Life on Florida’s West Coast

Are You An Emotional Eater?

I am. I am certainly an emotional eater. If I am unhappy, I want to eat. If I am celebrating something, I want to eat. When I am honestly down in the dumps, I eat and I feel like I can make things go away for a while. At least that is, on an emotional level. On the intellectual side of my mind, I know I am not doing myself any favors.

Believe it o not, there is an entire website and program devoted to emotional eating – www.ShrinkYourself.com. You can receive a free interactive session and a personalized eating profile. In a world where 99% of dieters break their diets due to stress, depression, or boredom, this is one solution you don’t want to miss.

In a nutshell, don’t blame motivation when it just might be your emotions that are failing you. Learn how to look at why you eat, instead of what you eat. Once you do, you will be able to see long-term weight loss goals become a reality. I already am able to admit that emotional eating is my issue. Now I just need to dig in and tackle the problem for what it really is.



Name Clearwater’s Otter

Now, here is a fun contest you can hardly resist. The Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Clearwater, Florida is asking people to submit a name for the female otter the aquarium staff rescued January 23 at the Clearwater Executive Golf Course.

When the otter was rescued, the abandoned youngster weighed only 1.5 pounds, and was lethargic and dehydrated. Her recovery has gone well and she has now gained almost 4 pounds.

The nonprofit marine animal rescue center is asking for a donation of $20 per name submission, with all monies going directly to care for their otter family. You can submit names until March 22. The winner will be invited to the aquarium for an official naming ceremony.

If you want to submit your idea for a name, just visit the aquarium’s site at www.SeeWinter.com.

Easy E-Commerce Solution

I have found a wonderful tool that I want to introduce to all of my readers, especially those who have found me through my Girly Things Free Hair Bow Instructions web site. I run a mailing list that has about 1500 members, most of them looking for a way to make a small business out of crafting.

Setting up your own store on your website can be confusing and time consuming. And, selling online via auction sites can take a huge bite out of your profits, as well as really hinder the business tools you might have if you sold via a fully functional online store.

So, take a look at SilkFair, were you can buy and sell. You can set up your own free e-commerce site where you can list your items, keep track of your buyers, video marketing, one-step shopping cart check-out, point-and-click editing of listings, full use of PayPal and Google Checkout, create newsletters and forums for your customers, and more. You can even set up a blog about your products, business, customers, etc. The dashboard has all of the tools in one handy location:

You can completely customize your store. You can automate particular state tax information, shipping policies, automatic pricing profiles, and even the look and feel of your store. Adding a product is as easy as filling in the fields and uploading pictures and even videos. One cool feature is that when you upload images of your product, the system automatically recognizes the colors of the items and updates swatches.

Best of all, Silk Fair only charges a 3% final sales fee. That’s it, no other hidden listing fees and the like. In the end, you take home more of the profit than on auction sites and other hosted e-commerce solutions.

Spring Forward

It’s time to lose an hour of sleep this weekend. Daylight Savings Time is upon us and thanks to the new laws in the United States regarding the issue, we have a longer period of time throughout the years where the evening daylight is extended. I rather wish we would just leave it like this all year around, as I love the extra light in the evenings.

So, remember to set your clocks ahead by one hour as of 2 a.m. Sunday.

Standard time will return on November 2.

Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas do not observe American Daylight Savings Time. I never did understand the thing with Arizona. It makes it hard to do business with those people when you have to remember that they do not switch with the rest of us.

Placing Credit Alerts

Credit reporting agencies are a necessary evil. Our economy tends to be based on their services: can I get a car loan, a credit card, or a mortgage? But, these are also profit-making businesses – don’t be fooled. There are all sorts of fees you will have to pay if you want to place alerts on your credit (though a temporary alert is free) or opt out of things like those incessant credit card application mailings. Those mailings, by the way, are a HUGE factor in identity theft in the first place. I suppose that just means more potential profit for the reporting agencies.

Now one of the three credit reporting agencies, Experian, is suing Lifelock. Why? Because Lifelock charges their own customers a minimal $10 fee and in return they make sure there is always a temporary alert on your credit report. Experian claims this is costing them money in the long run. They say that Lifelock is lying to their customers, by leading them to believe they must pay Lifelock to have these temporary alerts places when the temporary (90 day) alerts are free.

I ask you? – Do you have the time to remember to place an alert with all three credit reporting agencies every three months like clockwork? It seems like $10 is a small price to pay for the services Lifelock is offering.

What Do Critics Know?

Despite the terrible reviews that the new movie “10,000 B.C.” has received by the ever-bitter circle of entertainment critics, I am still planning on going to see it in the morning. I could care less if there is accurately portrayed history, considering the fact that this is a period of pre-history we are talking about. There could be no better era for Hollywood to speculate about than a time when there is no written history. It’s ripe for our imaginations.

Plus, I am fascinated by the concept of the Wooly Mammoths and the different climate of the times. I’m all about the CGI and the scenery. I’m sure that if the script is less than stellar, it will not even cross my mind. I will be busy trying to plug into the landscape of the times.