Many hands make quick work

My grandma used to say "many hands make quick work".  Working with friends and family not only makes us more productive but turns a job into a social event.
This weekend, I volunteered with a friend to hand out recycle bags for an apartment complex that was starting recycling this Monday.  The plan was to deliver 170 bags, to 170 apartments, knocking on each door and introducing the new recycling.  With one person, Sunday afternoon in 80 degree weather, this would have been a chore.  But with 3 friends chatting and working together, the afternoon proved fun and it felt good to lend a hand.

  My grandparents had the attitude that many hands make quick work.  I remember my great grandma Biddle's joyful attitude as we would sit at the kitchen table shelling peas and visiting.  One year a fellow farmer/neighbor of my grandpa Alton's hurt his back. He couldn't harvest his farm.  My grandpa showed me a picture of all the neighborhood farmers and their tractors lined up ready to bring in the harvest for their injured friend.  I know my grandpa and his neighbors didn't have free time or extra money.  But what they did possess were big hearts and a strong sense of  what is right.  When my grandpa showed me those pictures later in his life, he was so proud of that "work day".  Not only did their work save a neighbor and friend from loosing a whole years work but the volunteer farmers gained lifetime benefits from their generosity. 

   As our families get scattered around the country, those simple afternoons of shelling peas with family or helping neighbors may be getting fewer and farther between.  But they are just as essential in our lives as they ever were. Maybe if our families no longer live next door, then lets create families in our communities and with our friends.  Getting together not just for fun but to get our work done by making quick work with many hands while enjoying the whole process for years to come.
   Just a thought for Monday.

As always, wishing you and your family a happy and healthy home,
Denise Frakes
Healthy home specialist
Owner- Blue Sky Services

Brain Droppings is an art

Inspiration appears in odd places....George Carlin was known for his use of words and brain dropping comedy but who knew he was also inspired by another?  Below is quote he included from page ix of his book Brain Droppings.  Enjoy..

" There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.  And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.  The world will not have it.  It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions.  It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.  You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.  You have to keep yourself open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.  Keep the channel open..."

                   Martha Gharm to Agnes de MIlle, Martha:  The Life and Work of Martha Graham

As I have always said,  it is not what you do but how you do it.   However we express our lives, the most important aspect is to be ourselves and trust our hearts directions, that we are here for a reason.

As always, wishing you a healthy and happy home,
          Denise Frakes
     

Let food be your medicine- the hippocratic oath

In cleaning and in health the sames rules seem to apply for good

Prevent as much as possible

Use the mildes and safest means possible

and leave nothing behind and do no harm!!

Below is the modern version of the hippocratic oath

I thought spring is a good time to revisit this oath

A widely used modern version of the traditional oath was penned in 1964 by Dr. Louis Lasagna, former Principal of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University:[8]

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.


I will not be ashamed to say "I know not", nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patients recovery.


I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, be respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter.

May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

As Always, wishing you a happy and healthy home!
Denise Frakes
Co-owner of Blue Sky Services
Certified Healthy Home Specialist- NCHH