Saturday, December 28, 2019

Comedian’s Video About Bedtime With A Toddler Will Make You Feel Seen

If you’ve got a little kid who likes to delay bedtime as long as possible, this comedian’s video is for you

“What is lava made from?” “Why do we have butt cracks?” “I had a booger, but I got it out and I just wanted to tell you.” If you have a toddler or young child, then you’ve probably heard some variation of the above while you’re desperately trying to get them to go to sleep. One comedian’s video impersonation of this daily tête-à-tête is going viral because, well, you’ve just gotta see for yourself. And laugh.

Comedian Shaun Johnson’s “Bedtime Excuses” video is making parents everywhere nod and chuckle — and it’s not hard to see why.

Playing every beleaguered mom there ever was, Johnson asks the toddler version of himself, “Why are you out of bed?”

The familiar answer? “I can’t sleep.” Though it’s definitely past the kid’s bedtime, that doesn’t stop The Asking Of The Questions or the Telling Of The Things. You know, like “I was scared but I’m not scared anymore” and whether “they’re” going to impeach Trump. “I think I was sleepwalking” is also a good one. LOL.

“I was in bed and one of my socks was itching so I came down to let you know one of my socks was itching” is probably the most spot-on part of the entire video. If it’s bedtime and your small child is even the tiniest bit uncomfortable (for my four-year-old, it comes down to wedgies and boogers in her nose), you will hear about it.

Even if you’re not expected to fix it, you will still hear about their sudden “problem” and how they solved it. Repeatedly, until the end of time. Or at least until they’re old enough to love and covet sleep the way nature intended.

This video is every bit as good as comedian Trey Kennedy‘s “Middle Schoolers” parody. Because while the toddler phase may be tough, the tweens are every bit as draining (even if they sleep like angels).

If nothing else, it’s nice to know that we’re all in solidarity with the thousands of parents who watch these videos and can commiserate about our stubborn-but-lovable kiddos. So maybe the next time we’re tucking our little ones in for the millionth time in one night or when our 12-year-olds come home from school with drama and attitude, we’ll think of these videos and smile. While pouring a glass of wine, to be sure, but with a fond smile for the kids who drive us crazy.

The post Comedian’s Video About Bedtime With A Toddler Will Make You Feel Seen appeared first on Scary Mommy.


Read more: scarymommy.com

https://infoforu.org/comedians-video-about-bedtime-with-a-toddler-will-make-you-feel-seen/

Friday, December 27, 2019

Environmental Scholarships You May Not Know About

Students whose chosen field of study is the environment and issues related to the environment will be interested to know there are numerous environmental scholarships to be had to help offset the cost of going to school. Many corporations, organizations and government agencies offer students grants to help complete their education. The EPA, or Environmental Protection Agency, for example, offers up to $19,250 to 30 juniors and seniors each year to help complete their bachelor's degree in environmental studies and $8,000 to complete a summer internship with the Environmental Protection Agency between their junior and senior year. Eligibility requirements for the Environmental Protection Agency scholarships include; being enrolled at or attending an accredited college or university, being a US citizen, (or can prove legal status), must have already completed the first two years of the bachelor's degree program in their chosen field, and maintain an acceptable grade point average. The Environmental Protection Agency also offers The National Network for Environmental Management Studies Fellowship to 16 eligible undergraduate and graduate students studying biology or environmental science while focusing on environmental protection and pollution control. The award amount varies by student. Annie's Homegrown, Inc. awards 25 - $1,000 environmental scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in classes and projects related to environmental advocacy. Each award is intended to assist the student with tuition, books and supplies. Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall started a foundation that offers up to 80 scholarships per year to Native American and Inuit students who are majoring in environmental studies such as, engineering, science and education. Sophomores, juniors and seniors are eligible for these scholarships which can be as much as $5,000 per year. The Libby H. Hyman Memorial Scholarship is offered by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology to students researching invertebrates out in the field. Undergraduate or graduate students nearing graduation are eligible for the $1,000 grant. The Garden Club of America offers the Katherine M. Grosscup Scholarship to students who live in the Midwest who are studying botany or horticulture. This scholarship is valued at up to $3,000. The GCA also offers $5,500 to at least two students studying ways to conserve the earth's tropical forests. One lucky freshman, sophomore or junior student can be awarded the Mary T. Carothers Summer Environmental Studies Scholarship, also through the GCA, worth $2,000 to do classwork, field work or research on environmental issues during the summer. If you are into studying sustainable agriculture then you have the opportunity to benefit from a portion of Annie's Sustainable Agriculture Scholarships. Annie's makes $50,000 worth of scholarships available every year to students studying not only sustainable agriculture but soil and crop sciences as well. You can find more information on the scholarships listed above and others that may be available at the respective websites for each of the corporations, organizations or government agencies profiled here. So no matter what your chosen field of environmental study is, there are many environmental scholarships or grants available to help with the cost of your education.

https://infoforu.org/environmental-scholarships-you-may-not-know-about/

Colleges start fundraising campaigns

Starting Off

Community College of Allegheny County has started a $65 million campaign with no end date. Efforts to build jobs will be a priority. Thus far $44 million has been raised. Oral Roberts University has started a three-year campaign to raise $75 million. Buildings and scholarships are the top goals. Editorial Tags: Fund-RaisingIs this diversity newsletter?: Newsletter Order: 0Disable left side advertisement?: Is this Career Advice newsletter?: Magazine treatment: Trending: Display Promo Box: 

Read more: insidehighered.com

https://infoforu.org/colleges-start-fundraising-campaigns/

Thursday, December 26, 2019

envelope budgeting

Long before there were complex computer software programs, people would rely on a very simple concept to make sure they kept their spending in check, envelope budgeting. This old fashioned approach to budgeting may be simple but if you put it to use for your household budget you're likely to be pleasantly surprised at how effective it can be. The first thing you need to do is to figure out what your monthly expenses are. Subtract that amount from your monthly income. Hopefully after doing this step you will find that you are living within your means and that you spend less than you make. If you find the opposite, that you aren't living within your means and that you are actually spending more than you make, it's time to reign in your spending habits. To do this take another look at your budget and identify those areas that you are overspending in. It doesn't matter if you spend too much on expensive coffee, you eat out too much, or you just buy too many electronic gadgets or shoes, once you know where the financial leak is you can plug it. To use this budgeting system all you need to do is concentrate on the areas of your budget where you are using your discretionary income. You probably don't need to use this method for your mortgage, car, or other loan payments or for your utility and grocery bills. Figure out which areas of your budget you need to work on, for example, dining out and clothing expenses. Get a plain full sized envelope, one for each category that you have a little trouble with. On the outside of the envelope write the name of the category. So if the envelope is for your dining out money, put 'dining out' on the outside of the envelope. At the beginning of the month go to the bank and get cash, the amount you get will depend on the amount you have budgeted for your spending. For example, if you've decided to work on your clothing and dining out spending than you will have two envelopes, one for each category. You will fill each envelope with the amount of cash you have budgeted for the month. So if your monthly dining out budget is $300 you will place $300 in your 'dining out' envelope at the beginning of the month, every month. Now whenever you go out to eat you can only use the money from that envelope, and when it's gone you can't eat out any more until next month. Do not take money from other envelopes. If you are willing to make some daily changes in your spending habits so that you can get your finances under control once and for all, using the envelope budgeting method can be extremely simple yet effective. Just like any budgeting system you choose, the success of the system will depend 100% on how diligent you are about sticking to it. If you're going to 'cheat' on your budget no system will work for you. Stay committed to your financial goals and follow the system and you'll find that you're money situation looks much better at the end of the month than it used to.

https://infoforu.org/envelope-budgeting/

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

What it means to have ‘undetectable’ HIV—and why you need to know

QQ6PG4MSHREJHKSN5XOHHO777E.jpgAntiretroviral drugs allow people with HIV to live completely normal lives. They also prevent them from transmitting the virus to others once they reach an undetectable viral load.

It’s been almost 40 years since the start of the AIDS epidemic, when hundreds of people began contracting deadly infections that doctors had no idea how to combat. It took until 1983 for researchers to identify the virus that was causing their symptoms: human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. After years of medical testing, protests, and millions of deaths the world still hasn’t emerged from the epidemic. But it’s getting closer: Since their peak in 2004, AIDS-related deaths have shrunk by over half, and new HIV infections have reduced by 40 percent since 1997.

Safe sex practices and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medications have prevented many further infections, and the evolution of antiretroviral (ART) treatments have stalled the virus from replicating in people who already have it. Beyond allowing people with HIV to live completely normal lives, these drugs also prevent them from transmitting the virus to others once they reach an undetectable viral load. But in many communities, people living with undetectable HIV statuses still face stigma that marginalizes them as “dirty” and unsafe to have sex with. Here’s how the science disproves that.

To understand why someone who is HIV positive but whose infection is undetectable can’t transmit HIV to a sexual partner, it’s vital to understand both how the virus itself infects the body and how medications work to combat it. Left unchecked, the HIV virus hijacks CD4 immune cells, a type of white blood cell responsible for fighting off infections, to make more copies of itself. As their viral load (number of virus copies per milliliter of blood) skyrockets, an afflicted person’s number of CD4 cells plummets, leaving them vulnerable to opportunistic infections. Once the CD4 count dips below 200, HIV has caused AIDS.

The first antiretroviral drug used to treat HIV was called AZT. Originally developed in the 1960s as a cancer treatment, AZT interfered with DNA replication in a person’s HIV-infected, CD4 immune cells to prevent the virus from taking over their immune system. But it was also incredibly toxic, causing anemia, nausea, insomnia, and weakened immune systems in many patients. Over the past few decades, researchers have developed antiretrovirals that are far more effective and less damaging, says Christopher Hall, vice president of medical affairs for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

“The evolution has been to a pill that is extremely well-tolerated, taken only once a day,” Hall says. “That’s just an incredible development.”

ART medication gives the cells a hand in combating HIV, which prevents it from replicating. A patient’s viral load then begins to decline while their CD4 count returns to normal. Originally, scientists thought that no matter how low their viral load was or how healthy they were, someone living with HIV could still give the virus to a sexual partner. But by 2000, studies began showing that below a certain threshold, that risk was incredibly rare.

While each person diagnosed with HIV has their own treatment timeline, almost all providers will have their patients begin taking ART medication as soon as they’re diagnosed. Hall says that’s a shift from how things used to be: Doctors would wait to determine whether their patients were ready and able to take the drugs (the original meds needed to be taken up to four times a day and caused a slew of side effects).

Because modern-day ART medications have so few drawbacks, a patient can start treatment right after their diagnosis and immediately see their viral load drop. Hall says that’s also important for combating the stigma that HIV is a death sentence, because at this point, it isn’t.

“We want to say, ‘Hey, you can get on top of this right away. This is going to be easy for you to manage, relatively speaking. We’re going to help you,’” Hall says.

Depending on the patient’s condition, they’ll return to the doctor after about a month to discuss how they’re tolerating the medication. The provider will run tests on their kidney and liver function and check for anemia. They’ll also run a viral load test, which scans for any genetic material associated with HIV in the bloodstream to determine the number of virus copies per milliliter of blood. Once the medication has done its work and that number reaches 200 copies per milliliter (usually after about 6 months), a person is considered undetectable.

But why do doctors say “undetectable” if the virus can still be detected by the test? Hall says that’s a function of how specific viral load tests have become over the years. When a test that can only measure as low as 200 copies per milliliter arrives at that result, it’s likely that the patient could have an even lower viral load than that. But because the test can’t measure anything lower than 200, they’re deemed undetectable.

Viral load tests get more specific by the day: Hall says some are still in the works that can get as precise as 1 to 5 copies per milliliter range. The tests he uses in his clinic can see down to 20 copies per milliliter, but he says that doesn’t mean his undetectable patients are more undetectable than those who’ve used the 200 copies per milliliter test.

“There’s some nuances to it,” Hall says.

Two hundred is still the golden number for people living with HIV, because that’s the most specific test that was used in the studies that proved an undetectable person can’t transmit the virus. Hall says below that point, an HIV-negative person with a healthy immune system can easily fight off a couple hundred viruses as opposed to the millions contained in a milliliter of blood from a newly diagnosed person. Our skin and mucous membranes do an excellent job protecting us from invaders, even HIV.

“HIV is inefficient enough that, when present in low numbers, infection can be avoided,” Hall says.

Dave Watt, outreach manager for the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS, fields all kinds of conspiracy-like questions from folks who are uninformed about HIV, down to whether or not mosquitoes can transmit the virus (they can’t, he says, otherwise everybody would have HIV by now). Over a decade ago, he founded the Friendly campaign, which aims to counteract the fear-based messaging that often surrounds the virus. Even after the CDC formally endorsed the “U=U” campaign (which asserts that undetectable HIV is untransmittable) in 2017, Watt says it can be tough to help people understand that medical truth.

“While science can’t say it’s impossible, that’s just not how science works,” Watt says. “We used to say ‘low risk’ or ‘minimal risk.’ And now the studies have shown that there really is no risk.”

In 2016, the groundbreaking PARTNER study, a large, international research initiative that studied 900 serodiscordant couples (i.e. one partner had an undetectable viral load and the other tested negative for HIV), found that even after multiple years of condomless sex, not one person transmitted the virus to their partner. A number of clinical studies have since verified this, and scientists say the risk of an undetectable person transmitting the virus to their HIV-negative partner is effectively zero.

ART can’t cure HIV—with today’s treatment options, an undetectable person will always test “positive” for the virus. And during the antiretroviral onslaught, the virus will retreat into “sanctuary” areas like the rectum or cervix, allowing it to begin replicating again if the person stops taking the drugs. The ART drugs can’t access those “sanctuary” areas very well, so they can’t eliminate every last virus left. But, when taken diligently, the meds keep HIV so well at bay that, effectively, they may have the potential to end the epidemic without scientists finding a definitive cure.

The concept of treatment as prevention (TasP) emphasizes the importance of immediately treating anyone diagnosed with HIV in order to get them to undetectable status as quickly as possible. Once they become undetectable and continue taking the medications, they’ll be unable to transmit the virus any further. If everyone living with HIV gains access to these lifesaving drugs, they can stop the disease in its tracks. But even when communities do have the resources, fear can stop them from seeking treatment.

Hall says when people fear the consequences of getting HIV and don’t realize that it’s no longer a death sentence, they’re less likely to get tested in the first place. This delay makes their conditions more difficult to treat because the virus has had a longer amount of time to take hold on their immune systems. But telling people that, at the end of the treatment, their risk of infecting others is essentially nonexistent can be a powerful tool in lifting that stigma.

Governments also have to catch up with the science. In the U.S., 29 states have laws that criminalize people living with HIV, whether it’s not disclosing their status to a sexual partner or being punished for physically transmitting the virus to their partners. Nine states have measures that enhance prison sentences for sex crimes when a person living with HIV is involved. In some cases, these sentences may be harsher than ones for murder.

Research shows that these laws don’t actually reduce virus transmission rates, and they can even discourage people from getting tested for HIV. States implemented most HIV laws during the height of the AIDS crisis, when a diagnosis was still a death sentence. But even with the proven advancements in treatment, the outdated legislation still haunts courts today. In 2015, Missouri resident Michael Johnson was sentenced to 30 years in prison for not disclosing his HIV-positive status to his sexual partners. He was just released from jail this summer after an appeals process.

“Stigma continues to be the greatest challenge in ending the epidemic,” Hall says.


Read more: popsci.com

https://infoforu.org/what-it-means-to-have-undetectable-hiv-and-why-you-need-to-know/

Rare Deal! Yes To Face Cleansing Wipes, Only $2.33 at Rite Aid – No Coupons!

Head to Rite Aid for this rare deal on Yes To face cleansing wipes. Buy one and get two free–it’s that easy! Sign up for a Rite Aid Wellness+ Card to access this awesome sale.

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Buy 3 Yes To Facial Wipes $6.99, regular price

Buy one get two free through 11/30, limit 2

Final Price: $2.33 each, when you buy 3

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see more rite aid deals here

The post Rare Deal! Yes To Face Cleansing Wipes, Only $2.33 at Rite Aid – No Coupons! appeared first on The Krazy Coupon Lady.


Read more: thekrazycouponlady.com

https://infoforu.org/rare-deal-yes-to-face-cleansing-wipes-only-2-33-at-rite-aid-no-coupons/