Julia K Cole

You will be crying by the time you get through this.. .it's long, but worth it.  I've re-titled this story: Yet Another Reason Why I Use Duct Tape.   The original title is unknown, as is the author of this comedic master piece! *~*~*~* All hair removal methods have tricked us with promises of easy, painless removal - the epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now the wax.  My night began as any other normal weekday night. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: Maybe I should pull the wax out of the medicine cabinet. So I headed to the site of my demise – the bathroom.  It was one of those cold wax kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand and then they get warm and you peel them apart press it to your leg (or wherever else) and hair comes right off. No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean I'm no girly girl, but I am mechanically ...

Have you made peace with your past? Before you answer that, take a moment and ask yourself the following questions: Do you feel grounded each and every day?  Are you consciously aware of the present? Are you genuinely at peace here in this moment?  Are you content with your life?   Are you content with who you are?  Do you rarely think of the past?   And when you do, c an you honestly look back on past events and situations and have a better understanding of what took place and why?   Can you think about people whom you lost, be it through a physical death or them leaving you to be with someone else, and know it wasn't anything you did/didn't say or do/didn't do?    Can you think about these people without getting upset or going into a fit of rage?   Can look at your past and feel nothing but satisfaction and gratitude? *~*~* If you can answer yes to most of the above questions,  you're well on your way to being 100...

Motivational speaker and author Shawn Anderson takes the idea of "living a life you love" seriously. With a mission of empowering one million people to lead a more positive and purposeful life, Anderson shares seven senseless habits to let go of in 2014. "Why would we ever want to live a life that makes us unhappy?" Anderson says. "We read everywhere about what we need to do to be successful. But I believe if we just change a few of our habits, we'd be much closer to leading a life we love." Anderson continues, "Sure, some of the seven items on the list may sound harsh, but if we don't stop doing them, the lousy results we will produce later will feel a lot harsher." 7 Senseless Habits to Drop in 2014 HABIT #1: Quit hanging out on Facebook.  "Facebook is a fun way to kill time," Anderson says. "But that's what it does: it kills time. Time that could be used to create, inspire and build." HABIT #2: Quit Keep...

Another Act of Random Kindness ... This is the kind of dash cam video we usually see – police chases and general mayhem which makes this dash cam video remarkable and unforgettable.  Saturday afternoon, Rosenberg Police Sergeant Ariel Soltura was on patrol, driving through an apartment complex parking lot when he saw a young man. He slowed down. “And I saw he was throwing up a football and I could tell that was actually playing by himself - he wasn't just waiting for more kids to arrive,” he said. Soltura could have continued driving but instead, he stopped. “I literally got out of the car - I did like this which is the universal sign of throw me the football and at that time you just saw his face just lit up and he was ready to play,” Soltura said. And so they did. Two men as Soltura says – playing football on a perfect day. The Rosenberg Police Department posted it on Facebook. Hours later, it had a about a quarter million likes.  Truth be told Soltura says, it's part of...

As we move on from the holidays and settle into 2014, it’s common practice to set goals and resolutions for the new year. However, as many of us can attest to, many of these goals, especially long term ones, will fall by the wayside as the weeks and months pass by. This week we’ll be examining 7 simple tips for sticking to your goals and accomplishing them. #1  Live up to your own expectations. Set your own goals, not those someone else’s. By setting the bar yourself, you will be more motivated to reach your goals and push yourself beyond your initial expectations. #2  Write your goal down. Be specific and always keep it visible as a reminder. #3  Reward yourself to celebrate achieving small milestones. Motivate yourself with a small reward for each step you accomplish toward achieving your goal. This can be something as simple as taking yourself out to lunch, taking a break to do something you enjoy, spending time with fr...

The feisty felines found their way into the Great Meadow Correctional Facility and there they have stayed.    The reason they haven’t been kicked out may seem unlikely. It turns out the inmates like them.  And the feeling seems to be mutual. The kittens were in poor physical shape when they first “broke in to the prison. But one prisoner quickly built them a “kitty condo” from scraps and began to care for them. Now Bruce Porter, the electrician for the pen, takes care of the animals during the week. Porter told The PostStar.com, “I’ve got a soft heart for any sort of animal. I don’t mind helping them out a bit.” On weekends when Porter is not there,  an inmate known as the cat whisperer watches after them.  But Doc, Meadow, Annie, and Comstock -- as they have been named -- won’t have a life sentence in the big house. The kittens will soon be adopted and have homes of their own. Source: KRMG Talk Radio   Story by Ri...

Between 2002 and 2012, federal agencies spent more than half a trillion dollars ($688 billion) on payments that should never have been made.  Every year, according to their own record-keeping, the agencies that administer major federal programs are now paying out more than $100 billion improperly, and even though they're aware of the problem, they recover only a tiny fraction for taxpayers. This adds up to huge losses for the U.S. Treasury. In 2012 alone, the Office of Management and Budget gathered data on just 13 high-error programs in the federal government, and determined that they made a combined $101.3 billion in improper payments. To put that in perspective, that's almost $16 billion more than the highly controversial budget sequester wound up cutting from government spending in 2013. The government doesn't get a whole lot of that money back. In July, then-Controller of the Office of Management and Budget Daniel Werfel testified in a Senate hearing that ...