~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
April 16, 2012

★~ Today’s Quote: “I promise you nothing is as chaotic as it seems. Nothing is worth your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear.”  ― Steve Maraboli

★~ Stress Awareness Day: 

Let me tell you a story: Chicken Little likes to walk in the woods. She likes to look at the trees. She likes to smell the flowers. She likes to listen to the birds singing.

One day while she is walking an acorn falls from a tree, and hits the top of her little head.- My, oh, my, the sky is falling. I must run and tell the lion about it, – says Chicken Little and begins to run.

She runs and runs. By and by she meets the hen.

– Where are you going? – asks the hen.

– Oh, Henny Penny, the sky is falling and I am going to the lion to tell him about it.

– How do you know it? – asks Henny Penny.

– It hit me on the head, so I know it must be so, – says Chicken Little.

– Let me go with you! – says Henny Penny. – Run, run.

So the two run and run until they meet Ducky Lucky.

– The sky is falling, – says Henny Penny. – We are going to the lion to tell him about it.

– How do you know that? – asks Ducky Lucky.

– It hit Chicken Little on the head, – says Henny Penny.

– May I come with you? – asks Ducky Lucky.

– Come, – says Henny Penny.

So all three of them run on and on until they meet Foxey Loxey.

– Where are you going? – asks Foxey Loxey.

– The sky is falling and we are going to the lion to tell him about it, – says Ducky Lucky.

– Do you know where he lives? – asks the fox.

– I don’t, – says Chicken Little.

– I don’t, – says Henny Penny.

– I don’t, – says Ducky Lucky.

– I do, – says Foxey Loxey. – Come with me and I can show you the way.

He walks on and on until he comes to his den.

– Come right in, – says Foxey Loxey.

They all go in, but they never, never come out again.

The acorn stressed Chicken Little out but instead of dealing with that stress she passed it on. This is called stresscalation. What if just for today we made the decision to be aware of our own stress and handle it without passing it on to others?  I suspect the clever Fox would be a little leaner and everyone would be a little happier except the news media of-course who depends on Chicken Little to make sure they are well fed. See information below regarding Stress Awareness date. 

★~ Librarian Day:

I would tell you more but they asked us to keep in quiet. Shhhh

★~ National Eggs Benedict Day:

Emily (Food of the day partner) made the Eggs Benedict in the picture. Isn’t she amazing?  How did Eggs Benedict come to be? Lemuel Benedict, a New York stockbroker stumbled into the old Waldorf Hotel on Fifth Avenue in 1894, hungover from the night before, and ordered two poached eggs, bacon, buttered toast, and a pitcher of hollandaise sauce. The maitre d’hotel loved the combination and added it to the menu, but substituted ham for bacon and English muffins for toast. Lemuel’s cousin (well, technically first cousin once removed), Jack, dedicated most of his life to ensuring that everyone knew that his family legacy was known. He even opened a restaurant in Colorado, L.C. Benedict Restaurant and Tavern, which he filled with eggs Benedict memorabilia. There is another version of the Eggs Benedict story but this is the one I am sticking too.

★~ Day of the Mushroom:

According to the hieroglyphics of 4600 years ago, the ancient Egyptians believed mushrooms to be the plant of immortality.The delicious flavor of mushrooms intrigued the pharaohs of Egypt so much that they decreed mushrooms were food for royalty and that no commoner could ever touch them.

The art of cultivating mushrooms originated in 17th century France. The fame of their flavor grew and the new art spread to England. From there mushrooms were brought to America by English gardeners..

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1900 – The first book of U.S. postage stamps was issued. The two-cent stamps were available in books of 12, 24 and 48 stamps.

♥~ 1968 – Baseball’s longest night game was completed — after 24 innings. The game took six hours, six minutes to play. The winner? TheHouston Astros (over the NY Mets 1-0).

♥~ 1972 – Two giant pandas arrived in the U.S. from China. The National Zoo welcomed China’s pandas, Hsing-Hsing (pronounced Shing-Shing) and his longtime female den mate, Ling-Ling who died in 1992). The pandas were gifts to the U.S. from Chairman Mao Tse-tung in commemoration of President Nixon’s trip to China in 1972.

♥~ 1977 – David Soul one half of TV cop show “Starsky & Hutch”, went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, his only US hit. Also No.1 in the UK.

♥~ 1993 – A Monmouth, Illinois, man told a judge his wife could come back home and cook for him while she was out on bail awaiting trial for trying to poison him.

♥~ 2006 –  Lance Nesta of Waukesha, Wisconsin, found a fruitcake in his mother’s attic his aunts had sent him in the Army in Alaska in 1962. Nesta didn’t like fruitcake so he shipped it back home and forgot about it when he left the Army. Still in its original tin, he said the 44-year-old fruitcake hadn’t changed at all, fresh as ever. I’m not surprised are you?

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1889 – Sir ‘Charles (Spencer) Charlie’ Chaplin

‘The Little Tramp’: producer, actor: The Tramp, The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Limelight; formed United Artists Corporation [w/Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith]; died Dec 25, 1977

♥~ 1917 – William ‘Billy’ Benedict actor: Computercide, The Dead Don’t Lie, The Over-the-Hill Gang, Let’s Go Navy!, Bowery Bombshell, Janie, Perils of Nyoka; died Nov 25, 1999

♥~ 1924 – Henry Mancini (Enrico Nicola Mancini) Academy Award-winning composer

♥~ 1947 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) Basketball Hall of Famer: LA Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks: NBA career record: games played [1.560], points [38,387], field goals [15,387], blocked shots [3,189] cameo role: Airplane!

♥~ 1971 – Selena (Quintanilla Perez) singer: My Love, I Could Fall in Love, Captive Heart, I’m Getting Used to You, God’s Child, Dreaming of You, Missing My Baby; shot to death Mar 31, 1995 by Yolanda Saldivar [head of Selena’s fan club]

★~ Did You Know: 

♥ ~ The term “stress” derives from the Latin stringere (to draw tight)

♥ ~ Here is the top ten list of life stressors as found by researcher Anne Spurgeon and colleagues: Death of a spouse, Jail sentence, Death of immediate family member, Immediate family member commits suicide, Getting into debt beyond means of repayment, Period of homelessness, Immediate family member seriously ill ,Unemployment (of head of household),Divorce,Break up of family

♥~ In 2009, the top most stressful jobs were a surgeon, commercial airline pilot, photojournalist, advertising account executive, and real estate agent. The least stressful jobs were actuary, dietitian, astronomer, systems analyst, and software engineer.

♥~ The top three stressful cities in America are Chicago, Ilinois; Los Angeles, California; and New York, New York

♥~ Laughing lowers stress hormones (like cortisol, epinephrine, and adrenaline) and strengthens the immune system by releasing health-enhancing hormones.

♥~ Research has shown that dark chocolate reduces stress hormones such as cortisol and other fight-flight hormones. Additionally, cocoa is rich in antioxidants called flavonoids

♥~ A 2009 CNN poll reveals that the number one reason for stress in most countries is money. The countries most stressed about money are Malaysia, China, Singapore, and the United States. The countries least stressed about money are Russia, France, and Italy.

♥~ When faced with stress, a vast majority of people, 82 percent, turn on the television, listen to music or read. Family and friends serve as a solid support for 71 percent of those polled. Prayer or meditation is a recourse for 62 percent and exercise sustains 55 percent.

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Cole could not sleep last night, so he came into my room to chat. Until about 2:30 a.m., we discussed a documentary he had seen about a tribe of Nomadic people who live in Siberia. Their houses are built on skis, and when it is time to move on, they just hitch up the reindeer and away they go – giving new meaning to the words “mobile home.” The children are stitched into reindeer coats to keep them warm and toasty. I guess that is one way to make sure your kid wears their coat. For three months out of the year the only light sources are the moon and the stars.  I wondered about their stress level. I did a little follow up research, and it seems that a simple nomadic life, as romantic as it might sound, carries the same stress as big city life. It is just a different kind of stress. The nomad does not have to deal with AT&T or Chase Bank, but they do have to wait patiently for the right time to hitch up the reindeer. Fascinating stuff – until you realize it is 2:30 a.m. on a school day and you and your boy have to rise and shine at 6:00 a.m.  I did not tell Cole how tired he would; instead, I talked about how much fun our conversation was, woke him up with enthusiasm, and gave him money for a Starbucks on the way to school.  Funny, I was certainly tempted to go on about the importance of sleep, of not being able to do your best when you are tired, and stressing about how we needed to get back into a routine after spring break, but I did not. Instead, I focused on what a great day it would be and on how much I enjoyed our conversation. Our day started off stress-free.

My sweet mother gets her ankle boot off today and we hope she will be free at last! Thank goodness – talk about a stressful three weeks! Although, I must give her credit where credit is due; while she was BORED, BORED, BORED and housebound with my dad, she managed to handle her stress pretty darn well: my father still being alive is the proof!

How has your week started off? Odd Loves Company!

 

NOTE: Please don’t let this stress you out but some people will  be celebrating, Stress Awareness Day, tomorrow April 17.. ..Stress Awareness Day ALWAYS follows Income Tax Day. This year, April 15th (Tax Day) fell on Sunday; when tax day falls on the weekend it is  moved to the next business day (April 16), this moves  Stress Awareness day forward to April 17.  El Morno, did not get the memo, so we celebrated today. Feel free to celebrate again tomorrow.