I agree Vicki we need to educate as many people as we can. I am always telling people to keep their feeders in the shade. I hate to see them hanging in the blazing sun when it's 90 in the shade. I sure wouldn't drink sugar water that hung in the sun for several days, YUK. I have wrote articles for our subdivision newsletter. Every year I stress the point of NOT putting red food coloring in the feeders and I still see it all the time. I stress the fact that they need to be clean and kept in the shade and use the 4-1 ratio. I tell people the premixed stuff is full of chemicals, not to mention the garbage in red dye. I worry so much about these little guys but I can only care for the ones in my yard and try to "educate" as many people as I can. We have a friend in another state, everytime we visit, her feeders are in the sun. I don't know how many times I have asked her to please keep them in the shade. I asked if she would drink that stuff after it hung in the sun all day for several days. Does it do any good?! NO .... they are still hung in the sun every year. I just don't understand. Makes a person want to pull out their hair..LOL!

Our son convinced him to see my doctor. My husband would not admitto the dr. he has ANY problems. The EKG and cholesterol is o.k.; but other than checking his lungs with the stethescope, the dr. didn't order any other tests. He did recognize my husband's mind status; and ordered Aricept. We have to order our drugs by mail so it will be about 2 weeks before he begins taking the med. A nurse acquaintance said Aricept can be good if given early enough. I hope it isn't too late. My husband denies he has ANY problems other than slight memory loss! Can only wait and see how the Aricept works and then get him back to the dr. if he will go? Thank you for the interest. Will keep you posted in a few weeks.Annieil

It's amazing that none of us had never heard of the 'turn your head' method of pill-swallowing. (We'll have to get to the bottom of this! Who knows a physical medicine MD?) When you raise your arms above your head you expand the ribcage and allow your lungs to expand more fully. Then you can push more air out of your lungs to better expell whatever is choking you. I inhaled a small green pea at dinner last night. (DH shouldn't make me laugh when I'm eating!). Due to asthma, my lung power is only 70%. With my arms up, I was able to cough out that darn pea, first try.

Hi all thanks for the comments. After reading them I can see I left out some details. I would never just go and get my parents a dog. Although my mom did this to me once! They are ready and have made the decision to get a dog. Mom asked me to start the search, she doesn't have the internet and wanted me to search pet finder which is where I found my three rescues. There are a lot of steps and processes with rescues and I am helping understand how it all works. I am very familiar with breeds and there personality traits and what my parents life style is and what they like, and what their needs are so I can weed out dogs that wouldn't be right. If I find something I think they would be interested I let them know and they check out the profile. There was as I mentioned one attempt but the rescue did not respond the dog has been on the web site for a long time which cast doubt in my mind about this rescue. Mom took it personally feeling judged and this may turn her off the rescue process. Usually in our area small dogs generate a lot of interest and are adopted quickly and are removed from the website. We did go to a local pound but mom made it clear she didn't want to do this again, she feels badly for the animals, getting them excited or upset when we didn't adopt (the right dog wasn't there) She has a big heart for animals and hates to see them suffer. Ultimately the decision to which dog they get will be moms but I really would like it if she would let my Dad have some influence on what breed size they get. Every dog they have had had been mom telling dad where to drive to the breeder and mom picking the dog from the litters. Dad lets mom have what she wants happy wife etc. There is nothing wrong with getting a puppy from the breeder but the last time they did this was not a great experience. Mom called an add in the penny saver and it turned out to be a puppy producing business not a breeder, not a puppy mill but the next thing to it. The first puppy became sick very quickly and died after my parents spent a lot at the vet and invested their hearts in the puppy trying to save it, the " breeder" then gave then a really hard time about honoring the guarantee. I was not able to say or do anything about it. Obviously I would be able to help avoid this if they were to buy a puppy this time but I would prefer to go with a rescue. The dog that needs a home is with seniors they got her as a puppy, she is a calm girl already fixed. I suggested to my parents they could foster this dog. If they decided to give it a try I want them to know if it didn't work we would find a home for her, but at least this way we would have the dog in a safe home and not the pound until the best home could be found. I of course would love it of course if it turned out that mom learned that she would want to keep and have something bigger than a shih Tzu. Of course there are always things I haven't thought about. I need actual peoples experience with different sizes pros cons, and the things that I couldn't possibly know. That's why I come here because yall always give my things to think about, make me think outside my own box its great.