Where Social and Change Meet

Live Positive ~ Stay Positive

LIKE US AT:

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Why Smoothie Now! (ETL #3)

The title question sums up the reason for this post. I am becoming a smoothie head. I am so excited about smoothies, I have decided to try and come up with appealing recipes for my palate. As you know, I am in a house of 6, so I only have to make up ones to suit me for now. I do have hopes that the more I drink it the more curious everyone else will be and ask to try one. Hopefully soon, everyone will be smoothie heads.

So why smoothies. I do think I told you that I borrowed/took my moms juicer. I still remember the excitement of tasting carrot juice. Well the mess and clean-up is a bit much for everyday, whereas the blender is just a good rinse. In addition, you can get more fiber by way of all the bits just being chewed up for you by the blender. So, it is a healthy option. The juice from the juicer is very liquidity, while the smoothie is thicker. So that is a consideration when deciding which process you will be using at any particular time. Making smoothies also gives you an opportunity to add unusual ingredients, such as herbs.

You can make smoothies from just about any blender, however OfficeMax has a cool blender that has special settings for smoothie and ice crush.

I just am loving this. I do hope you try it.

Thank you for your support, make sure you comment, subscribe, and visit my sponsors.

Till Next Time......

Live Positive ~ Stay Positive

LIKE US AT:

Friday, September 9, 2011

Lesson Learned from Carrot Seeds (ETL #2)

If you've read my first ETL post, you know that we decided to grow carrots from seed. I can't begin to tell you how excited I/we (my daughter and I) were to put the soil in the biodegradible boxes and then add seeds. The first sight of those seeds sprouting green was so exciting to me, I showed everyone. What I wasn't expecting was the death of them all. I couldn't understand what I did wrong. I was carefully to explain to the little ones how to know if they were watered already, so they wouldn't be over watered. We gave them plenty of sunlight too. They had prime real estate. They sat atop of the juicer so that they can get a lot of sunlight.

Well, I'll be John Brown, that is why they all died off. They were all reaching toward the sunlight and their little roots could not handle the stretch. I have since learned that if you are growing plants from seed, it is best to have a grow-light system. The grow light sits above them and the roots have no reason to bend. So, I see we have a lot to learn, but I also took this as a life lesson.

When your ideas are young, you must care to not overload it with too much excitment because you may end up leaning in the wrong direction instead of standing tall; which is how you will grow strong.

The carrots in the backyard are still doing great. The tomato plants keep loosing leaves, but it is still growing tall. Our sweet potato plants (3 of them) are still vining away.

Picture source: http://bit.ly/nXLr2n

Thank you for your support, make sure you comment, subscribe, and visit my sponsors.

Till Next Time......

Live Positive ~ Stay Positive

LIKE US AT:

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Tis the Season to VOTE!

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

Every year, is another opportunity to vote for officials locally and nationally. The Presidential vote every 4 years is just part of the democracy process. So, I encourage all my readers to go to their city's website and see who is running for what office.

Here in Greensboro, NC, there are a few openings and I am going to try and make sense of what jobs are available and exactly what they are responsible for, so that I can be an informed voter.

Here is a link to Greensboro's PDF file that shows you who wants to run and for what office. This one is pretty cool looking too: Primary Elections (I touch on this in a bit).

Mayor - The mayor is the elected head of a city, town, or other municipality.

City Council At Large - This needs to be broken down. The City Council is a municipal body that can pass ordinaces and appropriate funds, etc. At Large means that the whole city will vote on the same pool.

Primary Election - Your city will have a primary election if too many members of one party is vying for the same office. So for instance, in my city five (5) Republicans are running for the Mayoral seat. Well, there can only be one (1) Republican and one (1) Democrat running at the same time and that will take place in November.

Publish Post

To make things more confusing, there are offices available for city council members for each district. To me, that just spells more arguments in the board room. Who knows, I may run for one of those offices one day, then I will really know what goes on in there. (random thought)

So, that is it. There you have it. There are a few offices open and a lot of people looking to get in the seat. As citizens, our job is to check out these people and help put the right one in the seat. We have quite a bit of mayors running for office this term, including the one already in office looking to be re-elected. I have to admit, I don't know anything about these people. I don't follow the news much and quite frankly, politics down here seem to be different from what I am used to from my Brooklyn days. Anyhoo, during my search, I have figured out that two of the candidates are Democrats (I am a Dem..), none are of any other party except Republican, to the best of my knowledge. I can't tell for the life of me why there status or affiliation is not posted on the website. I had to find one of the candidates on Facebook to see if he was still running because I couldn't find the website. I did eventually find it, but waited for his response. He was indeed still running and asked that I volunteer to help him. I have yet to respond, because I would love to help, but don't think I am ready to commit that kind of time. Maybe I can ask him to lunch or something just to see what he is about. Do you think he would accept?

So to recap, PLEASE look at who is running for office, look up any office that you don't understand, and then in October (this is for primary voting (you must check your city's website to see if there is a primary voting option) GET OUT AND VOTE!; and then again in November (general election); GET OUT AND VOTE!

(Please correct me if I am wrong with anything that I say in this post. I am no political science major).

Thank you for your support, make sure you comment, subscribe, and visit my sponsors.

Till Next Time......

Live Positive ~ Stay Positive

LIKE US AT:

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Letting Go

I am not sure how many moms and dads thought about their children growing up when they first starting having children. I can tell you, that I didn't. The older mine gets, the harder it is for me to face reality; they are getting older. I have to let them live their lives the way they want to eventually and with my oldest, I am learning to do just that. We spend years teaching and disciplining and loving unconditionally; but then.....they are almost 17.

My son wanted to spend some time across town. I stalled with answering him, once the question was asked. I only want him to go to school, get good grades and head straight to college. All the in betweens; parties, curfew, and girls on the phone, Facebook, and in person, did not make the original list of what I wanted for him. In reality, it is a list that was created and would have been created whether I wanted it to or not.

While he was away for this holiday weekend (labor day 2o11), I twiddled my fingers. My biggest fear is that he will make a decision that can ruin his life. I guess most, if not all, parents have that fear. Needless to say, he made it back safe and he gave me a version of how his weekend went.

I am happy that all of my talks and punishments from past outings that went wrong, have paid off. I feel more confident in letting him go out now. The moral of this post is, make sure you talk often to your child about your expectations. Talk to them about possible situations that may arise and how best to avoid and/or handle them. If your household is anything like mines, you have to repeat the same thing over and over; ie do your chores?, did you do your chores yet? Uh, your chores are not complete!...... Same thing has to be done with life situations. My son has heard speech after speech about safe sex, bad influences, drugs and smoking, and his health. I don't pay any of his "Ok Mom, I know this already" looks, any mind either.

As parents, we have to stand our ground, and give it to our children straight. Are you giving it to your child straight or sugar coated things?

Till Next Time......

Live Positive ~ Stay Positive

LIKE US AT: