Email marketing workshop

I went to an email marketing workshop presented by Constant Contact. We use them for our email marketing at work and are very pleased with them. We have been using them for about 4 years now, or so. Maybe 3 years. The workshop discussed the basics for email marketing. The target audience in the group today were start up companies and small business owners. I am a small business owner, but it isn't a startup, and so the workshop covered the basics. It was nice to get a refresher course on the main points of email marketing and how it can work for you.

I think that if you have something valuable to say, people will read it. The problem is, it has to be said in a way that is appealing to your audience. Sometimes I have trouble with that.

On another note, at lunch today I went to Winer Acupuncture, and got an amazing acupuncture treatment in the twin cities. I then got gua sha treatment. My back looks very bruised and beaten, but it doesn't hurt at all!! it is a chinese treatment. I wish I could explain it better, but here is a link to gua sha to learn more about it.

I am going to have another appointment next week. I can't wait! My shoulders are going to get better, I am sick of this rotator cuff tendinitis. Between physical therapy, rolfing, acupuncture, gua sha, my exercise, sauna, icing and stretching, it WILL heal!!!

Can Fibromyalgia Be Caused by Exposure To Environmental Toxins?

So many people suffer from chronic muscle pain and fibromyalgia symptoms. Here is an article from a fibromyalgia support group in SC that addresses a likely cause: Environmental Toxins.

"With fibromyalgia, a syndrome that combines pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression, you have to separate “cause” from “trigger.” New research suggests that this mysterious syndrome is caused by imbalances of chemicals and hormones in the nervous system that amplify sensation, making even a slight touch feel painful. In a study published last year, Daniel Clauw, MD, a rheumatologist at the University of Michigan, used MRIs to show what happens in the brains of fibromyalgia patients in response to minimal pressure to their left thumbs – blood rushes to areas involved in pain perception. To get the same response from healthy people Clauw had to apply twice the pressure.


The super-sensitivity to pain that characterizes fibromyalgia seems to be genetic. The disorder runs in families, and researchers have identified one gene believed to be involved in the syndrome. Patients also have higher than normal levels of a neuropeptide called substance P that is involved in pain signals and subnormal levels of serotonin and norepinephrine, hormones that modulate pain.


If you are born with a predisposition to fibromyalgia, you still need to experience an event to trigger the disorder – that is, something must happen to set it off. This can be a viral infection, emotional stress, an accident or injury or even exposure to certain drugs or chemicals. My colleague Iris Bell, MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Research here at the Program in Integrative Medicine, tells me that multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and fibromyalgia often overlap. In fact, according to a recent paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine, 33 percent of fibromyalgia patients also suffer from MCS. Dr. Bell adds that 60 percent of all MCS patients are able to identify the specific exposure that set off their initial reaction."


So -- what can you do to lessen your chances of getting fibromyalgia? What if you already have it? How can you decrease your symptoms until they are all gone - without causing more symptoms? The answer is a 3-step process, and is quite simple:


1. Stop putting toxins into your body
2. Take the toxins out of your body that you already exposed yourself to!
3. Give your body the good, wholesome nutrition that it needs.


First of all, let's look at putting toxins in your body. You are exposed to toxins via your makeup, face creams, hair products, shampoos, processed foods, even produce with pesticides, meats and dairy that are made using antibiotics and growth hormones; you are putting toxins in your body when you microwave in plastic containers, when you drink tap water, when you use fluoride toothpaste to brush your teeth. Even some furniture and carpet emits toxic gases that you breathe in! This is not to mention other obvious things like flame retardant sprays on children's sleepwear, air pollution emitted by our vehicles, EMF radiation caused by the use of electronic devices, and so on...


What can you do? It seems hopeless, right? Well, let me give you some hope. First of all, to overcome your fibromyalgia symptoms, you do not need to avoid EVERY TOXIN OUT THERE. But you do need to take the first steps. A basic list to get you started:


  • Stop eating aspartame (diet soda), splenda, and MSG. Unfortunately, it seems that those 3 things are in almost everything these days. But avoid them at all costs! This is IMPORTANT
  • Stop drinking tap water -- unless you have a good filter
  • Avoid high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
  • start buying organic soaps, lotions, makeup, shampoos, cleansers -- as much as you can afford. They are a bit more expensive -- but your health is worth it. Do it little by little.
  • Stop cooking with aluminum cookware! This is DEADLY!!

The second thing you want to do is detox your body. There are many ways to do it but of course my preferred method is using my detox foot pads. Use 3 per foot, per night for as long as you can. Of course you will probably feel relief within a few days. These are great products. You can detox all the heavy metals, plastic by products, and environmental chemicals from your body. But there also are other ways. A Far Infrared Sauna works miracles at detoxing your body and giving you relief from fibromyalgia. You can also do various other detoxes out there, but some of them are quite harsh.

Last of all, out of the three basic steps I am outlining, the third one is the easiest. Find a wholesome, whole food nutritional supplement. It may take 2-3 kinds, like an ionic mineral complex, plus a whole foods liquid, plus possibly a greens formula. But remember to make it whole foods -- nothing made synthetically in a lab -- and make sure you get it from a reputable company. I don't have one favorite, but I enjoy Garden of Life products, and trust them. I also really like Clark's minerals. You can do your own research if you think those companies are good, by yourself.

Good luck.

Today's quick health tip: plastic water bottles

Today's health tip:

Don't re-use plastic water bottles! You could be leaking plastic/BPA into your system! If you so use them often, be sure to detox your body with the detox foot patches. It is very important to get those toxins out of your body.

Later on, I will write about the benefits of Far Infrared Saunas and how they can change your health!

Detox your body -- get rid of all the chemicals and plastic by products!

I am wondering how much plastic seeps into your bottled water if you re-use the bottle over and over. Probably a lot. And some plastics mimic estrogen, wreaking havoc inside your body. Maybe those stainless steel water bottles have some use after all.  I wish they were easier to drink out of though, I love the sport top plastic bottles.

At least my detox foot pads pull out the plastic by products like the ones leeched into your body via water, food, etc.

I can't imagine how bad BPA is for you, and how prevalent it is in every day things that we use in our daily lives. For instance, canned foods are lined on the inside with BPA. And you can imagine how much gets leeched into the food.

And, how many of us use a teflon frying pan that has scrapes on it? The teflon is scratched? That is almost the worst possible thing for you, and you should get rid of that pan right away, and detox your body as soon as possible!

Speaking of pots and pans, how many use aluminum pans to cook with? It just isn't worth saving a buck and purchasing the cheap aluminum pots and pans, when you are exposing yourself and your family to aluminum, the number one cause of alzheimer's disease! That is a very scary disease, and no one should have to suffer from it. So please, take care of yourself and detox your body of heavy metals now!

Blaine Computer Repair to help with my small business computer needs

Since I have Purify Your Body as my home-based business, when my computer has issues, it is nice to call a local computer repair business that I can trust. For this, I use Blaine Computer Repair & Services. They are local, and are very efficient at what they do. For the first time in 15 years I recently had a malware attack on my computer. I had no clue exactly what "malware" was, but I didn't even care... I just cared about getting my detox foot pad orders out the door.

So, if you are local to Minnesota and need to find someone you can trust to work on your computer -- whether you are a small business, residential customer, or it is your grandma's computer that needs fixing, consider Blaine Computer Services for your computer repair and virus removal in Blaine, MN. Here is an excerpt from their website:

Diagnostics

Extensive diagnostics performed on memory, hard drives, motherboard, video card, network card, and sound card. Along with diagnostics, all components are stress tested, or “burned in”, to ensure that they can continue to perform at peak levels.


Virus

An arsenal of virus removal tools are used to perform full scans of the hard drives while they are in a dormant state to ensure that all infected files are properly removed from the system. We will also install virus removal software to continue to protect the system.

Spyware

Spyware has quickly become a nuisance for most users and can have a substantial effect on the performance of your computer. Our process ensures that we are able to remove all forms of spyware and ensure that the system continues to protect against spyware in the future.

What makes Purify Your Body's detox foot pads better than all the rest?

Purify Your Body’s Detox Foot Pads are packed with powerful ingredients that WORK!

Purify Your Body’s Detox pads produce more negative ions and infrared light than ANY other pad and are the only pads with NO starch fillers. All ingredients are designed to work together to draw out and absorb harmful toxins.

Remember that as adults we have between 400 to 800 man made chemicals in our bodies.

Detoxifying is an acceptable and necessary part of living a healthy life in today’s world. Purify Your Body’s Detox foot pads are one of the most effective and easiest forms of natural detoxification. What poisons are you carrying around in your body? More importantly, how do you get rid of them? While eastern medicine has known and embraced the virtues of natural detoxing for many years, western nations are only just catching on. Yet it’s a natural, obvious, and effective health treatment which can cure fluid retention, food intolerances, gas or diarrhea, colds and infections, exhaustion, skin rashes, headaches or dizziness, insomnia, and a host of other problems. As adults, we have around 400 to 800 man-made chemicals circulating in our bodies. Normal healthy body elimination processes do not remove all these chemicals. Food, drinks, polluted air, medications, stress, metabolism, disease, products applied to skin, synthetics, home and workplace chemicals contribute to the body's toxin load which accumulates daily and builds up over the years.

Introducing the amazing Purify Your Body Detox Pad. The pad warms and opens the pores of the skin to draw out and absorb accumulated wastes via the skin under osmotic pressure from the blood and lymph systems. The all-natural dry ingredients in the Foot Detox pad adhere to the soles of the feet like a big band aid overnight, when the body detoxifies. Depending on the individual, the detox may take two or three weeks or two or three months, or even longer in the case of more severe disease or toxic build up.

Potent all-natural ingredients. The Detox patch ingredients include the Agaricus mushroom from the jungles of Brazil. The Agaricus mushroom contains ample amounts of Beta Glucans, the major ingredient in natural cancer controlling substances, a steroid that can regulate the increase of cancerous cells.

Dry powder in the patch also contains chitosan, bamboo sap, eucalyptus sap from mature trees over 100meters high, ionic (absorbable) tourmaline minerals that contain negative ions and saururus chenesis - the first plant to grow at the atomic bomb site in Hiroshima, and other potent plant ingredients. These ingredients work together to draw out the toxic build-up in your feet, and in other parts of the body.

Toxins accumulate in the extremities. For hundreds of years Eastern medical studies have held the view that toxins progress towards the lower extremities in the body during the day. Assisted by gravity they accumulate from the tips of the toes to the ankles. Eastern medicine also understands that toxin accumulation leads to many degenerative diseases. For example, painful rheumatism and arthritis are caused by acidic toxin fluid gathered in the joints. There is another Asian expression that says aging comes from the foot.

Why our Detox Foot Pads are better:

* Negative ions, a positive influence. Purify Your Body’s Detox Foot Pads are made with the mineral tourmaline, which contains negative ions. Negative ions are oxygen atoms with an extra electron and they can help you feel better. Remember that feeling you've experienced near a waterfall or high in the mountains? Those are two places that thousands of negative ions occur. They create a positive effect on human biochemistry and Detox pads allow negative ions to work their magic. The special sap used in the Detox foot pads increases the vibration of negative ions which can then be absorbed easily by the skin.

* Far infrared generation, the warmth of healing. Our tissues normally produce infrared energy for warmth and tissue repair. At times the infrared energy in our tissues may require a boost to a higher level to ensure the fullest healing possible for tissue repair. Our Detox Foot Pads have been scientifically proven to produce warmth from Far infrared generation.

* Highest Quality Ingredients. The Detox Foot Patch uses the highest quality wood vinegar after natural purifying. Wood and bamboo vinegar are dried for a period of 8 months in order to remove the water substance. Next, to remove the impurities, a filtration process is applied four times. Lastly, the drying process is applied again for a period of 8 months to obtain a complete pure wood and bamboo vinegar. The finished product of the drying process is outstandingly pure.

Dry powder in the pad contains: Agaricus mushroom, chitosan, bamboo sap, eucalyptus sap from mature trees over 100 meters high, ionic (absorbable) tourmaline minerals that contain negative ions and saururus chenesis - the first plant to grow at the atomic bomb site in Hiroshima, and other potent plant ingredients.

Purify Your Body’s Detox pads are FDA regisetered. Detox pads were tested and certified safe and with non detectable heavy metals by USA FDA in November 2002 giving peace of mind for their safety.

www.purifyyourbody.comdetox and purify your body while you sleep!

Raw Milk, Detox Foot Pads and NutraSilver.

It is good to know I am putting only good stuff in my body... many people consume more calories and empty calories via fluids than they do foods. I'll save my calories for foods!! And the raw milk that I drink is so amazing. Sometimes when I am not super hungry for dinner, I just drink a glass of raw milk -- we get it here in Minnesota from Kalisch Family Farms.

My goal this weekend is to use the detox foot pads 3 times. I need to get back into the rhythm of detoxing.

Another thing that I am doing is creating a brochure for NutraSilver. That has been a huge seller on my website. I just started selling it a couple months ago and now I ship out a ton of bottles every week! It is sad to know how many morgellons sufferers there are out there. I wish I knew a cure so I could pass it on to my customers.

Have a great day!

Detox Your Body with
Purify Your Body Foot Pads!
www.purifyyourbody.com

Minnesota Boxer Rescue
www.mnboxerrescue.org
Adopt a Boxer Today!

The $555,000 Student-Loan Burden = This is crazy -- gotta read this article!

http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/108846/the-555000-student-loan-burden?mod=edu-continuing_education

This article is absolutely scary!!! I am so glad that I used my credit card for tuition payments. I am almost done paying for my MBA and it is at a fixed 1.9% interest rate. And, if I ever had to default and go into bankruptcy, it would go away. (Granted, I would never do that, my almost perfect credit score means too much to me, along with my integrity!) -Rebecca

The $555,000 Student-Loan Burden

by Mary Pilon
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
provided by
wsjlogo.gif
When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.
wsj-photo.jpg
Andrew Spear for The Wall Street Journal
Michelle Bisutti borrowed $250,000 to pay for medical school. The debt has since ballooned to $555,000.
It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.
"Maybe half of it was my fault because I didn't look at the fine print," Dr. Bisutti says. "But this is just outrageous now."
To be sure, Dr. Bisutti's case is extreme, and lenders say student-loan terms are clear and that they try to work with borrowers who get in trouble.
But as tuitions rise, many people are borrowing heavily to pay their bills. Some no doubt view it as "good debt," because an education can lead to a higher salary. But in practice, student loans are one of the most toxic debts, requiring extreme consumer caution and, as Dr. Bisutti learned, responsibility.
Unlike other kinds of debt, student loans can be particularly hard to wriggle out of. Homeowners who can't make their mortgage payments can hand over the keys to their house to their lender. Credit-card and even gambling debts can be discharged in bankruptcy. But ditching a student loan is virtually impossible, especially once a collection agency gets involved. Although lenders may trim payments, getting fees or principals waived seldom happens.

Yet many former students are trying. There is an estimated $730 billion in outstanding federal and private student-loan debt, says Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid.org, a Web site that tracks financial-aid issues -- and only 40% of that debt is actively being repaid. The rest is in default, or in deferment, which means that payments and interest are halted, or in "forbearance," which means payments are halted while interest accrues.
Although Dr. Bisutti's debt load is unusual, her experience having problems repaying isn't. Emmanuel Tellez's mother is a laid-off factory worker, and $120 from her $300 unemployment checks is garnished to pay the federal PLUS student loan she took out for her son.
By the time Mr. Tellez graduated in 2008, he had $50,000 of his own debt in loans issued by SLM Corp., known as Sallie Mae, the largest private student lender. In December, he was laid off from his $29,000-a-year job in Boston and defaulted. Mr. Tellez says that when he signed up, the loan wasn't explained to him well, though he concedes he missed the fine print.
Loan terms, including interest rates, are disclosed "multiple times and in multiple ways," says Martha Holler, a spokeswoman for Sallie Mae, who says the company can't comment on individual accounts. Repayment tools and account information are accessible on Sallie Mae's Web site as well, she says.
Many borrowers say they are experiencing difficulties working out repayment and modification terms on their loans. Ms. Holler says that Sallie Mae works with borrowers individually to revamp loans. Although the U.S. Department of Education has expanded programs like income-based repayment, which effectively caps repayments for some borrowers, others might not qualify.
Heather Ehmke of Oakland, Calif., renegotiated the terms of her subprime mortgage after her home was foreclosed. But even after filing for bankruptcy, she says she couldn't get Sallie Mae, one of her lenders, to adjust the terms on her student loan. After 14 years with patches of deferment and forbearance, the loan has increased from $28,000 to more than $90,000. Her monthly payments jumped from $230 to $816. Last month, her petition for undue hardship on the loans was dismissed.
Sallie Mae supports reforms that would allow student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy for those who have made a good-faith effort to repay them, says Ms. Holler.
Dr. Bisutti says she loves her work, but regrets taking out so many student loans. She admits that she made mistakes in missing payments, deferring her loans and not being completely thorough with some of the paperwork, but was surprised at how quickly the debt spiraled.

She says she knew when she started medical school in 1999 that she would have to borrow heavily. But she reasoned that her future income as a doctor would make paying off the loans easy. While in school, her loans racked up interest with variable rates ranging from 3% to 11%.
She maxed out on federal loans, borrowing $152,000 over four years, and sought private loans from Sallie Mae to help make up the difference. She also took out two loans from Wells Fargo & Co. for $20,000 each. Each had a $2,000 origination fee. The total amount she borrowed at the time: $250,000.
In 2005, the bill for the Wells Fargo loans came due. Representatives from the bank called her father, Michael Bisutti, every day for two months demanding payment. Mr. Bisutti, who had co-signed on the loans, finally decided to cover the $550 monthly payments for a year.
Wells Fargo says it will stop calling consumers if they request it, says senior vice president Glen Herrick, who adds that the bank no longer imposes origination fees on its private loans.
Sallie Mae, meanwhile, called Mr. Bisutti's neighbor. The neighbor told Mr. Bisutti about the call. "Now they know [my dad's] daughter the doctor defaulted on her loans," Dr. Bisutti says.
Ms. Holler, the Sallie Mae spokeswoman, says that the company may contact a neighbor to verify an individual's address. But in those cases, she says, the details of the debt obligation aren't discussed.
Dr. Bisutti declined to authorize Sallie Mae to comment specifically on her case. "The overwhelming majority of medical-school graduates successfully repay their student loans," Ms. Holler says.
After completing her fellowship in 2007, Dr. Bisutti juggled other debts, including her credit-card balance, and was having trouble making her $1,000-a-month student-loan payments. That year, she defaulted on both her federal and private loans. That is when the "collection cost" fee of $53,870 was added on to her private loan.
Meanwhile, the variable interest rates continue to compound on her balance and fees. She recently applied for income-based repayment, but she still isn't sure if she will qualify. She makes $550-a-month payments to Wells Fargo for the two loans she hasn't defaulted on. By the time she is done, she will have paid the bank $128,000 -- over three times the $36,000 she received.
She recently entered a rehabilitation agreement on her defaulted federal loans, which now carry an additional $31,942 collection cost. She makes monthly payments on those loans -- now $209,399 -- for $990 a month, with only $100 of it going toward her original balance. The entire balance of her federal loans will be paid off in 351 months. Dr. Bisutti will be 70 years old.
The debt load keeps her up at night. Her damaged credit has prevented her from buying a home or a new car. She says she and her boyfriend of three years have put off marriage and having children because of the debt.
Dr. Bisutti told her 17-year-old niece the story of her debt as a cautionary tale "so the next generation of kids who want to get a higher education knows what they're getting into," she says. "I will likely have to deal with this debt for the rest of my life."