Thanksgiving…. a little late

I love thanksgiving, it’s one time of the year where we are really encouraged to be very thankful and to intentionally stop, look at life and be grateful. This year I have many things to be very grateful for; I have my wife Sonya without whom I don’t know what I would do, I have my three wonderful children who make me smile so often, we have my family and my in-laws all of whom are wonderful people that I am thankful for and God has blessed us with health and strength.

When I think of thanksgiving I’m also overcome with a sense of extreme gratitude for our clients without whom we wouldn’t have our business and without whom we would not be the people we are today. I feel so thankful for each one of you, you make me smile whenever I think of you, it’s an honour to know you as people and to have you as clients and I think the ultimate honour for us is when you refer us to your friends because then we know that we have been able to impact your lives in some way.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

This week I have a special thank you to send out, in the past few weeks I have had the honour of sharing in and capturing forever in print the nuptials of my cousins daughter, capturing the maternity and newborn images of both clients and close friends, creating family heirlooms in some family portrait sessions and of course our specialty capturing the beauty and mystery that is “woman”. This week I also had the opportunity to spend the best part of the day with a group of women that work together, the 4 of them decided to come in to do an Eve Session as a Christmas gift to the men in their lives who had everything, well almost everything. These men will soon find out they didn’t have what they wanted most, some amazing images of the women they love. Girls, thank you for an amazing time, I had so much fun with you as we laughed, texed back and forth to co-workers, talked about them, ate great food, drank good drinks (Pepsi for we, wine coolers for the girls) and created amazing images in one of the most fun sessions I’ve ever had here at the studio.

I’m trying to teach my kids to have an “Attitude of Gratitude” and instead of grumping about things to simply be thankful and as I try to live that out I find myself a happier and more fulfilled person; so thank you all for everything you do to make my life better, I really appreciate you more than you will ever know.

Rodney

Dr. Oz's H1N1 Tips

Thanks to one of our "Just As I Am" participants for passing this along.

The following advice, given by Dr. Oz, makes a lot of sense and is important for all to know: The only portals of entry are the nostrils and mouth/throat. In a global epidemic of this nature, it's almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with H1N1 in spite of all precautions.

Contact with H1N1 is not so much of a problem as proliferation is. While you are still healthy and not showing any symptoms of H1N1 infection, in order to prevent proliferation, aggravation of symptoms and development of secondary infections, some very simple steps, not fully highlighted in most official communications, can be practiced (instead of focusing on how to stock N95 or Tamiflu):

1. Frequent hand-washing (well highlighted in all official communications).

2. "Hands-off-the-face" approach. Resist all temptations to touch any part of face (unless you want to eat or bathe.)

3. *Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine or Hydrogen Peroxide if you don't trust salt). *H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the throat/ nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one. Don't underestimate this simple, inexpensive and powerful preventative method.

4. Similar to 3 above, *clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water, or hydrogen peroxide. *Not everybody may be good at Jala Neti or Sutra Neti (very good Yoga asanas to clean nasal cavities), but *blowing the nose softly once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton buds dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population.*

5. *Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C (Amla and other citrus fruits). *If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also has Zinc to boost absorption.

6. *Drink as much of warm liquids (tea, coffee, etc) as you can. *Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm.

Glee

I’ve been hooked on a TV. show lately called Glee. Glee is a show about a musical group in a high school made up of some “cool kids” and some “looser kids”, it’s a place where in that group status really doesn’t matter until you walk out the door. This week it was revealed to the school that Quinn the head cheerleader was pregnant and she and her quarterback boyfriend Finn immediately went from cool to uncool.

Finn & Quinn tried everything they could think of to try to get cool again but all to no avail. I sat there thinking about how we all really just want to be cool or at least acceptable to those around us; I know that in high school I didn’t usually feel like I was in the “in” crowd.

Life is so much bigger than what people think of us, let’s all go out there and live life to the fullest; hug your kids, smell the fresh air and enjoy the many blessings that we have.

Rodney