“I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and I think, ‘Well, that’s not going to happen.'”
Month: December 2019
🤗 Feel Good Hack ~ Happiness is Good for Your Heart
Love and happiness may not actually originate in the heart, but they are good for it. For example, a 2005 paper found that happiness predicts lower heart rate and blood pressure. In the study, participants rated their happiness over 30 times in one day and then again three years later. The initially happiest participants had a lower heart rate on follow-up (about six beats slower per minute), and the happiest participants during the follow-up had better blood pressure.
🍎 Health Hack ~ Washing Hands versus Hand Sanitizers, Who Wins?
Alcohol-based hand sanitizers can quickly reduce the number of microbes on hands in some situations, but sanitizers do not eliminate all types of germs.
Why? Soap and water are more effective than hand sanitizers at removing certain kinds of germs, like Cryptosporidium, norovirus, and Clostridium difficile1-5. Although alcohol-based hand sanitizers can inactivate many types of microbes very effectively when used correctly 1-15, people may not use a large enough volume of the sanitizers or may wipe it off before it has dried 14.
🖋 Writers’ Wisdom ~ Looking for a Topic?
“Write about only three things: what you love, what you hate, and what you’re deeply conflicted about.” ―
A Christmas Surprise ~ A short story of Christmas love
A Christmas Surprise is a short story about a down and outer, Eddie Testa, who’s quit on Christmas. It’s Christmas Eve and Eddie can’t wait for Christmas to be over. His unemployment check arrives the day after Christmas. Until the check arrives, Eddie has four dollars and fifty cents he found in his change box to buy food. Eddie heads out into a dark, cold, doubly gray sky to buy a slice of pizza for lunch and a loaf of hot French bread for dinner and Christmas day. He knows he’ll make it if he can skip a couple of meals. Eddie’s life takes a series of twists and turns the moment he leaves his small two room apartment 83-year-old Sofia asks Eddie to buy her a can of soup from the discount wagon at the market. She promises to pay Eddie back when her retirement check comes in. Eddie slowly discovers Christmas is all about people and giving and receiving. What Eddie learns changes his life. And, it may change yours as well.
A Christmas Surprise is available as an eBook from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082FRBS6J
🤗 Feel Good Hack ~ Beauty Surrounds Us
Appreciate Beauty
Beauty is everywhere! Outside in our backyard gardens, on our iPods with music that inspires us, in books with poetic phrases, and in the smiling faces of the people we love. When we make the intention to see beauty, we find it everywhere we look. One of the ways I like to enjoy beauty is taking a walk in my neighborhood and appreciating all the different plants, flowers and trees in my community. What’s beautiful to you? Look for it, and you will find it.
Writers’ Wisdom ~ Tell The Story Within Your Heart
“Tell the story that’s been growing in your heart, the characters you can’t keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning.” ―
Today’s Poem ~ Song of the Open Road, 1
Song of the Open Road, 1
Walt Whitman
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
Inspiring Quote ~ Blessings Come Around
The flow of blessings in our life is directly related to our passing blessings along to someone else. ~ Thomas Kinkade
