Ed Icionsub

Today is my wife’s birthday. Although it is not a “big one” in reference to those birthdays that indicate a decade of history, as far as I am concerned, every birthday that she celebrates is a big one. We almost lost her to Cancer several years ago – it was a very dark period in our marriage and our lives. But thanks to wonderful doctors and modern medicine, she was able to beat the Cancer and we are blessed to have her still with us.

Love you honey – we are looking forward to taking you out to dinner to your favorite restaurant tonight! Happy Birthday!

Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Tynol, has expanded their recall of over-the-counter medications today. This is the second time J&J has done this in less than a month. The medications apparently have a moldy smell that has made some users sick.

The broader recall now includes:

• regular Tylenol caplets and gel tabs
• extra-strength Tylenol
• children’s Tylenol
• 8-hour Tylenol
• Tylenol Arthritis
• Tylenol PM
• Children’s Motrin
• Motrin IB
• Benadryl Rolaids
• Simply Sleep
• St. Joseph’s Aspirin

The news is covered with stories about the tragedy in Haiti. And there are dozens of organizations pleading for donations to help. I am really suspicious of some of these messages I am getting, about texting to different numbers to donate cash via cell phone, sending Paypal donations to people who claim to be missionaries. It bothers me that there are always this lower element of humans ready to take advantage of a natural disaster or catastrophic event for their own personal gain and cheating others out of what was intended to be rightfully theirs.

If you feel compelled to donate to the Haiti victims, check out the organization and make sure they are legitimate. There are lists of these on the white house web site.

My sister wants to get her daughter involved in gymnastics and maybe eventually into cheerleading or competitive gymnastics. My niece has a lot of talent and loves to do routines. She is incredibly graceful and has a sense of balance that we discovered when she was very young. I still cannot believe she was able to skip over riding a big wheel and went right to riding a two wheel bicycle at only 4 years old!

Since moving to the Raleigh/Durham area last year, the family has had fun discovering all the good things that area has to offer. I have to agree that the Triangle area of North Carolina is probably as close to perfect as you can get. It’s very family-friendly and there is so much for kids to do, both outdoors and indoors, depending on the season and your interests.

Gymnastics in the Triangle area is served by a great facility called Gymcarolina. I went to their web site after talking to my sister to check it out for myself. I think I will send her the money to get my niece enrolled in their gym classes and if she really likes it, we will try to find a way for her to go to their summer camp this year.

When I was a kid, we had to wear galoshes for wet weather activities outdoors. The galoshes were just a rubber boot that you pulled on over top of your regular shoes. Later, we got insulated boots that you laced. Eventually, a new type of boot was developed and put on the market. We called them moon boots. There were totally different that any boots we ever had. They had velcro tabs and a removable foam insulation that you could toss in the washing machine.

Sent my daughter to WalMart tonight to buy her son a pair of moon boots. They should be around $20 for children’s sizes. There’s a good chance of snow later this week and I want him to have warm, dry feet to play in the snow. If we get any.

We eat for a lot of reasons. But one of the least important reasons until recently was to eat for health. To be honest, I eat for social reasons, I eat for companionship with my family, co-workers and clients, and I eat because something smells good. Rarely do I eat because I am truly hungry and because my body needs more fuel to function properly.

My New Year’s resolution has been to change my eating habits. I want to learn more about what my body actually needs to function well and I hope to incorporate more healthy choices into an improved diet and hopefully some weight loss.

Now that my awareness is higher on healthy choices, I have been reading articles and posts on health supplements. a good source of information on fish oil is a web site that I found called omega3.org.

If you are not familiar with omega3 supplements, the omega3.org site is a good web site to learn the basics. The articles are written in plain English and are very easy for an average reader to understand.

A good start to learning about food and natural supplements is fish oil and the information on omega3.org.

It bothers me that popular games have books and online resources for players who want to get a hint, find a shortcut, or cheat to win the video games. The idea of cheating is very bothersome and offensive to me. Like in the old west, if someone was to accuse me of cheating I would push my chair back from the saloon table and demand an apology or challenge the scoundrel to a duel in the street.

I have a lot of personal integrity and would not cheat anyone in a card game or a board game. As much as I like to win, I do not believe in winning at all costs. You must play with good sportsmanship and honor, or the win is just a shallow victory of points, not a true win.

Every spring, the ski club has a regional convention in Myrtle Beach. I used to go as a ski club member and enjoyed the hotel discounts, but then I discovered the money saving bargains of Myrtle Beach Golf Packages. I was surprised that I could book the room and greens fees to Golf Myrtle Beach online and save more money than the group discount rate that the ski club gets for us.

This next spring we will enjoy Myrtle Beach Golf plus the beach sports with the ski club and we will save enough money that we can do more Myrtle Beach Golf Vacations later in the summer.

Every once in a while I see a commercial for a hospital or treatment regime that is contrary to popular medicine. They usually run late at night and I am half asleep, so I don’t pay them much mind. But the other day I read about a man who fought his mesothelioma using alternative medicine and he has been alive for 12 years longer than doctors had told him to expect.

That is an amazing story and I was curious about the medicines or special diets that he might have used to beat the odds. This is a serious disease with a low survival rate. My sister’s ex-husband has been diagnosed with mesothelioma and we are all very worried about his prognosis. If there is something in the book that might prove helpful to my sister’s ex, this might turn out to be lifesaving information.

Even though he is an ex, we don’t wish him any harm and we still care about him. After all, he has been a member of our family for almost 15 years and he is still the father of my two nieces. So I hope he gets the best available care, and beats this awful disease.

The weather forecast for Thanksgiving included the chance of snow flurries for this are. I’m so glad they were wrong – I’m sure it would have made an already stressful travel day even that much more stressful and dangerous.

However, it would be nice to have some snow over the holidays. Usually we have to take a weekend trip to North Carolina or West Virginia to get enough snow to participate in any winter sports. Last year we went to West Virginia for a couple of days and I went snowmobiling for the first time. It was awesome – we are planning to go again at least once this winter.