by Sharon Zieman, editor

Lifestyles is gazing ahead and anxiously excited about 2010.  I am hopeful for our economy as we are starting to see some relief from the wilting of our businesses.  With the look ahead, I naturally reflect on what made the hard times good, and the things I rely on to make life good again.

These may not make the “Oprah List,” and most assuredly extravagant gifts won’t be distributed about. Lifestyles magazine may not compare to Oprah’s hoopla, but then the one thing Oprah doesn’t have that we do is the wonderful spirit of Denton County.  I really do love this place, so I want to start 2010 with “My Favorite (Denton) Things” list. While writing the list, I quickly found that everyone here at Lifestyles wanted to add some of their favorites as well!

Big, Orange and Frenchy
Frenchy’s sense of community is unsurpassed, he supports our vets with his heart and his time and he keeps us informed of the happenings around the area.

A Remnant Cake from Candy Haven
My family has been enjoying this strange looking but GREAT tasting treat for years – we even prefer it over the conventional cake and enjoy it for all family birthdays.

Carol Roberts, CPA in Cross Roads
A ‘numbers’ gal that understands you might not necessarily get it, but she teaches and explains as she goes along.

Bill’s Garage in Ponder
Great mechanic that takes the fear out of bringing your car in.  Honest, quick and a pleasure to deal with.

Café China
An egg roll worth waiting five years for – aren’t we all glad Peiling came back?!

Trucks with the name Sinocola
Construction on University Drive is moving at such wonderful speed, where were you when The Loop needed you?

RV Que in Krum
Some really good barbeque, just a little RV and a couple of real championship pit masters.

Recycled Books
A quiet haven in Downtown Denton, grab a few literally treasures and cuddle up for an escape that can last hours.

Pumpkin Muffies
A delight and surprise at our Panera Bread.  A just enough treat.

Music on the Downtown Square
I always take out-of-town visitors to see the beautiful area and the music addition is a special treat.

Krum
A community with heart, this small town brought Christmas to a five-year old girl in July.  The love, kindness and giving nature of this town taught us all about reaching out and caring.

Beth Marie’s has TWO locations
Need we say more.

Write to Lifestyles of Denton County, and tell us some of your favorite things about the area. Your responses may be featured in an on-going article entitled “My Favorite Denton Things”

editor@dentonlifestyles.com

by Sue Newhouse

This is the third in a series on local farms in and nearby Denton County

Traci grew up on a farm in Wisconsin that was established in 1827. It was there that she inherited her parent’s passion and love of farming. So it seemed perfectly reasonable that when Traci’s mother became ill a few years ago,  for Traci and her husband, Todd to find a couple of those doe-eyed, brown and white Jersey calves to pick up her spirits.  That was in 1999. Traci’s mother is no longer with them, but you can still feel her spirit on their family dairy in Krum, Texas.

Dairy farming is a very demanding, stressful occupation. It requires someone be on the property to milk every 12 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Todd works off the farm during the day leaving Traci to manage the operation. Someone has to be available morning and night for milking the 8 Jersey cows currently producing 20-25 gallons each day. Shannon, a part time relief milker has helped out to give the couple an occasional night off, but a recently recruited full time farm intern – Mandy, has been able to give them a much needed break. Just returning from 10 days in Wisconsin visiting family and friends, as well as attending the annual World Dairy Expo in Madison, it’s the 1st time they’ve been away from the farm in 3 years.

This is a raw milk dairy. The unpasteurized milk & cream are sold on the farm directly to its members. The pasteurization process slows down the microbial growth by destroying both the good and the bad natural occurring bacteria.  The proponents of raw milk claim that by not pasteurizing it retains more of its beneficial qualities.

There’s no question that these are happy cows .They’re pastured and fed extra hay when needed and because of the healthy life-style, there’s no need for any hormones or added antibiotics.

Cleanliness is an essential aspect of the milking process.  The cow’s udders are cleaned with antibacterial solutions and wipes ensuring the most sanitary transfer of milk from cow to milk jug.  The cows are milked one at a time using a single cow milking machine known as a bucket milker.  From the bucket milker it’s transferred to a holding container where it’s bottled into 1 gallon jugs for sale. If there’s an excess of daily milk, Traci will run it through a cream separator to offer members pints of wonderfully thick cream.  They always sell only fresh milk daily.

At the present time, membership is full. New members come to them because they know someone who’s already a member.  The next time you talk with your friends, you might ask them where they’re getting their milk!

For more local farm info try:
www.SlowFoodUSA.org
www.LocalHarvest.org
www.NaturallyGrown.org
www.EatGreenDFW.com

If you know of great farm in your community, email:  suenewhouse@yahoo.com

Lisa M. Elliott, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist and Clinic Manager
Cook Children’s Medical Center

Development and use of gross motor skills in children and adolescents is good for their overall well-being and health. However most people do not realize these skills also play an important role in a child’s academic success, their brain development, self-esteem, ability to participate in group events and in social skills. Gross motor skills involve the bigger muscle groups like arms, legs, feet and torso whereas fine motor skills involve smaller muscles such as hands, fingers and toes. All motor skills, both gross and fine motor require a connection between the brain and the muscles in your body. Generally gross motor skills develop sequentially and they need to be mastered before fine motor skills are mastered. Unfortunately, once a child has mastered locomotion (i.e., walking) and other general gross motor milestones it is all too common that the emphasis shifts to the development of fine motor skills. Both gross and fine motor skills are important and should be optimally developed. The development and enhancement of gross motor skills plays a significant role in a child’s academic success, positive self-esteem and confidence.

Good gross motor development has been found to be beneficial for academic success. Research has shown good eye-hand and eye-foot coordination skills can enhance the vision aspect of reading skills (Dequiros, 1979). Proper upper body support is critical for handwriting.

Gross motor activities also help increase the flow of glucose which is the brain’s chief source of energy. This activity helps develop normal connections during their critical years of child and adolescent development (Gabbard, 1993).

Both children and adolescents continue to develop increasing coordination and motor ability with proper instruction and guidance. This allows a child to gain greater physical strength and endurance. In addition, continued gross motor instruction and development will help foster better distance judgment, motor planning and hand-eye coordination which are beneficial for play and sports participation. All of this promotes greater self-confidence, and a willingness to attempt new challenges. Social inclusion is another positive attribute to good gross motor coordination. A child who is more confident engaging in activities and who has the gross motor skills to do so is frequently invited to participate in many fun group activities.

Awareness and development of good gross motor skills begins during infancy and the toddler years, however it should continue to be a focus throughout childhood and adolescence. Overall good gross motor coordination helps contribute to a child’s positive self-esteem, a desire to be active and healthy, academic success and overall confidence.

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! Reward! I wouldn’t exactly call myself “green,” not much of a tree hugger, and popular or not, I love my bottled water. However, there are a few things that just make sense to me, and one of them is consignment. Buying, selling and donating.

I have always recognized the ways it can be good for my family. It’s really a great way for us to save money on practically new clothes. We can buy gently used brand-name items that we could not have afforded new retail, and on the flip side, items that we bought and used very little or cared for during their use with our family, can be consigned and sold for some cash or donations.

All the really good basic reasons have always made sense. But there is more to the story. Do you realize the impact that buying consignment can have by simply keeping tons of packaging as well as perfectly good items out of our landfills? The packaging for new baby strollers, car seats, baby beds and toys is tremendous. It is bad enough to break it all down to get into the trash can for curbside pickup, but it has a massive impact on our landfills. Realizing the impact of that packaging alone for the items I have been buying, I was amazed and somewhat dismayed

My time is money. I have done my share of the garage sale circus and the one thing I am sure of, is that I have never really made enough money to pay for the pain and suffering I go through. Need I refresh your memory of the: borrowing of racks/tables from a distant cousin (hauling and returning it after that l-o-n-g weekend), cleaning out the garage to even start displaying the items, waking up the first morning to six cars in your driveway at 6 am (early investors!), getting haggled down to almost nothing for some wonderfully cared-for items that you had priced low to begin with, and ugh…on and on.

Consigning just makes sense, so buy, sell and donate through consignment. It is a shade of green that looks good on all of us.