Single! Young Christian Woman, July 2009

single!

A P U B L I C AT I O N O F O N M Y O W N N O W M I N I S T R I E S

k JULY

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Young Christian Women Seven Habits Highly Hated by the Lord Desperate Times, Desperate Measures 5 Quick Fashion Fixes Dear Gabby

I Can’t Keep my Mouth Shut Bloomin’ Eighteen

Cute and Cuddly ...

Also:

Fool-proof Fried Rice

But Can You Afford Me?

w w w. o n m y o w n n o w. c o m

in this

issue...

Straight Talk from the Proverbs: Seven Habits Highly Hated by The Lord

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by Donna Lee Schillinger

Moving Out ... Settling In: Bloomin’ Eighteen

by Kimberly Miller

Down Home Healthy Cookin' for One ona Budget: Fool-proof Fried Rice

by Reba Ray

Dear Gabby: Help me keep my mouth shut Fashion DIVinA:

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: 5 Quick Fashion Fixes

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by Donna Lee Schillinger

Spare Change:

Along Came Cookie

by Paola Segnini with Donna Lee Schillinger

Just What You Need:

Issuu.com - A Barnes and Noblesque Newstand

by Donna Lee Schillinger

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.8 .10 .12 .14

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o Fridge-worthy.

We see high drama in the movies all the time, but in real life, big acting does not win awards.

Straight talk from the Proverbs for young Christian women who want to remain pure, debt-free and regret-free. “In this interesting and thought-provoking exploration of the book of Proverbs, Schillinger takes young women along a journey that will help them to make better, safer, and more sound decisions.�

Cheryl C. Malandrinos The Book Connection blog Now Available at www.onmyownnow.com, at Amazon, B&N and a library and bookstore near you.

straight talk

“A scoundrel and villain, who goes about with a corrupt mouth, who winks with her eye, signals with her feet and motions with her finger, who plots evil with deceit in her heart – she always stirs up dissension.

Therefore disaster will overtake her in an instant; she will suddenly be destroyed – without remedy. There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him; haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up dissention among a family.”

Proverbs 19:24

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seven habits

highly hated

by the lord

by Donna Lee Schillinger

If I were going to put together a list of things that I

thought the Lord hated, they would all be things I don’t do! I would choose the most heinous of crimes like incest, child abuse, murder, rape, etc. I am sure God does detest those things, but they don’t make this short list. What fascinates me about this list is that it is full of things most of us do a lot! Who hasn’t been proud?

Who hasn’t lied? Who hasn’t plotted something to her own advantage? Only one item, “hands that shed innocent blood,” does not apply to the majority of us (unless you count flies among the innocent).

I’m sorry to say that women are very adept and even renown for many of these seven detested sins. In fact, I bet we all know someone that fits the description quite well.

Maybe we have one friend in particular who always seems discontented with the world. She is always bragging about her own success (“I’m really good at…”), but cannot tolerate even the humble success of anyone else. (“She thinks she’s hot.”) When even the nicest of people come to work or school dressed nicely, our friend has to pick apart their choice of clothes. She talks as if she can’t stand them, but when they come around, she gushes at them with an insincere, “You look so nice today. I love that dress!”

She shoots us a sideways glance as if to say, “Yeah, right!”

However, even after she destroys our relationships, she will remain “friends” with the ones from whom she alienated us – leaving only us out in the cold.

I have to ask: Why are we friends with this person?

Maybe because she’s fun, she’s popular, she’s eager to be friends with us? The risk of such a friendship is that we will be pulled into her schemes – as either a co-conspirator or a victim.

Actually, the term “friendship” does not apply with this kind of person. We can have a relationship, but such a person is not capable of being a friend and, for this reason, she is to be pitied. Until she changes her divisive nature, she will never have a true friendship. Despite how we want to be a true friend to her, she will not return that love to us.

Hold this thought: I don't want any part of dishonest and divise schemes.

Our friend tells us what other people say about us, making us doubt our relationships with them. We have a sneaking suspicion that she is pleased with herself when she can come between us and another friend.

If we have the inner strength to sustain a relationship with such a person out of compassion for her and in hopes of being a positive influence in her life, we have to be aware of the risk we are taking. Anyone is fair game to her. This person in whom we have emotionally invested may turn on us and try to ruin us. If that happens, we can weather the storm with wisdom. She, on the other hand, will be ruined by her own behavior. It may be years down the road, maybe not until she’s old and has ruined her own children’s lives, but the consequences in the proverb are clear: disaster will overtake her. “She will suddenly be destroyed.” Take care not to be so close to this person as to become collateral damage in her certain personal catastrophe.

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w moving out ... settling in

by Kimberly Miller

You’re about to learn two things

about me: one, my life has a soundtrack. I tend to relate a lot of life experiences to music and songs of the time. Two, I’m old enough to remember the early 90’s popular band from Sweden, Ace of Base. According to Wikipedia, they plan to tour in the U.S. in 2009, but the last I heard of them, Stephanie’s girl band was playing “The Sign” in Full House re-runs. Anyway, in their 1995 album “The Bridge,” there is a song called “Blooming 18.”

The song is about the rebellion of a young lady who is just turning eighteen years old. “Reality is always such a drag for a barely bloomin’ 18… the barely bloomin’ 18 wants to know what’s keeping her from searching… what’s hiding in the shadows.” Keep in mind: I was

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ten years old in 1995. Well, I was scanning through Donna Schillinger’s interview with Trish Perry (which I recommend), and she was describing her target for On My Own Now Ministries as 18-23 year-old women. I got to thinking – I’m on the upper end of that, but my readers aren’t necessarily. So how do I relate?

What was I doing five years ago?

I gotta tell you, I remember feeling a lot like the girl in the song.

I turned 18 the day before I moved to college, and although I was on a spiritual high at the time, I was quite immature in my faith. What little I knew of reality seemed like a drag, so, naturally, I rebelled against it. I knew that to keep my full scholarship I had to maintain a high GPA. I knew studying interfered with hanging out with friends. Sleep

also interfered with hanging out, and in the battle between rest and relationships, my body and mind suffered. Then, imagine what a bummer it was to when I came to realize that I didn’t actually have a lot of friends. And most definitely worst of all realities: I knew that I wouldn’t get married for a long time, and I shouldn’t have sex until I was married, and yet I really wanted to have sex. (I’m sort of hoping my parents miss this issue of Single!) My thoughts and attitudes were not always pure.

What I did not know when I was 18 is who I actually was. I did not know how to learn self-discipline or how to talk to other people about God without sounding judgmental. I didn’t know how to cook. The first time I ever did laundry, I called my mom from the dorm laundry

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BLOOMING

w room and said, “Ok, reds and whites go separate, right?” I didn’t know how to make friends. I didn’t know how to act around the friends I had. I didn’t know what the boundaries were with boys in the dorm environment. I didn’t know what my own boundaries were. I didn’t know that being alone on a Friday night can be wonderful. And unfortunately, I didn’t know that the university’s police department sometimes RADARs the street by my dorm at 2:00 in the morning.

There are no big revelations, lessons learned, or examples of how I overcame my obstacles to offer just now. And I’m not going to quote scripture or apply the Bible to a real-life scenario. I just want to say that growing up was hard. When I was barely blooming 18,

despite my spiritual high, I was actually quite confused. I rebelled against a lot of things I shouldn’t have and learned a lot of lessons the hard way. I had no idea that the world can be a very dark place, and if you’re anything like I was, you may not believe it until you come face-to-face with it too.

I can’t come close to saying that I have all the answers now, but I can see I have made progress. I got my degree – without losing my scholarship, and I learned how to make friends. Overcoming the temptation of lust has been the single-most difficult thing in my life, but I’m comfortable believing that sex is worth waiting for. I’m still really bad at laundry.

how I learned some of that stuff along the way.

When we’re right with God, life happens at the pace its supposed to. Until then, don’t give up.

The reality that God has planned for you is not a drag at all. Just don’t let a youthful rebellion keep you from searching for it.

Maybe next month I’ll be able to put into words

Word on the Street Is ...

“If you could put one book into the hands of every young woman you know, this should be the book. And if she applied a fraction of the wisdom contained therein, she’d be spared a mountain of tears. This is an amazing book and I highly recommend it.”

Donna Partow Author, Becoming the Woman God Wants Me To Be: A 90-Day Guide to Living the Proverbs 31 Life Now Available at www.onmyownnow.com, Amazon, B&N and a library and bookstore near you.

Find out more at www.onmyownnow.com

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o Reba Ray´s down home healthy cookin’ for one on a budget

Fool-proof Fried Rice

by Reba Ray

OK girls, you remember last time how we made

that Crazy Asian Stir Fry and I had you make twice as much rice as you needed for the stirfry? There was a dern good reason for that and when I think of it, I’ll surely let you know. Seriously, when I’m hungry for something homecooked and delish but don’t want to spend half an hour makin’ it, finding some left-over rice in the fridge is like finding a shiny penny on a dirt road – makes me feel all lucky.

But if yur anything like my daughter, the word “left-over” (or is that two words?) just curls your lip. Well, that’s probably because when you were under your momma’s roof, you could curl your lip up at something and she’d say, “Aw, Pookims, let me make you somethin’ fresh if you don’t want leftovers.” And after years of that, you got dern spoiled, and yur poor momma grew pudgy from always being the one to finish the leftovers.

Well, yur on yur own now and that means one of three things: You either nickel and dime away yur paycheck on eating out, you do a heck of a lotta cookin’ or you learn to like leftovers. Maybe this fool-proof fried rice can help with that.

Complete with an egg, veggies and some healthy fats, this dish is really a complete meal.

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y • 1 tsp olive or canola oil • 2 green onions or ¼ cup chopped yellow onion • ¼ cup peas • ¼ cup carrots, either chopped very small or julienned • 1 clove garlic, pressed or minced • ¼ tsp powdered ginger or 1 tsp fresh grated ginger • ½ tsp curry powder • 1 cup cold cooked rice • 1 ½ to 2 tbsp soy sauce • 1 egg • Salt and pepper to taste

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Lord, Gals! Whaddya starin' at?

Aw, that mater in the background? Yep, it’s a beaut!

I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Reba Ray, no relation to Reba MacIntyre or Rachel Ray, though I share some commonalities with em both. I love to cook and I love my big red hair!

I was single for just a whole lotta years - seems men just don’t appreciate the finer qualities in a woman these days - and in all that time, I became a real expert on cookin for just me. It mighta been lonely, eating single at a table for four all those years, but heck, I got some dern good recipes out of it.

And I’m gonna share em with you! Yep, you lucky girls!

Chop the green or yellow onion in to iddy bitty pieces and toss ‘em in a large skillet (or wok for weenies!) with the oil. Heat over medium and stir those onions around every minute or two for about five minutes until they soften up. Then toss in yur peas, carrots and garlic. Ya know you can buy a can of peas and carrots already mixed – and they sell that combo in frozen veggies too – and it’s just as cheap as buying ‘em separately. Go ahead and get you a bag of em frozen and we’ll use the rest for chicken pot pie real soon.

Mix up everything for a couple more minutes of cookin, adding the spices between mixes. Now add the rice. If yur rice has been left over for a week – yes, it’s still

- I won't throw nothing at you that's harder than flippin' pancakes - I won't use ingredients so fancy you need a year of college French to pronounce 'em.

- And last of all, I will show you how to cook for yourself on a tight budget.

You guessed it, that means beans ever now and again! Aw heck, we'll splurge some times, but no more than you can actually afford to.

OK, so you ready to cook?

(Dang, I hope that phrase idn't trademarked by somebody important!)

good – it’s gonna be hard and it’s gonna hit that skillet like a brick.

Use a wooden spoon or something to break it up in the skillet or break it up as yur adding it to the skillet. Don’t you worry a skinny minute about how that hard rice is gonna taste. Cuz our next ingredient is gonna soften up that old hard rice. Add the soy sauce and keep stirrin’ and mixin’ and mixin’ and stirrin’ until it’s starting to look like fried rice – about two minutes or long enough for the rice to heat through.

Now make a little well (that’s what they call a hole in cookin’ jargon) in the middle of the pan.

Just scoot everything to the edges and expose some pan in the middle. Crack yur egg into that bare

spot and scramble it gently, not so much that you mix it with the food around it. On the edges, it’ll mix with the rice a little, but most of yur egg should be free and clear of rice and veggies. But then when the egg is cooked through, break it up and mix it in with the rest of the stir fry. If you don’t get this quite right on yur first time, don’t worry because this is foolproof fried rice, meaning it don’t matter! It’s gonna taste great regardless of whether yur egg looks all pretty like in the Chinese restaurant or not! Salt and pepper to taste, add a fortune cookie and get ready to enter into a grown woman’s relationship with leftovers.

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Ms.Reba Ray

Here's the Reba Ray promise:

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Dear Gabby:

by

ter

s Gab

dear gabby: The other day, a friend of mine told me she wanted to share a secret

with me. I immediately responded: "Don ' t! Don ' t do it! I don ' t want to know!" I did this, not because I didn ' t want to know but because every

time somebody shares a secret with me, my slippery mind and tongue

betray me at the first chance they get. I don ' t spill secrets voluntarily, or even with bad intentions. Most of the time, they just slip out. So, since realizing this, I stop my friends before they share something secret with

me. I don ' t know if this is the right thing to do, though. On the one hand,

my friends might be disappointed to know they can ' t trust me enough to

share their burdens with me, and our friendship may suffer. What kind of friend can ' t keep a secret? On the other hand, I feel like it is a more honest approach to things. Maybe my friends will appreciate my sincerity.

Should I continue dodging secrets, or should I work harder on keeping secrets at the risk of having one slip out every now and then?

- Blabber Mouth in Bermuda

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“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and disclipine.”

Proverbs 1:7

Okay Blabber Mouth(and Gabby means that in the nicest possible way!)

So ya got loose lips? This shouldn’t be too much of a problem most of the time – unless you’re guardian of KFC’s secret recipe or you work for the CIA. Then you would seriously need to rethink your career choice. Mostly, Gabby thinks it is perfectly acceptable and appropriate to be proactive about avoiding secrets if you know you can’t handle them. It takes real wisdom to know our faults and weaknesses and it takes discipline to resist scintillating chit chat when it’s offered up so freely.

On the other hand, Gabby agrees that applying a one-size-fits-all approach to every sensitive situation could keep you from becoming a better person. There is a difference between someone seeking counsel and someone seeking to gossip. If you stop your friends at “hello,” how are you going to be able to tell them apart? A friend truly seeking to share a burden with you would almost certainly have to define the crisis or dilemma with facts and details. And Gabby would have to admit that to decline giving a friend a sympathetic ear or objective counsel in a true time of need would be lame. It might even be considered undisciplined or unwise.

But should names start popping into the story, in specific detail, and your friends confessional begin to turn ugly, what you’re dealing with is gossip. That is a different creature, and maybe the one you really have the problem with.

– a slick little bugger that can trip you up something bad. In fact, the worst thing about this stink bug is that you almost have to pass it on to someone else. Could it be that these secrets you’ve been blabbing are of this species? Don’t forget that those little stink bugs can look a lot like genuine concern when someone else is holding them.

Gabby’s advice for telling the difference between a secret you really need to bear and a stink bug you won’t be able bear is to listen carefully. If you know you are blabbin’ it up with someone who has passed you a stink bug before, best to stop that conversation at the exact point you did with your friend. And don’t feel bad about it. But, if you are talking with someone who is looking for comfort or counsel, you need to hear her out and exert all the discipline your loose lips can handle.

After all, Gabby’s pretty sure you can keep mum about some things – like maybe your weight?

Or a certain hygiene ritual? Bet that wouldn’t just come popping out when you least expect it, would it? Gabby believes that we don’t repeat anything we truly don’t want to. That might be a horse pill to swallow, so it’s perfectly OK if it takes you a few heart-to-heart talks with yourself to come to that conclusion on your own.

- Gabster

Gossip is a mean little stink bug that is hard to kill

Living a conundrum? Trying to make two wrongs a right?

Threw the baby out with the bath water?

Dear Gabby can help! Send your questions now to

thegabster@onmyownnow.com

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Fashi on DI VinA

Desperate Times  1

When life is in full swing – with a job, school, keeping fit and an active social life – it’s more often than not that we’re putting ourselves together for the next block on our schedule in someplace other than the serenity of our own bathrooms and bedrooms. Have backpack, will travel, right? With a change of clothes in tow, make-up essentials in our hand bags and a rear view mirror, we’re set.

Or are we?

Have you ever thought you packed it all to find out you’ve forgotten your eyelash curler? Or you brought along your nail polish but forgot the nail polish remover? Sometimes we’re lucky enough to be passing a Walgreen’s just as we realize this and the fix is as easy as a quick stop to add yet another bottle of nail polish remover to the collection.

Other times, we’re not so lucky. These tips won’t solve all your problems, but here are five creative ways to made due in a pinch.

Curl your Eyelashes with a Spoon Say what? You heard me and even if I repeated myself, it still wouldn’t make sense. To further confuse, let me say this can also be done with an old gift card. Check out the captioned instructions in the images to the right.

Luscious Lips on Your Eyes and Cheekbones Too More than once, I’ve found myself out and about without make-up – like after crashing at a friend’s house – and needing to face the public with a pale face. Despite the desperate situation, I refuse to go

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Desperate 13

buy an entire new collection of make-up. But what’s this? I have lipstick in my purse. This is not good for your complexion, so don’t make a habit of it – like I know you wouldn’t anyway – but in a pinch, you can use your lipstick to put some blush in your cheeks and to add color to your eyebrows. It’s enough to get by in case anyone sees you on your way home.

Run in Your Panty Hose Oh, c’mon girls, this is so easy I shouldn’t even be counting it. Just take them off and throw them in the garbage! I still see department stores full of them, but really, who needs panty hose anymore? Even brides are going around with bare feet. Ok, maybe there are still a couple of situations in which you must have nyloned legs. If this is the case, there’s the old standby clear nail polish to stop a run. Hair spray and glue also work, but not quite as well. If you successfully stop the run and then need to hide it, try gathering the feet of the hose and folding them over, stepping on the excess to shorten the hose if the run is down on the ankle. If it’s not, maybe you can twist the leg to rotate the run into the inner leg and conceal the run by strategically keeping your legs together (I practice I recommend for a number of reasons!).

French Manicure with Liquid Paper Did you score an important social engagement just after work on the very day you’ve left the house with ragged nails? Whether you have no polish or polish that’s chipping at the ends, give yourself a quick French manicure with liquid paper. Like Cinderella’s coach, this elegant fix won’t last past midnight – it scratches off fairly easy, but it works like a

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e Measures 5 Quick Fashion Fixes

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1. Eyelashes before curling 2. Hold the spoon with your dominant hand like this.

3. Grab your eyelashes between your thumb and the edge of the spoon and curl the lashes down, out and then up, like curl- ing ribbon with scissors.

4. Lashes after a good spooning.

5. This can also be done with an old bent by gift card or credit card.

dream to take you from bare nails to ballroom nails – and it dries in no time! If your nails are so bad off that white-out on the tips is of no help, find a nail file or emery board if you can and buff down the old polish until it’s not so rough and chipping. Then find a red, pink or purple marker, even a Sharpie, and you guessed, color in those ugly nails! If all you have is a black or blue marker, you’re better off with raggedy nails – very few people can pull off black or blue nails without drawing so much attention to them that it becomes apparent you used a marker to color your nails.

Basically Buttons Have you ever popped a button that you really needed – like the one in the center of your chest? This fashion emergency can send a gal to the bathroom until help arrives in the form of a safety pin or worse, a notebook or file folder to hold over your chest with folded arms while you make your way to the car or subway to get home. There’s a host of other worse scenarios where there’s no one to assist, no way to get home (like when you’re travelling) and sneaking out to buy a new shirt is just not an option. Here are

a few suggestions for those waking nightmares.

First, carry a safety pin with you at all times. There’s usually one little zipper pocket in my handbag that I just don’t use for anything. Put a safety pin in there and forget about it. It could save the day. Secondly, if you somehow could score a needle and thread but just don’t have a button – let’s say you lost it when it popped off – you can pop off another button from a less critical spot on the shirt and sew it in the problem spot. Depending on what kind of a button you lost, you might be able to attach another one from the neck or near the waste with a staple by straightening the staple, sticking it through the button and the shirt and then use a coin to mash down the staple on the inside of the blouse. You’re going to need all the fine motor control you can muster for this, so just relax, breathe deep and try to act like there’s nothing riding on this.

Finally, my favorite fix is to take off an earring – either a post or a hook and create a new button with it. If your post earrings are too small and will slip through the button hole, stick a new hole through your shirt with the post, just to the side of the

Donna Schillinger

button hole. If you have wire hook earrings, thread the hook through the button hole and then bring it back to the outside of the shirt by poking a hole through the fabric.

Bend it together to make a ring out of the wire hook and that will hold the shirt together. This fix is going to draw some attention, and you can just take that opportunity to reinforce to your boss or coworkers how very resourceful you are.

Sorry to say that if you popped that button open with force, that is, if your shirt was really too tight to begin with, these remedies aren’t going to last long. Your best bet would be to put a book over your chest and rush home or to the store to buy a new shirt.

Got more desperate measures to share with our readers? Email them to us and we’ll post them online!

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Spare Change

Along came cookie

by Paola Segnini with Donna Lee Schillinger

Living in a dorm in college was awesome but not

being able to own a pet broke my heart. I volunteered socializing dogs and cats at the local shelter but that few hours a week just made me long for a pet of my own even more. So first thing I did after college – and getting a job – was adopt a puppy.

And along came Cookie… and the responsibilities of a very first pet all my own. Even if you had pets when you lived with your parents, you might not realize how much of a commitment – both of time and resources – it is to be fully responsible for one.

First of All, Can You Afford This?

If you are considering getting a pet or adding another pet, make sure you budget for it. Pets are costly and need lots of care. In order to be a responsible pet owner, you need to be realistic about what you can afford. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) offers a tally of the average annual expenses of pet ownership. Check it out, but I’ll cut to the chase and tell you that a dog will cost you about $300 to adopt (start-up costs) and $1,200 a year to maintain. That’s an average of $125 a month.

Do you have that kind of room in your monthly budget? Don’t answer too quickly – sit down and do the math. If not, you might take a look at some of the less expensive pets like a cat, rabbit, guinea pig, hamster, fish or turtle. Beware though, the SPCA didn’t factor in the cost of air freshener and if you keep one of these small pets indoors, you’re gonna need a quality air-freshener in bulk!

Grooming

Yearly expenses for pet grooming can be outrageous, with most pet groomers charging between $50 and $150. Particularly expensive to groom are high maintenance breeds of dog, like the Yorkshire terrier, poodle or Pomeranian, who need a trip to the groomer every couple of months. If you haven’t picked out your pet yet, take this into account – literally, sit down and do the math to see if you really need a fluffy puppy or perhaps a lower maintenance mutt might do. If you already have a high-maintenance breed, consider doing the grooming yourself.

By bathing, brushing, clipping claws and brushing

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bag would. Also, a rubber bin will keep anything else from eating the dog food – like rodents and roaches.

Or if you’re tight on space or have such a tiny animal that a huge bag of food doesn’t make sense, how about finding a friend to split the bag and bill with?

Buy treats in the largest quantity too and portion out what you won’t use in a couple of weeks into gallon freezer bags to keep them airtight until you need them. Buy canned food in cases, cut your pampered pet to half rations on this expensive food and stick the rest in the fridge for the next day’s treat. Purchase a plastic lid to cover the can of food – they sell these in the pet sections of most stores.

Remember to shop around to find the best prices on pet food. If your pets are flexible about what they eat, check your local pet store for damaged bags. I’ve purchased large bags of premium dog foods for less than the generic brand because the bag was opened and taped shut again. And if your pets aren’t flexible about what they eat, you might try some malleability training. A friend of mine has two picky pups that will only eat bologna and table scraps – so she thought. Then she let her daughter housesit the dogs while she was travelling. She came back to find them eating Old Roy from the dog bowl like common canines! Just like a spoiled child, dogs will eventually eat what you offer them when they get hungry enough.

Lastly, for food on the flip side, always buy kitty litter in bulk. Think you don’t have room to store it? A huge bag of litter fits perfectly under the bed.

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your pet’s teeth yourself, you’ll save hundreds of dollars a year.

Research the specific grooming needs of your pet’s breed at healthypet.com. They also have an instructional video on how to trim a cat’s claws (raouw!).

If you’ve never used electric grooming clippers before, you might want to practice on a cheap stuffed animal first to see which setting is desired. You don’t want your precious Pooky looking like he’s ready to enlist in the Marines! Another great advantage to grooming your own pet is that I believe it is less traumatic for your pet than a trip to the groomer, where she might spend hours waiting her turn in a kennel cage surrounded by moans and groans of other tortured canine souls awaiting their turn in the dreaded vat of flea dip.

"If you've never used electric grooming clippers before, you might want to practice on a cheap stuffed animal."

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Just as with anything, buying in bulk will guarantee better prices. But just because you have a bunch of food doesn’t mean you should let your pet pig out.

Most cats and dogs in the U.S. are overweight, increasing the likelihood of serious health problems such as arthritis, diabetes and cancer. Invest in a large rubber bin with a tight seal and pour a 40- or 50-pound bag of dog food in it to keep it fresh longer than the

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Food

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Healthcare

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Keeping your pet in top shape will prevent costly trips to emergency clinics and chronic diseases that are sure to empty your savings account, not to mention

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Spare Change put your pet’s health in jeopardy.

Keep good records of your pet’s medical history in order to avoid duplicate shots, treatments and misdiagnosis. The American Animal Hospital Association used to advise vaccinating your pets yearly, but they have recently changed their guidelines to recommend a number of the core vaccinations to be done every three years. Talk to your vet to find out which ones you can skip this year and save a bundle in the process.

It would be a huge mistake to cut out your pets’ yearly check-up altogether to save a buck. Taking a perfectly healthy pet to the vet may make you feel like you have just wasted $50 or $60, but remember that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That’s Benjamin Franklin-speak for: it costs a lot less to prevent than to cure. And while we’re talking prevention, Girls, you have got to spay or neuter your pet. Vets recommend this because spayed and neutered pets have fewer health problems down the road, such as prostate and ovarian cancer. I recommend it because if you’re living on a budget the last thing you need is six more mouths to feed! This is to say nothing of managing a horny pet!!

Jury's Still Out on Pet Insurance

Used to be that pet insurance sounded like a ridiculous waste of money, but with the cost of vet care skyrocketing, it’s starting to sound like a good idea.

But is it? Plans range in coverage and premiums: from every routine visit and vaccination covered with premiums of $25 to $30 a month, to catastrophic coverage only, with high deductibles and monthly premiums of $10 to $15.

Contrast this to what the SPCA estimates for average annual vet bills for a dog: $120. Those premiums that seemed pretty affordable now seem like a waste of money. Here’s a cold hard fact, if there weren’t a profit to be made from selling you pet insurance, no such product would exist.

On the other hand, if something terrible should happen to your pet, insurance would keep you from having to put a monetary value on the life of your pet – like my friend had to do. Her cat was hit by a car, but lived. It ran off and she couldn’t find it. The next day, it wondered back home looking like another cat entirely. Its eye was hanging out of socket, jaw was broken and it had a high fever. The prognosis

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"Used to be that pet insurance sounded like a ridiculous waste of money, but with the cost of vet care skyrocketing, it's starting to sound like a good idea." was grim. The vet said they could try to reconstruct the face and treat the infection, for $500, but the cat still might not live. It broke my friend’s heart to have to put the cat to sleep because she couldn’t afford $500 for the surgery that offered no reasonable guarantee of success.

Whereas this is a true and touching story, it’s just the kind of thing an insurance company will use to lure you into a financially losing proposition. Be smart, and when it comes to this decision, assess your risk carefully. Is your pet getting old and starting to manifest some symptoms that might require heavy vet care? Despite your efforts to contain it, does your pet roam in dangerous places? Insurance may be a good idea. Is your pet happy inside the house or fenced yard, young to middleaged and generally healthy? Don’t waste your money.

K Medications and Flea/Tick Treatments

If you have a pet with a chronic condition that requires medication, shop around for meds. Just like different pharmacies offer the same human medication at vastly differing prices, you’ll find there are savings to be had in pet meds too. If you normally buy from the vet, check out online vendors for a basis of comparison. For example, 1800PetMeds. com promises to match the price of a lower identical product and offers free shipping on orders over $39 on every non-refrigerated item.

If your pet is indoor/outdoor and you find you need premium tick and flea treatment – like my boss who has three dogs and lives in the woods – you can save a lot of money by purchasing larger quantities and splitting up larger doses. My boss has a large dog, a medium dog and a small dog. She purchases twelve month supplies of Frontline for large dogs and splits it accordingly: the large dog gets one full dose each month, the medium dog gets two-thirds of a dose and she uses the remaining third on the small dog. In doing so, she saves more than $165 a year on Frontline. Her vet recommended this practice, but I bet the folks at Frontline would balk.

The vet also suggested that she could just refrigerate an unused portion of the product for a month, if needed. So if you have only one medium dog, you could purchase an extra-large-dog dose, give half and then refrigerate the other half for the next month. Whereas the medium-dog treatment costs around $87 for a six-month supply, the extra-largedog treatment costs only $94. You can make that extra-large-dog dose last for 12 months on a medium-sized dog, saving yourself about $80 a year.

Don’t put your dog’s health in jeopardy to save a buck, though. Be sure you know your dog’s current weight, and do the math as the dosage for these treatments is based on weight. Err on the side of caution: if your dog doesn’t get enough treatment, the worst that can happen is you have to battle a few bugs. If your dog gets too much, well… ask your vet.

Little Luxuries

We can become so attached to pets that we wish to pamper them with gifts all the time, but the fact is it just doesn’t matter as much to your pet as you

might think. Just because we humans have become so addicted to shopping that we need new stuff on a weekly basis, doesn’t mean our pets are afflicted with this disease. In fact, I’m pretty sure they are immune to it. Every pet I have ever known likes an old favorite toy, but even that doesn’t make him or her as happy as just a good cuddle. It is important for dogs, especially puppies, to have chewing toys (and a cheap plastic toy is a much better choice than my expensive shoes!), but they don’t need a dozen of them, or a new one every week. You might want to get a scratching pole for your cat, that is, if you like your furniture, but it doesn’t have to be the $450 six-foot cedar scratching friendly cat tree (no, I am not making this up!). You may care about designer collars, clothes, leashes and pet carriers, but your dog or cat does not. So forget the Swarovski Crystal ID tags and monogrammed bed. If your expression of love for your pet just has to translate into shopping, limit yourself to a Christmas and birthday gift – but even then, know that your pet would probably prefer a good jog in the park or a game of chase the mouse as a special treat.

Being a pet owner is lots of fun but also a great responsibility. Never forget that our pets are 100 percent dependent on us – their well-being is ultimately in our hands. Don’t let these tough economic times deprive your pet of quality care.

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Just What You Issuu.com: A

Barnes and Noblesque Newsstand You wouldn’t be reading this if you 1) didn’t have Internet access and 2) didn’t occasionally read online. When you add 1 and 2 together, what do you get? www.issuu. com. (If you said “3,” you’re taking me too literally!)

You may have noticed that we publish our e-zine, Single! Young Christian Woman through www.issuu.com.

It’s awesome for anyone who wants to offer a publication in a cool format online for little to no money. But for the reader, it’s awesomer!

OK, if you’re the type of person who has isolation issues and you really need to get out more, ignore this next piece of advice, but if you’re the type of person who really should learn to stay at home one or two nights a week and be content about it, listen up. Instead of burning fossil fuels to get to Borders or Barnes and Noble and spending $7 on a fattening coffee/muffin combo, all just so you can browse a few magazines, why don’t you put on a cup of Joe at home, whip up a batch of Reba Ray’s Wholesome Peanut Butter Chocolate Chips Cookies, and flip through the pages, online, of some really smart and sophisticated publications – all free for the perusing, right up until your own personal closing time.

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At Issuu.com, click on the Publications link, and then (may I suggest?) the Religion and Philosophy category. Check out some of my favorites: New Identity and TypoMash, or how about some quality Christian publications from other countries – like Real Relationships and Outflow, both produced in

Need FREE -- at your fingertips Nigeria. There are literally thousands of publications, both magazines and books, to browse in 15 categories including Nonprofit & Activism, Nature & Animals, News & Politics and even Weird & Bizarre.

Another neat feature is that it Issuu recommends in the left margin other publications it thinks you might like based on what you’re reading. Disclaimer: Whereas there’s some awesome content on Issuu, there’s some questionable content on Issuu as well. So be careful little eyes what you see!

When you find something you like, you can subscribe to the magazine, suggest it to a friend and even get to know the publisher better with Issuu’s social networking component. Next to the public library, this site is truly the best free reading room around. So grab your Joe, chai or sweet tea and cozy up to a good read on a rainy mid-summer’s eve at home alone.