Consumer Reports Rates Diet Plans and Star Wars

Now you have a good place to investigate all those miracle diets. Consumer Reports lays it on the line. Check out the link to the Star Wars spoof. You will laugh but you will also know the truth.

Store Wars

Consumer Reports Rates Diet Plans: "May 9, 2005 - Weight Watchers is the best overall diet plan, according to new Consumer Reports ratings.
The ratings are based on combined scores for nutritional value and weight loss effectiveness. The nonprofit consumer group has never before rated commercially available diet plans.
Consumer Reports Senior Editor Nancy Metcalf wrote the report for the June issue of Consumer Reports.

You and Your Pet's Fleas

Ah the joys of fleas. Wait I can’t think of any joys. Dogs and cats that go outside bring fleas inside and fleas don’t care if they live on Rover or you. Fleas can set up a whole colony in your carpet and if you have children or adults sitting on that carpet, you may just find fleas on the baby.

Doesn’t matter how clean you are or how many times you spray your yard. Fleas will move with ease from yard to yard and animal to animal. Your cat that only goes out to do her business will bring fleas back into the house. Dog bedding is a breeding ground for fleas.

If your animals spend any time in tall grass or weed you need to check them on a regular basis for ticks.

Fleas cause itching and scratching which can lead to a bad case of Staph Dermatitis.
Just like humans, our pets are susceptible to Staph and Staph bacteria is everywhere.

When you get a scratch on your arm if you don’t clean it up and put an antibiotic on the scratch – you will get a staph infection. If your system is healthy, you overcome the bacteria and the scratch will heal. If you keep scratching the same area you will spread the infection and it becomes a little harder to heal.

When your dog or cat starts to scratch they do the same thing. Staph Dermatitis can be extremely nasty and hard for your vet to treat. Prevention is the best course of action.

Here in south Texas, our vet recommends that we bathe the dogs every week. Never bathe your animal in dish soap. Use a product specifically designed for your dog or a different formula for your cat. Do not bathe cats in dog shampoo. Do not use your own shampoo on your pets. Unless you are using an organic shampoo without additives, your human shampoo can be toxic to your pet. Remember pets will lick themselves.

Treat hot spots immediately – if nothing else use an ice cube. Just don’t hold the ice cube on the skin long enough to cause damage.

Dr Carter, our vet at El Dorado Animal Hospital here in San Antonio, was telling me about a very sad situation. They had two cases of dogs drinking out of water containers with dirty water in them. One was a small fishpond that had toxic algae in it and the other a birdbath with rotting leaves and debris. The fishpond drinker died in seizures.

Please, please make sure your pets have a source of clean fresh water. Rotted plants, such as oak leaves, can be poisonous and can burn the stomach and intestines as much as toilet bowl cleaners, swimming pool or spa chlorine or other cleaners around the home.

Keep potential killers behind closed doors safe from both children and pets. Do you know why Dawn is responsible for more children poisoning than any other dish soap – it is the most popular dish soap and is under more sinks. In this day and age, there is no excuse for having a toxic cleaner in your home or garage. There are just too many safe products out there. You know which one I sell.

The Very Best all Natural Non-Toxic Pet Products in the world.

Updating Articles on Pain and Avocados

Spent a few minutes today doing an update to some articles on my web site.

Trying to get a site map built is forcing me to look at what I have on the site.

I am finding many broken links - shame on me. Anyway, take a look at these 2 articles and see if I have fixed all the links.

Pain and Fibromialgia

Addicted to Avocados

Newsletter is coming out this week.

Smile - give the world something beautiful to look at.

Sharono

Virus Protection

This week I was down with a virus – so was my computer.

Down time is the perfect time to re-evaluate your priorities. I consider
health to be a top priority but obviously I had let my body get weak or
I would not have succumbed to the virus. I have now shifted my health
to the top priority spot.

My being sick with a virus was a hardship on my family.There was no one else to watch the grandchildren, so they suffered by not having any fun while I lay on the couch telling them watching TV was fun.

So my health is #1 so that I can continue to take care of my family. Besides
being sick is ucky!

The computer virus I believe I got from someone I know and correspond with on a regular basis. What I did not notice was that the email was from her old address. I have now received that email over a dozen times and a variation of the email 2 or 3 times a day.

The cost to get the computer back up and running - $120.00. I don’t know about you, but that is a chunk of money for me. Somewhere someone is laughing at his or her destructive power. All that ability put to such a sad use.

Worse still,in my opinion,are all the companies on the internet that are selling
anti-virus programs that are actually virus programs. Once installed they see your key strokes and know your on-line banking and credit card information.

They now have access to your address book and can infect thousands more
computers.

You must have a good anti-virus program.

For your body that program is quality food and exercise and quality supplements. For your computer – Norton runs my firewall and virus program but I also have spybot and ad-aware and no-adware and spy sweeper. All are free. I now have a new one – Hijacker. Also free and it was the one that found the virus.

I am lucky – there was no major damage to me or my computer. All the background systems are in place. Lucky or smart? I know the dangers and I have taken steps to insure the quality of my life. Remember, the precautions you take today will prevent the potential damages of tomorrow.

Viruses are out there. They are the price of inter-action with your community, on-line or off-line. You go to the store and breathe the air. You open email from someone you know. Did any of these people deliberately give you a virus? No, they are just living their lives as best they can.

Since you are responsible for your own life, you must take the necessary steps
to insure the quality of your own life. In doing that you help to insure the
quality of life for your family and friends.

Just a side note – I have been working with EFT for the last several weeks.
The last time my computer got a virus, I was angry and panicky. This time –
I just stayed calm without any effort and waited for the computer Nerdz (my favorite company)to show up and fix it. I used the down time to do other things. Neither attitude changed the time or money it took to repair the computer but being calm kept my perspective and I didn’t yell at anyone.

Smile - give the world a beautiful view.

Sharono

We buried Yvonne today

Yvonne was a good friend. She never seemed to mind when the kids pulled her hair. She was always quite content to just lie beside you and be petted. She was rarely demanding but was a finicky eater. The only table scrap she would eat was steak or chicken.

At 10:00 at night she would come to my desk and just sit and look at me clearly stating – “enough – come to bed”. As she grew older, she began to sleep more and more. I have missed her these last few months giving me my go to bed look.

Her favorite place to sleep was with her head in my husband’s shoe. She would use my shoe if none of his were out. We would all laugh and say she had a shoe fetish.

She would lie on my chest at night when we went to bed, purring and making bread. She would only stay a few minutes and then went to find my husband’s shoe.

She was 4 years old when we brought her home from the animal shelter and she had to adapt to dogs and children. She spent the first 2 weeks hiding under the bed.

Yvonne had long silky hair - grey and white. She shed something awful. She was allergic to flea bites and so had to live in the house. She got out occasionally and would sit in the yard surveying her kingdom.

She never backed down from our 2 German Shepherds. She would always just look at them and not move a muscle. They left her alone other than a sniff and maybe a kiss. She was the only cat they would allow in “their” yard.

She never jumped on the table or the kitchen counter. She hated having a dirty litter box and would go in the bathtub if the litter box was dirty.

We had her for almost 10 years. Three months ago she started on the down hill slide with cancer. Today her kidneys failed and we had no choices or time left.

She is buried in the back yard with our beloved dogs Coco and Charmin. A statue of St. Francis stands in the center of this small grave yard. My husband buried her favorite shoe with her.