Try to remember some times in the past when you were totally relaxed. Maybe it was a recent vacation or a nice sunny weekend. What do these situations all have in common that might contribute to you being in a calm state? While you may have your own unique requirements, there are four common conditions that most people find contribute to calmness.
Physical Comfort
Pay attention to how your body feels and try to make it as comfortable as possible. Is your clothing comfortable? Is the temperature ok? Is your chair comfortable? Try to make changes to your environment to make yourself as comfortable as possible.
Fresh Air
Getting fresh air is a very important condition for calmness. This is one reason why the mountains or the beach are more relaxing than the city. Try opening a window to get a little fresh air.
Silence
People always try to find a quiet place to relax. As you go through your day, you are bombarded with noises. Traffic, people talking, babies crying, electronic equipment, radios and televisions all contribute to the noise pollution that can cause unnecessary stress. Eliminating noise from your daily life can help make you a calmer person. One way to do this is with noise canceling headphones or earplugs.
Stimulants
Caffeine, nicotine, sugar and other drugs all act as stimulants on the human body. You will never be able to fully relax if you are charged up with sugar and caffeine. Try switching to water, herbal tea or a diet caffeine-free soda.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
CDCAN REPORT #010-2011: GOVERNOR WILL PROPOSE OVER $12.5 IN CUTS - OVER $750 MILLION CUTS TO DEVELOPMENTAL SERVICES; $1.7 BILLION TO MEDI-CAL; $1.5 BILLION TO CALWORKS AND MORE
To respond to this, please contact CDCAN first. The information is at the bottom of the post. Thank you all!
~Jane
------------------ FWD ------------------
Hi all,
If you and/or someone you know (or everyone you know!) writes a letter to the governors office and your legislators, perhaps we could at least minimize some of the cuts that are occurring to families of children with special needs. These families are all ready struggling as there were cuts the past few years but this is getting to the point were some families are going to end up on the streets, or giving up their children as the cuts get deeper and deeper and more programs some single parents will find themselves in the position of having no one to watch their special needs child so that they can work to support their family. As a group parents of children with special needs are loud enough to "make some noise" so lets get heard!!!
Dian
Dian Elaine Schneider
Resource Specialist
H.E.A.R.T.S. Connection FRC
3101 N. Sillect Ave., Suite 115
Bakersfield, CA 93308
661.328.9055 ext. 256
Fax -
661.328.9940
"What lies behind us
and what lies ahead of us
is tiny compared to
what lives within us."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
~Jane
------------------ FWD ------------------
Hi all,
If you and/or someone you know (or everyone you know!) writes a letter to the governors office and your legislators, perhaps we could at least minimize some of the cuts that are occurring to families of children with special needs. These families are all ready struggling as there were cuts the past few years but this is getting to the point were some families are going to end up on the streets, or giving up their children as the cuts get deeper and deeper and more programs some single parents will find themselves in the position of having no one to watch their special needs child so that they can work to support their family. As a group parents of children with special needs are loud enough to "make some noise" so lets get heard!!!
Dian
Dian Elaine Schneider
Resource Specialist
H.E.A.R.T.S. Connection FRC
3101 N. Sillect Ave., Suite 115
Bakersfield, CA 93308
661.328.9055 ext. 256
Fax -
661.328.9940
"What lies behind us
and what lies ahead of us
is tiny compared to
what lives within us."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
----- Original Message -------
Staff,
This will be a difficult year. It is important that we keep our "families" informed. Please encourage parents to write letters and contact their representatives before services are cut. They should tell reps what these cuts will mean to their children's lives.
Susan
-----------------------
Subject: Re: CDCAN REPORT #010-2011: GOVERNOR WILL PROPOSE OVER $12.5 IN CUTS - OVER $750 MILLION CUTS TO DEVELOPMENTAL SERVICES; $1.7 BILLION TO MEDI-CAL; $1.5 BILLION TO CALWORKS AND MORE
CDCAN DISABILITY RIGHTS REPORT
#010-2011 – JANUARY 10, 2011 MONDAYCALIFORNIA DISABILITY COMMUNITY ACTION NETWORK: Advocacy Without Borders: One Community – Accountability With Action - California Disability Community Action Network Disability Rights News goes out to over 55,000 people with disabilities, mental health needs, seniors, traumatic brain & other injuries, veterans with disabilities and mental health needs, their families, workers, community organizations, including those in Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino, African American a
To reply to this report write: MARTY OMOTO at martyomoto@rcip.com
WEBSITE: www.cdcan.us
TWITTER: www.twitter.com - "MartyOmoto"
REMEMBERING THE LIFE OF TOMMY YERBY OF MORGAN HILL
California State Budget Crisis: GOVERNOR BROWN PROPOSES OVER $12.5 BILLION IN MASSIVE PERMANENT REDUCTIONS INCLUDING $750 MILLION CUT TO DEVELOPMENTAL SERVICE; $1.7 BILLION CUT TO MEDI-CAL, $1.5 BILLION CUT TO CALWORKS PROGRAMS
ALSO CALLS FOR VOTER APPROVAL IN JUNE SPECIAL ELECTION TO EXTEND TEMPORARY TAX HIKES FOR FIVE YEARS
Proposed Cuts Will Have Major Impact On Children & Adults with Disabilities (including Developmental), mental health needs, the blind, seniors, their families, low income workers, community organizations, facilities and workers who provide supports & services across State
SACRAMENTO, CALIF
(CDCAN) [Updated 01/10/2011
10:50 AM
(Pacific Time)]
-
Governor Jerry Brown is calling for over $12.5 billion in massive permanent reductions to a wide range of state funded programs, including regional centers, In-Home Supportive Services,
CalWORKs,
Medi-Cal, SSI/SSP, mental health and more.
He will also propose placing on a special election ballot in June for voter approval a five year
extension of over $8 billion in temporary tax increases set to expire this year that were enacted in February 2009 as part of the 2009-2010 State Budget passed four months early.
The Governor will propose this morning over $12.5 billion in spending cuts including over $750 million in cuts to developmental services (regional centers and developmental centers), $1.5 billion cuts to
CalWORKS, the state's "welfare to work" program that includes many parents and children with special needs, $1.7 billion in reductions to
Medi-Cal.
No details were provided in the press statement.
In addition the Governor will propose a cut of about 8% to state employee pay.
In a press statement issued this morning, Governor Brown said that the spending cuts
"…will be painful, requiring sacrifice from every sector of the state, but we have no choice. For 10 years, we've had budget gimmicks and tricks that pushed us deep into debt. We must now return California to fiscal responsibility and get our state on the road to economic recovery and job growth."
The Governor proposed spending reductions both for the current budget now in place – referred to as "mid-year" cuts that the Legislature would need to take action on immediately in the next few weeks – and also proposed cuts and other measures to be enacted sometime during the 2011-2012 State budget year that begins July 1, 2011.
All of the Governor's proposals require approval of the Legislature.
More details when the Governor begins his press conference.
VERY URGENT!!!!!
PLEASE HELP CDCAN CONTINUE ITS WORK!!!
JANUARY 10, 2011 – YOUR HELP IS NEEDED
CDCAN
Townhall Telemeetings, reports and alerts and other activities cannot continue without your help.
To continue the CDCAN website, the CDCAN News Reports. sent out and read by over 55,000 people and organizations, policy makers and media across California and to continue the CDCAN
Townhall Telemeetings which since December 2003 have connected thousands of people with disabilities, seniors, mental health needs, people with MS and other disorders, people with traumatic brain and other injuries to public policy makers, legislators, and issues.
Please send your contribution/donation (make payable to "CDCAN" or "California Disability Community Action Network):
CDCAN
1225 8th Street Suite 480 - Sacramento, CA 95814
paypal on the CDCAN site is not yet working – will be soon.
MANY, MANY THANKS TO CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF ADULT DAY HEALTH CENTERS, VENTURA COUNTY AUTISM SOCIETY, RESPITE, INC., LOS ANGELES RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY SERVING DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED ADULTS LARC RANCH, FEAT OF SACRAMENTO, EASTER SEALS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, EMMANUEL AND FAMILY, MICHAEL DIMMITT, PEOPLE FIRST OF SAN LUIS OBISPO, BOB BENSON, the Pacific Homecare Services, Toward Maximum Independence, Inc (TMI), Friends of Children with Special Needs, Southside Arts Center, San Francisco Bay Area Autism Society of America, Hope Services in San Jose, FEAT of Sacramento (Families for Early Autism Treatment), Sacramento Gray Panthers, Bill Wong, Tri-Counties Regional Center, Life Steps, Parents Helping Parents, Work Training, Foothill Autism Alliance, Arc Contra Costa, Pause4Kids, Training Toward Self Reliance, Californians for Disability Rights, Inc (CDR) including CDR chapters, CHANCE Inc, Strategies To Empower People (STEP), Harbor Regional Center, Asian American parents groups, Resources for Independent Living and many other Independent Living Centers, several regional centers, People First chapters, IHSS workers, other self advocacy and family support groups, developmental center families, adoption assistance program families and children, and others across California.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Stress : When Something is Going Wrong
When something is already going wrong, worrying about it reduces our ability to concentrate on the task at hand. This causes the situation to get worse. When we are worried, our mind jumps all over the place and we lose the ability to make good decisions. We can only improve a bad situation if we can focus 100% of our attention on the task, which means not worrying about the outcome. Here are some steps you can take to do this.
Determine the Worst-Case Scenario
Knowing the worst possible outcome will help put things in perspective. Are you going make your boss disappointed or lose your job? Are you going to get a B- on a project or flunk out of school?
Accept It
Once you have determined the worst-case scenario, you need to mentally accept it. Assume that it is going to happen. If you are resigned to the fact that the worst outcome is going to come true, then you can stop worrying about that possibility. After you accept the situation, you can move on to the next step.
Improve the Worst-Case Scenario
Now that you are free from worrying about the outcome, you can devote your full attention toward improving it. Try to find ways to reduce the negative effects of the outcome. You may not be able to turn a losing situation into a winning situation, but you might be able to make it neutral or at the very least, less bad.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
HOW TO: Back Up Your Social Media Presence Before the Ball Drops
Remember how we were all freaking out on New Year's Eve, 1999, convinced that the world as we know it would end at the hands of machines, of course? Well, we weathered that storm and then some. Still, as we shamble forward into the next decade, it might be prudent to take pause and take stock of the years behind us. Translation: Back up your stuff.
Think of it as stockpiling food and building a fallout shelter for the 21st century. We have a ton of information, photos and memories scattered around the web that we would be loathe to lose, and while it's unlikely that the entire Internet is going to come crashing down in the next week or so, it still might be wise to put some of that stuff in an iron box for safe keeping.
Read on, and Christina Warren and I will show you how to
---------------
Back Up Your Facebook
---------------
We're coming pretty close to living our lives on Facebook it's our photo album, diary and mailbox, all in one so why leave all that info up to the whims of the all-mighty servers? This October, the social network got hip to data portability after it started allowing users to download their profiles photos, statues, updates, videos and all.
The process is really too simple to forgo. Here's how you can stow away your social life for safekeeping: 1). Go to Account Settings, 2). Click on "Download Your Information" and allow Facebook to download your info, 3). Wait for an e-mail that will let you know your info is ready (it takes a while, what with all the stuff you probably have on Facebook), 4). Go through the security test that allows you to download your info (kudos on that one, Facebook), and, voila, your profile is ported to your desktop in a nifty folder. Do this before you go through with that New Year's resolution to make your profile less scandalous you know, for when you're old and gray and full of sleep and nodding by the fire.
---------------
Back Up Your Tweets
---------------
Yes, the Library of Congress is now hoarding tweets, but that doesn't do much for the casual user looking to keep a log of his own mundane musings, now does it?
Thankfully, you're got some options. There's TweetStream, which lets you back up your data as well as mine it for information and statistics. (Be warned, this service takes a looooong time to gather your info).
And if TweetStream doesn't strike your fancy, TweetScan, a site we covered back in 2009, will track your data back to 2007, and, using OAuth, will even grab your timeline, tweets from friends and direct messages.
Pinboard, a paid, Delicious-like (RIP) tool, also lets you store your tweets you can also back up or archive tweets from other usernames or from hashtags, as well as add favorites from a username and turn links embedded in tweets into bookmarks.
---------------
Back Up Your Blog
---------------
After Tumblr's epic outage the other week, we showed you all how to back up your blogs. Well, we're just going to reiterate that right now, along with some solutions for WordPress as well. Remember how you felt when your mom threw away all your old journals, crammed to the margins with angsty poetry? Well, that's not a feeling one would like to replicate later in life (unless it was relief in which case, disregard).
---------------
Tumblr
---------------
Last year, Tumblr launched a backup app that allows users to save their blogs so that they can be viewed on any computer, burned to a CD or hosted as an archive of static HTML files. The app is super easy to use: Simply download, enter your Tumblr sign-in info and save your blog to your desktop (it looks like the below screenshot). You can launch the app and backup more info every time you post as well.
Note, this app is only for Mac OS X (10.5 or higher), but there are other options for those who use different operating systems.
---------------
WordPress
---------------
If your blog or website uses WordPress, grabbing a backup file of all your posts, pages and comments is easy. In the WordPress dashboard, just go to Tools, Export and choose what types of posts you want to export.
If you want a backup of your entire WordPress database, the excellent WP-DB-Backup plugin can make scheduled database backups for your WordPress site at intervals you choose and even e-mail you the backup file.
---------------
Back Up Your Photos
---------------
If you're like millions of Internet users, you probably upload most of your photos to a photo-sharing site like Flickr or Facebook. While you're backing up your blog entries, tweets and Facebook messages, it might be a good idea to go ahead and archive all of your photos, too. If nothing else, this is a great way to destroy the evidence from that sorority beer bong tournament in college.
Flickr is a great service and in terms of reliability, it's consistently solid. What's less consistent is the whims of its parent company, Yahoo. If the Delicious debacle has taught us anything, it's that Yahoo isn't afraid to sell off or shut down a service with millions of daily users.
Lots of apps and tools let you back up your Flickr photo stream, but a quick, fuss-free way to unload years of photo uploads is the Adobe Air app Flump. The app works on Mac, Windows and Linux and downloads a copy of each photo in your stream to a folder of your choice.
Be aware that while this will grab each and every photo, tags, titles and photo sets are not preserved. There a few other alternatives if you're willing to invest more time in the process, but Flump gets the job done.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, matspersson0
---------------
Reviews: Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, Internet, Linux, Tumblr, Windows, WordPress, adobe AIR, iStockphoto
More About: facebook, flickr, social media, tumblr, twitter, WordPress
For more Social Media coverage:
Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad
Think of it as stockpiling food and building a fallout shelter for the 21st century. We have a ton of information, photos and memories scattered around the web that we would be loathe to lose, and while it's unlikely that the entire Internet is going to come crashing down in the next week or so, it still might be wise to put some of that stuff in an iron box for safe keeping.
Read on, and Christina Warren and I will show you how to
---------------
Back Up Your Facebook
---------------
We're coming pretty close to living our lives on Facebook it's our photo album, diary and mailbox, all in one so why leave all that info up to the whims of the all-mighty servers? This October, the social network got hip to data portability after it started allowing users to download their profiles photos, statues, updates, videos and all.
The process is really too simple to forgo. Here's how you can stow away your social life for safekeeping: 1). Go to Account Settings, 2). Click on "Download Your Information" and allow Facebook to download your info, 3). Wait for an e-mail that will let you know your info is ready (it takes a while, what with all the stuff you probably have on Facebook), 4). Go through the security test that allows you to download your info (kudos on that one, Facebook), and, voila, your profile is ported to your desktop in a nifty folder. Do this before you go through with that New Year's resolution to make your profile less scandalous you know, for when you're old and gray and full of sleep and nodding by the fire.
---------------
Back Up Your Tweets
---------------
Yes, the Library of Congress is now hoarding tweets, but that doesn't do much for the casual user looking to keep a log of his own mundane musings, now does it?
Thankfully, you're got some options. There's TweetStream, which lets you back up your data as well as mine it for information and statistics. (Be warned, this service takes a looooong time to gather your info).
And if TweetStream doesn't strike your fancy, TweetScan, a site we covered back in 2009, will track your data back to 2007, and, using OAuth, will even grab your timeline, tweets from friends and direct messages.
Pinboard, a paid, Delicious-like (RIP) tool, also lets you store your tweets you can also back up or archive tweets from other usernames or from hashtags, as well as add favorites from a username and turn links embedded in tweets into bookmarks.
---------------
Back Up Your Blog
---------------
After Tumblr's epic outage the other week, we showed you all how to back up your blogs. Well, we're just going to reiterate that right now, along with some solutions for WordPress as well. Remember how you felt when your mom threw away all your old journals, crammed to the margins with angsty poetry? Well, that's not a feeling one would like to replicate later in life (unless it was relief in which case, disregard).
---------------
Tumblr
---------------
Last year, Tumblr launched a backup app that allows users to save their blogs so that they can be viewed on any computer, burned to a CD or hosted as an archive of static HTML files. The app is super easy to use: Simply download, enter your Tumblr sign-in info and save your blog to your desktop (it looks like the below screenshot). You can launch the app and backup more info every time you post as well.
Note, this app is only for Mac OS X (10.5 or higher), but there are other options for those who use different operating systems.
---------------
WordPress
---------------
If your blog or website uses WordPress, grabbing a backup file of all your posts, pages and comments is easy. In the WordPress dashboard, just go to Tools, Export and choose what types of posts you want to export.
If you want a backup of your entire WordPress database, the excellent WP-DB-Backup plugin can make scheduled database backups for your WordPress site at intervals you choose and even e-mail you the backup file.
---------------
Back Up Your Photos
---------------
If you're like millions of Internet users, you probably upload most of your photos to a photo-sharing site like Flickr or Facebook. While you're backing up your blog entries, tweets and Facebook messages, it might be a good idea to go ahead and archive all of your photos, too. If nothing else, this is a great way to destroy the evidence from that sorority beer bong tournament in college.
Flickr is a great service and in terms of reliability, it's consistently solid. What's less consistent is the whims of its parent company, Yahoo. If the Delicious debacle has taught us anything, it's that Yahoo isn't afraid to sell off or shut down a service with millions of daily users.
Lots of apps and tools let you back up your Flickr photo stream, but a quick, fuss-free way to unload years of photo uploads is the Adobe Air app Flump. The app works on Mac, Windows and Linux and downloads a copy of each photo in your stream to a folder of your choice.
Be aware that while this will grab each and every photo, tags, titles and photo sets are not preserved. There a few other alternatives if you're willing to invest more time in the process, but Flump gets the job done.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, matspersson0
---------------
Reviews: Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, Internet, Linux, Tumblr, Windows, WordPress, adobe AIR, iStockphoto
More About: facebook, flickr, social media, tumblr, twitter, WordPress
For more Social Media coverage:
Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad
Book Review: "My Parent has an Autism Spectrum Disorder
@earlyautism: Book Review: "My Parent has an Autism Spectrum Disorder A Workbook for Children and Teens" by Barba | autisable http://ow.ly/3v9Hf
Twitter Link: http://twitter.com/earlyautism/statuses/19923065127305216
Twitter Link: http://twitter.com/earlyautism/statuses/19923065127305216
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