Ingredients:

In a large bowl, whisk together:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
(you can also use 3/4 c. bottled Italian dressing instead of the first two ingredients)
1/2 tsp. diced garlic
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Then add:

1 can kidney beans, drained
1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
1 can diced Italian tomatoes
1 can green beans, drained
1 can quartered artichoke hearts, chopped

Mix together and chill for several hours to let flavors combine. This salad keeps for 4 days in the fridge.

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For the articles.

Seriously though, I’m not a vegan or a vegetarian (I don’t even eat soy!) but I subscribe to Vegetarian Times.

I like the recipes.

I want to eat more vegetables, and a vegetarian magazine is a great way to get delicious, creative veggie recipes. Besides, I appreciate vegetarian meals as much as the next meat eater. They save money and lighter fare is nice in the hot summer months.

In addition to the free recipes there are often valuable coupons I can clip and take to the grocery store. There are interesting articles on topics like:

• Choosing Non Toxic Personal Care Products
• Eco Friendly Living
• Green Cleaning
• Healthy Product Reviews

You can learn more about Vegetarian Times and subscribe here.

Moms, don’t lose yourselves in your kids. That husband of yours needs to know that you care for him as well. It’s hard to carve out time for love and kisses when the kids are screaming and the pots are boiling over but, trust me, it will be well worth the effort.

First, don’t get overwhelmed. Start off with small gestures to get the ball rolling. If you have been stuck in the mommy rut for a good amount of time, he won’t even see it coming.

Remember when we were kids? We scribbled the name of another kid that we liked on our notebooks. For boys, they resorted to pulling the pigtails of their favorite gal. Be a kid again and do those puppy love things we all used to do.

Most husbands get dressed and go to work each day. Slip a note in the pocket of his jacket. Tell him one thing that makes you love him. Each week you can give him a new reason for the mad love inside of you.

Give him a kiss when he leaves. If your job requires you to leave before him, give him a wet one on the lips while he is still snug in bed. Kisses are quite underrated. Remember how even a little kiss gave us goose bumps when we were just getting to know our spouses? Let them lead the way back to a more romantic relationship.

Greet him at the door after a hard day of work. This sounds cheesy but it is a nice touch. He’ll know that someone missed him. Meet him at the bedroom door later on in the evening if he happens to arrive home before you do.

While most men don’t let their emotions get in the way of their sex lives, gestures of love do move them. Your show of love gives them a sense of confidence in themselves. They will be more likely to seek out ways to show love that makes you happy instead of just guessing.

Asking about his day keeps the lines of communication open between the two partners. The object is to listen as he talks. If he is a rocket scientist or something else technical, you may need to break out a book or two to understand what he is talking about. Since he already knows this, just being a sounding board for him is sometimes good enough.

It doesn’t take much, but it does take a concerted effort to add something special to the relationship with your spouse. A bit at a time, begin to show attention to your spouse in new ways. Both of you will be more receptive during more intimate encounters as a result.

Ingredients:

2 cups of cooked and sliced turkey
1 large avocado sliced
2 red apples, cored and sliced
Bunch of mixed salad leaves

Dressing:

3 tablespoons apple juice
3 tablespoons natural unflavored yogurt
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon mustard
2 oz of toasted pine nuts for garnish

Place all the salad items in a large bowl and gently toss together. In a separate bowl mix all the dressing ingredients together except the pine nuts. Pour dressing over the salad and top with toasted pine nuts.

To toast the pine nuts place a little olive oil or non stick spray in a non stick frying pan and toast the pine nuts for approximately 2 minutes.

Salad lovers can find a new recipe for every day at 365 Salad Recipes.

What happens after school is equally as important as what takes place during the school day. It’s important that you and your child choose the right after school activities. Obviously as the parent, you’ll be the one making the decisions. However if you can include your child in the process, you’ll have better buy-in.

If your child has sports practice, dance lessons or choir practice, there will be other adults present. That’s a good thing. Dropping your child off at the mall isn’t such a good idea. If children have nothing to do, the potential for trouble is much higher.

Walking around the mall isn’t really considered, “something to do.” If you want to go to the mall with your child, that’s great. What I’m referring to is your child taking the bus or getting dropped off, without an adult there to accompany her.

One third of shoplifters apprehended are teens age 13-17. Not suggesting that all teens are out to shoplift, just merely that the opportunity is greater when kids are wandering the mall un-chaperoned, with nothing to do.

Another not so hot idea is dropping your child off at a movie theater. Unless you’ve seen the movie he wants to see, you haven’t approved the content. Besides there are much better things your child could do with his time that sit and watch a movie.

If they want to go to a friend’s house after school, make sure an adult will be present. By “making sure” I don’t mean asking your child if the friend’s parent will be home. Get a home phone number (not a cell phone number) and talk to the mother. You’d be surprised at the number of times the other parent didn’t even know the children were planning to be together.

Many schools now have after school care which basically means your child can stay at school until you can pick her up. This gives them a chance to get homework done and play in the gym, in the presence of an adult.

Product Name: Rock a Stack
Submitted by: Jeannie Kerns; Colorado Springs, CO
Rating: 10
Where to buy: Amazon.com

Description: Educational toy stacking toy for children ages 6 to 36 months.

Review: When my first child was born in 1986, this was one of her first toys. Not because it was cheap, but because I myself had ones of these and basically so has every child on the planet.

Let’s begin:

Colors: White stackable stand, 5 colorful rings, green, yellow, orange, red and blue.

Price: Under $5.00 dollars. Pretty cheap for a great and educational toy.

What it teaches: This toy teaches the difference between colors, different shapes, and how to put the biggest ring on the bottom and the smallest on the top.

Where you can buy it: Basically you can buy this toy in any retail store that sells toys. You can also purchase this toy in all toy stores.

One thing to remember with this toy; even though it seems safe from looking at it, all toys have potential to be dangerous in one way or another. So children should be supervised when under 3 years old with this toy. It is possible for the child’s hand to get stuck in the rings. Although it has never happen to my children, I am quite sure it has happened. Just be careful and pay attention to what your children do.

Over all, this is just a great toy.

Read more reviews: Click here

Aspartame is the artificial sweetener also known as Nutrasweet which is found in so many of our grocery store foods and in the little packets on restaurant tables. We’ve been told by the manufacturer and the FDA that aspartame is a safe alternative to sugar but many lay people in addition to medical doctors have found evidence that aspartame is far from safe.

Documentary filmmaker Cori Brackett produced a film called Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World – An Industry Case Study of a Food Supply in Crisis, which tells her own personal story of aspartame poisoning.

After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and being confined to a wheelchair, Cori did some internet research and admitted that she was a heavy diet soda drinker. Because she was convinced that she had aspartame disease (or poisoning) rather than MS, Cori conducted a self-study to prove her case.

The results of Cori’s self-study are amazing. After ridding aspartame from her diet completely, her MS symptoms began to disappear. And after chewing one stick of gum, her symptoms started to reappear. In the course of making her film, she found numerous other victims of aspartame disease who wanted to tell their stories.

If this is what can happen to a fully grown and otherwise healthy person, just think what damage aspartame might do to a still-forming fetus.

By drinking just one diet soda each day, according to some research*, the aspartame is passing the placenta to the baby. Not even the liver, which is your detoxification organ, can protect the baby from the aspartame crossing the placenta. According to these studies*, the possible damage to the fetus includes lower IQ and brain damage. Granted, not every pregnant woman who drinks diet soda will have a child with brain damage but is that a chance you really want to take?

(Research Reference: Pregnancy & Aspartame)

Become your own health advocate and be aware of what foods and possible chemicals you are putting into your body.

About the Author: Are cravings running your life? Cravings for sugar, carbs, chocolate, coffee, sodas, and junk food are discussed in the Cravings Coach TIPS. Diana Walker provides natural solutions to mood swings, fatigue, and brain fog. Receive her free Cravings Coach TIPS at http://www.thecravingscoach.com

To listen to this full podcast episode about The Dangers of Aspartame, Splenda and Sucralose, please click here

For the Salad:

8 oz of apple juice
6 oz of couscous (dried)
½ red pepper, cored, deseeded and diced
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 oz of raisins
2 oranges peeled, deseeded and cut into segments
1 oz cashews

Dressing:

Juice of 1 orange
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons olive or walnut oil
1 teaspoon honey

Place the apple juice in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Slowly stir in the couscous and remove from heat. Cover and let stand for 7 to 10 minutes until liquid is absorbed. Fluff with fork.

Add the herbs, raisins and peppers and orange segments. Gently toss together. Transfer to serving bowl.

For the dressing, place the ingredients in a saucepan and gently heat until the honey is dissolved. Do not bring to a boil. Drizzle dressing over the salad and garnish with cashew nuts.

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Has anyone seen these? A few companies (Avon and the like) are offering fake French manicures. It’s a pre-formed pink glob of nail polish with a pre-formed white glob of nail polish that is pressed flat and then placed onto a sheet.

You get a whole set for around $5-$7 that you just “press” onto your nail, when you peel away the paper backing, it is suppose to leave your nail with a French manicured look. Warning: This takes practice. The first time I tried doing it, I was all thumbs, I had a lot of the backing sticking to each other and at times I wouldn’t get all the polish transferred to the nail.

By the second time I tried the fake French manicure, I had success! It transferred well and lasted about a week. I did put a coat of clear nail polish over the fake French manicure to make it last longer, but all in all, I didn’t think $5 was a bad price for a “French manicure” - certainly a good product to try.

Scrapbooking has become a part of your life and lets you spend some of your down time doing something fun and creative. You may even wish you could quit your day job to spend more time at it!

Actually, this may be an option worth looking into. Scrapbooking businesses are becoming popular these days. Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about the scrapbooking business:

Do I need special skills to do this?

Outside of the fact that you would need to have done some scrapbooking to be efficient at it, the only other skill would be a little business know-how. You would need to be organized, know how to market your business and be able to run the company efficiently. Most of those skills can be learned from the Internet or by taking some small business courses in your community.

What equipment would I need to get started?

This would depend on how you want to run your business. You should have some scrapbooking equipment that would include books, paper, design scissors, and whatever embellishment items you would want to provide.

Some of the equipment you may not need to purchase until you start to get your orders. You may want to invest in scrapbooking software to help you design unique one-of-a-kind pages you can offer to your customers.

You should have a website to promote your business and show your prospective customers your portfolio of work. You’ll also need packing materials for shipping the finished scrapbooks to the customers.

Photo editing software and a high quality printer might be nice for printing the photographs that the Internet customers would email to you. If you choose to only market your business locally, then you may not need some of the items like the computer and software. It all depends on how you want to execute your business.

I want to start my own scrapbooking business, but I don’t have the time to make all of those scrapbooks. Can I still get into this?

Yes, you can still have a scrapbooking business without having to actually make all of the scrapbooks. There are many direct sales opportunities out there to choose from - where you only need to sell the products to people so they can make their own scrapbooks!

Start up costs would then be minimal. You would have to purchase a starter kit and if you choose to sell on the Internet, you would need to have a website to sell them on. Browse through the different direct sales opportunities and find what suits you because some may offer you a website with their starter kit.

This allows you to make money from selling the products, and you can also have fun throwing parties to promote the scrapbooking products. Scrapbooking can be a lucrative business if you come up with a plan that fits into your budget of both time and money.