Some Uplifting and Helpful, Sane, Links

Instead of using their Federal Credit Cards to go to brothels and such, these folks are helping their fellow man. Cool!

Instead of using their Federal credit cards to go to brothels and such, these folks are helping their fellow man. Cool!

In today’s busy world it seems that most of us are juggling a great deal. Work, family, friends, and very often in this economy—a side business or two. It can all get to be too much.

And of course our culture, unlike several others, doesn’t typically allow for the long term vacations that, say, many working people in Europe will get—e.g. six weeks or so of paid vacation a year. One would think looking forward to a rest like that yearly could help keep your batteries recharged.

We’ve got to deal with the culture we’re living in, of course, and that means that we need to keep re-charging our physical, emotional, and spiritual batteries on an ongoing and regular basis.

Your faithful Ms. Sanity has assembled some links that may help you to do just that. Complete – as you might have guessed – with a bit of snarky commentary involving current events.

http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2009/06/18/managing-your-energy/ I’ve linked here to a particular post on this overall most excellent blog on keeping your act together. This post covers the basics…if you aren’t paying attention to the list of things in this item, there’s little chance that you’re going to feel good and function well.

http://www.powerfull-living.biz/blog/ Life coach Lorraine Cohen has many useful and thought provoking ideas about how to live a fuller, more balanced life. Check her out.

http://blog.fruitfultime.com/ This is a blog which not only offers reasonably priced productivity software, but some actual thoughts on ways we can use our time more productively. This is definitely worth a look. I haven’t used their software and thus cannot recommend it, but if their software is as well thought out as their blog, it’s probably pretty good!
http://fedsfeedfamilies.gov/ I was surprised by how hard it was to find some linky proof regarding this story I read in last week’s “Parade” magazine, regarding a few of our Federal employees getting things like laser eye surgery and GOING TO BROTHELS using their work credit cards. I kid you not. Here’s the link to the story.
In case you can’t be bothered to go see the story, here’s an excerpt:
Ten years ago, Congress created a new system of government credit cards for federal employees booking work-related travel. The cards were meant to curb waste and abuse. But since their introduction, charges have doubled—from $4.39 billion in 1999 to $8.28 billion last year.
Among the expenses flagged in a new report from the Congressional Research Service: $3700 for laser eye surgery, $4100 for a first-class trip to Hawaii, and $100 million in unclaimed refunds for airline tickets that were purchased but never used.
Now, the link at the very top is the uplifting bit. Instead of wasting 100 million in unused airline tickets (!!!) the people at the FedsFeedFamilies.gov website are collecting food for their fellow Americans. That’s a cool thing, truly. They collected 27,654 lbs of food in June. Good for them!
The thing is, how many families could $100 million feed? For how long? Geez. Well, okay, that part’s insane.
And WHY are people going hungry in this country? What’s wrong with this picture?
Guess Ms. Sanity is going to go look at the happy, uplifting, sane websites now.  Where we put our focus matters…so I’m going to (try to) focus on the good stuff! Have a great weekend, folks!

July 11, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Insane, Sane, Tips

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