The November Edition of The Better Life Blog Carnival

Welcome to the November edition of The Better Life Blog Carnival. As I prepare for The Holiday Spirit Blog Carnival, I thought that I'd publish one more edition of The Better Life Blog Carnival. This will be the last edition of this blog carnival that I will publish this year. I enjoyed publishing The Better Life Blog Carnivall over the year and look forward to seeing all the great submissions next year. This edition includes over 30 articles all to help you live a Better Life, so there is bound to be something for everyone.

Boredom

Tisha Tolar presents Getting Bored With Yourself? posted at Empowering Mom.

Travel

Edan presents Park City Ski Resorts posted at Park City Condo Lodging, saying, "Find out all about Ski Resorts in beautiful Park City, Utah, site of the 2002 Winter Olympics."

Alvina Lopez presents Traveling Cheap When You’re a Student – Here’s How You Do It posted at MasterDegreeOnline.

Kristen Garcia presents Make The Most Out Of Any Vacation posted at The Happy Mother, saying, "In our current high stressed world, it is more important than ever to have a nice, relaxing vacation."

Personal Development

Cody Butler presents Personal Development Success posted at Dream Life Coaching Blog. Ask your questions., saying, "Article detailing the basic principles of personal development success."

Mike King presents The Key to Personal Development. Belief posted at Learn This.

Tiffany Colter presents
Balance, Not Deprivation posted at Hidden Leaks, saying, "A balanced life comes not from depriving yourself financially, but finding the middle ground that allows spending AND saving on a reasonable basis. This article shows you how."

Broderick Durisseau presents Overwhelmed? posted at Broderick Allen - Personal Growth and Enjoying Life's Journey.

Relax presents Knowledge can become your enemy if you are not careful (The Curse of Knowledge) posted at The Wise Curve, saying, "Common sense tells us that knowledge brings power. But do you know that knowing too much might do you harm?"

Arin Vahanian presents Why Life is About Choice posted at Super State.

Lucky Balaraman presents How To Find Happiness, Step 1: posted at Calm and Cool.

Relationships

lkodanko presents How to Still Be Newlyweds...no matter how long it's been! posted at Words On Wendhurst.

Weight Loss

Lucky Balaraman presents Get the Weight Off Your Mind in 10 Minutes a Day posted at Calm and Cool, saying, "If that title has the ring of a typical fitness course to it, there's a good reason. There are a lot of similarities between mental fitness and physical fitness. A mind burdened with useless attitudes is as unhealthy as a body blanketed with layers of fat. And wouldn't you know, just like there are guaranteed prescriptions for bodily fitness, there are indeed several foolproof prescriptions for mental fitness. It's two of those mental fitness prescriptions that I am going to touch upon now. They are uncannily similar to certain prescriptions for physical fitness. You'll see..."

Productivity And Focus

SpiKe presents The 80/20 Rule And The Importance Of Value posted at Organize IT.

Tisha Tolar presents You Must Be Able to Say No posted at Empowering Mom.

Erick Simpson presents Disconnecting - Time to Quiet the Noise and Refocus posted at Managed Services.

Sue presents Abraham Hicks Says "There Are No Wrong Choices" posted at Helping Your Entrepreneurial Spirit Create Self, Create Health and Create Wealth.

Customer Service

Ben presents Eight Ways to Beat Bad Customer Service posted at Money Smart Life.

Health

Erika Collin presents How to Prepare for a Pandemic: 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources posted at Masters in Health Care.

Joel Gray presents Healthy Cooking for Special Diets posted at Health Tips 101.

Tips

Billeater presents
You want Tips? You Can't Handle These Tips! posted at Billeater.

Yoga

Mike Batey presents Jivamukti Yoga posted at Yoga Mad, saying, "Created by David Life and Sharon Gannon, Jivamukti yoga is a yoga style that combines physical, spiritual and philosophical aspects of traditional yoga. The Jivamukti method of yoga is one of the nine internationally recognized styles of Hatha yoga, the other eight being Ashtanga, Iyengar, Viniyoga, Sivananda, Integral, Bikram, Kripalu, and Kundalini."

Career

Matthew Paulson presents How to Stay Relevant on the Job and Reduce Your Layoff Risk posted at American Consumer News.

Money And Finance

debt kid presents 3 Books that Changed my Financial Life Forever posted at DebtKid.

Jack Schmidt presents 7 Tools For Your Money Belt posted at SectorMatic Money Journal.

Frugal Living

MoneyNing presents Inheriting Generations of Frugal Living posted at Money Ning saying, "Think ahead and do something for your future generations. Start saving."

MoneyNing presents How to Deal with Frugal Advice posted at Money Ning saying, "Don't just skip the article if you think it doesn't apply to you as it might be useful later on in life."

Homemaker Barbi (Danelle Ice) presents Are Frugal Sacrifices Worthwhile? posted at saying, "Are Frugal Sacrifices Worthwhile? It is important to look at your large goals and make sure that the way you live now is helping you to get your money to be meaningful for you."

Andrew Cowan presents Moving to a smaller apartment - Personal development - frugal living posted at Andrew Cowan, saying, "I recently moved to a smaller apartment which has been beneficial in more ways than just the financial. That said, I am "making" $300/month from my decision to downgrade my apartment. Money in the bank!"

Other

Jack Schmidt presents 10 Ways to Fuel Your Own Economy posted at SectorMatic Money Journal, saying, "SectorMatic Money Journal: Personal Finance - Everything for the Big Spender on a Budget. Now you can live like a fat cat, even if you're on a money diet. Laugh all the way to the bank with Jack Schmidt and SectorMatic. It's for you!"

Sonja Stewart presents The Casserole Club Makes a Comeback! posted at Parenting Squad.

That concludes the November edition of The Better Life Carnival. You can submit your blog article to the next edition of The Better Life Blog Carnival using our "Submit an entry to “The Better Life Carnival” carnival submission form. Past posts and future editions can be found on our "Blog Carnival index for “The Better Life Carnival”blog carnival index page. We hope that you'll stay with us through the Holidays and check out or other posts as well.

Photo Credit: Ponta de Areia courtesy of rsocar

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the better life carnival, blog carnival.

Bertone Beatle Bonanza

I'd like to say congratulations to Bertone Beatle Bonanza on the podcast's 5th anniversary.  A few years ago this was one of the first podcasts that I listened to and have been listening to ever since.

On Halloween the 5th Birthday show was uploaded, a real treat at over 3 hours and 19 minutes for fans of the show and Beatles fans!  Guest on this special episode include:

• Eric Parashos- a former administrator of the "Shabby Road" message board and writer for a Beatles parody website, and occasional co-host

• Steve Marinucci- writer for the "Beatles Examiner" and news contributor for the Bertone Beatle Bonaza blog.

• Chris O'Dell- the inspiration for the George Harrison "Miss O'Dell" song, and author of "Miss O'Dell", a former Apple (the Beatles record label) employee and Beatles friend.

• Woody Lifton-  a former host of "Pop Goes The Beatles", organizer for the "Beatles Tribute Cruise" and administrator for "Best Beatles History"

• Joe Johnson-  a host of "Beatles Brunch".

To eliminate any confusion upfront if you go to the podcast site you won't find five years of podcasts.  This is because the show started out as a college radio broadcast and later evolved into an early podcast.  Jousha started doing a Beatles broadcast when he was in his early twenties. He has an amazing knowledge about the Beatles, especially when you consider he wasn't even alive when the Beatles were together! 

A semi-regular segment on the show are episodes called "Wednesdays With Wings" where all the Wings songs are being played from the beginning onward. in each segment one Wings song is play before or after Joshua gives some commentary about it.  As with most of us, life happens and there have been times when there were no Wednesdays with Wings but episode 49 was recently released.  Since Paul McCartney has released the most material of any of the Beatles, I wonder how long it will take to get to his last CD?

The first episode that you can find at the site has a date of October 17, 2006 and included an interview with Pete Best (the drummer before Ringo). You might enjoy some Beatles Christmas in July in September, which includes Christmas messages that were recorded for Beatles fans over the years. The show has interviewed some interesting people so far talking to Denny Seiwell, Rod Davis (from the Quarrymen, John's band before the Beatles), May Pang (famous for "the lost weekend" with John), Laurence Juber (from Wings), Nancy Andrews (one-time fiancee of Ringo), and others.  September 9, 2009 was a big day for Beatles fans and Bertone Beatle Bonaza did three different episodes related to this special date.  On 999 Beatles remasters were released along with a Beatles version of Rock Band. 

I'm a huge Beatles fan and have really enjoyed my journey with Bertone Beatle Bonaza. If you have the time and the money you can take a cruise with Joshua and other Beatles fans in March 2010. May Pang and Nancy Andrews are both scheduled to be there. By the way Joshua did manage to dig up the first episode (which was broadcast on October 30, 2004). Congratulations to Joshua on five years of shows.  Here is hoping that the next five are just as great, if not better.

Photo Credit:  My iPod

Happy Halloween!

I just wanted to wish a Happy and Safe Halloween to everyone that will be trick or treating or partaking in some of the various other festivities this weekend.

If you have kids, you're probably already doing or have done some things to help them enjoy this time of year. We had a pumpkin craving party yesterday, inviting a couple of my daughters friends over along with their parents to carve up pumpkins (Jack O'Lanterns).  The kids all used markers to make their design and the grown-ups did the carving.  The kids were excited about taking out most of the pumpkin insides.  Later on we had baked pumpkin seeds made with some olive oil and a little salt (a nice tasty and easy to make snack). When the kids were off playing, the grown ups watched "Its The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown", a classic Peanuts Halloween special. 

We're taking the kids to a local American base later today so that they can "trick or treat" in more American style. We've taken the kids trick or treating (house to house as they refer to it locally) for several years now, but this will be the first time that we've gone to a base to trick or treat, so I'm excited to see how this will turn out.  I was really surprised to see how Halloween is growing in popularity in Germany.  While not all of the houses or apartments have treats for the kids, many that are decorated do.  A lot of the people do give out treats to the kids get a kick out of seeing the kids in all their cute costumes.

I hope that you'll all use a little safety and enjoy yourselves this Halloween by following the follow advise...

• If you have concerns about some candy or other treat that your kid has received, discard it if in doubt
• Maybe you can take the kids to a local party put on by friends or some other publicly organized party or trick or treating, to avoid taking bad or unsafe treats.  This can also add a little more fun to the festivities
• If going trick or treating be sure to dress appropriately (I remember that it often rained, sometimes snowed, but more often than not was just plain cold!)
• Do trick or treating in groups, for your kids safety (the parents can also enjoy the company of other parents this way)
• If throwing a party where alcohol is served, make sure that nobody drinks too much and drives home.  Designated drivers would be a good thing
• Show some respect for people that don't like Halloween for religious reasons, you can choose costumes that aren't demeaning to other religions

I hope that everyone has a Happy and Safe Halloween.

Photo Credit:  The pumpkins that we carved up at our little party last night.  Unfortunately, my flash didn't allow me to get the whole effect with the darkness outside.