(scroll down for the apocryphal picture of me at close to max weight…and today’s version…)
I am fortunate enough to have a very good friend in social media expert Andy Wibbels (@andymatic on Twitter). We’ve masterminded and built our businesses side by side for years and he has been such a help and such a darling friend to me. Color me very grateful for this high class, high value friendship.
We met when Andy still lived in Chicago. When he and Ron and kitties Astroboy & Downy moved out here in 2008, Andy stayed with us while interviewing at SixApart, where he worked until recently on their TypePad, Vox and other products. Now he’s graduating to the bigtime and toddling off to North Carolina to work for sales shark Jeffrey Gitomer. I’m so proud of Andy I could bust. Love him like a sister. k
We’re getting in a lot of celebrating, dinners and theater, ballet and shows before they leave. Tonight we went to Swan Lake, which was great, though missing the iconic dying swan scene at the end. In Helgi Tomasson’s production of the San Francisco Ballet, Odette simply jumps off a cliff – offstage.
WHERE WAS MY DYING SWAN SCENE?! I waited the whole doggone ballet to see it. Ron was similarly taken aback. You just don’t cut the dying swan. It isn’t done.
At any rate, for afters we went back to the boys’ apartment and shot the breeze as long as eyes stayed open. Followed by a picture taking session (which followed the food pics at Santorini earlier in the evening). The below right picture is tonight’s. The one on the left is of me two years ago almost to the day. That chin is pretty much a straight line from under-lip to collarbone, and was a triple roll at my high weight.
BTW, I got that wrong in the caption below. (hey, it was late at night) I went back to my records and found I weighed more like 265 in the lefthand picture, not 280. But once I got that large, I stopped counting as many do, so the lapse is understandable.
All the cutting & sculpting done on this body happened pretty much in eight months. Close to 70 pounds, 5 dress sizes, 1 shoe size, 3 bra sizes and 2 chins down, plus over 6″ off my abdomen so far.
I didn’t effort, I just had fun.
I didn’t restrict my eating, I had what my body wanted. How I did it will be the stuff of a future workshop. Something to look forward to! For now though, photos unretouched, just captioned…
If you haven’t yet encountered Emotional Freedom Techniques or EFT, you’re in for a treat. If you’re an old hand, you’ll still enjoy this “spiritual documentary” (a la “The Secret”) style introduction to what EFT can do, and features some of my most esteemed colleagues. Really beautiful work – pass this one along to your friends and families. And, as Gary is retiring March 1st and has said he will be taking his website down, if the link at the end no longer works, you can download a free “EFT Quickstart” from me, here (will open in a new window)
I know. I used it to help me end years of chronic pain from a broken back, and to heal those tissues and even grow new bone. Oh yes, you really can. EFT is a really great introduction to energy magic for people of all ages, cultures and belief systems. Pass this one on too. You can use a sophisticated Energy Coaching technique called “Borrowing Benefits” to tap along with Gary here as the pain is tapped out. Just think of your own pain for a moment, then let it go and use the lady’s set-up phrasing and reminder phrases. Tap right along. Get over it.
GREAT back pain release video
This one is from Robert Smith. He’s a wonderfully intuitive EFT practitioner and teacher. Beautiful NLP related interventions and submodality shifting for you NLPers in the community. Enjoy this video and especially if you had back pain like I did, this will be a welcome relief. Again Borrow Benefits, as you tap along with Robert and the lady with horse related issues…and a big pain in her back that goes away in a really interesting process:
Can KIDS do EFT? You bet’cha! (they’re a lot smarter than we are, y’know?)
I’ve taught children young as four how to tap with EFT and though I don’t have one, I highly recommend a Tappy Bear. (I turned my childhood bear into such a happy tapping guide a few years ago) They’re the BOMB for teaching EFT to kids! Enjoy this wonderful video from Karin Gustafson teaching a little boy how to tap with a homemade tapping bear. The giggles alone are worth listening – and Borrowing Benefits – through the whole video. For those who don’t resonate to “I’m a good boy” – “I’m okay and feel grrrrreat!” is a good substitute.
Come claim your FREE “The EFT Way To Market Your Services: More Clients, Money & Fun in 2010″ intro class at http://eftmarketingschool.com You’ll learn more in this FREE CLASS than you will in any other, AND GET COACHED ON YOUR BUSINESS. More genuine “take-action takeaways” than you’ll experience any other place.
Why You Need To Take This Class Now
Gary Craig, the founder of Emotional Freedom Techniques or EFT, is retiring after many years, and taking his massive, resource-crammed website down. Latest reports say he has put off his retirement from January 15th to March 1st due to the overwhelming amount of requests for a little more time to copy website materials and shut down the business. I for one have benefitted tremendously from Gary’s work and want to tender a personal “thank you and well done – rest well deserved”. Without EFT, there would be no Energy Coach Institute and I would not have been able to create the profession of Energy Coaching!
In this week’s tribute to Gary’s work, my colleague Pat Carrington brought up that people were upset over the fact that Gary’s fantastic marketing skills that would no longer be available to the community. “Who will teach us how to market our businesses when Gary is gone?” she cites one client as saying.
Just as I took up the challenge to help Gary market EFT along with several other top tappers and EFT Masters five years ago, I’m taking up the challenge today to offer this kind of training to you, the EFT Practitioner.
Gary and I both trained in the same neurolinguistic programming business marketing methods, and I have additional experience as a professional industrial psychologist researching what makes products & services sell, plus training in Guerrilla Marketing, in how to Get Clients Now and Book Yourself Solid. These are only three of the over thirty service business marketing programs I’ve taken in the last ten years.
I’ve spent probably fifty to seventy-five thousand dollars to learn these secrets and now, I am going to share them with you in a unique program created especially for EFT Practitioners, Coaches & Therapists – a unique blend of time-tested techniques you simply CAN’T learn elsewhere.
If you’re ready to stop practicing at it and get really good at your business – good enough to take lots of time off, be there when you want to for your family, take liberal vacations, buy whatever you need without worry and all the other things you may have been putting off, go over to:
The New Year is here. 2010 – woohoo! We’re all sure it’s going to be a MUCH better year financially and every other way. But what if your business “isn’t there yet”? What if you’ve never made a dime of take-home profit? Are you at the point of giving up? Of retooling? Of running screaming back to corporate life?
If so, come take a FREE CLASS SERIES with me as I share the same marketing ideas Gary Craig, creator of Emotional Freedom Techniques, asked me to share as I helped him with his marketing of EFT. All that is right here PLUS you get a bonus free eBook from Joe “Mr Fire” Vitale on spiritually marketing your business!
I’ve been enjoying the posts of several people around the issue of transparency. One of them, a young lawyer-turned-coach, Elizabeth Potts Weinstein had an interesting opinion on the “six/seven figure coach” – most of them aren’t making what you think because they’re plowing all the money they make back into their businesses. In the interest of full disclosure, I, like Elizabeth have put most of the money made back into my business from the start. I feel fortunate to have had the resources to do that and still live a rather nice lifestyle. We can all take a valuable lesson from this: Revenue Does Not Equal Profits.
If you still need profits and revenue however, you’ll want to join me for this free class series. Even if you’re in another part of the world and the time doesn’t work, sign up anyway – you’re going to get a free replay, even if you come across this blog post a year or two down the line. Again, the free class is here:
Be it ever so humble…here’s our New Year’s Eve in Redwood City, CA – complete with interesting neighbors, mariachi (which unfortunately you can’t quite hear thru the Flip’s limited mike), a gen-u-wine Radar Range, gunfire, rockets, Dick Clark, brother Johannes on the FaceBook, @andrealee and other darlings on TweetDeck, shrimp & assorted sauces (only a fraction of the truly decadent parade of food we had during the evening – oh yes), Piper Heidsieck champagne and the much-beloved JBear…
I’ve been a psychologist, shamanic practitioner and trainer for 30 years. My longevity as both a student and teacher of mental and spiritual processes is what prompts my comment on good buddy Andy Wibbels’ recent post on the James Arthur Ray Sweatlodge Deaths which I reproduce most of below.
What gets me is on page 12 of the James Arthur Ray International Co’s Search Warrrant (http://bit.ly/4zDRlm) that Ray played “God” and if anyone did anything he didn’t like would point to them and say “You’re dead”. The person then had to play dead until Ray told them they could “live” again.
Ye gods. What an egotistical sham.
How could otherwise rational people be taken in like this?
I’ve been pondering this question several decades and wrote a scholarly paper on it back in the 90’s. This seems to be the question most people are asking. From a therapeutic perspective, these people were so very desperate for approval that they abdicated their good sense in favor of Ray’s good graces.
But even so…there were way too many early pointers to disaster that the average person should have been able to sense. IF – and this is pivotal – their better judgment had not been intentionally crippled prior to the incident.
I was blessed to be trained in shamanic practice by a real elder whose kindness, deep wisdom and grace inoculated me against ever getting involved with scams like this, no matter how glowingly packaged or how much I wanted the transformation promised. More on that, and this whole mess here: http://bit.ly/OnSpiritualAbuse
One of the first things ego-identified cult leaders do is to wean people from their support networks, their internal sense of right and wrong and teach them their natural bodily reactions are not to be trusted.
Ray did all three. The affidavits list numerous times Ray’s seminarians came to harm – breaking bones, death, suicide, subsequent mental illness…a shameful laundry list that incredibly, has been growing since at least 2003 by current eyewitness reports.
I still do not understand why this man is not behind bars right now.
When I was a therapist, I had a history in dealing with spiritual abuse survivors and developed a certain amout of expertise in being able to spot the fakes and engage proactive protection. As a community gift for 2010, I’m rewriting my early-90’s paper on surviving and avoiding such situations, to more broadly address a wide range of spiritual abusers. Even in well-meaning communities, inexpert group therapy perpetrated by leaders often results in harm to the participants. Most of this is inadvertent, but sometimes it is not. Here are some excerpts that I hope might be helpful:
When human ego is stoked by the drugs of greed, money, ambition and adulation, there is always danger and high potential for abuse.
Some tips for folks in any potential spiritual or mental abuse situation:
Always trust your gut. ALWAYS. No matter what anyone tells you, no matter how initially comfortable you feel with a leader or group. Do you feel queasy or like you’ve been slimed around a leader or teacher you once trusted? Your gut-wisdom is your final defense against harm to the organism. Trust it.
A measure of discomfort is sometimes necessary to grow and change. BUT -
* If you feel Ill either emotionally or physically during a lecture, process, workshop, etc. and it gets WORSE or doesn’t go away – LEAVE.
* If a teacher’s words or behavior make you feel BAD about yourself or ridicule others – LEAVE.
* If a teacher encourages you to drop associations outside of their group, particularly with old friends or family – LEAVE.
* Just as a rule of thumb: ONLY do intense mental/spiritual processes (and definitely those of native origin) with someone who is HIGHLY trained to offer them.
* Do a thorough background check on anyone offering a sweatlodge. Who trained them? Who trained that person’s trainer? What is their track record? Do they have people who have been through the entire process that you can speak with about their experience? Do they have medical staff or medically trained assistants on standby?
* Check the teacher’s exterior relations: What is their relationship with their local Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce if they are a commercial concern? How do other teachers/leaders regard them? Do they have testimonials from anyone OUTSIDE their own organization familiar with their work – in other words, not only testimonials from adoring acolytes or outside parties who haven’t really experienced the work.
These are reasonable questions to ask ANY leader of ANY training like Ray was offering. Most teachers are scrupulous and will have no problem giving you cogent answers. Most are proud of their lineages and will readily cite them, on their websites, in other documentation or to your face if you ask.
* If the teacher you’re investigating refuses to answer, ridicules you for asking or becomes upset – LEAVE. Behavior like this is indicative of ego-strength too low to be teaching or advising anyone.
STAY CENTERED.
DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU WHAT TO DO….
ESPECIALLY IF YOUR GUT SAYS DIFFERENT.
If in doubt, check your participation in such ventures with friends, family members or professionals you know to be rational and un-invested in your decision.
Thanks for reading and please pass these tips on – they could save a life.
I just found ALL of Napoleon Hill’s classic 1960 era made-for-tv 13 part episodes explaining his Mastermind princples. If you’re a coach, therapist or business maven, you’ll already know the power of the mastermind. This is NapHill at his finest, and well worth viewing. Classic & timeless, the lessons are the real power behind “The Secret”. All 13 will play for you right here in this window. Click play and enjoy!
Do you know about Kwanzaa? It is celebrated to honor the first fruits of Harvest and happens this week, December 26th – January 1st as a festival of African-American culture, beauty and unity. I didn’t know about this beautiful festival until just a few years ago, though it was begun in America in 1966 by black studies professor, Maulana Karenga.
Below is a primer from BeliefNet.com to enjoy. There is a space between the early December holy days of Hanukkah and Solstice, this year on the 21st, then between Solstice and Christmas on the 25th and Christmas and New Year’s on January 1st. Kwanzaa wonderfully carries on the holy days festival calendar with its timeless Seven Principles.
This year, I am taking as a personal motto and charge:
Principle of Ujima: Collective Work and Responsibility
You might say 2010 is the Year of Ujima for all conscious people to rise and together, swing this world away from destruction the prophets of doom predict and slew our collective Bliss Compass around so the wind’s at our backs this time ~ towards a kind land where Presence, equanimity and good faith exist among all.
For a start.
Check out what else Kwanzaa means and follow the links back to BeliefNet for more info:
KWANZAA: The First Fruits of the Harvest
When It Falls
Kwanzaa is an annual festival that lasts seven days, from December 26 to January 1.
Meaning
The word Kwanzaa comes from the phrase, ‘matunda ya kwanza,’ which means ‘first fruits of the harvest’ in Swahili. Kwanzaa is modeled on the first fruit celebrations of ancient Africa. It is now a celebration of African-American family, community, and self-improvement.
History
Kwanzaa was created as a cultural festival in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, now a black studies professor. The festival was created to encourage African-Americans to think about their African roots and develop a higher African-American consciousness.
Seven Principles (Nguzo Saba)
Umoja — Unity
Kujichagulia — Self-Determination
Ujima — Collective Work and Responsibility
Ujamaa — Cooperative Economics
Nia — Purpose
Kuumba — Creativity
Imani — Faith
Ritual Objects & Symbols
Mkeka — straw table mat, on which all other objects are placed
Mazao — crops, symbols of the fruits of collective labor
Muhindi — one ear of corn for each child, symbolizing fertility
Kikombe cha umoja — the unity cup, used to perform the libation ritual
Zawadi — gifts, traditional items that encourage success
Kinara — candleholder, a symbol of ancestry
Mishumaa saba — seven candles, one for each of the seven Kwanzaa principles
Customs
Each night, the family gathers to light the candles of the kinara, adding one candle for each day of the holiday. A traditional feast is held on the night of December 31.
Gifts
Gifts are usually opened on the last day of Kwanzaa, January 1. Gifts are considered part of the “kuumba,” or creativity, principle and are encouraged. Traditional presents are books and heritage symbols.
Traditional Greeting
“Habari gani?”, to which one replies with the Kwanzaa principle of the day.
Traditional Meal
Most celebrants have a feast, called a karamu, on December 31.
CONTENTS * Holiday Gratitude & New Direction
* Solstice (OMG!) Call Replay, Gifts & Rocky Roads
* French Ingenuity, Transparency Redux & My Motley Past
* Busy Women: Freebies For The Tired & Time-Starved Family
* Transformation Tool: EVOLUTIONARY ENVIRONMENTS
* Availability Pledge, Jaw Surgery & Are We Connected?
* Old Family Recipes: Organic, Gluten-Free Yuletide Wassail Bowl
Welcome To The Party…
This is my WHACKIN’ HUGE LOAD OF PRIMO CONTENT, tons’a prezzies, and catch-up letter for the year.
There’s some interesting stuff in here – teeth video, mom’s meal planners, transformers, my motley past, a commentary on gurus and a whole basket of yuletide g’ifts & goodness. Check the index above for juice-factor!
A very Merry Christmas and Solstice this week to you. I wanted to give you yuletide greetings while also telling you how very much I appreciate you.
I am deeply grateful for everyone who is tuned into the Now, and interested in raising consciousness on the planet like I know you are. At least, if you’re hip to joining this community, I hope you’re into waking up the planet and spreading a wave of consciousness throughout the world. We’re going to be doing a lot of that in 2010 together, so get ready – fun times ahead!
Oh by the way, I should mention that in this last year I’ve taken off to rest, reflect, refresh and retool, my business has changed a good deal. I’m not ready to say much more until after New Year’s, but Consciousness-bringing is definitely the direction. More later on that
*** FREE Replay of The Solstice World Transformation Ritual & Rocky Roads Ahead ***
We had an amazing time Monday during the exact time of Winter Solstice, doing a ritual of clearing out the old, bringing in the desired and learning how each of our lives is sacred and how we are all priest/esses in our lives. I’m not using that as a religious term, but a spiritual one, for we are all here as teachers and students of each other.
We had five beautiful Priestesses of Dawn attend us with blessings of sacredness & joy which I can’t begin to put into words. You should hear theirs – I’m offering the replay and the TEN different gifts we put together into a “Make 2010 The Year You REALLY SHINE” package.
It’s awesome-sauce! And available for replay to soak up those wonderful lessons & techniques, if you let me know your opinion on some really important issues:
I’m committed to serving you so much better in 2010 than I have in the past. There may be some rocky roads ahead for our planet, and some big changes for us as human beings. I’m stepping up in service of supporting and forearming people like you through those changes, with a magic bag full of easily learnable tools to help you accomplish that Big Mission of yours.
That’s one of my most cherished 2010 goals.
But to do that, I need you to tell me what YOU really want and need to have happen in your life this year.
I know that time is precious and valuable. So I’m willing to make it worth your time – there’s a bunch of goodness waiting for you at the end of this rainbow:
From the Blog: French Ingenuity, Transparency & My Motley Past
An absolutely amazing video of French students doing stop-motion chair dance shows us a new Bliss Key: Cheerful Cooperation. When you engage this Bliss Key, the Bliss Blocker it unlocks is twofold:
1) The Need To Be Right – those who need to be right are rarely happy
2) Self-Isolation, leading to depression
Transparency, Gurus, Gory Details & Telling Secrets – trending topics over at the blog and ’round about the web since the James Arthur Ray sweatlodge deaths. This is part of that discussion:
Transparency, translucence, living a conscious life – or whatever you call it, is not only the birthright and destiny of every human, but also our responsibility to the future. Our choices are essential, each one important, even east or west, choosing paper, plastic or bring-your-own, choosing to remain conscious in the face of frightening and destructive acts of unspeakable evil, or parking a block away.
We bear witness.
We choose with our intention and our energy the best and most evolutionary choices we can possibly make given our individual situation. Only we can make that choice, no one can do it for us. It’s called taking personal responsibility and it’s a Rubicon we all have to cross at some point in adult life to become fully human.
And we know that while (often intensely) impactful, our situation is not personal. Such a situation or lesson, if we choose to see it this way, is given to billions. Lessons are 100% Universal.
Thinking further on this brought me to the universals in how humans encode their experience that created The ETHOS Method.
What else is Universal? Living life asleep. And the ability to wake up, will do for a start. Spread the Wave – Consciousness will set you free. Really.
The post that’s really got folks buzzing, on spiritual abusers in our midst, offer of abuse-prevention how-to and some details of my er, motley past – comment stream is also worth a read:
Head’s Up Moms: FREEBIES For The Tired & Time-Starved Family
Moms especially will love this collection of f’ree downloadable organizer pages for your day, week, month and year. Three whole pages, about eighteen different forms in all to print and help organize the chaos of an active family! There’s a fall cleaning checklist, the “Eat Sheet” for a week’s worth of meals, a weekly family calendar, baby’s schedule, infant babysitter checklist and more. You don’t even have to sign up, just download:
There’s more of the same (only different) over at http://www.cozi.com/ too. Check ‘em both out!
Transformation Tool: EVOLUTIONARY ENVIRONMENTS
One of the evolutionary environments I indulge in frequently is
my back garden. From the covered deck, I can observe wildlife and
rejoice in my fur-daughters’ play. I love it, and it evolves me
uniquely well.
This is a Mellowvision vid for you to relax to. I like making panoramas as turning in place is fun. Now you see what I see every afternoon. I’m out there rain or shine, it’s a must for mental health.
Enjoy!
Availability Pledge, Jaw Surgery & Are We Connected?
I pledge to be more available to you in 2010. For one thing, I’ll be making lots of videos from now on. I’ve gone a bit video nutty really, as I’ve used my Flip Mino to exhaustion and happen to know Santa is dropping off a Kodak zi8.
(will it be aqua or raspberry? dunno…the Bear wouldn’t tell)
Of interest is the fact that in the new year I’ll be having jaw surgery. Not cosmetic, apparently I have really strong bones (a good thing since Mom had osteoporosis) and they’re crowding my teeth too much – several teeth need to be reseated in the jaw. Yuck, yuck, yuck. It’ll be gnarly, but I’ll be documenting this and how I’m dealing with discomfort. We’ll be doing a pain management class next year.
Interested in learning to get rid of pain? Again, let me know here:
And I’m going to be offering ways in which we can easily talk together about what’s important in 2010. A few are available right now, and the team is hard at work developing more. Are we connected? I’d love it if you’d Friend me on:
“Wassail and wassail all over the town,
Our Cup it is white and your ale it is brown…”
– Gloucester Wassail, arr. English Traditional
Wassail is a contraction of the old Anglo-Saxon phrase “wes thu hal” meaning “To Your Health”. And of course, the traditional toasting beverage of this “best time of the year” ~ which in this case is a non-alcoholic hot apple cider punch we serve for the winter holidays. It is never served any other time of the year. You can twiddle the ingredients about a bit, Graines of Paradise may be hard to come by but you can substitute pink or green peppercorns or just leave it out.
Want to up the octane? Add a full bottle of mead (honey wine), barleywine or even a crisp chardonnay to the mix, or a shot of Applejack to each mug.
To two gallons apple cider add:
15 dried dates
20 dried apple rings
1 orange cut into thin slices w/peel left on
1 lemon cut into thin slices w/peel left on
3 cinnamon sticks, whole
1tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1″ fresh ginger, sliced thin
Handful each:
Mixed dried fruit bits
Dried Cranberries
Dried Cherries
Large pinch each:
Whole coriander seed
Whole cardmom pod, well crushed
Whole cloves
Cinnamon chips or small pieces
Small pinch each:
Allspice berries
Damascena rose petals or 1tbsp rose water
Dried barberries (can substitute 1tsp lemon juice + tbsp raisins)
Graines of paradise (or pink or green peppercorns)
Add:
1/4 – 1/2 cup brown sugar or blue agave or maple syrup, to taste
Crush all the spices and add to the cider and fruits in a large stainless steel or enameled pan. Simmer until volume is reduced by a third. When cooked down to your taste, strain through coffee filter or paper towel to remove pulp and spices. Replace a few fresh lemon, orange and apple rings and add 2 new cinnamon sticks to serve. Serve piping hot.
How DOES it get any better…?
I’ll be back to you just before New Year’s with some more juice for your joyous life and ways for you to live in ease, grace and joy.
For now, just keep asking: “How does it get any better than this?” Don’t wait for an answer, just let it be out there, so it can return to you in wondrous ways!
Register Now For A FREE Bliss Kit! Learn More You'll get a clickable MindMap to Bliss as a thank-you, plus expert interviews, audios, classes, Energy Coaching and community gatherings.
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The New Year is here. 2010 – woohoo! We’re all sure it’s going to be a MUCH better year financially and every other way. But what if your business “isn’t there yet”? What if you’ve never made a dime of take-home profit? Are you at the point of giving up? Of retooling? Of running screaming back to corporate life?
We had an amazing time Monday during the exact time of Winter Solstice, doing a ritual of clearing out the old, bringing in the desired and learning how each of our lives is sacred and how we are all priest/esses in our lives. I’m not using that as a religious term, but a spiritual one, for we are all here as teachers and students of each other.
An absolutely amazing video of French students doing stop-motion chair dance shows us a new Bliss Key: Cheerful Cooperation. When you engage this Bliss Key, the Bliss Blocker it unlocks is twofold:
Transparency, translucence, living a conscious life – or whatever you call it, is not only the birthright and destiny of every human, but also our responsibility to the future. Our choices are essential, each one important, even east or west, choosing paper, plastic or bring-your-own, choosing to remain conscious in the face of frightening and destructive acts of unspeakable evil, or parking a block away.
Moms especially will love this collection of f’ree downloadable organizer pages for your day, week, month and year. Three whole pages, about eighteen different forms in all to print and help organize the chaos of an active family! There’s a fall cleaning checklist, the “Eat Sheet” for a week’s worth of meals, a weekly family calendar, baby’s schedule, infant babysitter checklist and more. You don’t even have to sign up, just download:
I pledge to be more available to you in 2010. For one thing, I’ll be making lots of videos from now on. I’ve gone a bit video nutty really, as I’ve used my Flip Mino to exhaustion and happen to know Santa is dropping off a Kodak zi8.
Wassail is a contraction of the old Anglo-Saxon phrase “wes thu hal” meaning “To Your Health”. And of course, the traditional toasting beverage of this “best time of the year” ~ which in this case is a non-alcoholic hot apple cider punch we serve for the winter holidays. It is never served any other time of the year. You can twiddle the ingredients about a bit, Graines of Paradise may be hard to come by but you can substitute pink or green peppercorns or just leave it out.
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