elizabeth schram
I'm a published author, as well as an artist. I've raised five kids and am
enjoying many grandkids. Life is good, but I love to write.
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enjoying many grandkids. Life is good, but I love to write.
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Displaying Results 1 - 111 (of 111) for All Content
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Does Someone You Know Lie About Their Health?A factitious disorder is a mental health diagnosis where a patient purposely exaggerates, fabricates, and/or induces mental or physical health problems. The patient has complete control of the symptoms.
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Do You Hate Your Body, Face, and Hair? You Could Have Body Dysmorphic DisorderMost of us have suffered from a degree of BDD (body dysmorphic disorder) at some point in our lives, usually during adolescence. It's simply the preoccupation with an imagined defect of the body.
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Hidden Child Abuse: Munchausen Syndrome by ProxyMunchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP or MBP) is a sub-category of factitious disorder. Factitious disorder is a condition where the psychological or physical symptoms are fully under the patient's conscious control.
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Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder: Summertime BluesIt's titled reverse seasonal affective disorder, and it strikes just when we think we should be cheering up after the dull months.
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The Good and the Bad of CortisolIt's good, it's bad, and it affects modern mankind in complicated spirals of helping and hindering the body.
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Making a Hobby Out of RetirementWhatever a person does after retirement, it's of the utmost importance that they choose work or hobbies that are compatible to their interests.
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Hereditary Hemochromatosis: A Misdiagnosed ProblemTired? Feeling run down and achy? Have you lost most of your sexual drive? You probably feel that you need some extra iron to keep you going, but that isn't necessarily true.
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Protecting Your Money From Con ArtistsSeveral famous people have been credited with the idea that for every sucker born, there are a hundred con artists born to take his money.
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Is Grapefruit Seed Extract an Antibiotic Without Side Effects?Grapefruit isn't just for breakfast anymore. Nowadays the seed has become the star of the show.
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Pica: The Compulsive Eating of Non-eatable ObjectsUnfortunately, it also has to do with the rather strange obsession with eating non-eatable objects. We connect that behavior with toddlers, but they aren't the only ones affected. After the age of two years, consistent ingestion of non-food items becomes a problem.
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The Buddy System for Physical Health in the ElderlyWe all need friends, but new studies are showing that we need them just as much, if not more, as we age as when we're young and learning social skills.
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Perfect Pitch: Is it a Nurtured Trait?The opinions about perfect pitch vary from expert to expert. The definitions seem to be varied, too.
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What Exactly is Blended Coffee?Coffee can be iced, or it can be used as an enema. But most of all, coffee can greet us every morning with its rich aroma and a quick kick to start off the day.
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Our Immune System Saves Our Lives Every DayEverybody develops cancer daily, right along with other chronic diseases. It's due to the mutation of cells that should be renewing properly, but somehow get their DNA confused. Their coding gets mixed up.
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Urinary Incontinence: An Embarrassing Health ProblemIt's mortifying, it's sometimes unpredictable, and it happens on occasion to one out of three women. It's urinary incontinence, the act of losing urine by accident. It's one of the last things a person wants to have happen, and miserably embarrassing at best.
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Psychological Relief for Lower Back PainPatients with lower back pain are turning more and more towards alternative medicines for both the initial problem and the long-term treatments. Even doctors are beginning to agree with the many researches that have shown how well the non-invasive techniques work.
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Could Canine Influenza Spread Again?As of 2007, there are no known cases of humans contacting the virus from either dogs or horses.
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Should Preschool Children Have to Worry About Being Tested?When preschoolers prepare to be pushed into the world, they're subjected to sight and hearing evaluations. They approach it with a sad but realistic outlook towards their futures.
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The Pig Stand: The First Fast Food Drive-inBy 2005, thirty percent of Americans were eating at least one meal a week in their cars.
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Malabsorption Syndrome - a Difficult Problem to DiagnosisMalabsorption syndrome is a complicated health issue, combing a difficult diagnosis with an often complicated, long-term treatment.
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Financial Discrimination Against the BlindMeanwhile, a hundred and eighty countries produce paper money. They, apparently, can afford to vary the size of their paper money. They all make the effort to differentiate one bill from the others.
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Facts About Presbycusis, a Gradual Hearing Loss Attributed to AgingI apparently have presbycusis, a gradual hearing loss attributed to aging. It seems to be a hereditary problem, but it can be a combination of heredity and chronic exposure to loud noises.
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Information About Long-term Anti-inflammatory Drugs for Rheumatoid ArthritisDisease-modifying anti-inflammatory drugs (DMARDS) are more commonly used than people realize.
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If You Suffer from Psoriasis, Watch Out for Psoriatic ArthritisPsoriatic Arthritis is one more form that affects ten to thirty percent of the people who suffer from psoriasis
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Castor Oil: A New Green Fuel?The castor bean is one of the most useful plants in the world. Castor oil is used in cosmetics, medicines, as a biodiesel, and as an industrial oil replacing petroleum in plastic and lubricants
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Bryozoa: a New Cancer Drug?How would you like to be swimming and be splotched by a blob, something that could easily have come straight out of a horror movie
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Would You Wear Five-fingered Socks?Five-fingered socks? And they're not funny little bright-colored socks for kids? Would that make regular American socks into something called unitoes?
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The Not so Perfect PapayaUnripe papaya contains a latex fluid, which can cause irritation and/or an allergic reaction in some people.
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Move Your Arms Like a Conductor for ExerciseConductors seem to live long, healthy lives, and yet you don't picture them out jogging before conducting Brahms or Beethoven.
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Exercising Your Way Out of Depression"If exercise were a drug, I'm sure it would receive FDA approval at this time," said Dr. James Blumenthal.
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Natto: The Fermented Soybean that Fights Cancer & Hot FlashesBreast cancer kills three times as many women in America as it does in Japan. There's a lot of controversy about the various possible reasons, but researchers are beginning to hone in on one of the preventative potentials: fermented soy.
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Crickets: Pets or Dinner?Crickets have been kept as pets for many centuries. Many people in China and Japan believe that the cricket has a beautiful song, and keep them in elaborate small cages.
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Don't Let Your Dog Feel Abandoned at a KennelIt isn't always good for dogs to be treated like people. Right off the bat, it's confusing to them.
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The So What? Approach to Depression TherapyOver ten percent of people over fifty-five are clinically depressed, and most therapists believe that the number is much more wide-spread.
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Mastering the Tricks of Self-HypnosisExercise ahead of a session helps. While we're taught that exercise energizes us, it also releases the tension and stress that prevents us from relaxing.
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Roaches - a New Type of Pet?Roaches, the scientists say, will be here when we're long gone. Well, why not? They were here before we were either created, or climbed out of the swamps-depending on personal beliefs.
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Why Are Boys Falling Behind in School?Boys will be boys, but apparently being a boy is not a good thing in our educational system.
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How Are Social Security Numbers Affixed?Last week, my granddaughter noticed that my social security number is higher than hers, making it seem as though I'm the younger one
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How to Dry Flowers in Your MicrowaveThe trouble is, it takes so long to accomplish-and most of us would like to get to work right away at making flower arrangements, wreaths, and cards.
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Spotted Touch-me-not, Nature's Anti-itch MedicineWhat do you do when you're out in the woods and you get a bug bite, wander into a patch of Stinging Nettle, or realize you've just rubbed body parts with Poison Ivy? You don't have to panic. You can look around for a common plant.
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Is Your Fat Really an Organ in Disguise?It shocked me to learn that fat isn't just sitting around on my body, but that it is an active organ. But you know something? I've always suspected that it reproduced without benefit of clergy-or any encouragement of any kind.
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How to Make Sense of Food Labels from Calories to Fat ContentIngredients are listed from the highest amount to the lowest. If you buy tomato sauce, tomatoes will be the first thing listed. Watch out for anything that lists water first.
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Man's Farm in Brooklyn, New York was Wiped out by First Tornado in 120 Years!Then Ma Nature stepped in and provided the first tornado to hit Brooklyn in 120 years, flattening his corn, eggplants, and squash.
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Kids and Sugar Abuse - Are We Killing Them with Sweetness?It takes a child ten or more tries to decide to accept a new food, but they love sugar.
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It Isn't Just TV Ads that Have Us OverspendingOnly it turns out that it isn't the ads that are getting to us, at least not getting at us as much as something else. It seems that we're envying the life-style of fictional characters.
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The Cruelties Involved in Buying from Puppy MillsMost of us are mongrels. Maybe that's why we seem so fascinated with the idea of having a pet with papers proving that its background is impeccably pure.
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A New Understanding of Physical, Emotional and Mental PainTrying to evaluate pain has proved to be a difficult task. Patients suffer the amount of pain that they believe they feel.
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Massage Your Organs with Deep BreathingWe don't breathe right. Yes, our breath goes in and out twenty-four/seven, but we aren't getting anywhere near the proper usage out of each breath, and since we're all going to go to the effort of breathing regularly, we might as well do it right.
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Are You Abusing Your Children?Parents, well meaning perhaps, but lazy and/or ignorant, are abusing their children through neglect. And don't think that neglect isn't a form of abuse, because it is.
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BrainReactions: A Whiz Kid in BusinessYoung entrepreneurs tend to start up several businesses before they hit it big.
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The Zen of a New Psychological TheoryIn reading about a new wave of thought in psychological theory, I was surprised to find that it's not much different than the ancient meditation of Zen.
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What Level of Censorship Did Google Allow?Basically, Google was only about ninety percent reliable. Some services were literally non-existent, and it was extremely slow. Even in 2006, Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, said that virtually all of China's users were using the non-censored version.
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America is Falling Behind in Science and InnovationNumbers can be misleading. The United States, while still producing the most science PhD's in the world, is only number twenty-five when the percentage is applied with population numbers.
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The Stock Market's New Trend in Designer BuyingIf you have the extra money, don't limit your interests to stocks and bonds that are simply numbers to you.
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Gold and the Stock Exchange - Standards Have ChangedIn the early nineteen-eighties, gold prices started plummeting. It looked as though the old standard was losing its grip.
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Chocolate Has Its Downside, TooThe long-term studies haven't been going on long enough to determine if and when the body will adjust itself to counter some of these benefits, so don't put all your chocoholic hopes in one basket.
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Nursing Home Alternatives: Insurance for Homecare is More Available than You ThinkWe all get old-if we're lucky. Eventually things go wrong with our bodies and/or our minds, and there comes a time when we need more care than our families can provide.
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Imported Foods - How Much Do We Eat?We're called the breadbasket of the world, but fifteen percent of our food comes from other countries.
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Why I Want My Own WindmillI really want a wind generator. Unfortunately, they haven't invented one that meets my personal criteria
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A Highrise Farm in New York?Professor Despommier challenged his public health students to create a system for growing food that would reduce the risk of disease. They ended up (it's still in development) with a vertical farm, based in a large city, taking up the same space of a large building.
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Yeast: The Living OrganismYeast is a little scary. It's properly called ascomycetous fungi-of the genus Saccharomyces. It's a little plant. It's a living organism, dried up or not.
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Make Your Own Lip Balm with Natural IngredientsThere's virtually no limit to the combinations you can use to make your own special lip balm.
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Mistletoe as a Medicine and Food SourceThe favored choice of a name source for Mistletoe is from the Anglo-Saxons. "Mistel" means "dung" and "tan" means "twig". Poop-on-a-stick would be another (albeit somewhat tackier) way to say it.
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What Does Hospital Information Mean?If you want to keep your health status quiet for the moment, you'd better make sure you're conscious when you enter a hospital for treatment
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Have that Operation OverseasI'm really getting old and parts of me are starting to break up. Something I've always wanted to do is travel. I couldn't afford much of that, either. Am I changing the subject?
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Neuropeptide Y Might Be the Answer to Losing Tummy FatWe all know that stress leads to weight gain (or loss if you're one of the lucky ones, but we're ignoring your kind in this article.) We've also learned that belly fat is the most difficult fat to get rid of
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Grandchildren Need You, Not Just Your GiftsI just read about grandparents, and the fact that they might be beginning to stint a bit on gifts and savings
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Eggs Aren't Just for BreakfastEggs are fascinating, particularly when you remember that you and I came from them. We were once ova.
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Dental Implants are a More Affordable OptionLike most people in the United States, I don't have dental coverage. I really can't afford to pay for proper care of my teeth, much less for having them cleaned and/or whitened on a regular basis.
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What is the Meaning of Ergonomics?You hear the term used everywhere nowadays. It turns out that it is the scientific information concerning humans in the perspective of the design of objects, systems, and environments. Huh?
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Popcorn as a HealthfoodThere are five different kinds of corn: dent, flint, pod, sweet, and popcorn. Sweet corn (corn n the cob) and popcorn are definitely treats in the world of vegetables
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How I Became an InventorRecently, I had the best idea. It was something people needed, and something I'd never heard about being used. Suddenly, I was an inventor!
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Physical Problems for Kids That Use ComputersKids used to fall out of trees, off bikes, and from general clumsiness. Getting hurt was part of learning survival. The coming of the computer was almost a relief.
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Emotional Safety in the HomeOne day at a time is the answer. A child should see his parent/parents every morning, and it shouldn't be under stressful conditions.
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The Danger of Constant Laptop UsageLaptop computers are all the rage. They go anywhere--and they look really cool. What can be wrong with this picture?
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Hot Tubs Can Kill PeopleEvery public one I've seen has a sign with strongly posted warnings about the papers. People with heart problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. should have their physician's approval before using them.
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Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) Are Serious ProblemsIt's difficult to see how such minor movement can do any great harm. So what if the hand gets a little tingly? Shake it. Shoulders stiff and sore? Stretch them out. The problem goes away--for the moment.
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Daylight Savings Pros and ConsDaylight savings time (DST) has always been a pain to me. I raised five children under its sway, and I never liked it then-and I don't like it now.
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Some Families Don't Have Closure in DeathBut what happens to the families who don't have any true closure, when there's no funeral, not even the assurance of death? When do they start their mourning, the acknowledgment of their loss?
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Potential Problems on eBayEverybody, it seems, uses eBay. So it seems that I must be an exceptional person, since I'm definitely an exception to the rule.
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The Most Dangerous Job - Commercial FishingHow would you like to have the most dangerous job? It wouldn't, surprisingly, be that of a policeman or a fireman. The most dangerous job is on the high seas, and it's not being a pirate.
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House Hunting? Try a Satellite ViewMost of the places provided pictures, even virtual reality tours through the house. It was fascinating as well as helpful, but somewhat misleading in some ways.
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Have you Developed an Addiction to Technology?When is the last day you didn't watch television? When did you last survive a day without using your computer?
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Advantages to Growing OlderThere will always be the old codgers in the world, both male and female. Some people feel cheated by life, no matter what happens. That's sad, because for most of us, the good times have been far more numerous than the bad times.
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What Exactly is the Equinox?Why do we have summer and winter? And why is the southern half of the world always at the opposite time of the seasonal year?
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Tips for Holding Your Own in an ArgumentAre you lousy at confrontation? Do you always find yourself on the defensive in an argument?
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Why we Artificially Bleach Our FlourIt seemed like a win/win situation, until it was found that the potassium bromate used in the process causes cancer in lab animals. Canada and Europe no longer use it. The United States still does.
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Why We Need to Start Replenishing Our ForestsOne of the easiest of our natural resources to renew is lumber. There are many ways to nurture nature when it comes to renewing our forests. The biggest problem seems to be one of convenience.
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Wooly Bears Can Be Pets, TooHe's the furry little guy with black on both ends, and a russet stripe in the middle. He curls up when you pick him up. He has a little black nose...
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Sandpapering a Dog's Nails - A New Approach to a Hard ProblemThen I started using a regular nail file on his nails. It took a while to get him to accept the scraping, but it was something he tolerated.
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Don't OD on NSAIDs (Nonsteroidal Antiinflamatory Drugs)Taking two NSAID capsules (any recommended dosage) might be all right. Adding the NSAIDs in an accompanying cold remedy might cause a lot of trouble.
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Learn Reiki at HomeAnybody can learn Reiki. You can start by lying on your back with your eyes closed. Place your hands (side by side) on the top of your head. Relax and let the energy flow from your palms into your head.
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Calories Do Count When You're DietingDespite all the hype about types the food burning potential of protein versus carbohydrates, weight loss still comes down to how many calories you burn.
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Alternative Medicine Provides Help for KneesAlternative medicine has worked for me. Admittedly, my knees didn't stop aching overnight, but there was noticeable relief within days.
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Help the Ambulance Passengers - Pull Over When the Ambulance Races ByI hope that if I'm ever in an ambulance, drivers will move to the curb to let it pass quickly and safely.
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The Best Actors do CommercialsThe best actors, I believe, are in commercials. I know it wasn't what the performers were striving for when the acting bug first bit them. Actors want to be on stage, or to be movie stars.
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Do You Really Want a Fancy Wedding?Nothing, though, can compare to the emotional cost that a large wedding seems to demand as its rightful toll. The idea that marriage should consist of tears, arguments, indecision, and panic seems wrong to me.
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Save Money and Feel Good About Cooking at HomeThere are small things we can do to provide both healthier food for our families, and to cut down on costs at the same time.
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Burial Options for You to ConsiderDeath has always been accompanied by a great deal of hoopla. We like to send our loved ones off in style.
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A Trip to Outer Space - Only if You're DeadOf course there's a catch. You have to be dead. Even then, only a small portion of you (about five percent) gets to go on most flights. And of course you have to be cremated.
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How to Save Five Dollars a DaySaving five hundred dollars a day every workday will save you twelve hundred and fifty dollars a year.
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Is a Traditional College Right for You?Too often, we've had it pounded into our heads that traditional college is where we have to go to provide for a good future. That's no longer true for most of us.
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Why Mattel's Massive Toy Recall Should Make You Rethink What Toys You Give Your KidsChildren entertain themselves a lot better than we give them credit for. They also recover from disappointments better. They survive quite well being deprived of a coveted toy.
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User Friendly Ideas: Pre-paid Credit CardsSimply put, when your money is gone, you can't buy anything more.
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If I Want to Complain, I Have to VoteRemember, not every election is about the presidency, or even about senators and governors.
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Hidden Budget BustersWe all seem to be trying to budget nowadays. The cost of everything seems to be jumping, much faster than our incomes are rising. What most of us haven't learned is the secret of the "hidden" budget busters.
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Advertising Influence TodayFirst of all, we're basically social creatures, herd animals in many respects. It doesn't matter that we like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers, people who live outside the box.
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Americans Die Younger Than EuropeansWe live longer than we used to, but forty other countries have longer life spans than we do.
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Sick of Vacations, or from Having One?Great Britain provides an average of twenty-four days vacation time.
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How to Survive Jury DutyJury duty has its place in the great scheme of our legal system, but it can be a bit of a pain. The pay is minimal, the company mixed, and it can be extremely boring.
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Environmental Friendly Laundry SoapIt's a busy world out there, and most of us feel too pressured to help save the environment, even if only by one step at a time. With all the giant industrial polluters out there, what difference can one person make?