Boys and girls were kept separate in Ancient Rome. However, each year there was the Feast of Lupercalia. The young girls’ names were written on slips of paper which were then placed in a jar. The young men would choose a slip of paper and be partnered off with that girl for the remainder of the festival. It wasn’t uncommon for the young couple to fall in love and get married.

Claudius II, Emperor of Rome, was called Claudius the Cruel because Rome was engaged in many bloody campaigns. He decreed that couples could not marry because young men didn’t want to join the military for fear of being away from loved ones. Saints Valentine and Marius secretly married couples. Saint Valentine was martyred on February 14, 270 AD.

As time passed, the early Christian Church decided to purge paganism from the Church holidays and rather than celebrate Lupercalia they honored St. Valentine instead. They did not wipe away all elements of the Feast, as young men still chose young maidens at that time of year.

Another potential beginning for the holiday is that Saint Valentine became friends with a jailer’s daughter when he was jailed for defying Emperor Claudius. It is believed the priest sent the jailer’s daughter a note signed “From Your Valentine” and that is considered to be the first Valentine ever given. It wasn’t until 496 A.D. that Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as the day to honor Saint Valentine; thus Valentine’s Day was begun.

Even though the holiday began as a primarily a pagan holiday it was then changed to a day to honor a particular man named Valentine. It wasn’t until the 1800s that the holiday changed into the day we now celebrate. Miss Esther Howland supposedly sent the first Valentine cards and now the number of cards bought for this one day each year numbers in the millions or more.

For another interesting look at Valentine’s Day and it’s beginnings check out this post over on Is That Even Legal.

The Story of Valentine’s Day is a post from: Staying Home with My Son

P.S. Happy Singles Awareness Day

(SPM Wire) Valentine’s Day may be popular for couples, but there’s no reason single people can’t enjoy it, too.

The key is to make your own Valentine’s Day tradition. Perhaps you’d like a night out with your other single friends. Or maybe you’d enjoy an outdoor adventure to avoid all those pink hearts and lace.

You can also treat Valentine’s Day as a day to honor yourself.  Pamper yourself with a spa treatment or delve into a new hobby to expand your horizons.

You should also remember to honor the people who have loved you the longest. A simple phone call to a favorite relative or best friend can leave two people with happy Valentine’s Day memories.

Valentine’s Day Activities For Singles is a post from: Staying Home with My Son

But a new survey indicates that their relatives should be the least of their concerns, as more than one in five Americans (22 percent) admit their kitchen would fail a food safety inspection.

The new survey, sponsored by the Water Quality and Health Council, also found that less than half of Americans (47 percent) typically use a disinfectant or disinfecting wipes after using the kitchen counter, despite knowing that chlorine bleach kills germs that cause foodborne illnesses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 76 million Americans get sick from foodborne illnesses every year and more than 300,000 of them are hospitalized. The CDC also warns that raw foods of animal origin (including turkey) are the most likely to be contaminated.

“Holiday cooking introduces increased risks of foodborne illness as raw meats and vegetables are processed on kitchen surfaces that are not properly disinfected,” says Linda Golodner, president emeritus of the National Consumers League.

“Practicing good kitchen hygiene is not very complicated,” says Golodner. “Thoroughly wash surfaces with hot, soapy water and rinse. Then apply a simple chlorine bleach solution and let air dry to properly disinfect the area. Follow these steps before and after handling raw foods on kitchen surfaces.”

Just one-half tablespoon of bleach in one half-gallon of water effectively kills common foodborne germs on kitchen surfaces. Golodner says that most people may not realize this, however. Many people overestimate the amount of bleach per gallon of water needed to effectively kill common foodborne germs.

“Chlorine-based disinfectants are registered as safe to use by the Environmental Protection Agency and proven to destroy the germs that spread foodborne illness,” notes Golodner. The survey also found that by more than a seven to one margin, Americans trust chlorine-based disinfectants over green cleaners to kill germs.

The Water Quality & Health Council lists the following guidelines for safe food handling:

* Clean: Wash all food contact surfaces with hot, soapy water followed by disinfecting with 1/2 tablespoon chlorine bleach in 1/2 gallon of water.

* Separate: Keep fresh fruits and vegetables separate from raw meat, poultry and seafood.

* Cook: To kill any bacteria that might be present, thoroughly cook meat, poultry and eggs to the appropriate temperature.

* Chill: Refrigerate leftover perishables at 40 degrees within two hours of cooking or serving.

In addition, this holiday season, the Water Quality and Health Council is offering consumers a free refrigerator magnet featuring simple directions for disinfecting kitchen surfaces, available at www.disinfect-for-health.org.

Food Safety Tips For The Holidays is a post from: Staying Home with My Son

Let’s be realistic ladies. Without proper planning, the holidays are anything but a holiday. Just look at the list of things that need to be done: Shopping, cooking, cleaning, decorating, sending holiday mail, the list goes on and on.

Let me clue you all in on a few key questions that you should ask yourself in order to have a holiday season free of stress and worry, and instead filled with fun and laughter:

What types of holiday celebrations do you want? For example: Do you want to have an immediate family only holiday affair or an extravaganza including immediate and extended family plus a few friends? Once you’ve thought everything through and decided on the type of holiday gathering you would like, you can then start making your plans.

If you are ready to get a head start on organizing yourself, your family and your holiday check lists, then keep reading:

Holiday Cards: Start early! I use a holiday card list that I derive from saving names and addresses from holiday cards my family has received in past years. I created a simple, computerized list that is easy to edit and print onto address labels. Be sure to stock up on stamps so that when you have your cards signed, stuffed and addressed you can affix a stamp to them and make one, simple trip to the Post Office.

Photo courtesy of sxc.hu

Holiday Gifts: There’s nothing like getting a HUGE credit card bill in the mail at the start of the New Year. Many of us tend to want to be generous when shopping for holiday gifts. While your generosity will be appreciated at gift giving time, keep in mind that it is very easy to succumb to “impulse buying” and go all out on your holiday shopping. While your intentions may be good, your pocketbook may be singing a different song. Set a budget and stick to it – your bank account will thank you for it after the start of the New Year.

Wrap it up: Wrap your gifts and place name-tags on them immediately after you bring them home, then store the gifts in a secure spot. This will cut down on those late night wrapping sessions that I am sure we ALL have experienced a few times, if not every year.

Baking & cooking: If you will be cooking during the holidays, it is important to plan your meals ahead of time. Be sure to stock up ahead of time on all the necessary non-perishable baking ingredients such as flour, sugar and spices. Create a list of your holiday menus and a list of the ingredients you will need to prepare each of those meals. Also, try to think of a few dishes that can be prepared ahead of time and then frozen as an extra time-saving measure

Delegate: This is one of my favorite tips. Be sure to enlist the help of your family or friends. Sit down and discuss what needs to be done then ask for volunteers. If no hands are raised, simply assign small tasks to each of them. Whether it is arranging for a babysitter so that you can escape for a child free day of shopping, passing the shopping list onto another family member or friend so that they can pick up the items for you, or letting the children decorate your home. Be sure to get the whole family involved in the holiday preparations so that you will not be overwhelmed.

Enjoy: Whatever you decide to do, remember to relax and enjoy yourself. You and your family will have much fonder memories of this holiday season if you are not spending it pulling your hair out.

Article by Aurelia Williams is a Certified Life Coach that specializes in helping women achieve balance and less stress in their busy lives. Get a free consultation here.

Holiday Planning Tips for WAHMs is a post from: Staying Home with My Son

TodaysMama and GameStop are giving away a sleigh full of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family? To be together.

2. What is your Christmas morning / Hanukkah Nightly tradition? We open family presents Christmas Eve, and Santa presents are under the tree, unopened, Christmas morning.

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be? Permanent eyeliner

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money? Listen to Christmas music, watch Christmas movies, read Christmas stories, Drive through the city park light show

5. What games did you play with your family growing up? I Spy and Monopoly were faves.

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood? Opening family presents Christmas Eve and having only the Santa presents Christmas morning.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas/Hanukkah-away-from-home trip? To visit family.

8. Check out GameStop and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year? Nintendo DSi, Sims games, Wii controllers.

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme is a post from: Staying Home with My Son

Happy Thanksgiving is a post from: Staying Home with My Son

Happy Singles Awareness Day AND Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Singles Awareness Day is a post from: Staying Home with My Son

Two of the most common new year resolutions have to do with health and finances. Many people have weight loss as a number one resolution. I’ve never been big on making my own new year resolutions. I’m not even sure why. Fear of failure is probably the biggest reason. That’s the same reason I don’t participate in the goal days on my networking groups. I hate accountability. I was talking to my friend Tammy Munson about that the other night. I often keep my projects, goals, etc to myself because I don’t want anybody to know when I don’t accomplish whatever it is I want to do. Or if I don’t do it as quickly as I plan. Let’s face it, life gets in the way. I have several domains that I’m working on getting to a launch point. I hope it will be soon, but I can’t say for sure.

In the last few weeks, I’ve seen in several places where instead of coming up with new year resolutions, they are coming up with a theme for the year. I don’t remember where I originally read about this idea, but I know I’ve seen it several times since. I think that rather than come up with a list of resolutions, I’m going to come up with a theme for the year. I’ve also decided I’m going to have a theme for my business, and a theme for my personal life. So here goes…

My theme for business is going to be “Focus” and this doesn’t mean that I’m going to focus on just one thing. However, I am going to focus on being more productive with my time and I’m going to focus on getting organized so that all my ideas can flourish instead of going stale because I’m too overwhelmed to deal with them.

I’ve given my theme for my personal life a lot of thought, and after much debating and more than a few tears, I’ve decided that 2009 is going to be the year of letting go. I have been through a lot of stuff personally in the last several years. There is a lot of stress, anger and even bitterness. I’m tired of holding onto it. It’s time to let it go. The last few weeks I’ve really felt like God is telling me that it is time to let it all go. I’ll expand more on that later. Please say a prayer for me as I deal with some of this personal crap and get it out of my life once and for all.

Common New Year Resolutions is a post from: Staying Home with My Son

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS01fBjJK5k

I Still Believe in Santa Claus is a post from: Staying Home with My Son

The first thing I did was when he first got home. I asked him if he had a good day at school. He said yeah. I asked him if anything happened that he needed to tell me.

He said, “Well, I finally got my report card today.”

I told him that’s not what I was talking about. I asked him if he had got into any sort of trouble he should tell me about. He looked at me like I was crazy and declared he had not. I then told him that his principal had called me. Now, let me tell you he was looking in the fridge for a snack at the time. I was standing at the counter preparing dinner. So he closes the fridge door to look at me and gives me a look that says I’m crazier than he realized. And he says, no she didn’t. I said yes she did. And then I told him that she had told me that him and a little girl that lives near us had been caught on the playground at recess smooching.

At first he got upset with a look of disgust on his face and said nuh uh, I didn’t mom. Then he got a half grin and told me I was just trying to play an April Fool’s joke on him. At this point it was hard to keep a straight face, but I did it. I told him that no I wasn’t.

I said, “No, I’m serious. She said you and Alexis were smooching.”

Then he starts almost crying and he says but it wasn’t me. And then he proceeds to plead his case for a few minutes. Suddenly, almost in tears, he stops and says, you are just tricking me, right? So I started laughing and I said yeah and then I gave him a hug and asked him to go feed and water the cat.

Ok, so in my bathroom I have one of these whale faucet fountains. I had taken a thin black rubber band and put around it so it would squirt up when he turned on the water. So he gives her some food and then he goes to give her some water. I hid in the hallway and peeked around the corner. He turned on the water and it squirted him before he had a chance to realize what was happening. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to die. OMG I wish I had a camera because he turned around and looked at me, water dripping off his face, and says, was that another April Fool’s Joke? I said yeah. Then he turns around to water the cat and says, “The cat already has water!”

Then he comes out and asks me if I had set up jokes all over the house and to go ahead and just tell him what they all are. He loved it! He loves playing tricks on people and getting tricks played on him, so this was great for him.

Hope you had a great day and didn’t get too many pranks pulled on you…or at least some really good ones!

Happy April Fool’s Day is a post from: Staying Home with My Son