I love to make food that looks pretty.   As of late, I’ve with fallen in love with red lentils & turmeric. Who can resist the orange hue of the lentils and the deep golden color of turmeric? Simply Gorgeous… yet, not just another pretty face. Packed with protein and antioxidants, my Red Lentil Soup is both nutritious and hearty.  An extra plus: it’s gluten free and vegan when made with veggie broth.  Red lentils don’t need to be soaked overnight so you’ll save a lot of prep time, too. Try this. Make a double batch–it always gets snapped up quickly.

Enjoy!
Nancy Newcomer
PS It’s always twice as good the second day after the spices and flavors blend together.

Red Lentil Soup

• 1 1/2 TB olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  
• 2 carrots, finely chopped
  
• 3 stalks celery, finely chopped
  
• 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
  
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp red chili flakes
  
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes -use canned if not in season
• 1 cup lentils, rinsed and picked through for stones
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (you may sub Italian parsley if you’re not a cilantro fan)
• 6 cups  veggie or chicken stock
• 1 cup fresh spinach chopped

Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium heat.  Add onion and leek and cook until softened.  Add carrots, celery, garlic, chili flakes, cumin, turmeric, paprika salt, and pepper.  Cook for 5 minutes and continue to stir.  Add tomatoes, lentils, cilantro and vegetable stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until lentils are soft, about 30 minutes.  Add chopped spinach and let it wilt -about 1-2 minutes. Feel free to sprinkle a little more paprika to make it  pretty Serve.

Wondertree Kids will present a special program for parents – How to Select a Preschool!

Finding the perfect preschool can seem as stressful as searching for college. This FREE informative presentation will cover:

• How to know if the Preschool is developmentally appropriate for your child – Overview of a Co-Op Preschool
• A parent’s perspective on the Importance of Preschool.

The speaker is Sandra Rojas, Director of Sand Tots Preschool. The event will be held Wednesday, February 22 at Wondertree Kids, 710-A S. Allied Way in El Segundo from 1pm – 2:30pm.
Please RSVP to Wondertree Kids
info@wondertreekids.com
(310) 535.0001
Children Welcome!

Audition to join Belasco Theatre Company’s next production, All Shook Up.

Auditions will be held Thursday and Friday, March 1st and 2nd, 2012, 3:30-6:30pm at the Hermosa Beach Kiwanis Club, 2515 Valley Drive, Hermosa Beach, CA.

We are looking for kids’ ages 10-18 years old with a strong interest in musical theater. Prior experience is helpful.

Students who wish to audition should email info@belasco.org to confirm a spot. Send your name, age, contact information and list any experience.

Auditions will be done on a first come, first serve basis. Students should prepare a ballad to sing a cappella. They will be given a script to read and also some dance steps to perform.

Belasco Theatre Company (BTC), a non-profit organization, has the distinction of being the only professional-training South Bay troupe to incorporate our skilled local youth and the full range of professional musical theatre, including acting, singing and dancing. BTC has received glowing reviews by local publications.

Participating in summer camps is fun but working in summer day camps is even more enriching.

If you have always been enticed by summer camps and if you realize the potential of how artfully these camps can shape a person’s future, you would probably be mesmerized by the idea of working at one of such summer day camps.

Summer camp jobs are many, ranging from teaching and coaching to managing the administration and equipment. Depending on your niche and area of study, you can choose one of the available summer camp jobs to complement academics or even to venture into something new that piques your interest.

How Summer Camp Jobs Help Your Career

Experts highlight various advantages of summer camp jobs. An internship at kids’ summer camps not only gives you an exceptionally fun-filled experience but can also be rewarding to your career. You get a strong point, demonstrating basic work experience, to mention on your resume, that gives you an edge over your competitors. These camps are especially useful for under-graduate or graduate students who are pursuing careers in teaching, coaching, sports management, child psychology and development, and athletics. And with a mushrooming number of courses in electronics and computers, students with an Information Technology background can also benefit from jobs or internships at summer day camps.

Get Credit Points at School for All the Fun You Had on Summer Day
Camps!

Summer camp jobs can offer you an edge in terms of credit points as some universities provide for extra credit to students who complete a meaningful internship during the session break. So besides adding a feather to your resume, you can also elevate your credit average in college – a real win-win situation.

Meet Like-Minded People and Develop Sharp Skills

Another reason to apply for summer camp jobs entails from the fact that you may find some strikingly creative and intelligent people around you who share similar interests as yours. Apart from inculcating skills relevant to your field of study, you also learn a great many general skills that are a prerequisite to landing a good job in today’s corporate environment. Leadership, teamwork, communication, and efficient decision making skills are some priceless assets that you acquire during your weeks at summer camp jobs.

Kids’ Summer Camps Are a Pot-Full of Fun After All

Working with young curious children gives you many opportunities to learn. The company of kids has such influence as can rekindle the learning spirit in you. So you learn while you have lots of fun and also aid your career prospects in the meanwhile.

With all the learning, credit, resume enhancement, and the fun factor completely intact, summer day camps have excellent opportunities to offer to school and college students. So if you are a student looking forward to a long summer vacation, do consider summer camp jobs to add on your agenda. So what are you waiting for? Apply for a suitable summer camp job with reputed summer camp organizers such as ID Tech and make the most of your holidays!

Guest Writer – Jimmy Sorensen

Working in summer day camps gives your child a more fun learning experience. Let them explore new areas of learning by joining these camps. Children can even do full time job at these camps. Learn more at internaldrive.com.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Maria Robinson

You’re tired all the time, you want to lose a few pounds quickly, and are ready for change. Enough is enough. Your body blueprint is not sending the messages you want it to, and you are ready to start over. Time to clean the slate!

There are four areas of your life we will concentrate on to create a fresh start: your body, physical environment, emotional baggage, and current relationships.

Let’s highlight your physical space first.

Your Physical Environment

Having things in order, for some people, equates to feeling in control and safe. Being organized has the potential to remove underlying anxiety that may plague you from day to day. I was never the picture of perfection when it came to organization in my physical space. To be honest, I did not want to have the stress that I see most people have who are uptight about being organized. I chose to have a more relaxed outlook.

Feng Shui taught me that clutter blocks energy and flow in the area of your life that correlates with the space your clutter is in your home. Clutter had never bothered me before, until I learned it could have an effect on different areas of my life, such as relationships, money, and health.

What in your environment is creating toxins? Many of us have things that have outlived their usefulness. Are your closets and cupboards stuffed with items you don’t use? Do you keep telling yourself that you will reorganize and sort through them one day soon, only one day never comes?

Clutter impacts our emotional, mental, and spiritual state. It affects not only how we feel, but also our ability to be effective. Clutter, whether it is in the form of spiritual, emotional, mental, or physical, acts like the rocks and boulders that block a river’s flow and impedes the flow of our energy. Clutter drains our energy and wears down our spirit. We need energy to flow freely in order to have maximum creativity, production, expression, and satisfaction. Clutter takes away our power.

Learning about and using Feng Shui helped me to reduce my clutter and got me interested in the energy of my environment. I am still not super neat and tidy, but I still use these principles today to do the best I can. Choose which point of view works best for you and use it to clean up your physical environment.

12 Step recovery guide to help you start to de-clutter

1. If you haven’t used it in the past year, get rid of it.
2. Get help. Don’t do it all by yourself. You haven’t cleared this stuff away for years. You won’t do it now. Ask a friend or hire a professional organizer.
3. Create a system or place where everything goes. So you know where and how to look for it.
4. Create a plan that’s manageable. Clean out in small chunks
5. Make it fun. Plan a garage sale with a group of friends. Give yourself treats as you reach milestones.
6. If you buy something new, throw something old away.
7. Do it NOW. It will save you hours later. Don’t add more to the pile for later.
8. Begin with something that has no emotional attachment. Choose something that’s easy to get rid of and get in the throw away habit.
9. Make an appointment with yourself to clear away your clutter. Put it on your calendar. A half an hour is a good start. Don’t over do it or you won’t do it.
10. If you don’t love it, let it go. So often we keep things out of duty or guilt. You don’t need things around you that pull down your energy. Guilt is an energy drain.
11. Bless all the stuff you have been keeping, recognize that it has served a purpose in your life and know that in letting it go you are making room for something new and better in your life
12. Give yourself permission to throw things away. Let go of the guilt about “wasting” good stuff. If it is cluttering up your life, you need to realize that it is doing you harm. The best way to take care of yourself is to get rid of it, even if it means throwing it away.

The more you get rid of, the lighter you will feel, the clearer you will think, the more energized you will be.

You can look younger if you avoid these 3 things.

1. Sun
2. Smoking
3. Drinking

Hey, I can’t tell you how much you can drink or smoke. Do whatever you’d like in that regard. Just know that the more you consume, the older you look at a faster rate than those who don’t. And if you don’t smoke or drink, congratulations you are already well on your way to staying youthful looking – long term.

But one thing EVERYONE has to deal with at one point or another is the sun. You may live in an area where it’s sunny year round. Or maybe you are 2 feet under snow right now. Whatever your situation, you are most likely outside sometime in the day. So what can you do to ensure the sunshine isn’t stealing your youth?

SUNSHINE

Unfortunately it’s true, a gorgeous fun day at the beach drinking margaritas with all your girlfriends is going to age you. But guess what? It doesn’t matter if it’s snowing or sunny outside your window right now. You can use these tips year round. Fair skin or dark skin or anything in between, here are the things you can do to look young for as long as possible every time you are outside!

HAIR:
Protect your hair
Your hair can get damaged by the sun in the same way as when you tan. You can help to protect it by using a mousse or gel that has a built in sunscreen. This will provide the protection that your beautiful locks need to stay healthy.
Protect your scalp
Have you ever burned your scalp from being in the sun too long? It’s not pretty. To help avoid sun exposure to your head, I recommend wearing a fabulous, enormous hat, the bigger the better. That’s right, when it comes to hats, the bigger the better.

SKIN:
Protect your skin
Naturally you want to protect your skin with the use of sun screen. Personally, I like to choose something that has an SPF of 50 or higher. Sometimes I even like to use a 70 or 100. It definitely protects your skin from the sun and you certainly don’t want to forget to apply it to your face. It’s really important to apply sunscreen, especially to your face, every single day no matter where you are. If you do this you will ward off the botox needles for much longer than your friends who don’t use sun screen. And remember your skin EVERYWHERE the sun kisses (even in the cold winter months – if your neck or tops of your hands are bare, they will look older faster if you are not putting sun screen on them).
Protect your eyes
Finally, you want to protect your eyes. You’ll want to keep your gorgeous eyes looking fabulous with a big pair of what I call movie star sunglasses, and they don’t have to be expensive at all.
Protect your lips
You also want to protect your lips, so be sure to get some kind of Chapstick or a gloss that has a built-in sunscreen to keep your lips nice and kissable, year round.

Let’s be honest. The relationship we have with our spouse is different than before we had children. Our time and energy is split, we have more responsibilities, and being intimate can sometimes feel like just another chore on the “To do list”.

Although it is true that our relationship is different, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to make it better; to work on our intimacy and make time to enjoy each other’s company, like we used to…without the kids.

The relationship between parents is the number one relationship that determines how children will experience their own relationships in the future, with co-workers, friends and spouses. Children look to their parents to see how people communicate with each other, how they show and accept love and how they resolve problems. For this reason, marriage must be made a priority. We must nurture it and learn ways to improve it.

How do we do this?

There are a few areas to look at:

1. How do you feel about yourself? Do you feel like you are healthy and in relatively good shape? Do you dress as you used to or are you feeling a bit frumpy lately?
• Taking care of ourselves is often the most effective way to give us energy, make us feel sexy again and feel like we want to work on our marriage.
2. Do you schedule in regular date nights with your spouse, either inside or outside the home? Enjoying each other’s company is so important. Remember what you loved doing together and schedule it! Book the restaurant, find the hiking trail, play scrabble, cook a meal together, go for coffee and a dessert or just go for a walk and talk. Whatever it is be sure to schedule at least one date night per month.
3. Communication. Nothing breeds anger and resentment more than silence. It’s very important to constantly talk; talk about parenting issues, household issues, feelings, etc. An extremely useful resource is the book called, “The Five Love Languages” This is the best book my husband and I have found to help us figure out how each of us likes to be loved. It is, in my opinion, a must read for all couples.

Although life is busier with children, we must always remember that parents are the core of a family. Nurture your relationship well and give it the attention and focus it deserves. You and your children will be happier if you do.

Among the many skills I DON’T have is a modicum of musical talent. I was booed during a ballgame for singing the Star Spangled Banner…and I was HOME watching the game on TV! Not wanting the same fate to befall our children, we hired a piano teacher and they’re each in their fourth year of lessons. It amazes me how they can look at those hieroglyphics, press a bunch of buttons and make such lovely sounds.

 ”Dad, I think I want to take up another instrument but I can’t decide.” Our daughter was asking my advice.

“You already play piano and flute.”

“I know, but my teacher said we need a trombone player and a percussionist.” I didn’t realize there was such a shortage of trombonists. How the heck do they ever find seventy six of them to lead the big parade! I was hesitant because the image of her playing a trombone made me laugh, as did the thought of saying, “Meet my daughter, the trombonist.” Regarding percussion, I felt it was a lot easier to bring a flute to a campfire with your friends than a set of drums. Can you imaging carrying all those cymbals and cowbells over the…never mind.

“Honey, why don’t you stick with what you’re doing?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. My piano teacher says it’s better to play a two handed instrument anyway.”

“Yeah, two hands, that’s definitely the way to go!” What the heck did I know.

“See ya!” she said and danced away.

“Whew!” I thought. “Just saved a few thousand bucks! But alas, one less trombonist. Oh well, such is life.” .

The age-old saying, “A place for everything and everything in its place” is truly a mantra for Getting Organized 101 students.  I like to think of it as a “home” for everything making it so much easier to “take it home” when stuff seems to pile up and out of control.

When things have a “home” it indicates a location for the item that is easy to access either on a regular basis or stored for future use.  How much easier it is to clear the clutter when items have a home, rather than homeless resulting in piles, stacks. bags or storage boxes…for future consideration.  Then frustration sets in, resulting in the overwhelming chore of putting things away when they do not have a proper home.  Stacks and piles are unfortunately homeless stuff haunting you and causing unnecessary irritation, stress and a huge waste of your time.

Proper “homes” fall into two categories: where used and where stored.

Problem:  You enter the house lugging a briefcase, a purse, grocery bags, retrieved mail along with noisy kids or a pet in need of attention.  The keys end up on the kitchen counter, or the kids’ room or the dining room table or the nearest location where they can be dropped!  Thus the beginning of your keys just waiting to be “lost.”  Oh, and the phone rings as you get into the house, adding to the confusion.

Or you arrive on the job and are distracted by a colleague’s question, a phone call or you are late to a meeting.  In this scenario your keys can end up on the desk, later to be covered with papers, etc.  Get the picture?

Solution:  Placing car and other keys in the same location, be it a coat or pants pocket, a briefcase, purse, hanging hook or in as small bowl on your desk or a table near the entrance door.  Ahhh!  They are now safely settled in their home for later retrieval without searching and stressing and frustration.

Problem:  Paperwork goes missing again!  Be it the mail, tax forms, receipts, your child’s papers requiring signature, a medical appointment card, bills to pay, your passport and much more.  Many of these papers become lost under piles of other items; newspapers, magazines and other stuff, as the results of your being  “too tired to tend to it now.” And some of the smaller items may be lost in the bottom of your purse or tote bag or briefcase.  Maybe it was tossed in the file cabinet or a nearby box to deal with later.

The lost paper problem intensifies when you need the item and have no clue as to where it might have landed or be hiding. 

Solution:  Have one location where mail is dropped each day, whomever retrieves it from the mailbox.  Only mail resides there and no other papers.  Then set up a simple 2-3 file folder station on the kitchen counter or other central location where kids’ consent forms, appointment cards and receipts can be placed for easy access later. Make the time each day to handle these papers. Creating these homes will help other family members to become responsible as well.  Another tip is to empty your purse, tote bag or brief case on a bed or table as a means of retrieving those receipts and other pieces of paper necessary or not…as in candy or gum wrappers.

Do yourself and your stuff a favor by giving it a “proper home.”  After all homelessness isn’t good for anyone or thing.

What’s popular among kids one year is usually totally unpopular the next year. Remember what a big deal silly bands were in 2010? Now silly bands are completely out of style. And think back to the 90s. Remember the overnight success of Beanie Babies? A few years after the Beanie Babies craze, kids lost interest. Nowadays, Beanie Babies aren’t even on the radar, even though they still exist. So, if you want to throw your child a themed birthday party this year, it’s important to know what kids are interested in. Here are five party themes that won’t disappoint your little one this year:

1. Super Mario

Super Mario 3D Land on the Nintendo 3DS is what kids are talking about at elementary schools all over the country. So, be sure you find the right supplies if your kid can’t get enough of Mario and Luigi.

2. Angry Birds

Angry Birds is one of the most popular games for kids on smartphones and tablets right now and will likely remain popular for the rest of the year.

3. Transformers

Transformers games, toys, and movies have been unbelievably popular in recent months. Although a Transformers themed birthday party is more likely to appeal to young boys, some girls may also be Transformers fans.

4. Let’s Rock Elmo

The Let’s Rock Elmo stuffed toy that sings and makes music with you is particularly popular in circles of young children (ages 2 to 5). If your child loves her Let’s Rock Elmo toy, she’ll love a themed party to match.

5. Beauty and the Beast

The classic Beauty and the Beast movie was re-released in 3D in January of 2012. Kids who hadn’t seen this Disney movie before absolutely fell in love with it, and you can expect quite a few children to request Beauty and the Beast themed parties this year.

So, consider the popular ideas above before you plan your themed party. And take a pulse with your child to figure out what they like the most.

Guest Writer – Melissa C

Melissa is a guest blogger who loves giving parents fun ideas for birthday parties! She specializes in themes, decorations, and games for kids! You can find more great party ideas and supplies at www.partyworks.com.