I shared a post on Facebook about how drinking a glass of water before bedtime prevents heart attacks and commented: “Since I wake up every couple of hours anyway, I keep two bottles of water next to the bed and drink half a bottle each time I wake up all night long.”  The article has since been debunked, however I know how important hydration is to the cells of our body.  That might also be why at 62 I have zero elimination problems. A 44 year old  friend is chronically constipated, drinks coffee, cola, beer and wine and very little water.  She smokes cigarettes and takes ZZZquil each night to sleep, she eats fast food and junk food.  All these things suck the moisture out of your system, leaving a dry passage for elimination. To my spidey sense, when I encounter someone with the condition, it feels like the food in their digestion system is a slow moving train stuck in a tunnel.  Six to eight hours after eating, after your meal passes through your stomach and small intestine, it enters your large intestine/your colon for further digestion and absorption of water.  This is a big reason to drink water if you are constipated. You will eliminate that meal anywhere between 24-72 hours after eating it. Hydration is good for your system, the cells of your body love it.

Best laxative: Mix 2 oz of milk of magnesia into 4 ounces of warmed prune juice. Nurses call this “a black and white.” Follow with 8 oz warm water (essential to success). Expect a bowel movement within 30 minutes to 6 hours. Milk of Magnesia is a saline laxative which means it acts by drawing water into the intestine to help gently pass the bowel movement.

RELATED: A bowel movement should not take 45 minutes
How long from the time you eat food until you excrete it?
Healthy Poop color chart

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I rinse my paint brushes well after each session, and frequently as I paint. I don’t always remember, though, to clean them in soapy water afterward. I seldom have an official “end” to a session, I tend to think I’ll come back and finish up a few more things first.  At 3:00am this morning, I discovered that paint had built up in my favorite No. 8 chisel blender.  I used to toss them when that happened, but discovered an easy fix and some helpful links are below. Basically, after each session I clean the brushes in soapy water. If paint is built up, I can soak them a few hours in either Murphy’s Oil Soap or hand sanitizer, then rinse well.

Helpful links:
How to Get Dried and Hardened Paint Out of your Brushes
How to remove dried acrylic and oil paint from brushes
Clean Stubborn Acrylic Paint out of your Paint Brushes

A friend complained she had been “trying to discover who she was” but kept getting knocked off her spiritual path by well meaning family and friends who won’t leave her alone.  “How can I discover who I am when they keep bothering me?” I had to smile because that’s HOW we discover who we are, by how we interact with those closest to us.  Especially those who rub us the wrong way. That IS our spiritual path.

RELATED: When we fail to recognize who our spiritual family is

A friend emailed me and told me when she went to one of my websites, she got this warning: “Malicious Web Site Blocked!  This is a known malicious web site. It is recommended that you do NOT visit this site. For your protection, this web site has been blocked. Visit Symantec to learn more about phishing and internet security. ” I just discovered that –> Norton/Symantec is notorious for false positives. What I’d do is not continue on to the site at this time, but come back to it later when the warning hoax has moved on to another random page.
I had my hosting company check the server and they reported back: “We couldn’t find any issues from our end. We checked your domain “horizonsmagazine.com” in chrome, firefox, IE . The domain was loading without any warning.”

Ch-ch-changes! We don’t always think change is good but we can be pleasantly surprised.  In a recent reading, Domino lamented there’s no passion in her relationship.  She loves her husband of three years, but they don’t share the same interests and seem to be roommates more than anything.  They don’t fight and, while they do laugh together, each does their own thing, has their own job and keeps to themselves after work, he in his workshop and she in the den.  Neither is particularly interested in what the other is involved with.  There is no physical or emotional intimacy, they don’t even share meals.  She doesn’t want a divorce and she doesn’t want to date or seek a new man, but she misses having an intense interest in — anything.  Oh, she has her hobbies, she crafts and paints, but she hasn’t even felt like creating art the past year.  She feels if he showed an interest in her work, she’d be more encouraged and feel he was a part of it.  But she shows little interest in his work and when she does, he’s not into discussing it.  She doesn’t feel she has any friends.  She’s not a computer person, so she doesn’t do Facebook or belong to any forums that might help her feel supported.  Continue reading →

Meow!  Pffftt! RRowwlll! I could hear two cats screaming half a block away just before dawn.  Benny the marmalade ginger was at my elbow so I immediately wondered if it was YinYang, my 14 year old bandit-masked harlequin.  I ran out of the office in a flash to go outside and Benny ran right after me.  Entering the living room, I spy Yinnie sitting atop her box.  Too late, Benny runs across the room at her and, for a moment, everything went slow motion.  He stopped short, they bumped noses and did a quick mutual sniff of faces. Then he strolled over and hopped up on the couch to lie facing her.  She went back to sleep.   I see that even though YinYang is territorial and bitchy, making Benny run the gauntlet every time he comes in the house, deep down their first instinct after hearing the two cats fighting outside was each making sure the other was ok. What someone does in a crisis shows you who they are.  These guys will be fine.