It isn't the latest laughter is the best medicine study that's the inspiration for today's post, it's the new cd by my favorite Professional Smart Aleck, Carla Ulbrich.

You can't go five minutes these days without tripping over a story about the "obesity epidemic" or how today's kids don't get enough exercise or how the average family eats fast food however many times per week. Or something like that. I don't really know; generally I'm too busy chain-smoking and telling the kids to at least have some potato chips before they sit down with their video games to really notice.

I was watching television and a study was being discussed that equated happiness and health, and said that they were both fostered by gratitude and positive thinking, This, they said, was news. I wondered, were we supposed to be surprised?

Today is the last day of Respiratory Care Week. I was going to skip it entirely but the southern California wildfires are causing some serious breathing problems for so many people, it seemed wrong to ignore the topic in favor of my personal stomach virus. Before we get to the problems caused by the fires, let's look at the real reason there is a respiratory care week: COPD or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Fourth. Are you at risk? Did you know that there are things you can do to reduce your risk of COPD? * Quit Smoking * Avoid exposure to pollutants * Visit your doctor regularly * Avoid the flu

Did you hear Mrs Tennessee was bit by a rattlesnake? (There are snake pictures - don't click if you don't like snakes!) Contrary to the news reports, Mrs Idaho did not pull the fangs out or suck out venom. It would have been cool if she had, though. It appears as though it was Mrs Iowa who offered nursely assistance. I guess it can be hard to tell one beauty queen from another? I just want to clarify that none of the news reporters have checked their facts very well. I am not an RN, I did not pull a snake fang from Mrs. Tennessee's foot and I did not suck the venom out. Yes, I was there and yes I did take lots of pictures (what can you expect from a scrapbooker) but that is it. I have posted pictures of the snake on my blog, but the pictures of Christina are not going to be posted by me. I took them for her and she will decide what to do with them. Just goes to show you that what you see and hear from the media is often very wrong.

You noticed the brand new BlogHer site design, right? I thought I'd take advantage of my bi-weekly BlogHer blogging by pointing out how some of the new features work - Health & Wellness style.