My sister told me about this a while back. I love asparagus and bacon, no matter how either one is cooked, so I knew I would like this. It is so easy to. It is probably not good for you AT ALL, but it IS gluten free. Just make sure the bacon you buy is gluten free. To make this, wrap a slice of bacon around five or six asparagus stalks. Line them up on an aluminum foil covered cookie sheet. Place the cookie sheet into a 350 degree oven for about twenty minutes, until bacon is golden brown. Yum!
A couple of years ago, I signed up to receive press releases at a website called PR Newswire. Why, you might ask, would I do something like that? Because I could. Or because I am weird in that I actually LIKE to read press releases. A person can learn quite a bit from reading them. They are not always about products. Sometimes they are about people. Sometimes about events. Sometimes about new concepts. At any rate, I just like to read them. Getting a feed of press releases in a daily email makes it pretty easy to do, too.
So, I think I am going to start telling you all a little bit about what I have read up on once a week. Skip it if you aren’t interested, but if you DO read it, you might just learn something new.
I didn’t think there was such a category as “obligation” travel, but according to Hotwire, people are obligated to go to things like weddings, reunions, birthdays and major holidays. I notice they didn’t mention funerals, but it would seem to me that if you are talking about things you feel obligated to go to, that should include funerals. I could be wrong. What things do you feel obligated to go to?
Interesting. A whole store online for women who love wine. They are probably millionaires already. However, when I went to look at the site, their “department” titles included things like “Promisquos” and “Good Daughter” and “Slow Dancer”. Umm, I think not.
This was especially interesting to me . You would think that with all the technology available in the world, that something like this would have been created ten years ago. I have been in constant pain for almost a year, and while I have known that pain clinics exist, I have no idea where they are in my neck of the woods.
The American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP) has just launched a user-friendly Doctor Finder component on their website, ASIPP Dr.Finder*. This marks the first time that the non-profit organization has launched a consumer-driven tool on the site. The Dr.Finder feature was launched in response to a growing need to provide easy access to information about interventional pain management physicians throughout the United States.
Do they just want to point out that girls can be smart as well as beautiful?
Since its inception, L’OREAL-UNESCO For Women in Science has honored 77 Laureates, including two who subsequently were awarded the Nobel Prize, Professor Elizabeth Blackburn and Professor Ada Yonath. The program has also supported more than 1,652 Fellows who have made contributions in every field of scientific research. By the end of 2013, a total of 1,729 women scientists from over 100 countries will have benefited from the program.
An international network of nearly 1,000 scientists nominates the candidates for each year’s Awards. The five Laureates are then selected by an independent, international jury presided by Professor Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1999. Each Laureate receives $100,000 in recognition of her contribution to the advancement of science.
Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and CEO of L’Oreal stated,“This program was born of a convergence between the crucial role of science at L’Oreal and the pressing need to increase the number of women holding key research posts around the world. By supporting eminent women researchers on all continents, the program is contributing to changing mindsets and fighting prejudice.”
Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO remarked, “This program embodies UNESCO’s founding principles. It is based on the idea that science has no gender and no frontiers; that scientific knowledge must be shared; that the curiosity of all girls and boys must be nurtured and encouraged as much as possible for the benefit of all.”
Great news! Let’s go find a Baskin-Robbins right now!
I was just thinking today that for the last 13 years, April 1 has been the signal to start clearing out the closets and pantry and wardrobe, in preparation for moving down the road in the RV, to whatever destination we had decided on for the season. This year is different. We are going nowhere for the first time in over a decade.
Although I have known for months that our RV traveling days are over, yesterday just brought it home to me that we really aren’t going to go. It feels weird, different, almost incomprehensible that we are here in the house to stay. Every morning when I wake up, it still feels strange to be living in a house again. That this huge space with separate rooms, and a bathroom almost as large as the whole RV is ours.
The house isn’t really that big. It is two bedrooms, living room, kitchen-dining room combo. It’s maybe 950 square feet. We have only furnished it with necessities, so it isn’t stuffed full like our last house was. And because of that, it still echoes like an empty house when we walk around in it. It feels so roomy and big and spacious, like a mansion. But even with how big it is compared to the RV we lived in for so long, I feel like I’ve lost something. Maybe it’s my freedom to go wherever I want to go, or the thrill of discovering what’s around the next bend or over the next hill. I’m trying as hard as I can to be happy about staying here. After all, I’ve known since last summer that it was coming.
Many years ago, when my son was a newborn, my husband was given an early release from the Army, and my son and I were sent home on a charter flight from Germany. When my husband followed about two months later,I was so happy to see him! I was in such a hurry to give my son his medications for a cold, that I failed to read the labels. I had two prescription bottles, one for a cough medicine for babies, the other one was a poison if taken internally. It was camphor, to rubbed on his little chest. But, the bottles looked identical, down to the color of the liquids inside. Instead of taking time to read the labels, I inadvertently poisoned my little baby boy!
We quickly took him to the local emergency room, where the nurse induced vomiting, and he was fine. He didn’t have to have his little tummy pumped. We were lucky. A lot of kids are accidently poisoned each year, and don’t make it home to laugh about the experience later.
Today Safe Kids Worldwide® released a new research report that found kids are
getting into medicine at an alarming rate. Every minute of every day, a poison control center receives a call about potential medicine poisoning for a child age five and under. And 67,000 times each year, or every eight minutes, a young child goes to the emergency room for medicine poisoning. This is a 30 percent increase over the past ten years.
While most parents think they are keeping their child safe by keeping prescription medications out of the reach of their small children, the truth is that they don’t always keep ALL medications put away and out of reach. Here are some tips from Safe Kids Worldwide to help you keep your little ones safe in your home. Share them with visitors and with those who care for your child outside of their home to ensure your child is safe both inside and outside of the home.
Put medicines up and away and out of sight.
- Make sure that all medications, including vitamins and adult medicines, are stored out of reach and out of sight of children. In 86% of emergency room visits for medicine poisoning, the child got into medicine belonging to an adult.
Consider products you might not think about as medicines.
- Most parents know to store medicine up and away – or at least the products they consider to be medicine. But they don’t always think about products such as eye drops or vitamins, which may not seem like medicine but actually are. Look around your home to see what products are within the reach of children and may be harmful, then move them up and away.
Be alert to visitors’ medicine.
- When you have visitors in your home, offer to put purses, bags and coats out of reach of children to protect their property from a curious child. Well meaning visitors may not be thinking about the medicines that they have brought with them in their belongings. In 43% of emergency room visits for medicine poisoning, the child got into medicine belonging to a relative, such as an aunt, uncle or grandparent.
Put medicines up and away after EVERY use
- It may be tempting to keep medicine close at hand when you need to give another dose of medicine in just a few hours. Accidents can happen fast. It only takes a few seconds for children to get into medicine that could make them very sick. Put medicine up and away after every use. And if you need a reminder, set an alarm on your watch or cell phone, or write yourself a note.
Read the label and know what’s in the medicine.
- Take the time to read the label and follow the directions on your child’s medicine. Check the active ingredients listed on the label. Don’t give your child more than one medicine with the same active ingredient. Giving your child two or medicines that have the same active ingredient can put your child at risk for an overdose.
Put the Poison Control number in your home and cell phone: 1-800-222-1222.
- You can also put the number on your refrigerator or another place in your home where babysitters can see it.
To learn more about how to keep your kids safe, click here to watch the educational video, “Safe Storage, Safe Dosing, Safe Kids.”
“I wrote this review while participating in a campaign for Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Safe Kids Worldwide and I received a promotional item to thank me for my participation
Just because I haven’t posted in a week, I feel the need to at least write something about the nothing. Yes, not much going on around here at all. They did send Mama home from the hospital on Thursday. Then, on Monday, my sister asked me if I would go to Mama’s doctor appointment with her. Linda is starting a new job with the county sheriff’s department next week, so she will not be able to take Mama to her appointments for a while. So, Alan, my brother-in-law, and I will have to swap off that responsibility in the coming months. I have the first one that is coming up on April 9. I told them all I can do one day a week. I know that I can’t do anything two days in a row, or I will be confined to my bed in pain for two days afterwards. They all seem to understand.
While we were at the doctors office, sitting in the waiting room, I ran into a girl I have not seen in at least forty years. It’s sad that we were really good friends in high school, but then we went our separate ways after school was out. I remember going to the old Alpha Theater in Douglasville, with Lynn and Cathy when we were about fifteen years old. I don’t remember the name of the movie, but it was a western, and we got talking about what women did before they had brassieres. We were laughing so much that we got thrown out of the movie theater and decided to walk to the bowling alley, which was about a mile or so away. Anyway, I was telling my sister about that, and Mama looked at me and said “I never knew about that.” Yes, I know, Mama. Do you think I would have ever told you about it back then?
So, where were we? Oh yeah, the doctor put Mama on another blood pressure medicine. That makes four. FOUR. I asked him why she was on four medications that are supposed to lower her blood pressure and it was still high? It checked at 162/90 that day. He really didn’t answer except to say that each one of them acts differently.
I got two care packages filled up and addressed and ready to go, one to Canada and one to Maryland. I am hoping to get them mailed out today or tomorrow. I had good intentions of getting them delivered by Easter but that isn’t going to happen. Well, one of them could get there in time. Maybe.
I finally decided to file a medical malpractice suit. I talked with an attorney here in Georgia, and now they are talking with an attorney in Arizona to see if I really do have a claim or not. In order for there to be a case, I have to have “significant” damage. I don’t know if my idea of “significant” is the same as their idea of “significant” or not. I do know that I am in pain every day. All day. If I do anything a normal sixty year old grandma would do, I hurt. I have to take hydrocodone four times a day, along with Aleve two or three times a day. I can’t put my own socks and shoes on. I can’t walk very far without being in pain. I can’t pick up my two month old grandson. So now, whether or not my pain is “significant” depends on two attorneys who do not know what it is like to be in my body. Y’all say a prayer that they decide in my favor, because without that decision, I can’t even file the lawsuit.
So, how has your week been? What are you up to? Where are you going? Tell me about it.
For once in a long while, I am getting my Thrifty Thursday post done on Thursday! We went to one of the junk stores in Bremen a couple of weeks ago to just pass some time before my doctor’s appointment. I found this really neat framed art print there for just $6.00 I think the frame itself is worth more than that, but I really like the print, too. I think it’s a great score! 
There’s never really a bad time to visit the incredible museums of New York City, and the summer of 2013 promises to be one of the more exciting seasons for art lovers. From retrospectives of art and architecture to never-before-seen pieces by legendary artists, as well as new installations and historical expositions, New York’s museums are covering all of the bases this summer. When you’re planning your itinerary for a summer visit this year, make time to check out at least one of these exciting and highly anticipated exhibits.
Fans of music and fashion will want to make time to visit the Costume Institute’s summer exhibit. “Punk: Chaos to Couture.” Opening on 9 May and running through mid-August, this exhibit explores the impact of punk music on fashion beginning in the early 1970s through today. The multimedia exhibit uses both original pieces owned by punk pioneers as well as modern designs from today’s fashion houses that were inspired by punk’s anti-establishment aesthetic.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Met will also be featuring two Civil War focused exhibits this summer: “Photography and the Civil War” and “The Civil War and American Art.” The first exhibit will run from 2 April through 2 September and feature more than 200 photographs of the War Between the States from both the museum’s own collection and loans from other organizations.
Designed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, the second exhibit runs from 27 May through 2 September, and features more than 75 paintings and photographs that capture life in America from the days just before the war through the reunification period. The paintings, on loan from the Smithsonian Institute, include pieces by Winslow Homer and Frederic E. Church and provide new insights into the impact the war had on the American psyche, and how the unease of the time was reflected in art.
Visitors to the famed museum this summer will have the opportunity to view artist James Turrell’s first U.S. installation since 1980. From 21 June through 25 September, Turrell will transform the Guggenheim’s distinctive rotunda into an exploration of light, space, perception and colour. Using both artificial and natural light, the installation will change visitors’ perceptions of the open areas of the rotunda, and change how they view the building. The museum will also exhibit some of Turrell’s earlier works in the Annex Level galleries. The Guggenheim exhibit is part of a larger retrospective taking place across the U.S. this summer, with the other two pieces appearing in Houston and Los Angeles.
At the Whitney Museum, summer will mark the unveiling of the “Edward Hopper Drawings” exhibit, a brand new collection of drawings by the legendary artist. Opening on 23 May and running through 6 October, the exhibit features more than 2,000 drawings from the artists’ personal archives, many of them never seen by the public before. The drawings show the early versions of some of Hopper’s most recognized work, including “Nighthawks” and “Early Sunday Morning”; visitors will be able to see these early renderings paired with the completed piece to gain a better understanding of the artist’s process.
The Whitney will also host the U.S. premier of David Hockney’s first video installation, “The Jugglers,” from 22 May through 1 September. This nine-minute video presentation used 18 fixed video cameras to film a group of jugglers moving across a colourful background. Designed to show how technology influences the way we make and view images, this piece has gained much worldwide attention for its unusual take on the creative process.
From 9 June through 23 September, MoMA plays host to the first major exhibit of the work of architect and designer Le Corbusier. Using drawings, paintings, photographs and models, the exhibit explores how the legendary artist created his distinctive spaces throughout his career.
If you’re looking for hotels in New York this summer, ask about specials that include admission to these and other exhibits and museums. Because summer is often low season, when many Manhattanites head to the beach or country for vacation, you can often find affordable rates — not to mention you’ll be able to enjoy these special exhibits without the crowds.
About the Author: New York native Lana Darnbrough looks forward to the new exhibits at her favourite museums each summer. She holds a degree in art history, and is especially looking forward to the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney this summer.
Back in January, I was contacted by Quality of Life and asked to review a couple of their products. I had never heard of this company before, but the two products looked interesting. The first one, Kinoko Gold AHCC, (Active Hexose Correlated Compound) is a mushroom-based nutrient from Japan. Quality of Life says it is the most researched specialty immune supplement in the world. There have been more than 80 supporting research studies that show that AHCC can help strengthen the immune system and help fight off a wide range of threats, including infections, viruses and the flu. A recent clinical study from Michigan State University shows that AHCC enhances the power of the seasonal flu shot, making it even more effective against this potentially deadly virus. I have not read the study from Michigan State University, but I do believe that this nutritional supplement has helped me stay mostly well over this past winter. The only really bad cold I had was before I received it.
The second item Quality of Life sent me was a bottle of ProbioPure, a probiotic. It just so happened that my gastroenterologist had recommended to me to take a probiotic for an intestinal problem I was having back in December. This one was easy to take in a capsule form. It cleared up the diahrrea that I was having with no side effects like some other things I had taken in the past. The Quality of Life website says this about probiotics:
Probiotics have been proven to be helpful for many things including digestive health, inflammatory conditions and gastrointestinal infections. Research also shows that some strains of probiotics can be helpful in building up the immune system to ward off infections such as the flu. Several human studies have provided evidence that specific strains of probiotics are able to stimulate as well as regulate immune responses. For example, one clinical study among older adults vaccinated with the flu shot found that bifidobacterium longum BB536® helped activate NK cells and reduce the incidence of influenza infection and fever.
If you would like to win a bottle of each of these supplements from Quality of Life, just enter the giveaway using the form below:
