Making a Boredom Buster Kit

Family Adventures on a Budget

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Toddler Finger Food Recipes

How to Turn a Photo into a Puzzle Using CS4

The Raw Food Diet: Ease Your Transition to Raw Diet Foods

Benefits and Cautions of Different Methods Used to Protect Photos

Noritake Dinnerware:

Celebrate Unbirthdays with Friends & Family

Keep Valentine’s Day Romance Throughout the Year

Flowers 101

Turn Your Child’s Birthday Party Upside-Down

Create a Romantic Winter Wonderland Reception

Holiday Menu Planning in Six Steps

Make Holidays Meaningful with Family Traditions

Elegant Beach Wedding Reception

Green your Holiday Party: Eco-Friendly Tips for the Season

Mushroom Benefits

• Contain essential amino acids and important minerals, such as selenium, copper, potassium and zinc
• Are low in sodium and fat Enhance the activity of the immune system
• Are a good source of B vitamins
• Are high in anti-oxidants
• Help reduce the risk of breast and prostate cancer
• Naturally contains Vitamin D

Easy Mushroom Sauce
This sauce cooks up very quickly and is quite delicious. Great on just about anything that calls for a good sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced (we put in 3 cloves, but we are the garlic-loving sort)
• 8 oz pkg. button mushrooms, chopped
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp flour

Directions:

1. Heat oil up in skillet.
2. Sauté onion, garlic and mushrooms until mushrooms turn brown.
3. Stir in vegetable broth and flour.
4. Simmer on low until thickened. Add more flour if necessary.

Here are some health benefits of vitamin D:

• Helps absorb calcium for healthy bones and teeth
• Helps prevent or delay the onset of diabetes
• Helps prevent cardiovascular disease
• Helps prevent certain types of cancer
• Lessens pain in osteoarthritis sufferers

Most experts recommend taking a supplement with 1,000 IU of Vitamin D3 daily. However, check with your doctor before adding any supplements to your diet.

It’s also important to choose a breakfast that are healthy and low in sugar content and saturated fat. Here’s a few ideas for choosing breakfasts that can help you get your day off to a great start.

Homemade Instant Oatmeal
Oatmeal prevents blood sugar drops and makes you feel fuller longer because it is high in fiber and complex carbohydrates and takes longer to digest. Below is a recipe for making your own instant oatmeal packets. Just place one serving in a ziploc baggie, and you have a quick, delicious heart healthy breakfast or snack.

This recipe is for one serving of instant oatmeal. It may be helpful to grind up some ground oats into a powder beforehand, using a blender or food processor,  so you can use them as needed.

Ingredients: – makes one serving

• 1/4 cup Quick Oats
• 2 Tbsp powdered oats
• 1/8 tsp salt

Add some of these ingredients to create your own favorite flavor:

• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp raisins
• 2 Tbsp dried apples
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar

Directions:

1. Place all ingredients in a bowl.
2. Add boiling water to desired thickness.
3. Let thicken for 2 minutes then, enjoy.

Alternative Breakfast Sandwich

Fast food breakfast sandwiches are loaded with saturated fats, cholesterol and sodium. For instance, a regular Egg McMuffin, although only 300 calories,  contains 25% of the daily recommended amount of saturated fat, an incredible 78%  of the daily recommended amount of cholesterol and 35% of the  daily recommended amount of sodium. The following recipe takes about the same amount of time as sitting in the line at the drive-thru and is a much healthier alternative.

It will save time if you hard-boil your eggs ahead of time, a day or two in advance.

Ingredients:

* 1 whole grain English Muffin, toasted
* 1 slice low-fat cheese
* 1 hard-boiled egg, sliced
* 1 slice veggie Canadian bacon (optional) or
* 1 slice smoked turkey breast, sliced thick (optional)
* 1 Tbsp olive oil

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a non-stick skillet.
2. Heat veggie Canadian bacon in the skillet, flipping once, until crispy on the edges.
3. Right before veggie Canadian bacon is done, toast English muffin.
4. Assemble your sandwich. Place your turkey on top of the bottom layer of the English muffin, follow that with your egg, then your slice of cheese, then the top of your English Muffin.

Breakfast Burrito
Here is a high-protein, low-fat, nutritious twist on traditional breakfasts. Large batches can be made in advance, frozen, and then microwaved as needed for a quick breakfast.

Ingredients:

* 1 Tbsp olive oil
* 1 small onion
* 1 can green chilies
* 4 corn tortillas
* 1 can black beans, drained well
* 3 eggs
* salsa
* shredded cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Sauté the onions and peppers for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the beans and heat until warm. Set aside.
3. Add the eggs to the pan and cook until eggs are done.
4. In a separate pan or the oven, warm the tortillas as directed on the package.
5. Fill the tortilla with your eggs, beans and add cheese if using.
6. Serve with salsa on top, if desired.

Create a Healthy Plan

• Set aside 15-30 minutes to plan your meals for the upcoming week. Planning in advance can help you to include enough daily servings of vegetables, fruits, beans and healthy grains into your diet.
• Include appealing and healthy snacks into your meal plan. This will help prevent you from hitting the vending machine or local drive-thru when you get a craving for a snack. Seasonal fruits are a low-calorie sweet treat that also supplies you with essential vitamins.
• Look through your favorite recipe book and magazines for new ideas and find a new healthy recipe (or two) to try each week to incorporate into your plan. This can help alleviate boredom if you find yourself eating the “same old thing” as well as introduce you to a potential new favorite.

Your Grocery List

• Prepare your grocery list at the same time as your meal plan. Before you leave check your pantry for often used items that you are low on. Use a magnetic refrigerator list to keep track of items you run out of during the week. Try to include everything you need to limit your trips to the store. Once weekly shopping will help eliminate unhealthy impulse snacks when you find yourself running in for “just one thing.”
• One very important aspect is to stick to your list while in the store. Eating a small meal or snack before shopping can prevent you from buying things that look appealing because you are hungry. If you don’t have to go down a particular isle, skip it. This will keep you from browsing for unnecessary, and possibly less healthier options.

Other Tips

• Be flexible. If you’ve had a particularly trying day, picking up take-out once in a while won’t ruin your healthy diet. Just choose places with healthier options and be sure to stick to your plan the rest of the week.
• Reuse your menu plans by rotating them monthly, seasonally or any other interval that works for you. This can be a big help when you still want to eat healthy, but simply don’t have time to create a new plan. You may find it helpful to keep them in a file with an attached grocery list so that you can just grab it and go.
• If you’d like some help with planning a well-balanced diet, the USDA has a free online planner called MyPyramid. Based on your calorie needs and dietary restrictions, it provides you with a personalized meal plan designed to incorporate all the foods from each category of the food pyramid.
• Enjoy yourself. Menu planning doesn’t have to be serious. It can be as fun, interesting or challenging as you decide to make it.

AutoFX Photo/Graphic Edges 7.0 Review in Digital Photography

Snack Substitutions to Help Your Health and Budget in Diet, Nutrition & Healthy Eating

Meal Planning Can Lead to Healthier Food Budget in Diet, Nutrition & Healthy Eating

Every New Year, I hear a lot about making resolutions – to lose weight, get a better job, to quit smoking, etc. And many people make the same ones every year because they are so hard to keep. If you are in that company, take heart. It may not be you that is at fault, but your resolutions.

I propose that we change the word “resolution” to a different word. Resolution means “the state or quality of being resolute; firm determination” (dictionary.com). Resolute means “firm, steadfast, unshaken (dictionary.com). This definition suggests that keeping resolutions requires willpower and steadfast determination. Perhaps last year you resolved to stop eating junk food, and you knew that triple chocolate creampuffs can thwart that goal. At a party, a plate of triple chocolate creampuffs pass by and whisper your name. You ignored them and kept your resolution, right? Easy, perhaps, if you are a robot.

A “goal”,which is the word I propose to replace “resolution”,  takes a more human approach.  A Goal is “the result toward which effort is aimed; an objective” (dictionary.com). The only thing required to fulfill a goal is effort. There is no judgement and no failure as long as you keep working towards your goal. Imagine you did eat that triple chocolate creampuff. With a goal, that’s ok, you just do better next time. Think of your favorite sports team. Sometimes when they shoot towards a goal, they score. Sometimes, they do not. Yet nobody tells them they should give up all together.

So maybe you don’t care about semantics as much as I do. Goals, Resolutions, Objectives,  even Mission Statements can all desbribe that you want to achieve something this year. Here are a few ideas to make these tasks easier.

1. Be realistic. Make reasonable goals for yourself. If you have stopped going to every gym you ever joined, don’t resolve to join a gym. They are not for you. Instead try to find exercise that appeals to you. Don’t try to fit yourself to what you think your resolution should be; instead let your goals reflect you.

2. Be specific. Instead of just resolving  to ‘Get Out of Debt’ or ‘Read More’, go into greater detail when framing your goal. Instead of  ‘Get Out of Debt’, you may want to make a plan with smaller, achievable goals like ‘Look into Credit Counseling’ or “Make a Monthly Budget.  Instead of ‘Read More’, specify 1 extra thing you will read each day or week or month.

3. Be positive. Frame your goals in a positive way. For example, ‘I decide to choose healthier foods’ is more optimistic than ‘I don’t want to eat junk food’.

4. Be creative. If you want to stop doing something, try to replace it with some other activity you enjoy. If you want to stop biting your nails, do something else. Perhaps try gardening, knitting, inventing, fixing gadgets, cooking or whatever else will keep your hands busy.

5. Be  motivated. A great way to stay motivated is to keep a journal about your goals. Journals help with accountability and encouragement since you can see where you have been and what you’ve been doing. It can help you find out what works for you, what doesn’t work and perhaps any triggers that make you want to quit.  At the very least, write down your goals and post them where you can see them every day.

6. Be truthful. Evaluate your progress. Congratulate yourself if you are well on the way to reaching your goals. If you are not as far along as you wanted to be, evaluate if you can make any small changes that will make getting to your goal easier.

7. Be social. Sometimes reaching a goal is easier when someone does it with you. Find a group in your area whose events match up with what you want to accomplish or find a forum online with others with the same interests for additional support. If your goal is to ‘Become a Better Writer’, look for a writer’s group in your area with experienced people who can help critique your work. If you have a clear goal, but don’t know how to start, for example to stop smoking or to start your own business, don’t be afraid to seek professional assistance.

Growing up in the South, my mother always prepared the traditional New Year’s Day meal of Hoppin’ John and Greens.  I’d like to carry on that tradition, but give it a healthy twist. Hoppin’ John is essentially black-eyed peas, onions, bacon and rice, and it’s believed to bring good luck in the upcoming year.

Here are my healthier versions:

Super Quick Hoppin’ John

Ingredients

• 2 Tsbp extra version olive oil
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 glove garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 can black-eyed peas
• 1/2 – 1 Tsp Hickory Liquid Smoke
• Tabasco Chipotle Pepper Sauce to taste (optional)

Directions:

1. Warm the oil in a saucepan.
2. Sauté the onions in the oil for 5-7 minutes until they begin to brown.
3. Add the garlic and cumin and sauté for 2-3 more minutes.
4. Add the black eyed- peas and Liquid Smoke and simmer for about 5 minutes until hot.
5. Serve over brown rice.

Slow Cooker Hoppin’ John

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp onion powder
• 2 Tbsp garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp cumin
• 1/2 Tsbp cayenne pepper
• 1 pound dried black-eyed peas, rinsed & soaked overnight
• 2 – 3 Tsp Hickory Liquid Smoke
• vegetable broth, just enough to cover the beans

Directions:

1. Add all ingredients to the slow cooker, stir and cook for 8-10 hours on high.
2. Serve over brown rice.

Journaling is on the simplest level keeping a diary. However, if instead of just recording the events of every day, you allow it to be a medium to explore the meaning behind the events in your life, it can become an important tool in your overall health.

Writing allows your stream of consciousness to help tap unconscious thoughts. It can be a powerful way to help you de-stress, especially if journals are used for problem solving and self discovery. It can be a great outlet for emptying the mind of worrying thoughts and experiences. Sometimes, it’s much safer saying something on paper instead of yelling at or saying something hurtful to another person.

Studies have shown that journaling can help you

• store your creative ideas to use later.
• achieve your goals by clarifying them.
• learn about yourself.
• solve problems more easily.
• deal more appropriately with stressful events.
• emotionally heal from traumatic situations.
• enhance your relationships with others.

The most effective way to achieve these benefits is to just let it flow. Don’t censor what you write or worry about grammar and structure. Try to write everyday for at least 10 minutes or more if you have the time. Make sure you have a comfortable spot where you are less likely to be interrupted.

It is easy to start a journal with just a few tools. You simply need paper and a writing implement or if you are artistically inclined, a drawing implement as well. If you would prefer something with more style, there are many beautiful journals available at stationary or book stores. If you’d like some ideas on how to begin or what to write about there are a number of resources available online.

Here are a few suggestions to spark your own ideas:

• Find a quote that speaks to you. Copy down that quote and write about why you like it.
• Choose a memory that involves you favorite color/smell/sight and write it in detail.
• Write a letter to someone you wish you could speak to.
• Find a photograph that you love. Describe why.