorry for you smokers anymore like I used to. If you don't care about yourselves, why should I?

7. Find a Better Job

It's corny, but true -- most of us get reflective at this time of year and if we are in jobs already, we begin thinking: Am I on the right path? Do I like where my position and my company are headed? Am I even in the right career? Oh yeah--I'm retired and loving it. But I still enjoy libraries and all they offer.

8. Learn Something New

Whether you take a course or read a book, you'll find education to be one of the easiest, most motivating and beneficial resolutions to keep. Challenge your mind in the coming year, break out of currents routines and challenge every comfort zone and watch your horizons expand. That's why I blog and why I read your blogs--so don't disappoint me in 2007.

9. Volunteer and Help Others

Resolve to replace the pursuit of success and materialism with the pursuit of contribution and generosity. For this to occur, the critical question must move from, “How can I become successful?” to, “What can I contribute that will significantly impact other people's lives?” By focusing on what we can contribute, we automatically become successful. Yes, I could use a little work on this one. Maybe a lot. Haven't quite found the right fit.

10. Get Organized

Resolve this year to plan your days, reduce interruptions, clean off your desk, say "No", and make detailed lists. The benefits of getting more organized include being able to save time, as you no longer look for the same things over and over again or need to replace things you can’t find at all. Last year at this time we did a massive clean out and reorganization, but I see some clutter reappearing behind closed doors--I'll try to nip it in the bud.

Goal Guys Reprint Policy: You can freely reprint this material (full version, not mine) with the following reference source: Gary Ryan Blair is the inspiration behind the 10MillionResolutions.com phenomenon - www.10MillionResolutions.com

New Years Resolutions

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

3303 Christmas service on Hallmark Channel

The listing of Christmas programs on TV today included one on Hallmark Channel by Church of the Brethren, the denomination in which I was baptized when I was 11. So I've been watching it, and found the service similar to what I expected--message of peace, reconciliation and some diversity with handsome young people. However, the music is lovely, all based on the Luke 2 birth story, and even if you know nothing about this anabaptist group, you'll enjoy it. The choir from Juniata College (Huntingdon, PA) performed, as well as a children's choir from Indiana, and congregational singing. Shawn Kirchner, minister of music at the LaVerne (CA) Church of the Brethren, directed the musicians and arranged many of the selections. It was originally created for CBS in 2004.

To purchase this on DVD.

Church of the Brethren
Christmas hymns
Christmas Eve

3302 Fresh coffee

I've got some new posts over at Coffee Spills my blog about the people I meet and greet at coffee shops. Sometimes the stories I hear are just too sad or mystifying to repeat even at a blog among millions. If you've ever pondered why some people seem so mired in the quicksand of near-poverty, just listen a bit. After you've heard about the live-in boyfriend who only occasionally works, or the son who is developmentally challenged, or that she doesn't want a better job because it's all she can do to make it through the day now, or the surgery that probably isn't going to work (because he's so overweight)--well, it's really hard to gin up the indignation I read in the hard luck poverty stories in the paper. Or catch that conversation of the grandmother telling about her granddaughter's $55,000 wedding for a marriage that went sour after one year because he was an alcoholic. You realize even rich folks with good jobs and first class educations can botch up what should be a very good life.

3301 In Hoc Anno Domini

Each year the Wall Street Journal reprints a 1949 editorial by Vermont Connecticut Royster, the Journal's editor and president (1960–71) of its publishing company, Dow Jones & Company.

Through the miracle of the WWW, I learned that Kay Kayser (band leader) was his cousin, and he was named after his grandfather Royster, whose siblings were also named after states. The boys were Iowa Michigan, Arkansas Delaware, Wisconsin Illinois, and Oregon Minnesota. The girls also had states' names: Louisiana Maryland, Virginia Carolina, and Georgia Indiana. These unusual appellations were listed in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" and found their way into the pages of the Saturday Review and Saturday Evening Post.[Book Rags]

Anyway, it's an excellent essay, well worth reading once or twice a year, especially if you're wondering about the price of freedom or the value of stability.

3300 Hannah Montana

Until I read someone's Thursday Thirteen yesterday whose daughter wanted a Hannah Montana (doll?) I'd never heard of this Disney character. Sort of out of my range of interests. But today the WSJ mentioned that the album for this 14 year old sold 1.6 million copies in 2 months. It is marketed to 8-12 year olds.
The Disney plot: a young teen moves from Tennessee to Malibu and moonlights as a rock star (undercover, I think) managed by her dad. In real life Miley Cyrus, who plays Hannah, and her TV dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, are in fact, father and daughter. Why would any dad in his right mind want his 14 year old dressing like a hooker--and encouraging your 8 year old to want those clothes?

Hannah Montana
teen fashion
Billy Ray Cyrus

3299 The Year in Sports

Allen St. John writes some pithy copy called "A year in numbers" in today's WSJ citing 10 top sports numbers such as percent of his team's points (67.5) by Kobe Bryant, and Trevor Hoffman's career saves (482). No women appear on the list. My non-sports-expert opinion:

• Women talk too much (now it's official)
  
• Women are not good team players; they hold grudges way too long (see my post on Nancy Pelosi)
  
• Women's bodies are different than men's, putting them at a disadvantage for all the sports that were invented, arbitrated and refereed by men. Their blood pressure is different; blood volume less; muscle structure is smaller; center of gravity is lower; pelvis is wider. Hey, I couldn't make this stuff up; it matters in jumping, leaping, hitting, and trying to behave like a 15 year old when you're 30.

3298 Pan's Labyrinth

I watched the trailer for Guillermo de Toro's political horror fantasy at someone's blog yesterday. Will definitely not be on my "to see" list. Got a movie you'd like to recommend for someone who doesn't like suspense, violence, action, mystery, fantasy, horror, or bad language? Also, the pets can't die, and it can't ridicule old people.

3297 Stop tweaking!

I am sooooo sick of everything I use trying to improve (keep the staff busy through Christmas?). I haven't yet been able to switch to Blogger Beta, which now isn't calling itself that. None of my blogs appear on the dashboard. The new adobe acrobat (version 7?) is just a pain to read on screen and to scroll. The new IE just makes a mess of my blogger template when I try to add a link (requires about 3 clicks), and it takes 4 or 5 clicks to get out of some people's comments. And the spam filters some of you are putting up. Gracious. Good-bye Chickadee--I'll never visit again. Switch to something better if your home for your blog can't protect you with some blocks. Firefox "improved" something a day or two ago--wonder if it will still make my computer crash if I don't start out in it. And I swear I won't click to register on Thursday Thirteen until the owner finds a way to stop flooding my mailbox with replies I didn't sign up for. I didn't register to comment on the TT forum to complain, because I'm plumb out of patience with registering so I can comment. You'll just have to find me after I find you on Thursdays. I think yesterday I had to delete 120 bulk mailings from my medscape account because of TT. And Mr. Linky--folks--all the links disappear the next time you use that link stealer. Links have to appear on the first page to be counted or recognized.

I'm off to get a cut and color so I'll be gorgeous for the holidays. Maybe everything will solve itself by the time I return.

3295 December twenty first poem

I posted this three years ago, last year and here it is, December 21 again.


Christmas will be here in only four days.
House is festive--we found the artificial poinsettia
in the attic with other mementoes of holidays past.
A big roll of wrapping paper--blue with snowmen--and scissors
wait on the dining room table for those final exchange gifts
we’ll take to Indiana, socks for a guy, gloves for a girl.
The decorative shopping bag waits for its next assignment.

Christmas will be here in only three days.
It’s always been a pagan holiday, but now it’s more so.
The cranky ACLU is just spinning its wheels in snow
because not even Christians can make it religious these days.
Mistletoe, holly, evergreen trees, candles, and Santa Claus,
feasting, caroling, office parties, gift giving and shopping.
It’s all worldly or completely secular, therefore legal.

Christmas will be here in only two days.
The early Christians scooped up local winter festivities
in a giant snowball, soft and white, and pronounced it holy.
The godly let the Angles, Saxons and Romans keep their ways.
People do not care who they worship if they have a good time.
Our Puritan forefathers tried to stamp out the revelry.
They were the nay sayers of yesterday, spoiling the party.

Christmas will be here in only one day.
Yes, there really is a new born babe, and a sweet young mother,
and angels announcing to shepherds in the fields, Peace on Earth.
But Rachel is weeping because Herod is killing her sons.
One baby lives on only to die on a cross for my sin,
including celebrating his coming rather than going,
his birth, not his death and resurrection.

Christmas poetry
Christmas customs

Thursday Thirteen

13 Gifts my mother gave at Christmas.

You probably think I'm going to list wonderful personal qualities and characteristics, like honesty, integrity, kindness, etc. No, this really is a list of presents given to us children at Christmas from a woman who made every dollar count, was practical and believed educational things would last. The gift tags said from "Mom and Dad" or "Santa," but we knew who picked them out and wrapped them. Looking back, some of these surprise me (we were were always supervised, but some don't look real safe in retrospect) and this covers about a 10 year period.

Thirteen Gifts

1) Wood burning set. I don't know if these are still made for young children; the box included stamped designs on wooden plaques, metal hooks for hanging, and an electrical tool with multiple points for burning. Then the plaques were painted and shellacked.

2) Building sets: Erector set (for my brother, but I got to use it). We didn't have elaborate sets, but there was a little electric motor. Lincoln logs (for my brother, and I didn't get to use this).

3) Records (probably 78 rpm) with stories; I think some were the sound track of movies. I remember "Treasure Island" with Bobby Driscoll.

4) Oil painting by number. Usually a horse or dog printed on canvas board.

5) Chemistry set. I think it had test tubes and little jars of crystalized chemicals.

6) Pottery kits. These were extremely popular in the 50s--don't know if they still are. The kits had rubber molds and a plaster to mix with water. After drying, the mold was removed and you painted the object. Getting out the bubbles was always a challenge. She also bought us pottery we could paint and glaze. I still have some of them.

7) Embroidery stamped towels, pillow cases and dresser scarves with the thread. Sometimes she also bought the transfer design and we would hem the towels, iron on the transfer, and make our own.

8) Small metal looms to make woven squares from stretchy loops which were then stitched together to make something. I doubt that I ever completed a single project.

9) My first Bible, a KJV with Jesus' words in red, maps, leather binding with gold print. I still have it.

10) Books. I still have some of them, like the Marguerite Henry horse stories and the Black Stallion series. We got magazine subscriptions from her mother.

11) Board and card games. Sorry, Monopoly, Checkers are some I remember best. Authors was a favorite card game. This was even approved for use at my grandparents.

12) Glass dishes, metal pots and pans, and metal stove and sink, white with red handles. I still have my glass dishes. The little kitchen appliances lasted into the 1960s and 70s for their grandchildren to play with.

13) Art supplies--drawing pencils of various hardness. Different types of paper. One box of "oil crayons" I may have kept for at least 40 years. Possibly still have them.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave a comment and I'll add your name and URL. View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
Visited and visitors today:Amber, Amy Christopher, Anale, AnnaMary, Beth, Bookworm, Bubba, Carol, Caylynn, Celfyddydau Chelle Y. Cheryl, Chickadee, Cinderella, Cindi, Christine, Dane Bramage, Darla, East of Oregon, Gracey, JAM, Jane, Janeen, Janet, Jen, JMom,John, Julie, Katia, Kitty, KT Cat, Lady Bug, LaughingMuse, Laura, Leah, Ma, Mar, Melissa, Mikala, Momtoanangel, N. Mallory, Pippajo, Rashenbo, Sanni, Shoshana, Silver, Skittles, Something Blue, Sonny, Southern Girl, Smurf, Sparky, Staci T, Susan, Susan (Mustang), Terrell, Terri, Wackymommy, West of Mars.

Christmas gifts
nostalgia
educational toys

3293 Volunteering at the Food Pantry

Tuesday I had the opportunity to work at the Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio newly remodeled Choice Food Pantry. I was very impressed with the new layout and system which I believe provides the client with more responsibility, dignity, and less waste. The food is now all arranged on movable shelving units (can be stocked in the back and moved to the client area), color coded by USDA food pyramid graph. After the client is screened and approved by an experienced staff member, the volunteer picks up the card with the amounts allowed (a family of 10 with 6 children would have very different needs than a retired couple), and walks with the client through the aisles and they pick out what they know their families will eat. People with diabetes or cholesterol problems stop and read the labels. It takes a little longer than the old method where the volunteer selected the items, but in the long run there will be less waste. Tuesday had a special treat that I would have loved--30 piece slabs of wonderful, fresh corn bread from a local restaurant. Only one family unit turned it down. Each family can have as much bread (muffins, bagels, rolls, buns) as they can use up without it counting as a choice.

Because it is the Christmas season, each client also received age and sex appropriate gifts purchased, packaged and wrapped by the churches of central Ohio. Some families received table decorations and stockings with personal care items until we ran out. Adults received knit hats and gloves if they wanted them. Each child in the family received a very nice selection of new books, including a hard cover children's Bible.

Did you know that the "working poor" families and the welfare families in this country have about the same income, but the working families by percentage of income are the most generous of any group? Yes, they donate a higher percentage of their incomes than do the wealthiest income group; and welfare families with about the same income give almost nothing to others. There is dignity in work and self-sufficency. Occasionally, something happens to people of limited means--maybe grandchildren have to be taken in, or a heating bill is outrageous, the support check doesn't come, or there's an illness, so they need a little boost from the food pantry.

LSSCO distributed 2,416,715 lbs. or $2.8 million worth of food, and used 28,000 volunteer hours in 2006. This time of year 80-90 family units are being served at the location where I worked. The poor in the USA are not underfed or poorly clothed; many are overweight or obese, they dress well and have access to or own an automobile. For whatever personal circumstance, they are in a moment--or a month--of hardship. However, the Bible says in Matt. 25:35 that it is the ones feeding the hungry who are benefiting, because they are meeting Jesus, the Son of Man, who will be separating the sheep and goats. Keep that in mind the next time you are needed as a volunteer. There are no goats in heaven; only sheep.

Food banks
hunger
Lutheran Social Services

3292 More about Christmas letters

Previously, I posted about a Christmas letter I got from the OSU Medical Center, which hasn't yet deleted my name from its list of employees (6 years I've been retired). I just counted our printed Christmas letters on festive paper, fifteen, and our hand written letters and notes, also fifteen. This is a pretty skimpy survey, but based on past Christmases, I think only Democrats include political statements in their Christmas letters. Anti-Bush, anti-war, global warming, etc. Nothing like 2004, however. Although, I suppose if someone mentioned stem cell research or abortion (no one did), that would be a draw, because it could be considered a seasonal message, Jesus having been an unattached embryo at one point in his life. But I give liberals a pass on this, because I used to be a Democrat, and thinking back, I think I probably used my Christmas letter to smack others around too, but now I have blogs. Did you see me on the cover of Time Magazine?

We also received a lot of nice family photos. Most of the people we know seem to be repopulating the earth with grandchildren--5, 8, 10. Over the years, we've watched their kids growing up; now we're seeing the grandchildren. We love the family updates, and worry for a few moments over the people who are missing from the photos.

We've also received some wonderful original poetry and art. My friend Lynne (from high school) always has something fabulous. My brother-in-law is terribly clever, and our son-in-law-once-removed (brother of our son-in-law) also has a cute one. Several of our artist friends sent reproductions.

I just LOVE getting mail. Don't let any Grinchivious advice columnist tell you otherwise.

3291 Joseph Rago doesn't have a blog

He's a highfalutin journalist, writing for the WSJ (MSM) and bloggers are just scum. Check it out. If you're reading this, you're an imbecile, and I'm a fool for writing it.

Joseph Rago
bloggers

3290 The Christmas letters

Yesterday was probably the big haul--maybe 10 cards and 4 or 5 letters. Today I got a lovely Christmas letter [holiday letter] from the Ohio State University Medical Center thanking me for all my hard work and dedication in 2006. "The success we have achieved would not be possible without [my] your contributions and all of us working together as one team."

I retired over six years ago, but there's a few folks over there who haven't noticed I'm gone.

But I learned a lot reading the Christmas letter [holiday letter]:

• There is a $780 million expansion project, the largest upgrade and expansion of facilities in OSU Medical Center history--this year they completed the Biomedical Research Tower (800 researchers identifying the mechanisms of disease) and started the expansion of the Heart Hospital and Digestive Diseases Tower.
  
• All kinds of new talent and administrators have been hired.
  
• The Center improved in national rankings in ALL three of the mission areas--patient care, research and education
  
• The Leapfrog Group named the Center to its list of top hospitals in the USA in quality and safety.
  
• US News & World Report ranked our hospitals among America's Best for the 14th consecutive year and in the top 20 for the 2nd year in a row
  
• We were named one of the 100 most wired health systems by Hospitals & Health Networks and
  
• received the CIO 100 Award from CIO magazine.
  
• The faculty hold almost $200 million in sponsored research funding--triple the amount when I retired (was it me?)
  
• We have the 8th largest medical student enrollment in the country--only 9% of the applicants are accepted.
  
• Financially, 2006 was the best year ever--we generated more than $1 billion in revenue and reinvested almost $50 million back into our organization in all areas.

But we went to Finland, Estonia and Russia, Bay View, Michigan and Columbus, Indiana, California and Illinois.

3289 Malaria's Silent Spring

The October 2006 Budget Travel has two unrelated items, linked unintentionally. After p. 30 there is a full page ad for Malarone (atovaquone and proguanil HCl). An attractive couple is sunning on a tropical white sand beach joined on a third cot by an ugly, huge mosquito. "It could take just one bite from one infected mosquito to get malaria," reads the text.

Then after p. 57 there is a pull-out booklet, "Born in the U.S.A." by Michele McEvoy with details about where 50 important Americans grew up (includes Elvis Presley, but not Ronald Reagan). There is a paragraph on Rachel Carson, Springdale, PA, "credited for galvanizing the modern environmental movement" with Silent Spring and banning DDT.

Thus, we can also credit Ms. Carson, who was not a scientist, with the deaths of millions of Africans from malaria, more than died in the brutal trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. To date, there is no record of anyone ever dying from exposure to DDT.

That's one homestead I don't plan to visit.

3288 How Kool is this?

Trinkets and Trash is a website that keeps track of all the artifacts of the tobacco industry with an archive of tobacco products and tobacco industry marketing materials. Items are indexed by brand, media, and type/category (point of sale, free gift, gender, ethnicity, signage, etc.). Database includes a photo of the item. I came across it when I was reading an article in Tobacco Control which mentioned that Kool offers small business grants for creativity. Apparently, a simple addiction isn't enough. Death has no measure with these guys.

Zippo lighter/tape measure Marlboro

3287 Next they'll be telling us there's no Santa Claus

Seven health myths about the kids and flu and cold season. I believed most of these, although my kids never had ear infections.

HT Rebecca, who has a really great blog with wonderful stories about hymns.

3286 Darwin's Works on-line

I'll never need this, but perhaps you will. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online.

"This site contains Darwin's complete publications, many handwritten manuscripts and the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue ever published. There are over 160 ancillary texts, from reference works to reviews, obituaries, recollections and more. Free mp3 downloads are available."

Wrong, but on-line. Amazing world we live in. There are times, however, that I wish Christians had the faith in God that the secularists have in Darwin.

3285 It's still just a baseball cap

and it's rude and unattractive to wear them inside. I still have to remind my husband to take his off while kissing so I don't get an eyebrow injury or have my glasses knocked off. See this.

3284 Don't wait to start saving

It will cost you a lot of money.

"David is 25 years old.
He begins saving $2,000 a year for ten years (until age 34) then stops. A total of $20,000 has been invested.

Katie, age 22, plans to wait until age 35 to start saving and will invest $2,000 a year until age 65 at a total investment of $62,000.

Who would you expect would have more money at 65?

If you guessed David, you were RIGHT!

David’s initial investment of $20,000 in stocks (at an average interest of 10%) would be worth $545,344 at age 65.

Katie’s initial investment of $62,000 ($2,000 X 31 years) in those same stocks would be worth $352,427 at age 65."

And if David hadn't stopped, but kept going until he was 65? He'd have $815,771. think of it. Just $2,000 a year. That's just a little more than a pack of cigarettes a day not bought and smoked.

Project Cash How time affects the value of money

Monday Memories

Did I ever tell you about my brief, Christmas singing career?


This memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think it was for Christmas 1947 that my mother organized her four adorable children, 6, 8, 10, and 12, into a quartet and we performed for the various organizations and church groups in our little town of Forreston, Illinois. It was a very small town, so people must have heard us more than once. I'm not sure if Mother was overcome with ambition, or the townspeople were trying to make us feel welcome, or if there was a huge shortage of programming, or all three. My oldest sister played the piano, and the rest of us, little stair steps dressed in our Sunday best, faced the audience and sang, "Frosty the Snowman," "White Christmas," and "Winter Wonderland." My sister continues to perform as a church musician, but the rest of us had no talent and we outgrew cute. However, it was fun--and I still know the words.

You'll find lots of ways to modify your photos with beards, wigs, hats or antlers with this.

View More Monday Memories Participants
My visitors and those I'll visit this week are: Anna, Becki, Chelle, Chelle Y., Cozy Reader, Debbie, Friday's Child, Gracey, Irish Church Lady, Janene, Janene in Ohio, Jen, Katia, Lady Bug, Lazy Daisy, Ma, Mrs. Lifecruiser, Melli, Michelle, Paul, Susan, Viamarie,

3282 Person of the Year

Finally, I'm a POTY mouth. Time magazine named all of us who have contributed content on the internet, such as BLOGGERS, as person of the year. The magazine started this in 1927, so we've got some illustrious and infamous covermates.

With a mirror on the cover, Time released its Person of the Year today, "because it literally reflects the idea that you, not us, are transforming the information age," Editor Richard Stengel said.

According to Reuters, we "beat out candidates including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China's President Hu Jintao, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and James Baker, the former U.S. Secretary of State who led Washington's bipartisan Iraq Study Group."

I humbly accept this POTY award.

What's your blog list?

This is based on the frequency of posting and the number of links. With 809 links in the last 180 days, I'm an A list blogger. It's based on Technorati figures, and that's about as much as I know. Certain people who comment here who haven't posted since last winter, would be a D-list blogger.

3280 Munching through Sunday

My, it's a rough season to be watching your diet, isn't it? We had a lovely Christmas, sit down dinner at Howard and Betty's beautiful new home up in the next county this afternoon. After two hours we said good-bye to old and new friends and headed for Jan and Marvin's for an afternoon open house. There we saw many we knew from church. After an hour of munchies and conversation we came home to rest up, now we're leaving for church to hear Dave and Pam, recently returned from their ministry in Haiti. They'll be going back after Christmas and in February my husband will go there on a short term mission. Then after that presentation, our small group will be going out--eek. More food. But so wonderful to get together with so many great folks.

3279 Tattoos for librarians

Lorcan Dempsey reports in his blog about a recent visit to book sites in Chicago where saw this at Chicago Comics: The Illustrated Librarian: 12 temporary tatoos for librarians and booklovers. Includes 'I love Dewey Decimal System', 'Read or die', 'Born to read', 'Literate 4 life' with conventional assortment of hearts, skulls, scrolls and gothic script.

3278 And we're giving AIDS/HIV advice and drugs to Africans?

Dr. Anonymous in her memoir Unprotected which was reviewed in the Dec. 14 WSJ reveals that medical personnel can warn college kids about healthier living--trans fat, exercise, sensible weight--but not that their sexual behavior is dangerous and unhealthy.

"I'm discussing a taboo topic here: the dangers of radical social agendas in my profession. My colleagues are well-intentioned, and care deeply about their patients. But campus counseling centers are whitewashing the painful consequences of casual sex, STDs and abortion.

They are promoting the notion that men and women are the same. They are not educating young people about future and family. In these issues, so central to campus health and counseling, we are failing our young people."

She can't suggest to a depressed female student that the source of her pain might be the casual sex vs. her desire for love and commitment.

When she treats a young homosexual college student engaged in "high risk behavior with multiple people she discovers by policy she cannot insist that he be tested for HIV. And if he were to submit to voluntary testing and the tests were to prove positive, she would not be allowed to report this information to the local health department--even as she would have to for any other communicable disease." [from the review]

Publishing details.

3277 Brightly colored lunch

Yesterday I ate one of the prettiest, most colorful and healthy lunches I've had in a long time, and three months ago you wouldn't have been able to get me to even consider it. If you read this blog, you know that for a Thursday Thirteen, I listed my 13 food triggers I was going to avoid, so I could lose some of my "blogging weight." After getting broadband about three years ago, I'd put on 20 pounds, flirting with 150, a new friend I definitely didn't want to get to know better because it had bounced me to the low end of the "overweight" BMI category. After 77 days, I was at 134 and feeling great. Eventually I'll get back to my "normal" 130, but there's no hurry, and with the holidays upon us, it will probably be nearer the end of January.

But what do you eat to replace all those bad-for-you favorites? I tried a number of new things and kept at it until my taste buds adjusted. Prepared food and bags of snacks no longer fill my grocery cart. Black beans and bell peppers were two things I never ate. Now I open a can of fiber rich, high protein beans (someday I may learn to cook dried beans, but I suspect life is too short), rinse them (to get rid of the salt and goo) and put them in the frig mixed with brown rice for my lunch salads. I keep the peppers, high in Vit. A, in 3 colors always around to throw at something that needs a little color.

Yesterday's lunch was a colorful masterpiece. First I grilled some chopped onion in a little olive oil; then I added some dark collard greens, the leaves rolled and sliced into pretty, thin circles; I put the lid on just a few minutes to steam a bit, then added some chopped red bell pepper and about 1/3 cup of frozen yellow corn; earlier in the week I had prepared a mix of brown rice and black beans, dividing it into 4 containers, so I added a container of that--probably 4 oz. of the beans and 2.5 oz of the rice. Oh my. Tender crisp and almost too pretty to eat! I should have taken a photo.

Collard greens are mild tasting, and really easy to fix sauted. I think one of the reason I had a negative impression of this wonderful cruciferous vegetable related to broccoli and cauliflower is that I'd only had the overcooked drowned in bacon grease or steamed-to-death dishes. One cup of collard greens (and I probably only had 1/2 cup or less) has 880% of the Vit. K requirement, 119% of Vit. A, almost 60% of Vit. C and lots of the trace minerals and vitamins you're probably buying in your multivitamin pill. It's high in fiber and calcium.

If you're taking a blood thinner for some reason, you should avoid foods high in Vit. K. When my dad, who never met a green leaf vegetable he liked, was taking coumadin for congestive heart failure, he would just beam when reading the list of green leafy things he shouldn't eat. Even without green veggies, he lived to 89.

3276 The Multiple Cat Household

How do you do it? Yesterday, see previous post, I stripped all the bedding, including the blankets, and vacuumed and turned the mattresses. We have one small, short hair domestic, 7 lb calico. The cat hair I clean up day-to-day and week-to-week is just amazing--from the cold air returns, from the chair seats in the dining room, from the kitchen floor, from every upholstered piece in the living room, from my office chair (black) and settee, from the lint filter in the dryer, from the blinds, the lamp shades, inside the ribbon and bow sack we pulled out to wrap presents, and occasionally (but I'm very careful), from the food! So I'm asking you with more than one cat (and I see them on your blogs), do you just live with it and send your guests home covered with fuzz and hair, or do you spend the time you're not blogging vacuuming cat hair?

3275 All I want for Christmas is a new pillow

While stripping the bed down to the mattress today to wash all the bedding, I looked at the stained, sad, pathetic down pillow that my husband uses (I'd taken off the pillow protector and the pillow case), and said to him, "Ten percent of a two year old pillow might be made up of dead mites and their droppings, either the North American or the European, but we probably have the North American, don't you think?" (Don't tell me people who've been married close to 50 years don't have anything to talk about!) "How old is this one?" he asked. "I think my mother got us new down pillows about twenty years ago for Christmas," I said. "Maybe you could get me a new pillow for Christmas," he suggested.

See the fact sheet here--then go out and buy your family new pillows for Christmas.

3274 The HPV Vaccination Debate

The religious parents who are objecting to the HPV vaccination on the belief it will encourage promiscuity need to rethink what they know about sexuality, viruses, and human behavior. Yes, you can teach your daughter your standards and ethics when she is an eleven year old middle schooler, but that control and information will not extend to the man she marries 15 years from now. She could be a pure as the driven snow, absolutely faithful to your standards, a wonderful godly woman. But she meets and marries a man, let's say a future Calvinist pastor, who didn't have your standards before his conversion to Christ a few years before he met your daughter. You would risk your daughter developing cancer in middle age through no action of her own because of what you objected to when she was in middle school? Or let's say, she's the one who slips up. I know, I know. You can't imagine that she'd ever be willful or commit a sin (God doesn't grade on a curve, you understand). But it could happen, and that pesky virus might stick around for many years to develop genital warts and then cervical cancer. Wise up, religious parents. Protect your daughters. This is not birth control pills or condoms handed out with a wink and a nod for next week's prom. This is a vaccine for a life time of protection.

Thursday Thirteen

1) will not appear today.
2) Roadrunner was down in our area for a long time, and
3) although I drafted something yesterday,
4) there wasn't enough time to tweak it.
5) If you come here often,
6) you know I have high standards for blogs written by women (and some guys).
7) I'm even fussier about my own stuff.
8) Besides, I'm going to a party this afternoon,
9) and hosting one this evening,
10) so I really don't have time to come up with a meme worth reading.
11) But I did bake an apple pie, and
12) put out some snack yummies for this evening,
13) so it's not all bad when the internet goes down at our house.

Have a good day--and I'll check on you later.

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