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FouFou Dog Pampered Pet Giveaway {Pawnation OLD}
Apr 3rd 2011 3:06PM My dog Spike truly deserves to be pampered. Las night was the UK UConn final four game and my friend and I screamed so much during the game that we scared Spike and he hid behind the couch. He was already traumatized because I'd had surgery and we've been staying at my momma's house, so he was off his normal schedule in a strange place with lots of people and me not able to do things with him that I usually do. Then we came home and just as things got sort of back to normal, came the basketball tournament game. He came out from behind the couch in time to go to bed, but I feel like I need to make it up to him with some extra spoiling.
SmackDown: Should Parents Give Gifts to Adult Children? {ParentDish}
Dec 5th 2010 11:20AM I think everyone needs someone who recognizes them with gifts on holidays and birthdays. The gifts don't have to be big gifts. As a single woman with no kids, my mom is the only person left to do this. No one should spend a holiday or a birthday without a gift.
The Doggie Diaries - Tooth-Brushing Time {Pawnation OLD}
Nov 17th 2010 4:45PM I found a great toothbrush that has three sides. It makes the brushing shorter because it surrounds the tooth.
The Doggie Diaries - Tooth-Brushing Time {Pawnation OLD}
Nov 17th 2010 4:44PM I brush my dog's teeth once a week. We clip nails, brush teeth and do a massage, as well as a good brush-groom. Every two weeks (or more often if he gets dirty) he gets a bath. He gets brushed and massaged daily. The massage makes him open to touching at the vets -- he's used to being touched and considers it a positive thing. I started when he was a baby -- massaging his jaws, legs, body and even his tail. He loves it -- as have my other dogs. The vet says she's never seen such relaxed dogs as mine. They really don't care about being touched, even if it's a shot or getting a fecal sample or whatever. All but the German Shepherd are so relaxed they lie down in the frog-pose with their back legs straight out. She says mine are the only adult dogs she's ever seen do that at the vet's office. We also stop in a couple of times a year just to say 'hi' as she/he (mostly he sees a woman, but sometimes men -- it's a practice with multiple vets) walks into the hall between patients. She says hi and pets him. It takes about 30 seconds, there's no charge, and he doesn't see the vet as a bad place where you get stuck and prodded.
I've had one dog who liked getting his teeth brushed. He was happy with a bath or anthing that was touchy-feely -- it was attention from me and might as well have been praise and petting, which was what he lived for. (This dog just laid still when he got the stitches taken out after he was fixed. I held his head and talked to him and he totally ignored the doctors. The vet said he'd never seen anything like it.) He was just really focused on me and pleasing me. He was a German Shepherd. My vet hated that I had him fixed because he said that temperament was perfect for a service dog.
My other dogs -- and cats -- have not been so keen on brushing.
One cat accepted it because while she hated every other living thing on earth, she adored me. She'd been feral and some people were trying to kill her and I took her home. She never resisted me at all. She loved me because I saved her, she didn't have to worry about hunting, being hunted, cold, heat, snow, rain, or anything else. She tolerated other people and animals that I broiught into the house. She would have let me do just about anything because she trusted me. She didn't like brushing, but she tolerated it.
My other cats sqirmed a lot, but they were calmer in general and it wasn't a big deal.
The dog that hated it the worst was a Rotty/Blue Heeler mix. She was huge and powerful and it was always a workout to brush her teeth. The German Shepherd used to help. He'd growl and try to hold her still while I brushed. She may have made most of their decisions, but it was because he let her -- he was in charge and when she was out of line, he let her know.
My French Bulldog didn't much like it, but he loved the chicken-flavored toothpaste I used, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Those dogs are way stronger than you would imagine -- they are heavy on muscle, so dense in musle that they can't support their weight to swim. Powerful little dogs.
Right now I have a Westie -- another powerful little dog. He can push my couch with me on it and he weighs 17 pounds. When he squirms, he's a challenge to clip nails or brush his teeth.
I've always used toothpaste made for animals, usually chicken-flavored or peanut butter-flavored. What I have right now is mint, but it was all they had when I needed to buy some the last time. It's still designed for dogs, though.
My German Sheperd, the Rotty/Blue Heeler mix and the Frenchie all liked regular mints, so I gave them those to help with bad breath on occasion (although I also used hard chews for dailyt teeth cleaning and breath). My Westie (the only dog I have now) doesn't care for mints. But I have found some doggie mints that he loves. And he will eat fresh mint.
I care about it so much because good grooming can add years to their health -- and therefore, perhaps their life. And it always increases quality of life.
Also, a dog is never too old to learn to have his/her teeth brushed. When I dog-sit for my sister and brother-in-law's dogs, I brush their teeth. They are fine with it, even though they aren't brushed at home.
Delicious Debate - Regional Food Names {AOL Food Blog}
Sep 5th 2007 3:00PM Dinner is the big meal of the day, regardless of whether it is lunch or supper. If dinner is your evening meal, then you have breakfast, lunch and dinner, but if dinner is your mid-day meal, then you have breakfast, dinner and supper. (This dates back to farm living, when dinner/lunch was the major meal and supper was leftovers.)
Sprinkles
Subs can be hot or cold, but sometimes it's called a hero, if it's coldcuts and cheese.
Coke or cold drink -- Coke is any brand carbonated soft drink - it can be Pepsi or Sprite or Orange Crush, it's still a Coke in most of the south. If you want to be specific, the you say, "I'd like an Orange Crush."
Casserole
A grocery store is where you buy food of all kinds, but if it's just produce, then it's a market.
I grew up calling them buggies, but people around here also call them shopping carts.
It's a paper sack but a plastic bag.
Drinking fountain
Junie B. Jones and the case for spelling, grammar {ParentDish}
Aug 1st 2007 5:54PM I'm a high school teacher. I don't have an issue with the books. (Any books that get kids to read are good!)But here's my issue with invented spelling and whole language: at what point do kids stop inventing? And how is that change incorporated in the classroom? I made the mistake, in a graduate class for language arts education of asking that question. Everyone else (all elementary school teachers) were praising the method up and down, talking about how it opened up such opportunities for creative writing. In early years, yes, it does. But my point was that at some point, kids need to laern correct spelling and grammar, and I saw NOTHING in the academic studies about making the jump from creative spelling and whole language to correct spelling and grammar. I asked the professor to recommend some studies I could read where this issue was addressed. All of the other students in the class (who were teachers during the day) along with the professor looked at me like I had three heads and wanted to set an elementary school on fire.
It seems to me that somewhere along the way, there needs to be a specific program that moves kids from this initial venture in writing into correctness. I should not be getting high school students who are still using creative spelling. Quite frankly, I still haven't found ANY literature of studies or methods transferring whole language learning to correctness. To me, it's just another way we are failing our youth. No Child Left Behind? Whole language means most children are left behind because in the real world, people want to hire employees who can read and write. They want creativity in the workplace, but not in an employee's spelling.
And let me just point out, if I can learn to spell, anyone can -- I am dyslexic. And learning the right way to spell never stopped me from being creative.
Cart a Kid {Gadling}
Sep 23rd 2006 11:23PM If this suitcase/chair looked like it were uncomfortable, it would be one thing. But it seems perfectly acceptable to me. You can move quickly through an airport to make connections. It seems far more humane that people I have seen half dragging their toddlers through the terminals as they rush to catch a flight.
The big problem seems to be if you had more than one small child.
Parents ask for Ritalin -- to boost grades {ParentDish}
Sep 23rd 2006 2:43AM ADHD is a real disease. Different medication and/or treatment helps different individuals. I have an adult nephew whose ADHD was not diagnosed until his senior year of college. He struggled and struggled through school, but managed to pass because he was very smart. He started on medication and it has changed his life. After five years of medication, he decided that he wanted to go back to school and take requirements for premed, then go to med school. He has been an honor student since he went back to school -- and he's working full time, married and a new dad, so it isn't like he's slacking off on the rest of his life. He says he can do so much more now because he can focus on life instead of living every second distracted.
My godson also suffers from extreme ADHD. His Mom worries about him taking too many meds, and has come to an interesting compromise with her doctor. He takes meds before school, and that modifies his behavior/attention so that he can focus there and not be a disruption in class. But when that wears off, he doesn't take a second set of meds and he doesn't take meds on the weekends. She says that when he's home and has a smaller adult to child ratio, she can work with him on behavior modification without meds so that he might one day handle things without meds. He comes in and does his homework first thing, before his meds wear off, so he can concentrate on his work.
I'm a teacher, and I see kids with ADD and ADHD suffering in class. It's really amazing when a kids finally learns that he doesn't have to live with constant distraction.
But I also see the other side -- parents (or teachers) want kids to take drugs to calm them down and make them more easily controlled, whether or not they truly have ADD or ADHD.
Moms deliver fast food through school fence {ParentDish}
Sep 23rd 2006 2:22AM I have worked at three different schools with vastly different lunch programs. The only one where I was willing to eat lunch from the school cafeteria was the middle school. They had plenty of healthy options and they made good food. They had fresh fruit and vegetables and sometimes vegetables from a can that were cooked to taste good instead of just drumped out of the can plain or cooked in butter.
Those kids were out of luck when they went to high school, however. Food that was awful. I figured I couldn't go wrong with a salad, but when I couldn't buy a tossed salad without freezer burn, I gave up. Three bucks for a PB and jelly with and a tiny apple? Outrageous! And the apples weren't always fresh -- I've ended up with some that were badly bruised. I've eaten apples from the supermarket that I dropped on the way into the house that weren't as bruised as the ones at school.
I finally started bringing in microwave dinners to cook in the teachers lounge, but the kids don't have that option. They don't have refrigerators to keep things like yogurt cold, and they don't have microwaves to heat up soup. I feel sorry for them. I had a group of kids who stayed in my classroom during lunch. They brought vegetarian microwave meals and microwaveable single serving Campbell's Soup.
There are some nasty school lunches out there. And I am not a picky eater.
I'm sorry, I don't (or can't) eat that {Slashfood}
Sep 4th 2006 4:45PM I wrote earlier about allergies and intolerances. I want to clarify: I never ask a host/hostess to change his/her menu. But I do sometimes ask what the menu will be, particularly if I know that the host/hostess has a tendency to use items I cannot eat. Let me make it clear -- if I eat mushrooms, chances are I will die of anaphalactic shock before the EMS can get to me. In a best case scenario, it's a trip in an ambulance to the emergency room and a stay in the hostpital. If I eat seafood it won't kill me, but I may wish I were dead while I am throwing up for 24 hours. When I ask a host/hostess about the menu, I do so graciously, I explain that I have severe allergies (which I don't specify because I my intent is not to change the menu). Since seafood and mushrooms are used quite commonly in cooking, this is important information for me. Generally, I can eat something that is served. Only once have I not been able to eat anything except the raw vegetables set out for people to munch on as they arrive before dinner is served, bread and dessert. I don't eat at this hostess' home any more because she like for her menus "to be a surprise" so I can't prepare beforehand.
While I do have several foods that I don't care for, I do taste them when they are served at a dinner party. Perhaps the host/hostess has prepared them in a way that they do appeal to me.
As a hostess, I generally ask about allergies and dietary restrictions. I also try to make sure that I have at least one food that avoids major dietary restrictions that I am aware of. I generally have beef or poultry as a meat, a vegetarian option that can serve as a side dish for those who eat meat or a main dish for vegetarians/vegans, something lowfat, something low sugar/no sugar, and I serve sauces on the side. I also try to offer two options for dessert, generally something fruity and "healthy" and something chocolate. I have managed to welcome Muslims, Hindus, Budhists, Christians, Jews, vegans and people who are allergic to nuts and others sensitive to dairy at the same table (and recognizing my own issues with mushrooms and seafood -- which doesn't mean I never serve mushrooms or seafood -- I just don't eat them). (I used to bring the international students home on college holidays. It made for some interesting meals.) People pick and choose according to their own needs and preferences. It's quite possible to manage one meal if you plan with consideration for your guests and their needs.
