Happy Holidays from your friends at Scurich Insurance Services
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays!
“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” – Burton Hillis, columnist and author”
It all starts with Black Friday, Cyber Monday and spills over daily through Christmas Day. Shoppers toughing out the crowds, beating down the doors to get the best prices they could get their hands on. You spend your time and money (and sanity) to get everything on your loved ones’ list.
But what happens after Christmas?
The credit card statements start trickling in one by one. All those wonderful things you had purchased for your family need to be paid in full. You silently wonder, ‘Did I go overboard?’ and that little voice in your head says, ‘Nah, did you see their faces?’ And you go on about your day content that you had done the right thing.
The excitements of those gadgets wear off before you have paid off your credit card. This holiday season we have listed a few tips so that you don’t break your bank.
This Christmas make sure that Santa’s bank is as satisfied as your loved ones are.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
Jennifer’s Gift Shop in San Jose boasted one of the two lucky winners of Tuesday’s Mega Millions Jackpot which rose to $636 million. Thuy Nguyen, owner of Jennifer’s Gift Shop had a bright smile this week as his Christmas season started early. In California, as the owner of the store which sold the winning lottery ticket will receive $1 million.
The mystery winner is still unknown at this time. California allows a full year for the winner to come forward.
Gateway Newsstand, in Georgia, is the store selling the other winning ticket.
Congratulations to the store owners and this year’s newest millionaires!
Laughing appears to bring health benefits, but not always — for some, a fit of giggles can have serious consequences, according to a new study that reviewed the effects of laughter.
The researchers reviewed studies on laughter published between 1946 and 2013. They found much evidence that laughing really is good for you. For example, laughing has been shown to improve blood-vessel function and reduce stiffness of the arteries, which is a risk factor for heart problems such as heart attacks. One study found that people who laugh easily have a reduced risk of coronary heart disease.
Laughing may also be good for your waistline. A 2006 study suggested that 10 to 15 minutes of genuine laughter a day may burn up to 40 calories.
Another study, published in 2011, found that laughing increases a person’s tolerance to pain, which the authors suggest is due to the release of endorphins.
But in rare cases, laughing can be risky, the review found.
One woman with a condition that causes a hole in the heart experienced a stroke after laughing uproariously for three minutes, the researcher said.
And some people have accidentally breathed in foreign objects while trying to catch their breath during laughter. Laughing can even dislocate the jaw, studies show. And just like a cough or a sneeze, laughter has the potential to spread infectious diseases, the researchers said.
“Laughter is no joke,” the researchers wrote today (Dec. 12) in a special Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) — a lighthearted edition of the journal that includes real research.
While laughter carries a low risk of harm, “our review refutes the proposition that laughter can only be beneficial,” said the researchers, from City Hospital Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
Still, it remains to be seen whether “sick jokes make you ill, dry wit causes dehydration or jokes in bad taste [cause] dysgeusia (distortion of sense of taste),” the researchers joked.
Content provided by http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/13/laughter-health-risks_n_4440214.html
The new U.S. farm bill is already a year behind schedule so what’s one more month? Negotiators said that the work for the legislation to cut food stamps for the poor and expand crop insurance for farmers won’t be completed prior to Congress adjourning for the year. This farm bill will cover topics from farm exports and food aid to crop subsidies.
The delay is nothing new for the farm bill. Since mid-2012 Congress has asked for massive cuts in the food stamp program. The House is asking for the largest amount of cut with a $40 billion cut over the course of the next ten years. The Senate is a little more liberal with a recommended cut of $4.5 billion.
According to Insurance Journal,
“We will be ready to vote in January,” Debbie Stabenow, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, told reporters.”
Many components of the farm bill are up in the air, including food stamps.
The new farm bill would spend some $500 billion over five years, three-quarters of it on food stamps.
Specifically, the Insurance Journal reports,
“Both chambers would trim spending on traditional farm subsidies, conservation programs and food stamps, while expanding outlays for crop insurance by up to 10 percent. One crop insurance proposal would assure grain and soybean growers of up to 90 percent of average revenue from a crop.”
Read the entire article here.
Content provided by http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2013/12/11/313908.htm
Happiness is not elusive. In fact, it’s pretty easy to attain. Follow the steps below to happiness.
So go on and choose to be happy!
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
Scurich Insurance Services
Phone: (831) 661-5697
Fax: (831) 661-5741
Physical:
783 Rio Del Mar Blvd., Suite7,
Aptos, Ca 95003-4700
Mailing:
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Watsonville, CA 95077-1170
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