I take my two kids for walks almost every morning when the weather is still nice, and they enjoy looking for bugs, lizards, toads and other critters which dwell in the common area’s of our community, in the last three days we have found a lizard, three spiders, four beetles and some crickets. When we catch the critters, we mostly put them in the bug tank we have and we let them go after a period of a few days. Lizards we always return to the wild, sometimes bugs we keep longer. The kids love to explore and find new creatures and seeing my two year old yell “bug” while holding a butterfly net is priceless.
Here is some pics of the latest catches, btw, this spider was the biggest one I have caught so far to date.
-Justin Germino
There is no refuting statistics and surveys that show that people who receive MBA degree’s have a higher average salary and job security than those who are undergrads or have no college degree at all. In this day an age it is extremely difficult to just go to college full time anymore and most people are stuck trying to earn a degree and working full time.
The University of Scranton has a 100% AACSB accredited online MBA program that is ranked in the top 15 by The Princeton Review. They are the only top ranked AACSB program that is 100% online. In certain circumstances the GMAT exam can even be waived.
Unlike some other Universities where the program can take 3 or more years to complete, The University of Scranton MBA program can be completed in 2 years. As someone who works in Information Technology and in the Financial Sector, I know firsthand how important it is to have an MBA and I recommend anyone looking to advance their career or establish a good career in these sectors work to acquire one.
The most common food allergies in children are peanut, milk, egg, wheat and shellfish. What is a parent to do when your child suffers from such food allergies? Children can be picky in what they eat, so here is a recipe and some suggestions that even the pickiest eaters love.
Here are some name brand products that are good options for kids who have allergies. These products can be found at any grocery store.
Snacks:
Nabisco Golden Oreos are nut-free and chocolate-free
Stella Doro cookies offer many snacks that are dairy free. Be sure to check the labels on each cookie variety.
Gak’s Snacks are organic and allergen free cookies, coffee cakes and snacks.
Yeast and Gluten Free Kids Pizza:
This is a kid-pleasing yeast and gluten free pizza. To make it easier use a small spring-form pans . Your child can get involved by helping you make the pizza’s.
* 1 1/2 cups instant mashed potatoes
* 1 cup milk
* 1/4 cup butter, melted
* 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
* 1 teaspoon garlic salt
* 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
* Tomato sauce and toppings
1. In a food processor, combine all ingredients except for optional sauce and toppings and butter. Blend until well incorporated. Let dough sit for 10 minutes.
2. In a greased spring form pan, push desired amount of dough on the bottom and halfway up the sides of the pan. You may have thin or thick dough.
3. Brush melted butter over dough and place in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes. Thinner dough will cook faster. For a crispy crust, turn the broiler and crisp the top for an additional 5 minutes. Remove and prepare your sauce and toppings. Bake again just enough to slight warm top.
Dairy-Free Variation: Use rice milk or water and margarine. Omit Parmesan.
Be sure to always check the labels for the ingredients list. However many ingredients lists are not accurate. More than 3 million children have food allergies of some sort. Some schools are even designating special tables for those students that have allergies. This has become a hot topic as of late. Is this protection or segregation? Keeping your sensitive child safe from what could harm them is a tough job. There are several cookbooks and online resources available for recipes and suggestions for an allergen free lifestyle.
If you don’t believe that pets are part of our family then you are still in denial the amount of impact pets have on our lives. With people not only celebrating pets birthdays by throwing parties, they also print up and send out announcements similar to couples sending out birth announcements to let their friends and family know that they are celebrating a new member of their family.
Pets relieve stress and help foster empathy in both children and adults, it is proven that pets help reduce allergies in babies and toddlers as they develop stronger immune systems from being around pets. They provide playtime companions for kids, or some even provide relaxing ambient sounds (in the case of certain birds).
As pets are a member of your family and people continue to treat them as such, we will see more and more products and services geared toward pets. I have seen more restaurants over the years allow you to bring your pet and eat on the patio with your pet on a leash, in addition there are bakeries and dessert establishments that make pet treats.
Always remember though that a pet is still an animal and poses some risks to the family, research the type of pet you want very carefully, you should not have large constrictor snakes or other dangerous pets if you have children. Pets also need to be supervised around little children as even the most friendly pet can be scared, frightened or accidentally injured by a little kid and may bite to defend itself.
I still find some people ignorant and treat their pets so poorly, leaving them outside in the summer heat all day long and abandoning them for long periods of time. Some people still treat pets like they don’t deserve the same affection, love and emotions as family members, and some can be downright cruel.
I was reading Popular Science magazine last night and they had an article talking about how sixty years of killing rats with various rat poisons is evolving the creatures so that they are becoming immune to various rat poisons. These genetic mutations are happening extremely quickly in the grand scheme of the evolutionary chain but these mutations pale in comparison to how fast bacteria and virus mutate and evolve to become drug resistant. One of the primary reasons for bacteria drug resistance is not in fact caused by humans using antibiotics, but it is because antibiotics are given to animals in large mills and farms and the bacteria are only partially killed and grow and fester and mutate to become stronger strains.
Looks like to keep rats at bay, people should have good old fashioned house cats on their sites, or will have to start resorting to manual traps again with bait, toxins and poisons are dangerous to use around sites with pets and children anyway.
With my upcoming cruise looming next month in August, my wife and I were talking about next year’s vacation and how we were looking at some Caribbean cruises. My wife and I have taken a Carnival cruise back in 2007, it was a Mexican Riviera Cruise and we enjoyed not only the destinations and excursions, but we enjoyed just how many great activities, shows and things to do there were aboard the ship. Cruises are definitely in many ways a cheaper and better experience than just flying to a destination and getting your own hotel. These include the all inclusive meals, entertainment, drinks (not alcoholic..bummer) and other services and activities. The price per day is actually much lower than if you travel alone even if you upgrade your stateroom to an oceanside room with a balcony.
My wife and I definitely want to visit the Bahama’s or Grand Cayman islands next year, and are positive that we will be planning the trip assuming budgeting allows it. That would be our ideal cruise vacation and we are hoping to make it a reality next year. It is a 16 hour flight from Phoenix to the Grand Cayman islands, so the cost of the airfare is almost more than the cruise itself.
I feel like I am living the movie groundhog day sometimes, I work all week barely able to keep up with all my projects and make progress as new ones come in, only to spend my two free weekend days working around the house and come and go so quickly. Then its back to the work grind all over again after barely having enough time to catch my breath. Many people live this same way and I think the only way to truly break up the monotony of this cycle is to do something unique every second or third weekend.
Try to break out of the normal routine and mix in something different, whether it would be taking the family to the lake or park (in cooler area’s than Phoenix) or going to a museum, movie, or something else. Savor your Saturday for a family activity and do all your chores on Sunday, or vice versa so that you can at least spend one meaningful day as a fun and relaxing family day. Of course sometimes I wish I could just sleep on Saturday’s or Sundays, but with two kids under six years old sleep is something I have been lacking for half a decade now.
To qualify the blogs must be created on or after May 2008 and are exerting a certain influence in the blogosphere. Nominated blogs could win cash prizes of $100 each and also 10 writing projects can win $100 each. The rules of the contest are here.
Ten blogs will be chosen based on the blogs with the most votes.
I have actually gone through the contest and several other people’s posts and read about casually perused twenty two blogger who were nominated from various people,these people I would list as the top ten emerging influential bloggers based on their blog topics, styles and how friendly and personable the blog owners are.
JenaIsle has become a twitter follower and friend and consistently plays my twitter poetry game with enthusiasm almost every weekday.  Her blog provides excellent advice, articles, recommendations to people in a wide variety of topics, but she gets my #1 spot as she helped me network with most of the bloggers on the below list and got me involved with the Jedi Circle.
I first came in contact with Zorlone by competing with him in the PlotDog Writers Offering Our Finest (WOOF) contest, and he is a great guy, fellow poet and provides some great competition. We have mutual respect for each others creative writing styles and I always enjoy reading and recommending his creative works, he is also one of the friendliest guys I have ever met on twitter.
I run across many of Roy’s blogs via entrecard and other networks, but this blog is valuable as it is specific to helping bloggers blog, and has many of the same goals as my own dragonblogger.com.
4.Writing to Exhale – by Jan
Jan is another super friendly guy running a blog that is around a year old, he is very talented with his creative writing and is someone who I enjoy connecting with on Twitter.
The remainder of the people on this blog I don’t know as well, having only been in communication with the occasional comment or so and entrecard visit for those who use it, but they would be my top picks based on what I found on their blogs.
Yesterday my wife and I went grocery shopping at Fry’s and it was the most odd thing when we were greeted with friendly good morning chatter by no less than a dozen Fry’s employee’s, in addition we received cheerful greetings from some other patrons at McDonald’s. It was odd having so many people act so friendly in such a short period of time and you couldn’t help but be in a good mood when everyone around you is so friendly and cheerful.
Isn’t it sad when lots of people acting friendly is a “Freak Occurrence” and the norm is to expect rude behavior?
Anyway, I am probably still sleeping right now recovering from being up until 2am at last nights rock show, I will try to give an update about the show later today.
My wife’s music production company Rock Along Productions “Red, White and Blues” show is tonight at the Goat Head Saloon in Mesa, AZ. As always I help her with her shows by running door, greeting people, taking tickets and providing moral support and good company (sometimes). Rock Along Productions MeetUp group has just over 40 people in the Greater Phoenix area who have signed up to enjoy local Arizona rock music and we look forward to everyone we meet at the shows as the companies primary goal is to spread live local rock music to show people that we have some great music coming out of local bands right here in Arizona.
Look forward to seeing some of my twitter fans at the show tonight, and will report on the show and bands tomorrow.
