Jan Van Blarcum, Owner and Founder of Creative Tutors was recently featured in Frisco Style Magazine.

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The Eddie Eagle GunSafe® Program teaches children in pre-K through third grade four important steps to take if they find a gun. These steps are presented by the program's mascot, Eddie Eagle®, in an easy-to-remember format consisting of the following simple rules: If you see a gun: STOP! Don't Touch. Leave the Area. Tell an Adult. Seems simple enough! But parents across the nation are debating this program and if it should be allowed in schools. Guns are dangerous and kids need to know it.

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True, it is a growing concern that our nations children are becoming obese. With high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol becoming part of the their health concerns how do we help children practice habits that will help them live longer and healthier lives?

Richard Simmons knows personally how it feels to be a child with a weight issue. Cutting public schools funding for PE and Extra Curricular Activities are not acceptable options! To cut PE as well as reduce or limit recess prevents a child from learning good habits about health and weight loss. Additionally, children need physical exercise and good eating habits to preform better in their daily subjects. Keeping focused and energized for Math and Reading helps the child preform better on their daily work and to be a good student. Ultimately, helping the school achieve higher marks on their standardize testing requirements under No Child Left Behind (NCLB.)

State testing will become more difficult in the coming years as the new testing requirements begin to be implemented. (TAKS, STARS, EOG'S)

A healthy life style includes; eating right and including exercise in your life. From an early age, our children need to learn both habits as they move through different ages and stages of their lives.

Healthy children have happier lives keeping depression rates lower for our nations children. Parents, pay attention to this issue. It will help your child live a healthier, happier and stronger life!

Learn more about this important issue by listening to some of the radio interviews by Richard Simmons.

Worrying. Pacing. Nail-biting. Sweating. Completely blanking out. Gasping for air. Tick-Tock. Ahhhhhhhh!

Nothing causes more stress than a test. No one knows that better than Creative Tutors, an in-home educational tutoring service. Creative Tutors help students sort through and understand tough material that will eventually be covered on a test. Often, it just takes a new approach or strategy to help a child master — and recall that information — at test time.

Whether it’s a pop quiz, six-week assessment, TAKS, EOGS or the SAT/ACT, here are some ways to help students prepare and do their best:

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NCTE/Norman Mailer Writing Award (full details) The Norman Mailer Writers Colony and the National Council of Teachers of English will jointly sponsor the 2010 Norman Mailer High School and College Writing Awards.

Writing Category: Creative Nonfiction Norman Mailer produced extraordinary works in many genres, including the category of this year’s award: creative nonfiction. Students may submit work in any of the many subgenres of creative nonfiction: memoir or autobiography, essay, literary journalism, profiles of people or places, and so on. Whatever its type, the best work will be true material presented with compelling literary merit. 

One winner in each category will receive a cash award and will be an honored guest at the Colony’s National Award Ceremony in New York City on October 19, 2010. Winners will be notified by mid-September. Finalists, Semifinalists Four finalists in each category will be awarded trophies. Sixteen semifinalists in each category will be awarded certificates.

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Try Walnuts to Improve Cholesterol
Walnuts are rich in anti-inflammatory nutrients, including omega-3 fatty acids and ellagic acid. Previous research has shown that the regular consumption of walnuts appears to improve cardiovascular function following high-fat meals.
In diabetics, who face an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, walnuts also appear to improve cardiovascular function.
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A newly published clinical research trial, which appears in the “European Journal of Clinical Nutrition,” evaluated the effects of a walnut-supplemented diet on 87 adults with normal-to-high cholesterol levels in their blood.
This study used a “crossover” approach, in which all of the patient volunteers received walnut supplements for six months, and were then switched to a walnut-free diet for another six months. During this 12-month study, blood tests were performed at the beginning of the study, and then at four, six, 10, and 12 months into the study.
Because of the crossover design of this study, the researchers were able to directly compare the effects of walnut supplementation on body weight, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol), HDL cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol), and fatty acids (triglycerides). Together, these compounds are referred to as lipids.
As has been observed in previous clinical studies of shorter duration, this study found that a six-month period of walnut supplementation resulted in significant reductions in total cholesterol and triglyceride levels. LDL levels were also reduced, although this finding just barely failed to reach statistical significance.
These favorable changes in blood lipid levels were found to be more pronounced in patients with elevated total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels. (I should note that significant reductions in LDL blood levels have been observed in response to adding walnuts to the diet of patients with elevated LDL levels, in other studies.)
While statins, and other lipid-lowering drugs, have revolutionized the management of elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, and have been shown to significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (and death due to cardiovascular disease), not all patients can tolerate these drugs.
As with all medications, these lipid-lowering drugs are not equally effective in all patients, and many patients will continue to have elevated LDL cholesterol and/or triglyceride levels despite taking lipid-lowering drugs.
Studies suggest that the addition of walnuts to one’s diet may be a useful adjunct in lowering elevated LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels. As always, I encourage everyone to check with their doctor before making any significant alterations in their diet, especially if you have one or more chronic illnesses.

Most young people start off with a bank account and a few obligations such as rent and their consumable type expenses along with a small paycheck. Wouldn't you agree?

In the "olden days" before parenthood we also were just starting out and had to work from a tight budget that came from our small paycheck.

Back in the day, the best known secret... "The Envelope System!" was once a familiar envelope budgeting system that was popular with most people just embarking on their life journey. Those of us that used the system felt empowered and in control of the new life we were seeking! Our parents had used "The Envelope System" and had done OK with it. Who were we to challenge it? Now we would model ourselves after those spend thrifty parents that had survived the depression. We too would manage just fine in the world of responsibility and managing of our affairs.

Flash forward 25 years and careers have grown and our paychecks have too; children were born and are now seeking their freedom from our secure nest.

But, these children have grown up differently then we did. Technology impacts their world and ours everywhere we look. With the impact of technology in our daily lives and the lives of our children the envelope system has become outdated. Frankly, a little impossible to use since we are virtually a non-cash society where instant pass key cards, debit cards, on-line banking and credit cards are a means to get what we want and to get it fast.

Imagine a scene where you begin to discuss the urgency of teaching your graduating senior to manage their daily, weekly and monthly spending. You spend time talking about money and express to your child how important it is to take control of their money immediately so that they can enjoy a future sprinkled with experiences where career opportunities blur with the joys filled by family and friends. Then help your child picture a goal to acquire money that they have earned and stashed away in the bank and in their investment portfolio. All it takes is deliberate action on their part to make the dream a reality. Everyone is getting excited about such a dream of prosperity and success.

Now, you are excited and begin to pull out paper envelopes to explain the details of how you and the generations before you accomplished a similar goal of personal regiment and the trusty "Envelope System."

Your child is now either laughing hysterically and unable to stop to breathe or they have completely come to the conclusion that you have totally lost it and they need to check you into a psych ward at your county hospital. No way are they going to be caught using some paper envelopes to manage their important financial future. Nor would they want anyone to know you even know about such a system let alone suggested it to them. Now, they are frantically trying to figure out a way to get you to stop trying to teach them anything.

Do not worry! "The Envelope System" has joined the age of technology! Now everything is possible! A software program called Mvelopes has taken "The Envelope System" and turned it into a software program that you can use to help teach your child a tried and true system of keeping on track and out of debt by managing virtual envelopes as they learn to spend and save. And yes, all in "Real Time" and information available with their cell phone. The old message that "Cash is King" is still true today and I can just bet that once your child realizes the value of working hard and earning their own money that they to want to be king of their cash!

Check out this software and make it your mission to empower your kids with tools to help them become successful money managers.
The Mvelopes Online Spending Management System can help you teach your high school graduate to budget money and save more NOW!