Songs I’m Loving Right Now

Generic Touchscreen MP3 Player

Image by AngelaShupe.com via Flickr

Sara Bareilles – FairyTale

Mumford and Sons  – The Cave

Phoenix  – Lisztomania and 1901

Foster the People  – Pumped Up Kicks

Adele  – Rolling In The Deep

The Black Keys  – Tighten Up

Middle Class Rut  – New Low

Sublime – Doin Time

Naked and Famous – Young Blood

Young the Giant – My Body

Some of these aren’t new, but they are the ones I listen to over and over. What’s on your playlist right now?

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Summer 2011 Family Events in Branson Mo.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Hiltons of Branson for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

If you are looking for a place to go with your family this summer, Branson Missouri has something for everyone. I remember when Branson was the place to go for country music shows; now it’s become the place to go for family entertainment. I learned about a huge variety of events taking place there this summer, like Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top in Concert, the second annual Chevy Mustang Rally, and a Family Fishing Fair.

Branson fishing guide

For a place to stay, the Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing offers waterfront shopping, dining,  and an entertainment district featuring over 100 specialty stores. You can stay in a room, suite, or condo, so there’s a place for every size family. They even accept pets up to 75 pounds and supply dog beds, bowls and water, treats, lanyards identifying rooms with pets, a staff trained to handle animals and more. 

 

Another great reason to plan a trip to Branson this summer is their “The Legend of Kung Fu Package”. The Legend of Kung Fu show traditional martial arts, aerial ballet, dance, and music.  The package includes 4 tickets and exclusive Hilton Family Preshow Access 30 minutes prior to Legend of Kung Fu Show, $25 to the Legend of Kung Fu gift shop, and a 1-night stay at the Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing or the Hilton Branson Convention Center Hotel for 2 Adults and 2 Children.

If you are looking for a little more adventure the Branson’s Best Value Package is ideal. This 3-night package for a family of 2 adults and 2 children includes 2-day passes to Silver Dollar City and 4 tickets to the Legends of Kung Fu show for as low as $600.00!

It really sounds like a lot of fun! Plan your trip now to Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing and have a blast at any of Branson’s special family events this summer. And remember, you can even take your dog!

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Friendly Friday 5-27-11

Welcome to Friendly Friday, the weekly celebration hosted by Xenia at Thanks, Mail Carrier, Christi at Frugal Novice and Charla at Healthy Home Blog! It’s a great way to get new followers to your blog, say hello to your blog friends, and make new ones!

To join in the Friendly Friday celebration,go to any of the three blogs listed above , follow the hostesses in the first 3 spots and then start blog hopping! Visit other blogs on the list and comment to give them some blog love. Then take a minute to follow them through Google Friend Connect – this is a good way to keep up with other blogs, but also lets us show support to each other! Please DO NOT list your giveaways here, links must be to either your homepage or your Friday posting with your blog title. All others will be deleted.

When people comment on your blog and let you know they’re a part of Friendly Friday, return the favor and follow them back. This way everyone gets traffic and followers out of participating, and it’s a win-win situation. Feel free to right-click on and save the Friendly Friday button and post it on your blog and/or in a post – the more bloggers that find out about Friendly Friday and participate, the better!

Remember, YOU can host the link list on your blog, too! Just get the InLinkz code from the posts on any of the three hostess blogs and copy it directly into your post. The code is different every week, so be sure to get the new code when hosting Friendly Friday on your blog. Hosting the list is a great way to get even more traffic to your blog and make Friendly Friday more beneficial for everyone.

Happy Friday everybody! It’s a chilly day here in Lansing, but it’s supposed to be in the 80s all weekend. We usually have a cookout at home on Memorial Day, but our charcoal grill rusted through on the bottom! We’ll cook burgers inside but eat outside as usual. What about you? Leave a comment and let me know what your plans are for this Memorial Day weekend.

Julie, Mara, Deb and Me at Gleek Retreat 11

Image by Elizabeth/Table4Five via Flickr

I had a wonderful time at Gleek Retreat ’11 last weekend! I’m hoping to get some time to recap it for you either tonight or tomorrow. I learned so much from the speakers and took a ton of notes. After the conference, Deb and I drove over to Holland State Park on Lake Michigan, those photos are on this week’s Wordless Wednesday post. I’ll get the rest of the photos up soon!

Have a great weekend everybody! Don’t forget to add your Friday link to the linky list! edited to add: I have no idea why the Google Friend Connect gadget is currently blank. I’m going through my plugins to see if one of them is causing it. In the meantime, please make sure your blog URL is linked in the comment field and I’ll come visit and follow you. Sorry about that!



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Clean, Simple, Restful To My Eyes

I was up until 1:30 am this morning with about 17 tabs open in Chrome and Firefox, trying to find theme colors that worked in both systems and matched my flower logo, until my eyes felt like they would pop out of my head.

And then about an hour ago, while looking up yet another question on the Studiopress forum, I saw it. An announcement that Studiopress released a free child theme for Genesis, named Georgia.

I installed it, and suddenly it was like my brain could rest. Things are very stressful here at home right now (nothing new, just the usual money and kids and life stuff), and I just don’t need to fuss.

A million thank yous to Brian Gardner and the Studiopress team for releasing Georgia. Free, Clean, Simple, Elegant – it was like they read my mind.

I will put my purple flower logo up in the title as soon as I figure out how. See, when IZEA gave me a free custom theme, it came with no files and no support. The purple flower logo was incorporated into the entire header design, and I can’t figure out how to “slice” it out. I don’t have Photoshop and if it’s doable in Paint, I haven’t figured out how yet.

If any of my friends reading this have Photoshop and know how to “cut” an image out of it’s background, please email me. I’d be happy to compensate you for your time.

Also, if you see anything wonky or something I should add, email me at table4five (at) gmail (dot) com.  Knowing me I’ll probably change this eventually, but for now, I really like it.

I hope you like it too.

Wordless Wednesday 5-25-11 – Pictures from Lake Michigan

Table for Five at Lake Michigan

Can You Spot The Sailboat?

The Lone Tree on the Beach

Holland State Park Lake Michigan

T45 Written in Sand

Just before a wave washed it away, after about 6 attempts!

I showed you mine, now show me yours!

What Would Elizabeth Do? This.

PhotobucketSo. You are probably wondering just what the heck is going on here. If you are one of my fabulous regular readers, you’ve seen a couple of posts in the last few days that might have you scratching your head wondering what I am up to. Posts that aren’t what you are used to seeing here on Table for Five.

I’m going to explain why.

Chris gets paid every other Wednesday, and his last check hit our account on the 18th. I dropped Kaitlyn off at preschool that morning, then went to the credit union, withdrew the money for the mortgage and the car payment, then hit BOA for the one and CASE Credit Union for the other.

That evening after dinner he and I collected all the bills and sat down to start paying them. Chris logged into online banking to see if there were any withdrawals we had missed, and got a surprise.

We had $400 in our checking account.

We had been NEGATIVE when his check hit, then I took out the mortgage and car payment, and whammo, we were down to $400. For two weeks. For five people to live on. Including buying gas for our van which is our only running vehicle, which Chris drives all the way to Jackson and back on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and which I use on Mon-Wed-Fri to drive him to carpool and then to drive K to preschool and back plus any errands I need to run. It’s about $80 for a full tank each week.

So. I had already bought my ticket for Gleek Retreat, told Deb I would pick her up and drive her there and back, and that I would pay her for my half of the room charge. And, I really really wanted to go, and Chris really wanted me to go.

I did the only thing I could think of to make fast money legally. No, not that. Or that either.

I searched my inbox for any emails requesting to have guest articles including links placed here on Table for Five. I offer that service on my Advertise page, and I was just hoping someone had made a request.

And that is how a post about the the German site for Groupon, a post about the symptoms of Dengue Fever and the importance of killing mosquitos, and a post about a safe way to trap mice came to be on this blog.

Normally, I would have replied back and politely declined because those topics don’t relate to parenting, but in this case, I just plain needed the money. It’s that simple. And yes, it made me feel kind of weird, but I did what I had to do so I wasn’t taking any money away from the little we have to live on.

I’m telling you this because I want readers to know that sometimes, blogging is about making tough decisions. Every blogger I know has had to do it at some point. Whether it’s deciding to post something controversial, or delete a comment, or accept a job for the money, it’s something every blogger could eventually face.

The other reason I’m telling you this is because while I’m sure it was clear from the title “Guest post” and the words “sponsored by” in those posts, I wanted to be completely transparent and explain why I chose to post something that must have seemed so completely random. I fully believe in the opening words of the Blog with Integrity pledge – By displaying the Blog with Integrity badge or signing the pledge, I assert that the trust of my readers and the blogging community is important to me.

BlogWithIntegrity.com

So, if you ever are facing a tough decision like that, just ask yourself, What Would Elizabeth Do? If you’re still not sure, email me. I’ll talk you through it :)

Guest Post – Do you have a mouse problem?

The Easy Sealing Mouse Trap: Why Snap When You Can Seal?

Snap! If you have a mouse problem in your home and you’ve set an old-fashioned mouse trap that kills by means of a snapping bar, that’s a sound you’re probably familiar with. But when you go to investigate, do you cringe at the thought of the mess that aaits you? Or maybe it was just a false alarm and the trap activated by accident, catching nothing but thin air? Even worse, what if the sound is immediately followed by something terrible—the sound of a screaming child whose little fingers are caught in the trap’s painful grip?

While this type of old-fashioned device is an easy mouse trap, easy doesn’t always mean effective or safe. Even if a snapping trap catches a mouse instead of air or fingers, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the mouse is dead. And even if the kill is successful, you’ve really only won half the battle.

Killing a Mouse Doesn’t Always Stop It from Harming You and Your Family

The truth is, even if an easy mouse trap like a snapping trap, or sticky glue-filled tray does kill your mice, it does nothing to prevent the spread of disease. Mice are riddled with disease- carrying parasites like fleas and ticks. When a mouse dies, these leeching pests will simply look for another residence, like your kids, your pets or you.

Sealing In the Kill: The Only Way to Keep Disease Away

The only way to truly solve your mouse problem is to not only kill the mice, but to eliminate the problems that come with those old-fashioned easy mouse traps. You need an easy mouse trap that kills without fail and without a mess, while preventing the spread of disease within your home. In short, you need an easy sealing mouse trap.

The Easy Sealing Mouse Trap: The “100-Percent Solution”

The good news is that there is a mouse trap that not only kills mice easily, safely and effectively, it does so without a mess and prevents the spread of disease, parasites and odors. A sealing mouse trap is the ONLY way to kill mice each and every time while offering the most hygienic mouse-killing solution available.

To use the easy sealing mouse trap, you begin by removing the small sealing hatch and spreading it with peanut butter for bait. After you reinsert the hatch, you place the trap near a wall in an area where mice are known to frequent. When the rodent drops by for a meal, it enters the trap, activating the internal “kill bar” in the process. This powerful metal jaw kills the mouse 100 percent of the time, with no chance for escape.

When the kill bar is activated, the red fluid-tight door closes and creates an impenetrable seal. Bodily fluids, parasites and odors stay inside the trap—100 percent of the time. The seal also keeps little fingers and pet paws out—100 percent of the time.

When the trap is full, you just pick it up and throw it in the trash without ever having to see, touch or smell the dead mouse. Simply put, there is no safer, more effective, more hygienic way to solve your mouse problem than with this easy mouse trap.

Don’t Let a Mouse Take Over Your House—Get an Easy Mouse Trap That Seals the Deal

You may not be aware of this, but for each mouse you see prowling around your home, as many as 10 more could also be present, just waiting to spread disease to you and your family. When you use an easy mouse trap that kills and seals, you’re taking a big step to curing your rodent problem and all that comes with it once and for all.

 

Friendly Friday 5-20-11 & Where I’m Going This Weekend

Welcome to Friendly Friday, the weekly celebration hosted by Xenia at Thanks, Mail Carrier, Christi at Frugal Novice and Charla at Healthy Home Blog! It’s a great way to get new followers to your blog, say hello to your blog friends, and make new ones!

To join in the Friendly Friday celebration,go to any of the three blogs listed above , follow the hostesses in the first 3 spots and then start blog hopping! Visit other blogs on the list and comment to give them some blog love. Then take a minute to follow them through Google Friend Connect – this is a good way to keep up with other blogs, but also lets us show support to each other! Please DO NOT list your giveaways here, links must be to either your homepage or your Friday posting with your blog title. All others will be deleted.

When people comment on your blog and let you know they’re a part of Friendly Friday, return the favor and follow them back. This way everyone gets traffic and followers out of participating, and it’s a win-win situation. Feel free to right-click on and save the Friendly Friday button and post it on your blog and/or in a post – the more bloggers that find out about Friendly Friday and participate, the better!

Remember, YOU can host the link list on your blog, too! Just get the InLinkz code from the posts on any of the three hostess blogs and copy it directly into your post. The code is different every week, so be sure to get the new code when hosting Friendly Friday on your blog. Hosting the list is a great way to get even more traffic to your blog and make Friendly Friday more beneficial for everyone.

Happy Friday everybody! It’s been a stressful week here at home but now it’s Friday, and I’m doing something awesome today – going to the Gleek Retreat blogging conference! Great Lakes + Geek = Gleek! It’s a conference taking place in Holland, Michigan, and it’s a blogging conference FOR bloggers organized BY bloggers. Ever since I started blogging almost 6 years ago, I’ve wished I could find more Michigan bloggers, and this weekend, I get my chance!

I’m leaving home today around 2:00 and driving North to pick up Deb from Mom of 3 Girls, who is also my roommate for the conference. We then head West to Holland. Unless my parents took me there when I was little, I don’t think I’ve ever been there! 44 years living in Michigan and I’ve never been to one of the most beautiful places in the State, I’m glad I’m getting my chance now.

I’m also completely geeked about some of the bloggers I’m going to meet who I’ve wanted to meet FOREVER, like Brittany from Barefoot Foodie (LOVE!), Sandy from Organize with Sandy (LOVE!), and Lisa aka TheBeadGirl from StudioJewel (LOVE!).  I may actually embarrass myself completely when I meet Brittany, she’s pretty much a blogging rockstar and I just know she’s going to be super nice too, and then I’ll be all “BE MY FRIEND FOREVER OMG”.

My only concern about the whole trip is tomorrow night’s dinner, which is taking place on one of those riverboat dinner cruises. I get seasick on boats. ALL boats.  Don’t tell me “this is such a big boat, you’ll barely know you are on the water” – trust me, I’ll KNOW.  After I drop Kaitlyn off at preschool this morning, I’m swinging by Rite Aid and asking the pharmacist if those seasickness bracelets actually work and if they do, I’m buying an armful.  If you want to follow my progress, just follow me  @ElizabethT45 on Twitter or if you are my FB friend, watch for updates there.

Well, I’d better get a move on. Have a great weekend everybody! Don’t forget to add your Friday link to the linky list!



Mosquitos and Dengue Fever – Guest Post From Mosquito Magnet

Dengue fever symptoms and treatment:

Mosquito-borne illnesses are well-known to all. West Nile virus has caused several deaths in the United States, and malaria is a familiar, frightening word for its deadly nature in jungle climates.

Dengue fever, however, infects approximately 50 million aults each year in the tropics, and while it is estimated that Dengue is lethal in less than 1 percent of its victims, it can incapacitate its victims for weeks with pain, discomfort and nausea.

There is, also, no specific treatment or vaccine for Dengue fever. It is carried by only four species of mosquito. The good news is a patient, once infected with a specific strain of Dengue fever, becomes immune to that strain for life. The bad news is that he remains susceptible to the other three, and a bout with a second strain of Dengue tends to be worse than the first.

With no treatment or vaccine for the virus, it is imperative that the symptoms of the disease be treated. Left unchecked, the illness can progress to the stage known as Dengue Hemorrhagic fever, which brings about internal bleeding, followed often by shock. For this reason, Dengue Hemorrhagic fever has a much higher mortality rate than initial Dengue, as high as 30 percent.

Dengue fever is endemic only to tropical climates, but travelers to such places can spread the disease in temperate areas during warmer months. If a traveler is bitten by an infected mosquito, then returns home, and is bitten by a second mosquito, that formerly healthy mosquito is now a carrier and will infect the next person it bites.

As with other mosquito-borne illnesses, it is best to avoid contact with mosquitoes. Those who live in tropical climates should protect themselves from Dengue fever by using insect repellants such as DEET, or insecticides, or by reducing the population of mosquitoes in their area by the use of mosquito traps, which interrupt the insects’ breeding cycle.

Symptoms of Dengue fever typically include a rapid onset and recurrence of a very high fever, nausea, dehydration, exhaustion and persistent and extreme headache and joint pain. Internal bleeding is a symptom of the latter stage, Dengue hemorrhagic fever.

Joint Pain:

Dengue fever once bore the name “breakbone fever,” a descriptive nickname derived from the extreme joint and muscle pain and headaches that often accompany the illness. As with any viral illness that carries flu-like symptoms, patients with Dengue fever typically suffer from exhaustion, but some patients have described pain so severe that sleep becomes impossible for several days. This makes the attendant exhaustion that much worse and has even caused delirium in some patients.

Treatment:

As there is no specific Dengue fever medication, the best course of action is to treat the symptoms. However, neither aspirin nor any other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug should be used to treat the pain of Dengue fever. These products can be very dangerous in patients who are experiencing the internal bleeding of Dengue hemorrhagic fever, exacerbating the loss of blood. A pain killer, however, is obviously appropriate. Acetaminophen is the recommended treatment. It is available over the counter, both generically and as the active ingredient in Tylenol.

High Fever:

Dengue fever patients will often see their body temperatures rise rapidly, return to normal just as quickly, and then rise again. A patient’s body temperature often will reach as high as 105 degrees Fahrenheit. The first spike in temperature usually lasts about two days, followed by a day of normal temperatures during which a patient will feel well, only to see that temperature rise again and remain elevated for a few more days.

As with any high-fever illness, dehydration, “burning eyes” and heavy sweating are normal symptoms.

Treatment:

It is important that Dengue fever patients try to drink plenty of fluids to stave off dehydration, which naturally can occur alongside such prolonged high body temperature. Patients who have trouble taking in enough liquid often require intravenous fluids to keep from becoming dehydrated.

Rash, nausea:

A pink rash that covers much of the face, or a flushing of the skin on the face, is usually one of the initial signs of Dengue fever. This rash usually subsides quickly, but only to be replaced by a pervasive red rash that covers most of the body below the head, and can even cover the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. Patients will usually feel nauseated as well, as Dengue fever often brings about gastritis, or inflammation of the stomach’s lining. Abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea are, therefore, frequent effects of the illness.

Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever:

While it is true that Dengue fever is fatal in less than 1 percent of patients, that number skyrockets to nearly 30 percent in patients who reach the point of Dengue hemorrhagic fever, or DHF. For those patients, hospitalization is usually necessary, as they could require intravenous fluids, or, for those whose blood platelets have dipped to too low a level, a transfusion.

DHF symptoms include easy bruising, blood spots on the skin, nosebleeds or bleeding gums, sore throat and cough. The risk of death in Dengue hemorrhagic fever patients is shock from blood loss, hence the need for observation and possibly transfusion.
The best way to avoid this debilitating illness is to avoid mosquito bites. Keep insect repellants on hand, and in areas with a large population of mosquitoes, invest in mosquito traps to significantly reduce the threat of mosquito bites.

Post Sponsored by Mosquito Magnet®

Do You Use Groupon?

This post is brought to you by Groupon.de.

While driving to pick up Chris from carpool a couple of weeks ago, I listened to a story on NPR about Groupon. I remember when I got the first email telling me about this new site that would let people get an incredible daily Deal on all kinds of products and services, and I didn’t really understand how it was going to work. Well as you probably know by now, Groupon is HUGE. According to it’s Wikipedia page, Groupon is in more than 150 markets in North America, is in Europe, Asia and South America, and has 35 million registered users!

One of the markets that has seen success with Groupon is Germany. Their site has Deals Berlin can’t pass up! I can’t read German but fortunately, some words are the same in both languages, so I can tell that today’s deal has something to do with a 6-course menu at a restaurant. Previous deals appear to have been for three 20 minute sessions with a personal trainer, lingerie, and Botox! Looks like people in Berlin like saving money on the same kinds of things we Americans do :)

No matter what country you live in, if you like saving a lot of money, you should be using Groupon.  Start at groupon.com, find your city, and start saving!