What Happens When Your Birthday Falls on a Leap Year?

Are you a Leap Year Baby? People born on February 29 (which happens every 4 years) are known as "leaplings" and their birthday only comes around once every four years.

Many leaplings joke that they age at only one fourth as fast as everyone else. So a leapling born in 1967 may claim to be only 10 years old. And, by this logic, the eldest sibling would end up being younger (or at least having less birthdays) than his or her younger brothers and sisters.

The next time that your leapling friend or relative tries to rub it in that they are actually a lot younger than you, remind them that they won't be getting another birthday present until the next leap year four years later!

What Exactly is a Leap Year - The calendar has 365 days in it, but in fact the earth revolves around the Sun in exactly 365 days and 6 hours. This means that the calendar is actually falling behind by 6 hours every year and over time, the seasons would get shifted so that (over a very long period of time) you would have Spring starting on February and so on. To correct this, the calendar creates an extra day in February every four years. During a Leap Year, February has 29 days. Because Leap Years happen every 4 years, and not that many people are typically born in February, being a leapling is quite rare. (Adopted From http://www.bdayquotes.com)

Famous Leap Year Birthdays: Here are some people who were born on February 29.

• 1468 - Pope Paul III (d. 1549)
• 1692 - John Byrom, English poet (d. 1763)
• 1736 - Ann Lee, American founder of Shakers (d. 1784)
• 1792 - Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer (d. 1868)
• 1840 - John Philip Holland, Irish inventor (d. 1914)
• 1904 - Jimmy Dorsey, American bandleader (d. 1957)
• 1916 - Dinah Shore, American singer (d. 1994)
• 1928 - Tempest Storm, American burlesque performer
• 1936 - Henri Richard, Canadian hockey player
• 1940 - Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople
• 1944 - Dennis Farina, American actor
• 1960 - Tony Robbins, American motivational speaker

How to Train a Dog to Fetch!

Have you ever wanted to train a dog to fetch?

Playing fetch with a dog can be a fun way to bond and teach your dog a trick that will help tire him out.

Many dogs don't like to play fetch because they think that by bringing the ball back to their owner that the game will be over and they won't be able to have any more fun. When you train a dog to fetch the key is to show the dog that the fun is increased by bringing the ball or toy back time and time again.

Here are some useful tools for training this trick with your dog:

• First, you need a dog that has a natural drive for playing fetch. Many dogs weren't bred to chase and retrieve objects and therefore don't have any natural desire. Training a dog to fetch is an entirely motivational behavior and needs to be done with dogs that already enjoy chasing a toy.
• Start out with two balls or toys and a long leash of about twenty feet or so. Hold one of the balls while the other is in your pocket. Get your dog interested in one of the balls by waving it back and forth. Hold onto the long line and toss the ball about 10 feet away.
• Allow your dog to chase and grab the ball. As he grabs the ball use the long line to reel him back in like a fish. As he gets close immediately remove the other ball from your pocket. Get him interested in the other ball.
• As he drops the ball in his mouth to go after the ball in your hand immediately toss your ball in a new direction. Repeat the same exercise as before.
• As time goes on your dog will learn this 'two ball game' and will eagerly return his ball and drop it in anticipation of getting the next ball. Be patient and you will learn to quickly train a dog to fetch (Adopted From www.dogbehavioronline.com)

Recipe Of The Month: Healthy Carrot Muffins

Do you juice? If you do then you also have a lot of pulp left over when you are done. Here is a great recipe to use up some of that pulp. It is a moist and nourishing veggie muffin that your whole family will enjoy!

Ingredients: Makes 12

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 Teaspoon sea salt
• 2 Teaspoons
  
• 1 Teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 Teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 cup Sucanat or brown
  
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil1/4 cup
  
• 2 Teaspoons vanilla
• 4 medium to large pastured eggs, beaten
• 2 cups carrot pulp (can mix some other pulps in it too)
• 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease approximately 12 muffin tins thoroughly. Mix dry ingredients first. In separate bowl, mix sugar with olive oil, water and vanilla. Add beaten eggs and blend thoroughly. Lightly incorporate the carrot pulp and nuts. Finally add dry ingredients. Mix. (If it seems just too thick you can add another 1/4 cup water.) Put into muffin pan and cook for about 20 minutes. Let cool for about 10 minutes and serve. Really tasty! (www.cook4seasons.com)

Facts Only A NY Giant Diehard Would Know!

Here are Cold, Hard Football Facts you probably don't know unless you're a Giants diehard:

• The Giants were the first team to retire a number. Although two-way lineman Ray Flaherty is not in the Hall of Fame as a player (he made it as a coach in 1976), his 10-year playing career was good enough that the Giants took his No. 1 out of commission upon his retirement in 1935.
• The Giants have played in and lost more NFL championship games than any other team. The Giants have appeared in 16 NFL title games, ahead of Green Bay (12) and Dallas (10). They've lost 12 of those, all in the pre-merger era. The Frank Gifford/Alex Webster-led Giants were the precursor of the Jim Kelly Bills, losing four titles in five seasons from 1959-1964 and going into a similar tailspin after that unsuccessful run at glory.
• The Giants broke out a "futuristic" new logo in 1975 that had about as much staying power as the pet rock. Giants Hall of Famer Andy Robustelli took over GM duties before the 1975 season, and he had always wanted to update the classic "NY" that used to grace his helmet. So he hired a hip design firm to turn out this abomination, which was about as good as the Giants were under Robustelli's watch. Five years and a 25-49 record later, he was replaced by George Young for the 1980 season. Young, who looked a little like an alien, would turn the franchise around with the hiring of Bill Parcells as head coach in 1983.
• Giants players threatened a walkout in 1981 if rookie Lawrence Taylor was given an "outlandish" three-year, $750,000 deal. Twenty-five years doesn't seem like a long time, but in terms of NFL inflation, it was another epoch. When Taylor asked for $250K a year – more than veteran standouts – old-schoolers were ready to rebel. No one went on the record about it, but linebacker Brad Van Pelt admitted that there was a movement afoot. Taylor got his money and earned his keep, and when he signed his last Giants contract in 1993, it was for two years and $5.5 million. Last year, the average NFL salary was $1.4 million. (Adopted From www.coldhardfootballfacts.com)

Vitamins For The Mind! - Tips For The Perfectionist!

If you are a perfectionist and would like to know how to overcome it in order to not be so uptight about things all the time, then read on. Perfectionism can be a good thing in situations. For example, it's probably a good idea to have people who want to do everything perfect to build an aircraft, you know, for safety purposes. The problem with trying to be perfect all the time is that it can cause you to not take action. You can end up doing nothing instead of just doing something. Let's look at why this happens and what you can do about it.

Perfectionists will often delay performing a task due to wanting to wait until everything is perfect. What they do is take the ready, set, ready, set, set, ready, set, set, set approach. If you never fire, you will never hit your target. It's the fear of doing something wrong or not doing something well enough that causes you to not even want to take action.

Here's a scenario. You want to lose weight so you go out and read a book on weight loss and you find out that one of the best things you can do is to get a coach to help you train. So what do you do? You go online and you do a ton of research to find the best gym possible. Then you go and research to find the best coach possible. You may even look into getting the right shoes, outfit, and workout gloves. What may end up happening is that in your search for that perfect coach, you don't find one and so you end up not even doing what the book suggested that you do.

If you are a perfectionist who keeps delaying action because you want to wait for everything to be perfect, then here is a reality check: It will never be perfect. The best way to overcome perfectionism is to just take action. You need to take the ready, fire, aim approach. If you have it really bad, then you may even want to try the fire, ready, aim approach. Just take action and figure the details as you go. Instead of focusing on quality in everything you do, sometimes you may want to focus on quantity. I am reminded of a story about a ceramics class experiment.

Ceramics Class Story - There once was a ceramics class teacher who divided her class into two groups. The first group was focused on quantity and their task was to make 50 pots. That was their task; they didn't need to focus on anything else but to make those 50 pots. The other group was focused on quality and so their task was to make one perfect pot.

At the end of the week they were going to judge who had the best pot. Can you guess which group created the best pot? The answer is the group who focused on quantity. The group who focused on quality and had to make that one perfect pot, became frozen and was so focused on every single little detail that they didn't move forward.

The group that focused on quantity made a better pot because they learned from their mistakes and continued learning and eventually made the best pot because they just kept learning and used what they learned from the previous pot to apply to the next pot.

The lesson of this story is obvious. If you are a perfectionist who has difficulty getting much done because you always want to have everything perfect, try taking massive action. Just create. The more you do the better. This will help you break that concern about whether or not everything is perfect because you will be too focused on producing that you won't have time to try to make things perfect.

Overcoming perfectionism can take some time and practice especially if you have been a perfectionist your whole life. It will help also if you give yourself a time limit to complete a task. Massive action under the pressure of limited time will help you break your habit and accomplish more. (Adopted from www.motivational-well-being.com)

Ten Rules For Eating Your Valentine Chocolates...

• Put 'finish (if you haven’t already) all your Valentine chocolate today' at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll be sure to get at least one thing accomplished!

• If you've got melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.
• Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.
• The problem: How to get two pounds of Valentine chocolate home from the store in a hot car. The solution: Eat it in the parking lot.
• Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take the edge off your appetite, and you'll eat less.
• If you can't eat all your Valentine chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can't eat all your chocolate, what's wrong with you?
• If I eat equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate, is that a balanced diet? Don't they actually counteract each other?
• Money talks. Chocolate sings. Beautifully.
• Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger. Therefore, you need to eat more chocolate.
• A nice box of Valentine chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Now, isn't that handy? (Adopted from www.guy-sports.com)

Ways To Find Extra Money To Pay Off Your Debts.

Sell some of the stuff that got you into debt in the first place. Hold a garage sale, list your stuff on Amazon.com or eBay, or put an ad in a local newspaper.

Never spend change. Put all of your coins into a big jar at the end of the day. Once a month, sort the coins and put them into sleeves that you can get at the bank. Deposit the coins and write a check to your lender.

Cook more at home and take leftovers for lunch.

Cut back on “extras” for a week, add it all up, and put it toward your debt. If you skip that morning coffee and afternoon soda, wash the car yourself, use Dryel instead of going to the dry cleaners, and have dinner at Baja Fresh instead of El Torito, you might find yourself with a good amount of cash for the week. It might even be enough to motivate you to skip the extras until you’ve paid off all of your debts!

Spend an hour online shopping around for the best deals on insurance, phone service, and banking.

Check your house for energy efficiency. Many utility companies will perform a free energy efficiency check.

Sell under performing investments.

Make sure you haven’t forgotten about old bank accounts or other deposits. Check out your state’s Unclaimed Property website.

Check your tax with holdings and increase your number of exemptions if you will have overpaid at the end of the year. (Adopted From www.chieffamilyofficer.com)