Everyone knows how important a good breakfast is to your health. Your body needs fuel to get your day started. Even if you just have a bowl of cold cereal with fruit. at least you are giving your heart, muscles and brain something to work with.

My favorite breakfast cereal is Special K with strawberries. The strawberries are dehydrated and they plump up when you add milk to the bowl. Sometimes I will add more fresh fruit to the bowl, like banana slices or a handful of blueberries.

The best part of summer and autumn is having all the fresh fruit to cook with or add to cereal, salads and snacks.

We just returned home from our wonderful trip up to Michigan. We had a great time. The weather was wonderful (you never know what to expect in Michigan). Everything was great I could have stayed there another month. One great thing that came of this vacation was realizing how much I missed my free time. I never realized it until I had some during this vacation. After some long thought I went into my job today and gave my notice.

I know it sounds like a rash decision but it has been on my mind for a while now. In between working two jobs and keeping up with the house I had no free time whatsoever. I think I just got to a point where the money wasn’t all that important anymore. My next adventure is going to be getting back into shape. Now I have no excuse for not working out and taking care of myself.

Usually when you think of heart disease you picture old, fragile men and women in their late 70’s or early 80’s.  Today new research has shown that heart problems can begin in children as young as 8 years-old.  Doctors in Chicago are suggesting cholesterol medication to children if they have to much LDL, or bad cholesterol, in their blood.

Obviously trying other methods first such as losing weight and increasing activity would be the best choice.  But when children as young as 8 are suffering from obesity sometimes medication is the only option.  Unfortunately obesity has become an epidemic for adults as well as children.  With over a third of U.S. children overweight and 17% obese; prescribing medication to young children may start sooner than we would like.

On a typical day you will hear people talking about the outrageous cost of food and gas.  Standing in line at the clothing store I overheard people talking about money.  My coworkers sit and talk about how they need to change jobs to find something closer to home due to the cost of gas.  I have heard business men standing around talking about the state ofhe nation and the downward slope of the economy.

But nothing touched my heart more than an article in the Wall Street Journal.  The article was titled “Rising Food Costs Further Pressure World Hunger.”  I hadn’t put two and two together before reading this article.  The article stated that 982 million people were hungry last year.  In 2006 the number was 860 million which is still horrifying.  But now with the increase in food prices the number has reached 127 million, roughly the population of Japan.  Something needs to be done about this situation before it gets any further out of hand.  With the election coming up in November hopefully the U.S. and the economy will begin to take the steps that are necessary to ensure measurable improvements.