This seems like a good day to share a blast from the past with one of my favorite groups from the mid-60′s… Jay and the Americans singing Come a Little Bit Closer:
If you have any memories about this song, I hope you’ll share them in the comment section below. 
I’d like to share a simple method that has helped me a great deal in terms of daily productivity:
First thing the next morning I boot up my computer and my To Do software. Then, as I complete the three tasks, I check them off in the program. It sounds silly, but I get great satisfaction each time I check as completed one of the three jobs that have been scheduled for that day.
Finally, and I feel this point is important so I’ll bold it: I do not shut down my computer UNTIL I’ve completed those three tasks.
Interestingly enough, the three jobs are easy to do because in my head I’ve already visualized completing them.
Indeed, the power of my subconscious mind seems to etch paths during sleep that allow me to just flow the work out the next day.
Neat, eh?
Oh, one more thing…
If you work in an environment full of distractions or if you could use a powerful audio tool to help you stay focused like a laser, you’ll find my Crystal Focus CD extremely useful.
As a point of fact, I have it running on my CD player right now as I concentrate on writing this tip.
As a productivity tool, it beats the tar out of expensive energy drinks and having to deal with caffeine jitters!
Click here to learn how this powerful CD (or downloadable MP3s) can help you stay focused and on task.
That’s it for this time.
My first and only wife and I celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary yesterday.
It’s pretty hard to believe that we’ve been married that many years, though I have the gray hair, lined face, and white beard to prove it.
Happily, my wife Ellen looks as beautiful as the day we married.
To celebrate our anniversary here on the blog, I thought I’d share a song called Rivers Keep on Flowing that I wrote for Ellen last year.
This song is on my soon-to-be released CD Old Man Still Got Juice and if you click on the play icon below you can listen to Rivers Keep on Flowing right now!
It’ll take you three minutes and fifteen seconds to listen to the entire song, and you can stop it and surf on out of here before that if you don’t like what you hear.
But I think you’ll like it.
At least I sure hope so!
Well, I turn 65 in three days, so this beautiful Thursday morning I bit the bullet and drove over to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my driver’s license.
Chet Day at 55 before visiting DMV to renew driver’s license.
Before doing so, however, I spent almost forty minutes trying to track down every conceivable piece of documentation to prove that I was indeed who I’ve been since popping out of my mother 64 years and 362 days ago.
The documentation I took with me…
Now, you’re probably thinking I’m a nut case for taking all this stuff with me to the DMV just to renew a driver’s license.
Not so.
I’m not a nut case.
In fact, I’m probably one of the sanest 64 year old eccentrics still walking on the planet.
No, I’m not a nut case.
I am a realist who has been burned so many times by bureaucracy that I never go to a government office without having as many documents as possible.
Chet Day at 64 years, 362 days, after visiting DMV.
You see, the one time in my life when I didn’t go a DMV to renew a driver’s license without the above envelope of documents, I had to drive home, dig out all the paper proving I was me, drive back to the DMV, wait in line for another hour and a half, and then present a birth certificate that looked even then like it had been washed in the Ganges River by thousands of supplicants after being stomped on by wine makers who followed the old ways of reducing grapes to liquid with their feet.
Anyway, I’ll spare you the details of that odious encounter, the one where I learned to carry my documents with me since we now live in a society where before too much longer I’m confident we’ll be required to respond to “Your papers?” with identity cards… or maybe the authorities will just scan our required beneath the skin computer chips containing everything about us from the number of moles on our left arm to the size of our credit card debt.
Now, here’s the wild thing about all this…
Since I had my documentation with me, do you think I was asked to prove anything?
Of course not.
The polite lady merely asked me to respond to the following questions…
I don’t know what No. 5 has to do with getting a driver’s license, but then I also don’t know why we have to renew a driver’s license every few years, either.
Actually, I do know why we have to renew every few years…
… to keep the state coffers from going too far into debt and to pay the DMV workers who in my experience range from kind, polite, and helpful individuals to mean-spirited pricks who get off on intimidating the people whose taxes and fees keep their pay checks coming in.
Anyway, to make a long story short, after flubbing two road sign identifications and passing the eye exam and forking over $32.00 my license was renewed for eight more years.
Which means I won’t have to go through this whole DMV experience again until a couple of days shy of my 73 birthday.
Which means, depending on how things go in terms of health and getting hit by drunk drivers and falling off a roof while cleaning out rain gutters, I may or may NOT ever have to visit the Department of Motor Vehicles again.
I guess there are some advantages to aging, eh?
If you have a DMV story to share, please click the “Leave comment” link below and start typing!
If you suffer from chronic constipation, as so many aging boomers and junk food chomping youngsters do, you may want to try adding some barley into your life.
Barley, you see, has been used traditionally as a treatment for constipation, due to its high fiber content.
Eating at least three servings a day of meals containing some barley may well clear or dramatically improve any chronic constipation problems.
As a side effect, several small studies suggest that high fiber barley, barley bran flour, and barley oil may reduce cholesterol by increasing the elimination of cholesterol from the body.
The excellent recipe you’re about to read may help you have the cleanest colon in your entire neighborhood. Goodbye chronic constipation!
BANANA BARLEY LOAF
Makes 2 loaves
3 cups barley flour
1 tsp sea salt
1 Tbs plus a 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
3 ripe bananas
1 cup honey
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
3/4 tsp grated lemon rind
Mix the dry ingredients together. Mash the bananas with a fork until smooth. Blend the bananas, honey, and olive oil in a mixer on low. Add the eggs, lemon juice, and lemon rind. Fold in the dry ingredients and blend on low speed for about five minutes.
Lightly oil two bread pans with a little olive oil; pour in the batter, dividing equally.
Bake in a preheated 350F degree oven for 35-40 minutes or until done.
Your colon should be squeaky clean after eating a loaf of this healthy bread, your cholesterol numbers may show improvement, and you may have reached the end of your chronic constipation problems.
Nice, eh?
If you have a favorite constipation remedy, I hope you’ll take a minute or two to comment and share it with readers of this blog.
The article I’m about to share with you was a wonderful surprise to run into because I’ve long preached the value of meditation and mindfulness.
Well, believe it or not, U.S. Marines are now receiving this kind of training to help them deal with the stress of being in combat situations.
Click here to read the article about “Mind Fitness Training” for Marines.
If you’ve been wanting to start meditating but haven’t done so, I have just the tool to help you get started — a powerful relaxation and meditation CD entitled EarthRain.
I’ve been selling this CD for several years and it has proven to be quite popular with a wide variety of people, especially those interested in having a tool to help attain a deep meditative state.
Click here to learn about this audio resource that’ll help you meditate like a Zen monk.
Today I discovered a fabulous musician I’d never heard of before… a young man by the name of John Fullbright.
Watch and listen to him below as he performs “Fat Man,” a song I found to be hauntingly beautiful — as well as chilling. Whoa!
For something a little different this beautiful Thursday morning as I write these words, let’s turn to Pooh Bear, who once observed…
Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom 
rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you suddenly know everything there is to be known.
Let’s work with Pooh Bear’s observation a little bit and develop it into a wonderfully calming meditation technique.
Here’s what to do…
Right now, take a long, slow, deep breath, and focus intensely on the pause between inhalation and exhalation.
Repeat until you actually feel a shift in your consciousness. You’ll know it when it happens because once you’re truly focused on that pause between inhaling and exhaling you’ll experience a silent clarity that’s unmistakable.
As soon as you feel the shift in consciousness that means you’re now living in the now, visualize yourself leaning over a bridge railing, watching the river of life slipping slowly away beneath you.
As you breathe in and out, still consciously focusing on the pause between breaths…
Be the river, be the flow… then just be.
Ah… now you know everything there is to be known.
How cool is this?
This is a wonderful technique for relaxing or for reducing stress, and the cool thing about it is you can do it any time and any place you want.
Sweet, eh?
If you’re like most people, you’ve been misinformed about eggs and cholesterol for years and years.
Let me put this frankly… I believe free range chicken eggs may well be nature’s most perfect animal food.
In today’s blog entry, I’ll point you to some interesting findings about the much-maligned egg.
Interestingly enough, mainstream medical authorities as well as many natural health gurus seem to be terribly ignorant about the value of eggs.
Click on the title below to read the first good article about eggs I have for you today, entitled…
Are You Throwing Away Your Egg Yolks?
In the above article, according to natural health authority Dr. Ben Kim, cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance that is absolutely necessary for you to be healthy.
High cholesterol itself does not cause heart disease.
Once you read Are You Throwing Away Your Egg Yolks?, I predict you’ll join me and Dr. Kim in never throwing away another egg yolk.
Not yet convinced about the value of eggs?
Then, you need to click on the title of the article below. This one’s called…
An Organic Egg Really Does Do Your Body Good
If you’ve been staying away from eggs because of the fear of high cholesterol, it may be worth your while to get cracking. Cracking organic eggs, that is. Read An Organic Egg Really Does Do Your Body Good and learn more about the health value of one of nature’s truly perfect foods.
Here’s my favorite recipe for healthy carrot raisin oatmeal cookies that I learned many years ago from a fellow named Gerald Pedersen.
Because this is an extremely healthy oatmeal cookie recipe, sugar addicts and sweet cookie connoiseurs will probably not go as hog wild over these treats as I do.
But, hey, that’s tough toenails, right?
Anyway, I love this recipe, and I cook up a batch every month or two.
Gerald’s Carrot Raisin Oatmeal Cookies
4 oz prunes
3 Tbs water
3/4 cup honey
1 1/2 cup shredded carrots
2/3 cup raisins
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups oats
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
Pecan halves
Puree prunes with the water in a food processor until smooth. Place in a mixing bowl. Stir in honey, carrots, and raisins. Add remaining ingredients except pecan halves. Mix well.
Drop spoonfuls of dough on a greased cookie sheet. Flatten slightly. Press a pecan half in the center of each cookie. Bake at 275F degrees for 15 minutes or until set and just starting to brown. Remove to cooling racks.
Makes three dozen.
If you have a healthy cookie recipe you’d like to share, use the comment link below, please.
