Lauri Ann's New Life

What is it that triggers the "Christmas Shopper Terror" in you? For me it's when I realize Halloween is only a few weeks away and I know once we get there, the next 4 months are just stress, a flurry of activity, then it's the New Year and we're looking at it all like a dream that lasts only a moment.

Here in my part of California it always gets dark early and rains in September. Somehow there is at least one rainy night that I'm out in it. It almost always rains for Christmas (we don't get snow) and a few days before. Even tho I have most of my shopping done (thank you Ribbon) I usually end up going out for stocking stuffers or something just a couple of days before Christmas. The feeling I get in Sept. when I'm out at night in the rain is the exact same feeling I get when I'm out doing last minute Christmas shopping at night in the rain. It's the rainy night in September that fills me with the feelings of those few days before Christmas, and that's when it hits me. The race is about to begin and the next 3 months will be the fastest of my life.

We get through Halloween pretty easy because we're in an "incorporated" area, and our side of the street has no sidewalks, not many street lights, and our house has a security light that only goes on if someone steps in the yard. Not a very inviting house on Halloween, so we don't get any kids. It's funny, most people in our neighborhood think I'm scary every day, I can't imagine why they don't show up on Halloween when that should be a "good" thing. LOL.

Now we're on our way to Thanksgiving. I bought the turkey yesterday. I'm thinking I really need to find time to clear off my dining room table so we can actually eat on it. I know that if I blink between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Christmas will be here and gone all too soon. I'm finally old enough to truly appreciate Christmas for what it's supposed to be, so I hate the fact that it's here and gone so fast. Altho I'm not as gift-oriented as I was when I was younger, my children have not taken over that perspective. LOL.

If you don't like fighting the crowds, wasting time looking for parking, never sure if you got the right gift, having to figure out what the right gift is, you might want to take a look at this. Ribbon, the Gift of Choice is the perfect answer, especially now when they're saying you can't buy gift cards to certain stores because they may file bankruptcy tomorrow. Sharper Image went under with a ton of people holding gift cards that weren't worth anything. If the above describes you, take a look here now. There's a couple you can get 5 for the price of 4, and many qualify for free shipping.

How do you feel about the holidays? (be gentle please)

I've written a lot on here about tainted petfood, recalled candy, etc. I grew up in a time when the thing you had to watch out for was razor blades in candybars and apples. You could only eat homemade goodies if they came from your neighbors that you knew hadn't laced them with poison or drugs. While my 3 children were growing up, when they came home after trick-or-treating, we threw out all homemade goodies, threw out candy that looked like it had been wrapped and rewrapped, and anything that looked like a it could have a needle hole. Now in my grandchildren's time (if I had any) you have to watch out that the manufacturer doesn't poison you with ingredients imported from China. While big names like Cadbury and Hershey's both say none of their candy in the US contained any of the tainted products, there are still items that have been and are still being sold here. If you shop at Target, you need to watch the following video. Please have a safe Halloween.



While Melamine itself may not be quite so harmful, here is why it has been such a huge problem.

When I first heard about the recalls on Cadbury Chocolate, the first thing I thought of was "Thank goodness I didn't buy any of those from that little kid outside of Lucky's yesterday!"

The next thing I thought was "Not chocolate too."

It seems the chocolate company Cadbury is temporarily taking certain chocolate products off the market -- but only in Asia and Australia. Thank goodness it's not here in the US.
Cadbury is withdrawing a range of its chocolate products and Choclairs -- all made at Cadbury's Beijing plant -- from the market in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Australia. Cadbury states their products here are safe.

Another sweet -- White Rabbit Candy -- is being recalled because it might be tainted with melamine. QFCO Inc. of Burlingame, Calif., is recalling White Rabbit Candy, which was distributed in California, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington state. All packages have a logo of a white rabbit on the front with the words "White Rabbit." So far they haven't linked any illnesses to the White Rabbit Candy.

If you have any, you can return White Rabbit Candy to the place of purchase for a full refund. For more information on the White Rabbit Candy recall, call QFCO at 650-697-6633.

Evidently all this recalling has scared the heck out of our US manufacturers, because all of a sudden they're recalling products for incorrect labeling, which if products aren't labeled correctly, someone could have a strong allergic reaction to something in the product that they didn't know was there.

The first of these was back in April of this year when KFC Corporation voluntarily recalled its Double Chocolate Chip Cakes because they contain eggs, milk, wheat, soy ingredients and possibly traces of tree nuts, and are not individually labeled with ingredient information. They say they plan to start offering them again after they have the proper labeling on the packages.

Next came Hershey's. In September the Hershey Company started recalling 7.25-ounce plastic bottles of Hershey's Chocolate Shell Topping, which can be poured over ice cream, because it contains almonds that aren't noted on the label. If you have any of the recalled Hershey's Chocolate Shell Topping, call Hershey's consumer relations department at 800-468-1714

Last, but not least See's Candies, Inc. of San Francisco, Calif., is recalling 16-ounce bags of See's Candies Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips because the product may contain undeclared traces of milk. People who have an allergy or severe sensitivity to milk run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume these products.

The FDA is following China's melamine problem. As of Sept. 25, FDA testing of milk-based products imported into the U.S. from China hadn't turned up any melamine contamination.
The United States, meanwhile, said inspectors would expand testing for Chinese products that may contain high levels of milk or milk proteins. The Food and Drug Administration has been very concerned over Chinese infant formula brought into the United States for Chinese markets. Normally the formula is banned from import. The FDA said its investigators have not found the Chinese infant formula in question during visits to more than 1,000 stores. Those are mainly in cities with large Chinese communities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; and New York. The FDA plans to continue such checks it said, and "has broadened its domestic and import sampling and testing of milk-derived ingredients and finished food products containing milk, such as candies, desserts, and beverages that could contain these ingredients from Chinese sources."

Chinese police have arrested 40 people in the tainted-milk scandal, including 22 announced Monday in northern China's Hebei province. Nineteen of those were managers of pastures, breeding farms and milk-purchasing stations, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing a panel investigating the case.

Authorities say they raided 41 locations in Hebei and seized 490 pounds (222 kilograms) of melamine. Melamine is commonly used in coatings and laminates, wood adhesives, fabric coatings, ceiling tiles and flame retardants.

Eighteen arrests were announced earlier. They include two brothers who face charges of selling contaminated milk. The brothers could face death if convicted, according to China Daily, a state-run newspaper. Somehow after them executing their prior head of Food Quality Control over there when all the dog food was recalled, I think I would take them pretty seriously about punishment before being a part of something like this. LOL

I was having a conversation the other nite with my "almost sister-in-law" and she was telling me about her "almost husband" (we have a lot of "almost relatives") and vitamin K. The reason I found this interesting was because he has liver disease and Hepatitis C just like a friend of mine, but wasn't able to go thru the complete treatments because his doctors said his body couldn't take it. She said she did some research and put him on a special diet along with vitamin k and some other supplements, and he's now in remission plus the liver is repairing itself, to a certain extent. Vitamin K, like Vitamin D is one you really don't hear too much about even tho it is one of the more essential vitamins the body needs. After talking to her I decided to do some research myself. The following is part of what I found. There's more on drug interactions and interactions with other vitamins, but you'd be here for a week trying to read it all! This will give you the basics.

Vitamin K is a fat soluble vitamin. The K vitamin is essential for the
functioning of several proteins which cause the blood to clot, or coagulate, to repair injuries. Whenever a person has a bleeding wound, it is the K vitamin that is present in the blood that stops the bleeding and enables most minor cuts to heal quickly.

3 Forms of Vitamin K
There are three different forms of the K vitamin. The first variant of the K vitamin is vitamin K1, also known as phylloquinone. This is the form of the K vitamin that is found in types of plant foods. The second form of the K vitamin is the vitamin K2, or menaquinone-n. This type of
the K vitamin is formed by friendly bacteria in the intestines and is produced by our own bodies. These are both natural forms of vitamin K. Thirdly, there is vitamin K3 which is also known as menadione and is actually an artificial form of the K vitamin. Vitamin K1 and K2 end up
in the liver where it is used to create the blood clotting substances. While they have decided Vitamin K3 is found in other organs besides the liver and has a unique biological function, they don't seem to know what that function is. Isn't that typical? LOL.

Vitamin K In Your Diet
The best natural sources of the K vitamin are green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, broccoli, and swiss chard. All of these provide more than the recommended daily requirement. Since the friendly bacteria in the intestine makes one of the forms of the K vitamin and it's so readily available in some of the food we eat, it is rare for a person to have a deficiency. Vitamin K supplements are not needed by the majority of people.

Too Little or Too Much Vitamin K?
Something like severe liver disease (like in the case mentioned above), may cause a substantial lowering of blood levels of vitamin K which could increase the risk of uncontrolled bleeding, or hemorrhaging. This is definitely a vitamin that falls in the "damned if you do and damned if you don't" catagory. Just as too little vitamin K can cause hemmorrhaging, too much can cause blood clots, which could block the flow of blood in arteries of the heart, brain, or lungs resulting in heart attack, stroke, or pulmonary embolism. Many people have to be put on "anticoagulants", or blood thinners, to help the blood flow. While people who have to take things like Warafin or
Cumadin have been cautioned in the past not to consume very large quantities of vitamin k in their diets as it could override their bloodthinners ability to "anticoagulate", doctors now advise getting the daily recommendations (90-120 mcg/daily) thru dietary
intake. An extended course of antibiotics may also lead to a vitamin K deficiency due to the fact that the antibiotics kill the good intestinal bacteria as well as the bad ones they are being taken to cure. In this case also, a K vitamin supplement may be given if the course of antibiotics has to continue for a long period of time.

Vitamin K and Our Bones
Apart from the main function of helping blood to clot by binding proteins and vitamin K to calcium in what they call a "coagulation cascade, Vitamin K1 has an important part to play in the bone building process. This K vitamin is required to retain the calcium in the bones
and redistribute it to where it is needed. Lack of control of the proccessess neccessary for forming vitamin k could lead to cartilage calcification and severe malformation of developing bone, or deposition of insoluble calcium salts in the walls of the arteries. This is quite
common in people suffering from atherosclerosis, which suggests Vitamin
K deficiency is more common than they thought.

Vitamin K and Newborns
Newborn babies may not have enough of the K vitamin as they have insufficient bacteria in their
intestines to produce it. Vitamin K also does not easily transfer through the placental wall, and it is not fully functional in infants, especially those born premature. Vitamin K deficiency in newborns can cause what is called "vitamin K dificiency bleeding (VKDB)" and is life threatening. The majority of newborn babies in developed countries are therefore given a vitamin k1 injection to tide them over until the natural process takes over. That is the only time that a K vitamin
supplement will be taken by most people throughout their lives.