I used a natural muslin for the body, and some undyed wool for the drawstring (future tea bags will be made from 100% cotton, but I didn’t have any handy).

The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to get enough to eat.

I don’t believe that this is a result of the economic crisis, but rather a symptom of a greater problem: the fact that most people don’t know how to shop, cook or eat on a budget. To them, eating from the dollar menu at McDonald’s is the best way to eat cheaply.

And yes, you can get a meal for a few dollars at McDonald’s, the problem is that it is loaded with carbohydrates and chemicals that will leave you hungry and malnourished! The same goes for most frozen foods and other ‘quick foods.’

Eating cheaply and eating healthy are synonimous, yet most people have no idea that both can be done.  So when daddy gets laid off and things get tight, they spend their money on ‘cheap’ fast food that costs more in the long run, when all they needed to do was buy a bag of dried beans for $1.50, some fresh vegetables for $3 and they have a recipe to stay full and healthy. Oh yeah, and they’ll have enough left over for lunch for two days.

Maybe I should teach a class….

And they say women shouldn’t be in combat situations.

A civilian police officer who shot the Fort Hood gunman four times during his bloody rampage stopped the attacker cold, a U.S. Army official said Friday.

Officer Kimberly Munley of the Fort Hood Police Department is a “trained, active first responder” who acted quickly after she “just happened to encounter the gunman,” said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, Fort Hood’s commanding general.

Cone said the officer and her partner responded “very quickly” to the scene of the shootings — reportedly in around three minutes.

Munley “just happened very fortunately to be very close to the incident scene,” Cone told CNN’s “American Morning.”

He said she shot the gunman four times and was wounded herself in an exchange of gunfire with him.

Evan, my 3 year old, is crazy about it. He keeps checking the list to see what else he should do. Andre, my 2 year old, was not so eager. When it came to the last item on the morning check-list (using the potty), he wanted to just watch TV instead. I told him he could have gumballs and watch Blue’s Clues if he used the potty, so he instantly started tugging his pants down and racing for the bathroom. Yay!

I have no comment.

A study in California shows that about a quarter of the people hospitalized for H1N1 complications were morbidly obese, even though less than 5% of the population falls into that category.

And now the conspiracy theorists will continue to believe that H1N1 is here to wipe out the unhealthy so that socialized medicine can prosper! I’m not saying that I believe that… oh no… but it does seem to make sense. Hmm.

About a quarter of hospitalizations for such complications have been in people who were morbidly obese, even though such people comprise less than 5% of the population. That fivefold increase in risk is nearly the same as the sixfold increase observed in pregnant women, according to the report in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

From the Los Angeles Times

By Karlene’s Workshop: Denim jeans-to-skirt tutorial

However, the study found that two types of antibiotics were linked with a higher risk for several birth defects: nitrofurantoins and sulfonamides, sometimes called “sulfa drugs,” which are prescribed for urinary tract and other infections.

Women whose children had anencephaly, a fatal malformation of the skull and brain, were three times more likely to have taken sulfonamides, the study found. Sulfonamides were also tied to an increased risk for such heart defects as hypoplastic left heart syndrome and coarctation of the aorta, choanal atresia (a blockage of the nasal passage), transverse limb deficiency and diaphragmatic hernia, an abnormal opening in the diaphragm that results in severe breathing difficulties.

Nitrofurantoins were also associated with multiple birth defects, including anophthalmia and microphthalmos (eye defects) and several congenital heart defects. Mothers whose children were born with a cleft lip or cleft palate were twice as likely to have taken nitrofurantoins, the study found.

….

Even antibiotics that generally were safe were found to be associated with a few specific birth defects. Women whose babies were born with a certain type of limb malformation were three times more likely to have taken penicillin. Erythromycin, cephalosporins and quinolones were also associated with an increased risk for one or two specific birth defects.

From US News

from http://topnews.us/content/28065-babies-benefit-when-mom-gets-flu-vaccine

The swine-flu vaccine has pregnant women at the top of the list. They are getting swine flu and seasonal flu shots and four recent studies talk about benefits for moms-to-be and their babies.

The study findings are to be presented at the annual meeting of the Infectious Disease Society of America in Philadelphia. The subject will be bigger, healthier newborns, fewer preterm births and reduced rates of hospitalization top the findings.

In one of the studies which involved analyzing data on 6,410 births in Georgia, found that the risks of premature births and having low birth-weight infant were tremendously lowered among the 15 percent women who were vaccinated for swine flu during pregnancy.

Dr. Saad B. Omer, an assistant professor of global health and epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, said during a news conference at which all four studies were discussed that premature births fell 70 percent among women who were vaccinated during the peak of the flu season.

He added that the chances of having a small baby were also reduced by 70 percent and similar results would be expected to be seen in women getting H1N1 vaccine for swine flu.