The first thing that seems to disappear in the life of many new moms is “their fitness routine”. It is very easy to get caught up in the “mommy world” and put everyone else first but ourselves! For women who have toddlers and pre-school aged children at home, finding the time to work out can be quite the challenge. Not everyone has a nanny, a cousin or even a babysitter to watch the children while you get a quick workout in at the gym. However, do we really need to go to the gym all the time to get an effective workout? As a spokesperson for various fitness products , I knew all too well about the options for home workouts. However, as a former gym groupie it was very difficult for me to think about exercising at home. However, with two sets of pre-school aged twins at home, going to the gym was not an option. I was lucky to be able to brush my hair and throw a on a coat of lipgloss. Who was I kidding with my thoughts of going to the gym for an hour? What most of us don't realize is that working out at home can keep you in the loop of the fitness world!

The most rewarding element about home workouts is that you can exercise with your children. We should all be teaching our children about exercise as early as the toddler years. Believe it or not, you CAN workout with your children. You just need to be a little creative and get back to the basics.. My favorite workout with my four little ones involves creating your own obstacle course. All you need are fairy wings or superhero capes, a tambourine, hopscotch mats and hula hoops. Simple moves like skipping is great for the quads. Jumping in and out of the hula hoops tones the gluteal area or buttocks and incorporating a tambourine increases the overall aerobic intensity. Check out the video to see how you can workout with your children right in your own backyard. The best part about this workout is what your neighbors will be saying when they see you skipping around the yard in fairy wings. Stir things up in the neighborhood this Spring & give this workout a try

Photos credit John Dubois.

Eventually I got tired of hearing myself rattle on about the issue, and so did my friends. So we all decided to take action, and the Teaching Garden began. Inspired by Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign and Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, we came together to create an initiative to bring real, live garden laboratories to schools across the country.

The Teaching Garden encompasses a core belief that when you educate a child about nutritional choices, that child will teach his or her family and ultimately pass that knowledge on to others. We set out a simple task: grow an organic garden, support it with a nutrition curriculum, enhance it with education about the importance of physical fitness, and challenge each student to make small changes to improve their health. Finally, each Teaching Garden school makes a commitment to pass on their knowledge and passion for a healthy lifestyle to the next Teaching Garden school. The entire time we must remember that human capital is our most valuable asset.

My invaluable partner, Principal Chi Kim, and our extraordinary ambassadors — Michael O'Gorman of the Farmer-Veteran Coalition, Peggy Curry of the Growing Great nutritional curriculum, Gabby Reece of Fitness Ambassador, Cat Cora of Iron Chef, Tobey Maguire and Derek Fisher — along with our wonderful parents, teachers, and student volunteers, launched the Teaching Garden, a place where community partners come together to teach. A place where students, through the simple process of putting a seed into the earth, nurturing it and ultimately harvesting the food, will learn about efforts and results, delayed gratification, and cause and effect. The ultimate goal: hands-on exploration of the life sciences that lead to positive choices for health and fitness.

Chi Kim - Principal of Point Dume Marine Science School (PDMSS)

When Kelly asked me what I thought it would take to get the Teaching Garden into 1,000 schools, two things came to mind. The first was we needed to focus on schools with great leadership and a high functioning infrastructure. The second was creating a program that would be easy to implement. There are many schools in vulnerable neighborhoods failing their youth, but there are also schools in these same areas that have made significant gains academically, but don't have the resources to make learning connected to real life. The goal of any educational system should be to make learning meaningful and relevant. What could be more meaningful than showing children how to grow fresh food, finding out how to make great meals, and making meaningful and healthy changes to their diets?

Our students and gardening parents had an amazing opportunity to pass on their knowledge at our kick off event at Kelso Elementary School. When they worked with over 700 students to plant their first edible garden, the sense of empowerment that our students gained by passing on their knowledge is what we on the Teaching Garden team wants every child to feel.

Gabrielle Reece – a former Women's Beach Volleyball League star and one of the world's sexiest athletes. She is founder of the sites The Honeyline and Train 360, which offers women health and fitness information.

I think any time there is an opportunity where one can give in a way that is a natural extension of who they are, it's a no-brainer. When my dear friend Kelly Meyer asked me to be a part of the Teaching Garden from the fitness point of view I was thrilled. Don't get me wrong, I like to dig a hole in the dirt like the next person, but jumping around is definitely right up my alley. When I was sitting at the event in Inglewood, speaking with Peggy Curry, who started GrowingGreat, she said it perfectly: “its crunch time and we all have to pull together.” I could ramble about all the negative impact cutting the music and physical education curriculum has had on our children, but I think that has been pretty much laid out.

The Teaching Garden works in such a beautiful way. You have one school supporting another, and launching them into developing their own garden. You get kids out connecting with where their food is coming from. The Teaching Garden introduces them to the idea of eating fruits and veggies, teaching them about growing and preparing their own food, and then passing on the gift of the garden to the next school. The sense of community from this project is as important as the healthy food itself. My part is easy, because kids intuitively want to move around — they just need encouragement and opportunities to do so. From an adult trying to lose weight, to keeping our kids healthy, food is definitely the number one component to tackle. Exercise is the second part of the formula, and can be an easier issue for people to take on (especially kids). My goal is to get out there, with each new Garden that can be placed in our precious schools, and reinforce the message that we need to make better choices with what foods we eat, and to move around more. Fun has got to be king here. Kids don't need some heavy handed messaging about “exercise” — they need to run, jump, and play.

It all starts with taking care of ourselves, our own families, helping our neighbor, and lending a hand to the community in which we live. The Teaching Garden is just one more chance to take the baby steps to change what we can't ignore any more. Our children need us to lead them towards the best information that will give them a healthy and happy future.

I can't think of anything more important, and I have to tell you there is nothing like seeing 700 kids take your “exercise” routine and turn it into a dancing and singing party. Brilliant.

Michael O'Gorman – Founder of the Farmer-Veteran Coalition http://www.farmvetco.org in 2008 to help young men and women returning from war find work and places to heal on America's farms.

When Kelly Meyer asked the Farmer-Veteran Coalition to help with the first Teaching Garden I was thrilled. The only thing my family has a lot of, besides farmers, are school teachers. Besides our farmer/school gardener friends Ramsey Cronk and Alexis Schoppe, I invited Army veteran John McLaughlin, Marine veteran Jose Luis Soto and Coast Guard veteran Greg O'Gorman. John grew up on a 1200 acre family farm outside of Merced, California, went to Iraq, ran into an IED and came home with a Purple Heart. Jose, whose mother picked grapes when he was a child, went to Iraq at the age of 17 and lost a lot of close friends in battle; another took his own life recently. My son enlisted after 9/11 and came home from his last one year tour in Kuwait this past July. Besides preparing the beds the day before, and working with the kids during the planting, the three each donated a fruit tree to Kelso Elementary – a lemon, an apple and a mandarin – a tradition we want to continue with each of the Teaching Gardens around the country.

People always tell us how healing it must be for these men and women to be working with plants – and that is true. But what is most healing is channeling their need and desire to continue serving. I was moved by how much getting to help in this project meant to them and we are grateful to Kelly for including us in such a joyous event.

Cat Cora – The first female American Iron Chef, Authors of two cookbooks and Founder and president of Chefs for Humanity.

When Kelly Meyer invited me to be a part of the Teaching Garden at Kelso school, I immediately said yes for many reasons. I am first and foremost a parent who is concerned, like so many others, about her children's health and well-being. Even as a chef, I worry constantly that my four boys are eating enough and eating the good foods that will make them strong and healthy. But I also have learned from my parents the idea of giving back. My parents still reside in Jackson, Mississippi, the town I was born and raised. They are conscious of healthy eating, being active and living the best life they can. But that is not the case for all of Mississippi. Mississippi, along with West Virginia, has a 30% clinically obese rate, the highest in the country. Matter of fact, a few days before I went to the White House to cook, the First Lady, Michelle Obama, was en-route to Jackson, Mississippi to visit two elementary schools for her “Let's Move!” cause. I was so thankful that the First Lady spent time in my home state that I pledged myself to her movement along with the White House chefs, Sam Kass and Cristeta Comerford.

So, when I got a call from Kelly Meyer and all the other great people gathered to give this school a Teaching Garden, I knew I had to be part of it. Cooking is a life skill that will be with you forever. And the importance of having cooking as a life skill, whether you are an aspiring chef or a home chef, is that it improves your ability to make healthy choices that can change your life. When I taught my first demo to the class at Kelso, the kids were fascinated, connected and invested in the Teaching Garden. They wanted to learn where foods come from, what each ingredient was, and gave their opinions with gusto. What I saw that day was inner city kids feeling, maybe for the first time, their power and that they can live a lifetime on that energy. That is what will propel them to success, the feeling that they matter. It is as simple as planting a garden that can change a child's future. I plan to be involved as much as I can be with the Teaching Garden. This is one of the most crucial and important movements of our time.

Peggy Curry – Co-Founder, President, and Director of Development of GrowingGreat, a non-profit garden and nutrition education program.

If we don't have our health, what do we have? As a mother of four daughters who lost both parents to cancer, I learned early on that there is nothing more important than our health and the health of our family. Having spent years raising money for cancer, I realized that I no longer wanted to raise money for disease but focus on education for prevention and wellness. I wanted to do something that had an immediate impact on people's lives. That was 16 years ago.

After my first conversation with Kelly Meyer, I knew in my heart that I had found a person with the same passion and desire to affect real and lasting change, someone with a strong vision and power to make things happen. Kids today are in trouble. They need our help. Together GrowingGreat and the Teaching Garden are part of the solution getting kids excited about eating healthy foods!

As a co-founder of GrowingGreat, a nonprofit school garden and nutrition education organization, for 10 years we have been able to educate and inspire over 30,000 children and adults to adopt healthier eating habits. GrowingGreat partnered with Kelly and the Teaching Garden to provide comprehensive standard based garden and nutrition curriculum to fulfill her dream! By understanding where food comes from in the garden and realizing the benefits of choosing high quality foods from classroom nutrition lessons, kids are making the connection between food and their health. We trained enthusiastic Kelso Elementary teachers to implement a sustainable school garden and nutrition program. Students then become ambassadors and share their knowledge with their own families.

Together our programs empower children to make healthier food choices that will last a lifetime.

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Twitter evolved incredibly since it was launched. Actually (and ironically), the service itself hardly changed at all, unlike the way people have been using it.

Started merely as a “What are you doing now?” concept, the service has now such an overwhelming number of alternative uses that you could never believe it! You can use Twitter as a poll or a survey tool, as a money management tool and now also as a way to track weight loss.

But why use Twitter to track your weight?

Well, first of all, because it’s fun! Sometimes having some fun is the key to achieving your weight loss goals – this helps you to stay motivated and enjoy keeping fit.

And secondly, you are on Twitter anyway! Why not use it to get reminded of your weight loss stats? It can be an easy way to record and track your weight, so give it a try!

Now let’s take a look at the tools I managed to find:

1. Track Weight Loss With Twackit

Twackit is a fun tool I found through this post listing some cool Twitter apps for fitness. It allows you to use your Twitter account to track any metric (like your weight!) and watch trends over time with help of a Google-driven chart.

The good thing is that it needs no registration. Just tweet a numeric value and a hashtag to @twackit:

The bad thing is that the process is totally public. Everyone sees your weight and aside from that, everyone can go to the site to see your weight loss chart (just in case you are one of those who, quite understandably, thinks that this data should be private).

Once you’ve started twacking, view your report at

http://www.twackit.com/your-username/your-hashtag

Another similar tool that tracks various metrics you Tweet and requires no registration is gtFtr but it mostly focus on workouts and supports a limited number of hashtags/commands:

• Stats (or Day or Daily) – this has to come first so the parser knows it’s recording daily stats.
• Steps 9000 – How many steps did you take today? You can also use S or Step for short.
• Cals 800 – How many calories did you burn (that’s what it’s all about after all)?
• Dist 3.9 – How far you went?

2. Weight Loss Charts

Weight Loss Charts is another interesting Twitter-based tool which my friend, Eric of buildmuscle.org found for me. I don’t think I would be able to find it myself as it appears to be quite new.

It does require registration which went quite smoothly. On signing up, you are offered to add Twitter and Gtalk bots to your buddy list. After waiting a while, the bots add you as their friends. You will also need to set your preferred unit of measuring (I am using kilogram).

Now all you need to do is to send any of the bots your daily weight and the info will be recorded on the site.

One of the most useful features of the tool is its reminder because it is really not easy to remember to record your weight on a daily basis. If you forget to tweet your weight, the Twitter bot will remind you to.

You can access your weight loss (hopefully) chart any time after logging in:

Let me know if you would use any of those tools to track weight loss! Also, if you’re not already following MakeUseOf on Twitter, you really should.

• Canada privacy chief criticizes new Facebook changes

  Technology / Internet
  

  3 hours ago |
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  Facebook users may be targets of blackmail after changes that erode personal security protections on the world's most popular social network website, Canada's privacy czar warned Saturday.

• Israel reverses iPad ban

  Electronics / Consumer & Gadgets
  

  3 hours ago |
  not rated yet |
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  Israel on Sunday reversed a ban on Apple's new iPad after initially confiscating the devices at its airports because the wireless signal was 40 times stronger than the legal limit.

• To build a cooperative society, is it better to punish or reward?

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  Apr 19, 2010 |
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  (PhysOrg.com) — One of the basic components of a functional, cooperative society is a code of law, where the laws are usually enforced by some kind of incentive. Social incentives can either be positive (rewards) or negative …

• JPL worker sues over intelligent design demotion

  Space & Earth / Space Exploration
  

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  (AP) — A Jet Propulsion Laboratory worker who passed out religious DVDs on the job is suing the JPL for discrimination after he was demoted.

• 3D printer could build moon bases

  Technology / Engineering
  

  Apr 19, 2010 |
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  (PhysOrg.com) — An Italian inventor, Enrico Dini, chairman of the company Monolite UK Ltd, has developed a huge three-dimensional printer called D-Shape that can print entire buildings out of sand and an …

• Magnesium: Alternative Power Source

  Technology / Energy
  

  Apr 23, 2010 |
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  (PhysOrg.com) — There is enough magnesium to meet the world's energy needs for the next 300,000 years, says Dr. Takashi Yabe of the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

• How to identify chiral superconductivity in new materials

  Physics / Superconductivity
  

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  (PhysOrg.com) — “Chiral superconductivity is the dream of mankind,” Carlo Beenakker tells PhysOrg.com. “All sorts of scientists are working on it, and there are many labs trying to create materials that are predicted to pro …

• Plan to use satellites to monitor British motorists

  Technology / Hi Tech & Innovation
  

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  (PhysOrg.com) — Britain may soon be using global positioning satellites and advanced speed cameras with number plate recognition technology to track speeding motorists, and according to a report released …

• Plans percolate to revive some SF native creeks

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  (AP) — Riffling through old maps while researching a history project for San Francisco public schools, landscape architect Bonnie Sherk made a discovery: a century ago a creek coursed where two school campuses stand today.

• Russia launches US satellite into space

  Space & Earth / Space Exploration
  

  18 hours ago |
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  A Russian Proton rocket carrying a US AMC 49 telecommunications satellite was launched into orbit on Saturday, the Russian space agency said on its website.

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Sourse :Seafood Salad Recipes

Chef Allison Sosna: doing it right for the kids. This is the second of three articles detailing how food made from scratch using local ingredients is served to students at the Washington Jesuit Academy in Northeast Washington, D.C. The first is here.

Allison Sosna is a young chef who fell in love with local produce. She remembers where: it was in a Washington, D.C. restaurant called “Hook,” working with celebrated sustainable seafood chef Barton Seaver.

“We would get amazing produce every day from farmers in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania,” Sosna recalls. “They would just walk through the back door into the kitchen and start unloading all of these ingredients that I had never seen before: candy-striped beets, purple bell peppers, black radishes, pom-pom mushrooms. And I got hooked. I wanted to know what else was out there, these ingredients I had never seen or heard about before–and right in my own back yard.”

Sosna is executive chef at Fresh Start, the
for-profit catering arm of D.C. Central Kitchen, a
social services innovator that provides much of the food for the city's
soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Fresh Start handles the cafeteria duties at Washington Jesuit School. To make her vision of good-quality local ingredients for Washington Jesuit's 71 students, Sosna and her crew have had to think hard about costs–and test their resourcefulness. What they've learned can teach us important lessons for how to bring healthy food to the nation's 31 million children who rely on the National School Lunch Program.

Lunch Lessons

Sosna's infatuation with locally grown food helps explain why cook Eraleigh Green was sorting  baby beet greens and mache the morning I arrived to check out the kitchen operation at Washington Jesuit Academy. Sosna insists local produce is not only fresher, more vivid, healthier, ”it allows the kids to see what real food is, where it grows, and to establish the connection that food comes from somewhere, and how special and delicious that somewhere is.”

While I looked on, Eraleigh Green carefully rinsed and sorted the ingredients for a diverse salad bar that later would be wheeled out of the kitchen and into the dining hall for lunch service. On the salad bar for the school's 71 middle-school boys to choose from were mixed salad greens, spinach leaves, sliced mushrooms, sliced radishes, carrots, raw broccoli florets, cucumber slices, red onion, red and golden pear tomatoes, diced beets, bean sprouts, baby beet greens, mizuna leaves, green apples and plums, and a chicken salad made from roasted local chickens.

The kitchen even made two dressings from scratch: Caesar and honey-mustard.

The selection–all of it locally grown–definitely reflects a restaurant chef's sensibilities and is miles away–about 3,000 miles, to be exact–from the salad I saw being prepared at my daughter public elementary school here in the District when I spent a week in the kitchen there. That salad arrives as plastic bags of processed iceberg lettuce from California, each containing smaller bags of processed carrots and shredded purple cabbage for mixing.

You might well ask whether 11- and 12-year-olds can possibly appreciate the difference between baby mizuna from southern New Jersey and iceberg lettuce from California. But there is more going on here, says Sosna, than designer greens.

Quite a bit of thought and effort has gone into selecting ingredients that aren't just different and interesting, but fit into the school's food budget. Specialty items such as the beet greans and mache are purchased when they are on sale, or when the produce distributor is having trouble selling them at all. In fact, provisioning Washington Jesuit Academy with local ingredients has taken months of legwork, endless conversations with farmers, and constant prodding of the Washington area's agricultural distribution network.

“When you work out partnerships with farmers by explaining to them–vividly–your expectations for deliveries, price points, and volume ordering, you can get local produce into schools,” Sosna says. “It takes time to build relationships, nurture them, and grow them. Through high volume and accurate inventory keeping, you can lower your price points and food costs and still buy local. This is not to say that every ingredient can make its way into your refrigerator. Local corn shoots and micro-greens are still going to be expensive because they take a lot of labor to produce.”

In the world of traditional restaurants, supermarkets and school kitchens, a vast distribution network easily delivers foodstuffs from California, Mexico, Florida and beyond with a simple phone call or the click of a computer mouse. Alas, no such system exists for local foods. Sosna and other enterprising food lovers like her are simply making one up to suit their own needs.

Recently I attended a conference here in Washignton where Doug Davis, the head of school food service in Burlington, Vermont, explained to a group representing school kitchens across D.C. how it has taken him eight years to incorporate local farm products into school cafeterias in Vermont. Making the connection between schools and local farms requires determination and persistence. Local family farmers are just begining to understand the needs of large institutions such as schools. 

“As a catering company, I had to ensure that we had inventory and access to all products within a 48-hours notice, and sometimes less,” Sosna explained. “So this requires me to have purveyors that can keep a steady and consistent product in-house and are able to get it to me with a relatively quick turnaround. Over the course of a year, I have been working to get more and more farmers and artisans set up so that I can buy from them consistently and in high volume.”

A year ago, D.C. Central Kitchen hit upon its own scheme for using local produce cost effectively in the 4,000 meals it cooks for the District's needy every day. The Central Kitchen positioned an employee in the Shenandoah Valley two hours southwest of Washington to start talking with farmers there. Soon, the kitchen was dispatching trucks once or twice a week to purchase “seconds”–produce blemished or otherwise unable to command top dollar–and haul it back to a new processing and storage facility in the city.

D.C. Central Kitchen now makes regular 145-mile trips to a produce auction in Dayton, Virginia, with access to about 100 Shenandoah farmers, to purchase large lots of wholesale fruits and vegetables, some of which is processed and frozen for future use in things like the corn chowder I saw being served to the students at Washington Jesuit Academy.

Sosna said that through the Virginia produce auction, D.C. Central Kitchen in the last year has used more than 50,000 pounds of local fruits and vegetables–50 percent of the kitchen's total requirement–and directed  10 percent of its total food budget into local products.

The Central Kitchen's facility is now viewed as a potential model for a proposed city-funded plant that could process local produce for the District's entire school system. “Healthy Schools” legislation pending before the D.C. Council includes a provision for just such a facility.

If Sosna seems thrilled by local vegetables, she is positively giddy over the organic dairy she's placed in Jesuit Academy cafeteria. She chose Trickling Springs Creamery, in Chambersburg, Pa., because the company “gets the struggle that chefs like I have with trying to get local produce and ingredients.” Grassfed, hormone-free milk from Trickling Springs is displayed in gallon jugs on the food line for Jesuit Academy students, and the kitchen uses butter and cream for cooking. But getting to that point wasn't necessarily easy.

“For two months, I worked with this local company to figure out price points, drop-off times, and an invetnory that made sense and ensured a smooth operation,” Sosna said. “This is just one exmple and we are currently using 12 purveyors, from which we use 15 farmers and local artisans.”

The day I visited the Academy, the kitchen had run out of milk. Chef Duane Drake said Trickling Springs only delivers once a week, and he doesn't have room in his walk-in refrigerator for all the milk the he needs. Instead, they were serving grape drink from powdered mix.

You get what you pay for

Okay, so getting local farm goods into school meals can be done, although not without some effort. But how much does all this cost?

Sosna figures the food cost at Washington Jesuit Academy for each student at around $3.50 per day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. By comparison, the food cost for a typical lunch in a public school is estimated to be around $1, or a little less. But a significant portion of the food used in public schools consists of commodity products donated by the federal governement. Publich schools that participate in the federal meals program receive up to $2.68 in subsidies for each lunch served (about two-thirds of that amount goes to overhead, leaving just a dollar or less for ingredients). Washington Jesuit Academy does not participate in the program and does not receive commodity donations.

While Eraleigh Green was putting the finishing touches on the salad bar, Duane Drake stirred a spaghetti sauce he was making with local plum tomatoes in the kitchen's free-standing kettle cooker. He began peeling eggplants to add to the sauce, along with the meat from some leftover roasted chickens.

“We were getting organic chicken from a farmer in Pennsylvania, but it was expensive,” Drake says. “We're looking for a farmer who does his own processing.”

Drake peeled and sliced carrots, scattered these over sheet pans with snow peas to roast in the convection oven for a vegetable side dish. In just a few minutes, there would be a mob of hungry boys–and teachers–clamoring for lunch. It looked like we'd be ready for them.

Monday: why the administration at Washington Jesuit Academy committed to paying more for better school food.

Paul Newman (who died in 2008) may have still been alive when this bottle of salad dressing was manufactured. Bridget in Minnesota told Consumerist that sge purchased it at her local Target. She got a refund from the store, but she's still a little alarmed that they would sell her such a thing.

Bridget writes:

I am writing to expose Target Retail for stocking on their shelves
expired salad dressing – severely expired salad dressing. I purchased
a bottle of Newman's Own Southwest Dressing, 16oz bottle on March
23rd. When I got back to work to use it, as I was opening it I
noticed the neck of the bottle had an expiration date, and at first I
thought I must be reading that incorrectly, because it said “20OCT09M”
I quickly got second and third opinions on the issue, and we all
decided it was from '09. I called the Target store I had purchased it
and asked them to verify this, I spoke with the grocery department,
and when the employee came back to the phone she confirmed that it was
expired and she apologized.

It's not even worth my time to return a $3 bottle of salad dressing
that expired 5 months ago. This dressing contains milk & egg, and
more attention should have been paid to expiration dates.

Let this serve as a reminder: expired food may not kill or even significantly harm you, but it's still a good idea to check labels before buying.

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Material from:How To Get A Children's Book Published

As a special treat, I'm happy to present my friend Ellen Bari, one of the co-founders of Momasphere. (You might recall I interviewed the other co-founder, Melissa Lopata, back in October.)

Ellen was kind enough to share her experience with preserving those moments of our children's lives we want to keep forever, whether for sweet and sentimental reasons, or, like me, for what I lovingly refer to as the Juban Princeling's “Future Bar Mitzvah Slide Show.” (“So you hate me and you think I'm a rotten mother? Why don't I just show all your little school friends and GIRL friends these photos of your toushie from when you were a year old. That's right. Now go do the dishes.”)

Without further ado, the lovely Ellen Bari.

***

Catching Your Children's Precious Moments

My ex-husband recently gave me an old answering machine with 19 saved mystery voicemail messages. I turned the machine on, and was not only surprised, but also thrilled, to hear snippets of my own daughter's voice-almost ten years' worth. It was like listening to her grow up in the space of five minutes. The moments and days fly by and while we think we won't forget, inevitably we do. I started thinking about preserving family artifacts and stories and about how mothers are often uniquely positioned to record three levels of family history: our parents', our own, and our children's.

At the moment, personal memoirs, family histories and genealogy are all the rage. Perhaps this new obsession reflects our increased longevity or the precarious nature of our 21st century lives. Or maybe it's because the tools for recording family histories have become so ubiquitous. Just this month two programs on national TV hit the airwaves. NBC's, Who Do You Think You Are? and the PBS series Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. both explore the family histories of famous or renowned Americans, albeit with science and research tools not readily available to most of us. On the PBS website, ordinary folks are invited to share and upload their own not-so-ordinary stories.

Classes that teach memoir writing, photo scanning and interviewing techniques are everywhere. Whether you aim to create a scrapbook, video presentation or family website, local libraries, historical museums and community centers offer a plethora of expertise and instruction that focus on preserving family histories, usually highlighting the trials and tribulations of past generations. For family histories, one need only consult the internet for endless resources, including popular sites like Ancestry.com , Genealogy.com and MyHeritage.com. These days, mothers are encouraged to embrace journaling and the appropriately dubbed “Momoirs,” acknowledging that a woman's experience of motherhood is itself worth documenting. Resources include sites such as momoirs.com, TheMomoirProject.com and, for those just starting out on the motherhood trail, rookiemoms.com.

But what about preserving our kids' stories, and not just the ones they write for school? My daughter, the same little person whose squeaky voice on the machine gave way to a maturing young adult, cited the following quote from Tennesee Williams for her eighth grade graduation speech: “Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick, you hardly catch it going.”

So I've put together a few tips for catching those precious moments, but please view these as merely suggestions and not a mandatory list of archival exercises to burden you further. Pick and choose the ones that work for you and don't agonize over any of the choices- there are no wrong answers!

1. Write a yearly profile. Each year, perhaps at New Year's or on your child's birthday, set aside some time to write about her. Yes, a simple one page account that reflects who she is, what she is into, and perhaps some accomplishments- from first steps to first soccer goal- will prove invaluable in the face of muddled memory. If you don't like to write, make a simple bulleted list, fashioned after the Dewar's or Amex celebrity profiles highlighting her likes and dislikes: favorite drink (as in apple juice), toy, song, dance, friend, fashion statement, band, etc. As your kids grow, you will have a record of their changes from year to year and especially over time.

2. Choose one to five physical artifacts. Like everyone else, the population of Moms is pretty well divided into two groups: the hoarders and the tossers. I am suggesting that both personality types fight their natural tendencies and be selective about the few articles of clothing, stuffed animals or other physical artifacts that you hold onto. Keep a separate box, however simple or elaborately conceived, for each child. Don't stress about what goes in the box!

3. Record their voices. There is nothing like hearing the sound of your child's voice. Ideally, you can get her to say something delicious, but frankly, from my own experience, a simple “Hello, how are you mommy? How are you daddy?” is priceless. With digital technology, this can be as easy as saving a file on your computer, which you date and label and add to each year. I know you think you have this all on video, but when was the last time you actually sat down to watch those home videos you've been dutifully taping?

4. Make a physical or digital photo album. Don't sweat this. Once a year is a perfect opportunity to sort through images, before the piles or numbers become overwhelming and unmanageable. You can limit your selection to 10-20 images per year, and include all of your children in one album, which can reside on your computer, provided you have a good back-up system. You will be so glad you did this when it comes time for the Bar/Bat Mitzvah, graduation, engagement or other life cycle event for which you are called upon to put together a presentation!

5. Sort and document art work, school work, etc. limited to 10 items. You do not need every scribble your child has ever done or every math test they've taken. But you will want to keep some drawings, writing assignments, social studies reports or other unique projects. Take this opportunity to photograph some art pieces that are too bulky to keep or those that just don't make the cut. Try to date everything as that kind of information definitely disappears over time.

Please don't spend so much time documenting that you don't enjoy life while it's happening. As your children get older, the process can become an enjoyable collaborative effort where they actively participate in selecting a few of their favorite things. And don't stop after your first child or at age three. While it seems like the big developmental hurdles are behind you at that point, there's a wealth of material ahead that's not to be missed. You may end up starting a family tradition that will serve generations to come. Who knows, your archive might even wind up on a PBS special hundred's of years from now!

Ellen Bari is the co-founder of Momasphere Consulting and Events, which creates innovative programs for moms in and out of the workplace. Ms. Bari is a freelance writer and creative consultant with years of experience developing programs for edutainment and corporate clients and curating thematic and historical museum exhibits on a wide variety of topics. Ms. Bari's upcoming children's book, Jumping Jenny, (Lerner Publishing, Spring 2011) is about a little girl whose buoyant bounce truly knows no bounds. Ellen@momasphere.com

STOCKHOLM — Belgian illustrator and author Kitty Crowther won the 2010 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children's literature Wednesday for her ability to express deep humanism in all her work.

Crowther, 39, has authored more than 30 titles, most which were first published in Belgium and France, the prize jury said.

The annual 5 million kronor ($620,000) award is named after late Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren, creator of the Pippi Longstocking book series. It was established by the Swedish government in 2002 and will be handed out by Princess Madeleine in a ceremony June 1.

Crowther's principal works are picture books, including “L'enfant racine” (“The Root Child”) and “La visite de Petite Mort” (“The Visit of Little Death”).

“She maintains the tradition of the picture book while transforming and renewing it,” the jury said in its citation. “In her deeply felt empathy with people in difficulty, she shows ways in which weakness can be turned into strength. Humanism and sympathy permeate and unify her artistry.”

In an interview with the Associated Press, Crowther said she had found out she had won the award at a book fair in Bologna, Italy.

“It's fantastic,” she said by phone, adding she had grown up reading Lindgren's books.

Jury Chairman Larry Lempert called her “a master author,” applauding her way of combining text with illustrations to reach out to children, especially those experiencing hardship.

“She shows great respect for children. She has a way of reaching out to them,” he said. “She provides support for many by the type of subjects she chooses to cover.”

Material from:How To Publish A Childrens Book
LOS ANGELES – A former porn actress says she may reveal more potentially embarrassing information about Tiger Woods after releasing sexually graphic text messages that she claims prove her affair with the golfer.

Joslyn James told The Associated Press on Thursday that she disclosed the messages because she wants people to realize that she was honest when she came forth earlier this year and said Woods had avidly pursued her.

“I just wanted the public to know and the truth to be out there for me to have people see what I was being told and not just judge me for being with a married guy,” she said.

James posted more than 100 texts on her Web site Thursday, including some in which arrangements were made for her to meet with Woods at hotels where he was staying. Others stated a desire for rough sex, including messages dated Aug. 29 in which a person James says is Woods tells her he wants to slap her and that she should beg the next time he sees her.

James, whose real name is Veronica Siwik-Daniels, said she met Woods when she was working at a Las Vegas nightclub he frequented. She said he led her to believe she was the only woman in his life other than his wife.

“If I would have known everything that was going on, and wasn't being lied to, I would have done things differently,” she said.

A request for comment from a Woods spokesman was not immediately returned.

She has saved more than 1,000 texts Woods sent her, James said, and plans to release more in the days ahead.

She posted the first batch just two days after Woods announced he was ending his four-month, self-imposed exile to play at the Masters at Augusta National in Georgia. They could be a distraction to golf's greatest player as he prepares for his comeback.

The final three texts James released Thursday were dated Oct. 4 and indicate the sender became enraged with her, apparently after their relationship was nearly discovered.

“Don't … talk to me,” the final one said. “You almost just ruined my whole life. If my agent and these guys would have seen you there … “

She said the relationship didn't end, however, until several weeks later.

James is only posting messages she says are from Woods and none from herself to the golfer. She said that's because her cell phone quickly overwrites outgoing texts and she wasn't able to save them.

See Also:
20 Raunchy Text Messages Tiger Sent To Porn Star Lover
Is Attack-Lawyer Gloria Allred Behind The Release Of Those Tiger Texts?

Heyzap is liberating games from Facebook, allowing social game makers to publish them directly on the web.

The new platform will let game creators to maximize their audiences for games that have proven themselves on Facebook or the hi5 social network. It takes as little as an hour to half a day to adapt a Facebook or hi5 game for the web. That’s why 15 game publishers, with a monthly combined reach of 50 million users, have signed up already.

Heyzap uses Facebook Connect (which lets non-Facebook apps tap into a Facebook user’s friends list) to preserve the virality of Facebook games on the web. Anyone can take the social games and embed them on any other web site, blog or fan page — much like users embed YouTube videos in web pages with simple cut-and-paste embed code. Users can play with their friends, regardless of whether they are on Facebook or not.

Early Heyzap partners include Hi5, TheBroth, Gameduell and Aeria Games. These publishers will essentially double the reach of their games overnight to more than 150,000 sites in Heyzap’s network, said Jude Gomilla, c0-founder of Heyzap in San Francisco. Games going live this week are TheBroth’s “Hoop Fever Live,” and RacconX’s “FishStory,” among others.

“We think that every game developer could benefit from this,” said Gomila.

Heyzap works with Facebook Connect application programming interfaces. It simulates all of the viral features of Facebook, such as posting user updates to streams, sending gifts to friends, and inviting friends to join games. Heyzap has a couple of easy ways to make Flash or non-Flash games work on sites other than Facebook. And Heyzap will give the participating web sites a 15 percent share of the social game revenues. The converted games can use the startup’s payment system, but major game publishers can continue to use the same payment systems they are accustomed to on Facebook.

Heyzap’s existing network, which monetizes Flash games across the web, includes 25,000 games from 2,700 developers. The company, started by Gomilla and Immad Akhund, is in the middle of doubling its staff. It has raised funding from Y Combinator and Union Square Ventures.

Back in December, Facebook announced one in a series of features to make Flash games more social.

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