~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
April 16, 2014

★~ Today’s Quote:  The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. ~William James

★~ Stress Awareness Day: 

The real problem with stress is that, for such a well understood and universally experienced condition, as a society we deal with it so poorly that it leads to many of our most lethal illnesses and long-term health problems. High blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, stroke, obesity, and insomnia are all medical conditions across the spectrum that can be related to or directly influenced by high stress as an environmental condition. Read good to know for some stress busters.

★~ Librarian Day:

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

★~ National Eggs Benedict Day:

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.

Perfect Eggs Benedict

★~ 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? The Houston 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.

♥~ 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]

★~ Good to Know: Stress Busters:

♥~ Bring Your Dog To Work:  A recent study in the International Journal of Workplace Health Management showed that bringing your dog to work could help to lower office stress and boost employee satisfaction. “Pet presence may serve as a low-cost, wellness intervention readily available to many organizations and may enhance organizational satisfaction and perceptions of support,” study researcher Randolph T. Barker, Ph.D., a

♥~ Laugh: If you’re feeling particularly stressed, perhaps it’s time to take a quick YouTube break. A small 1989 study in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences showed that “mirthful laughter” is linked with lower blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol.  The Mayo Clinic reported that laughter also promotes endorphin release in the brain and relaxes the muscles, which are all key for stress

♥~ Shovel away your cares: Caregiving is extremely stressful, but a 2008 survey showed that gardening may help to reduce stress among caregivers. The survey, by BHG.com, showed that 60 percent of caregivers feel relaxed when they garden, the Alzheimer’s Association reported. And, Health.com reported on a Netherlands study, suggesting that gardening can help to lower cortisol levels and boost mood among

♥~ Reading:  Just six minutes of reading is enough to help you de-stress. Drinking tea and reading is even better.

♥~ Eat Some Chocolate: Dark chocolate doesn’t only have health benefits for the heart — eating it can also help to lower stress, Eating 1.4 ounces of dark chocolate a day for a two-week period is linked with decreased levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

♥~ Gossip: Gossip may not be viewed as socially “good,” but it might have benefits in relieving stress. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that gossiping can actually lower stress, stop exploitation of others and police others’ bad behavior. “Spreading information about the person whom they had seen behave badly tended to make people feel better, quieting the frustration that drove their gossip,” study researcher Robb Willer, a social psychologist at UC Berkeley, said in a statement. Willer’s research was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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Cole has been stressing about his transcendentalism class. Which is an oxymoron when you think about it. He wonders why Henry  Thoreau couldn’t just get to the point. I suggested it might be because he was from Ohio. I don’t think he won any points in class when he suggested that Walden pond was a stones through from civilization and he was hardly in isolation if he was a frequent guest at Emerson’s dinner table. And his prison stay for tax resistance was one night. More impressive in a long winded paper than in reality. Fortunately, Cole’s teacher is very fond of him. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about Choir and Gospel music.