It’s been a busy Summer.
Exciting things are happening at Barber Productions, and I need to “tend the home fires” for a few weeks!
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.
Anatole France (1844 - 1924), The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
One way to look at life is to consider it an endurance sport - so I tend to pay attention to information about “aging gracefully”.
It is for this reason that I found Therese Borchard’s article interesting.
One of the things she finds healthy older people have in common is they “like to laugh"…
Yep, nearly all of them have a marvelous sense of humor. And this is consistent with a Norwegian study that suggests folks who can laugh at life’s ups and downs live longer.
For example, the study, which was presented at a meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society and reported by USA Today, followed a subgroup of 2,015 cancer patients for seven years, and found that the people who could laugh more easily and had a healthy sense of humor were 70 percent less likely to die than the poker-faced guys.
"3 Things Healthy Older People Have in Common"
Check this out - house flies HATE a hanging bag of water.
According to The Straight Dope, the bag of water creates the illusion of movement…
Evidently, houseflies, being highly edible and defenseless, are nervous types, and don’t like to sit still when they see something moving nearby, because it could be a predator.
The water bag acts a bit like a lens--try it some time--in which the movements of people in the area are reflected. Even if the fly is too far from the action to see it directly, it can see a shifting of light and dark in the water bag, which it interprets as nearby movement, and it will fly away from the bag.
"What's the purpose of bags of water hanging in restaurants?"
There’s nothing like a tasty (and by that I mean salty) snack on a hot summer day. The problem is, those snacks can be pricey.
Enter the decidedly “old-school” air powered popcorn popper. According to PayLessForFood.com, “Using a hot air popper, which can be purchased for around $10 to $15 at Walmart or Target, you can make popcorn for an insanely low 8 cents per serving!"…
Not only is popcorn made with an air popper cheap, its also healthy. With an air popper there’s no need for oil and you avoid all the salt and additives found in microwave popcorn. As a former “dripping with butter” popcorn lover who is now trying to watch my cholesterol levels, I have learned to love popcorn without the added heart clogging butter.
Popcorn is naturally low in calories and high in fiber. The perfect food. I make popcorn ahead of time and then portion it off into sandwich bags so that I have a cheap, quick, healthy snack whenever I want something to crunch on.
We’re selling our house, so lately I’ve been interested in how to “dress up” your home without spending a fortune.
The July 2009 issue of ShopSmart suggests that you “Clean up the landscaping. Cost - About $150"…
A few landscaping tweaks don’t have to cost a lot. You can bring a patchy yard back to life by seeding bald spots and pruning overgrown foundation plantings.
If you decide to add shrubs around the house, choose varieties that won’t grow bigger than 3 or 4 feet, and plant taller bushes and trees at the edge of the house to frame it.
