01.06.2009

Hello one and all...welcome to the first issue of 2009. I'm having a hard time remembering the holidays are over because I'm still buying Christmas stuff. On clearance. 75% off! I love prices going down. Well, let's see what we have for this week... ~Toni
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Now for Phyllis...

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a happy and healthy New Years day! May 2009 be a year full of blessings for us all.

Want to send an e-card to someone from more than one person? Go to
http://www.groupcard.com/landing/
You can send a card from the whole group!
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Check it out! Ever wonder what your favorite websites looked like back when they were first created? Find out here
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
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COOL PICK
http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/
LoveFoodHateWaste is a British website that I recently found. The purpose of the site is to help cut down on food waste. You can use the site when planning a meal to ensure that you only use enough food for your meal, without any leftovers that could possibly just be thrown out. Not only does this help reduce food waste, it can also help you save money! Another benefit is that the site also has recipes where you can use up any leftovers you happen to have. Just click on "recipes" and check on the food(s) you have leftover to get recipes where you can incorporate them. They also offer tips on how to keep your food fresh, which of course will also help reduce waste.
According to LoveFoodHateWaste, the average household throws away about a third of the food they buy! They also claim that if we stopped wasting that food, the CO2 impact (carbon dioxide) would be equal to taking 1 out of 5 cars off the road.
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Oh, to be lying on a beach somewhere,
With sand in my toes
And the wind in my hair.

And only the sound of the seagulls on high
On a beach somewhere
Under a sunny blue sky.

The gentle caress of the waves on the shore
And you close beside me
Could I ask for more?

A soft, sandy beach that goes on forever
You, me and a beach
So happy together.

Somewhere by Linda Harnett
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If you would like reviews on "healthy" or "diet" food, go to
http://www.iateapie.net/
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Healthy Living

Just a short column this week, since I'm getting over the flu and still not feeling very well.
Here is an online quiz to see how much you know about fat loss.
http://exercise.about.com/library/Quiz/blbodyfatquiz.htm
How did you do? I got 10 out of 11 correct.
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Friends are kind to each other's hopes. They cherish each other's dreams.
--Emerson


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Now for Toni...

This week our state is Illinois:

The world's first Skyscraper was built in Chicago, 1885.

The Sears Tower, Chicago is the tallest building on the North American continent.

Metropolis the home of Superman really exists in Southern Illinois.

Illinois was the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. 1865

On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi and a small band of scientists and engineers demonstrated that a simple construction of graphite bricks and uranium lumps could produce controlled heat. The space chosen for the first nuclear fission reactor was a squash court under the football stadium at the University of Chicago.

Des Plaines is home to the first McDonald's.

Dixon is the boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan.

Chicago is home to the Chicago Water Tower and Pumping Station, the only buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire.

Before Abraham Lincoln was elected president he served in the Illinois legislature and practiced law in Springfield. Abraham Lincoln is buried just outside Springfield at Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site.

Ronald Wilson Regan from Tampico became the 40th president of the United States in 1980.

The highest point in Illinois is Charles Mound at 1235 feet above sea level.

The ice cream "sundae" was named in Evanston. The piety of the town resented the dissipating influences of the soda fountain on Sunday and the good town fathers, yielding to this churchly influence, passed an ordinance prohibiting the retailing of ice cream sodas on Sunday. Ingenious confectioners and drug store operators obeying the law, served ice cream with the syrup of your choice without the soda. Objections then was made to christening a dish after the Sabbath. So the spelling of "sunday" was changed. It became an established dish and an established word and finally the "sundae".

In 1905, president of the Chicago Cubs filed charges against a fan in the bleachers for catching a fly ball and keeping it.

Chicago's Mercantile Exchange building was built entirely without an internal steel skeleton, as most skyscrapers; it depends on its thick walls to keep itself up.

The trains that pass through Chicago's underground freight tunnels daily would extend over ten miles total in length.

In Mount Pulaski, Illinois, it is illegal for boys (and only boys) to hurl snowballs at trees. Girls are allowed to do that however.

Illinois is known for its wide variety of weather. Major winter storms, deadly tornadoes and spectacular heat and cold waves.

The first animal purchased for the Lincoln Park Zoo was a bear cub, bought for $10 on June 1st, 1874.

New York Sun editor Charles Dana, tired of hearing Chicagoans boast of the world's Columbian Exposition, dubbed Chicago the "Windy City."

The Chicago Public Library is the world's largest public library with a collection of more than 2 million books.

The Chicago Post Office at 433 West Van Buren is the only postal facility in the world you can drive a car through.

The Chicago River is dyed green on Saint Patrick's Day.

The world's largest cookie and cracker factory, where Nabisco made 16 billion Oreo cookies in 1995, is located in Chicago.
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A rule of thumb for extension cords is that the extension cord should be as thick as the cord you plug into it.

And speaking of extension cords, have you ever needed an extension cord for a small appliance but didn't want all that extra cord visable on your counter? Would you believe there is a 6 inch extension cord? I ran across it at Radio Shack's website.
http://tinyurl.com/74hzyy
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Very serious advice from Cheryl:

Storing Antifreeze Keep antifreeze in sealed containers away from your pets. Cats and dogs adore the sweet taste of it and will lick it up off the garage floor.

Did you know that just 2 ounces might be enough to kill a pet? So also wipe up any spills ASAP and dispose of the paper towels carefully.
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I'm not sure if these are true or not, but I did think they were funny, so in the interst of a good laugh...

Accident insurance claim forms ask for a brief statement about how the accident happened. The combination of the finger pointing instinct and the small spaces provided on the forms can lead to some curiously phrased explanations:

"The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention."

"I thought my window was down; but found it was up when I put my hand through it."

"No one was to blame for the accident, but it never would have happened if the other driver had been alert."

"The indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth."

"I was on the way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident."

"I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat, I found that I had a fractured skull."

"As I approached the intersection, a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident."

"The telephone pole was approaching fast. I was attempting to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end."
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Advertisers are estimated to have spent more than $1.2 billion in 2008 trying to reach social networking users, whose time on networking sites like Facebook and MySpace has increased 93 percent in the last two years. Not every advertiser is legit: Spammers in 2008 managed to trick countless teens and tweens to click a link for a video from their Facebook inbox that infects the user's PC with a spambot virus known and Koobface. It can infect a user's computer and turn it into a spamming slave, sending out email spam messages at the direction of a malicious proxy.
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January 8 would have been the 73rd birthday of Elvis. There are over 500 active Official Elvis Presley Fan Clubs still throughout the world today. They are represented in 44 of the 50 United States and 45 different countries worldwide. I found a couple of nice quotes about Elvis and wanted to share them.

"...it's like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody's ear, and somehow we all dreamed it."
~Bruce Springsteen

"It is rare when an artist's talent can touch an entire generation of people. It's even rarer when that same influence affects several generations. Elvis made an imprint on the world of pop music unequaled by any other single performer."
~Dick Clark
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Last issue I posed the question: In your opinion, what has been the most significant world event that has taken place during your lifetime?

1. I would say in my life time, it would be the city towers in NYC getting bombed by terrorists and getting a black president

2. The biggest world event I think in my lifetime would have to be the twin towers falling. I will never forget that day.

3. For me, it was Ronald Reagan getting elected President. Ronald Reagan was a man who fought for what he believed in, and he changed the world more than probably any American in the twentieth century.

I received only 2 answers to the question (I was the 3rd). I don't think there's much interest in this feature, so I will skip it for awhile. I might try it again at a later date though.
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~Marie's Laughter~

A cat died and went to Heaven. God met her at the gates and said, 'You have been a good cat all these years. Anything you want is yours for the asking.'

The cat thought for a minute and then said, 'All my life I lived on a farm and slept on hard wooden floors. I would like a real fluffy pillow to sleep on.'

God said, 'Say no more.' Instantly the cat had a huge fluffy pillow.

A few days later, six mice were killed in an accident and they all went to Heaven together. God met the mice at the gates with the same offer that He made to the cat.

The mice said, 'Well, we have had to run all of our lives: from cats, dogs, and even people with brooms! If we could just have some little roller skates, we would not have to run again.'

God answered, 'It is done.' All the mice had beautiful little roller skates.

About a week later, God decided to check on the cat. He found her sound asleep on her fluffy pillow. God gently awakened the cat and asked, 'Is everything okay? How have you been doing? Are you happy?'

The cat replied, 'Oh, it is WONDERFUL. I have never been so happy in my life. The pillow is so fluffy, and those little Meals on Wheels you have been sending over are delicious!'
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John and I have tried Truvia sweetener and we really like it! Prior to this we'd been using NuStevia that we bought from GNC. We liked NuStevia except for the fact that it had a licorice-like aftertaste. So I saw the commercial for Truvia and we gave it a try. To us it is sweeter, has no aftertaste and it's cheaper per pack than the NuStevia from GNC.http://www.truvia.com/
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A little mindless fun anyone?http://www.danzen.com/snowflake/snowflake.html
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The expression Katy, bar the door means to watch out or serves as a warning of impending disaster. It dates to at least 1902 when it appears in Hugh McHugh’s (George V. Hobart’s) It’s Up to You: It was “Katie, bar the door” with her.

But who was Katy (or Katie) and why was she locking the door?

We don’t know for certain, but the expression is probably a reference to an incident in Scottish history. On 20 February 1437, King James I of Scotland was assassinated while staying at the Dominican chapterhouse in Perth and the Katy in question was one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting who tried to save him.

Her full name was Catherine Douglas, popularly known as Kate Barlass. A band of murderers, led by nobleman Robert Graeme, had entered the chapterhouse in search of the king. The king’s chamberlain, Robert Stuart, was in on the plot and had removed the locks and bolts securing the door of king’s chamber. In an attempt to prevent the murderers from entering the room, Catherine used her arm in place of a bolt. The murderers broke the door, and her arm, and succeeded in killing the king. Her descendants to this day bear a broken arm on their family crest and keep the name Barlass.
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Here is a site I've not really checked out completely yet, but at first glance it looks like it would really be helpful, so I wanted to go ahead and share it with you.http://www.thedailyplate.com/
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The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words. More than 2 billion pencils are manufactured each year in the United States. If these were laid end to end they would circle the world nine times.
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Big changes in our lives are more or less a second chance. ~Harrison Ford