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Poet Maya Angelou remembers growing up in rural Arkansas where her grandmother taught her a valuable life lesson about complaining.

The grandmother, who ran a store, would routinely call Maya near whenever a certain customer, who was known for complaining, came in. The grandmother would not avoid giving the customer opportunities to express his sour outlook. Rather, she would simply ask, 'How are you?' and the whiner would proceed to complain about working or the weather or some other mundane fate. The grandmother would frequently turn to Maya and nod to make sure Maya was paying attention while she patiently listened to the customer’s observations.

Once when the customer had finally left, the grandmother turned to Maya and remarked: 'There are people who went to sleep last night. They may have been poor or rich or white or black, but they will never wake up again. And now those folks would give anything for five minutes more of this weather or ten more minutes of plowing. So you just watch yourself about complaining.”

Maya learned and later acknowledged: “What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.”

The Great Backyard Bird Count (www.birdsource.org/gbbc) is an annual four-day event which engages birders of all ages in counting birds. The count creates a real-time snapshot of where birds are across North America. Anyone can participate, and it can take as little as 15 minutes on one day. It’s free, fun, and easy — and it helps the birds.

Between February 17^th and the 20^th, thousands of volunteers all over the United States and Canada will track the number and types of birds they see near their homes. Results help researchers monitor species in trouble and inform public policy debate about the environment.

As the count progresses, anyone with Internet access can explore what is being reported from their own towns or anywhere else in the United States and Canada. They can also see how this year's numbers compare with those from previous years. Participants may also send in photographs of the birds they see and select photos will be posted.

The event is sponsored by the Audubon Society, Bird Studies Canada (Etudes D’Oiseaux), and the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology. For more information, browse www.birdsource.org/gbbc.

Making any kind of prediction about the real estate market is a risky proposition. The website of Housing Finance magazine, though, cautions readers to be wary of these age-based assumptions:

• Generation Y doesn’t want to buy a house. In fact, one survey of over 1,200 members of Generation Y found that about 36 percent already own a house, and 70 percent of those who don’t own a home expect to buy one by their early 30s.

• Baby Boomers want “Independent Senior Living.” Instead of moving into housing developments targeted toward seniors, 75 percent of retirement-age Baby Boomers said they prefer to live in a mixed-age community.

Galileo was a truly inspirational scientist and February 15^th has been dedicated to celebrating his extraordinary accomplishments. He is known as the father of modern science for his strict adherence to the scientific method of testing his hypotheses with experimentation and accepting the results of the experiments instead of forcing his findings to follow the beliefs of the day.

The ideas he put forward about the universe (the Copernican view that the earth actually revolved around the sun), though correct, were met with stiff resistance and he was ultimately forced to face trial when he refused to be silent about them. It was not until 1758, over 100 years after his death, that the Church finally capitulated and authorized the full publication of Galileo’s notebooks.

According to popular legend, after he had recanted his theories and was being led away to house arrest, Galileo was heard to mutter: “and yet it moves…”

A single-engine plane had engine trouble in Nevada, very close to the Air Force’s high-security installation known as Area 51. Military police converged on the aircraft when it landed, pulled the pilot out of the cockpit, and spent hours interrogating him.

They kept him all night, finally realizing that the pilot was telling the truth about his engine problems. With a stern warning, they allowed him to fix his engine take off and fly away.

The next day, though, the same airplane came in for a landing on the same spot outside the base. Again the MPs surrounded the aircraft. The pilot opened the door and jumped out, arms raised, but the sergeant in charge saw a second person sitting in the cockpit.

“Do anything you want to me!” The pilot pointed to the cockpit. “But please just tell my wife where I was last night!”

Traffic safety experts recommend washing and waxing your car on a regular basis to keep the paint job at its most reflective and shiniest, making it more visible on the road -- and therefore safer. Car maintenance experts suggest washing your car once a week at most and at least once a month, depending on where you live. Salt air and high humidity both take their toll on paint jobs and necessitate more frequent washings. As a rule of thumb, if you run your hand over the finish and it does not feel smooth, it's time to wash it. Use professional car-wash products because most household detergents will strip the finish. Wax or polish your car once or twice a year.

You may want to give gum-chewing a second thought. Researchers say chewing stimulates signals in the learning center of your brain and may help you save your memory as you age. Chewing gum also burns 11 calories an hour.

Tea is good for your bones. Researchers first thought that because tea contained caffeine it would deplete the calcium supply, which could lead to weaker and brittle bones in old age. But more recent research proved that tea drinkers actually had a 10 to 20 percent lower fracture risk than non-tea drinkers. Scientists believe that isoflavonoid chemicals in tea may reduce the deterioration of bones and the risk of osteoporosis.

Fish is good for your eyes. Fish is good for a lot of health reasons, but researchers recently discovered that fish could also protect your eyes from age-related macular degeneration. People who ate fish more than once a week were only half as likely to develop the disease than those who ate fish less than once a month.

Milk helps you lose weight. Despite the belief that milk has too many calories, researchers have found that low-fat, high-calcium foods may actually burn fat. It seems that extra calcium increased metabolism in mice when they took a human equivalent of 1,600 milligrams of calcium, cutting body fat 42 percent and weight by 19 percent.

Dal LaMagna (whose last name rhymes with lasagna) took $500 in the mid-1970s, bought hundreds of tweezers, and has since become a very rich man whose company is growing at 30 percent a year.

Since the late 1960s, LaMagna had a series of entrepreneurial mishaps. He tried, for example, to turn drive-in movie theaters into discotheques, but that fell by the wayside. Other bright ideas included selling lasagna pans and producing a coming-of-age movie.

Distraught and broke, LaMagna had to move back home and take a $6 an hour job at an electronics firm. It was there that he first laid eyes on needlepoint tweezers that were used to pick up microscopic electronic parts. The first thing that came to his mind was how difficult it had been to remove splinters from parts of his body after he had sunbathed on the roof during his youth. Quickly, he bought a few industrial tweezers, repackaged them and sold them to a few lumberyards around town whose employees, no doubt, were struggling with splinters from the job.

He hit gold when he talked to a beauty supply store and the owner told him if he really wanted to be useful, he should make tweezers that could pluck eyebrows. He did. He sold them for $12, a huge increase over the $3 that tweezers were going for in that day. But his were better, and soon his business exploded.

Time magazine named his tweezers one of the best products of the year in 1994.

Information theft now costs companies more than the theft of their physical assets, according to the Kroll Annual Global Fraud Report. Physical theft actually declined somewhat this year, with 27.2 percent of executives saying that physical assets or inventory had been stolen over the previous year. Roughly one in four companies reports being the target of theft (of both information and physical assets) in the past year, but that number is actually down from a record high last year.

Excellent customer service comes from people who care, not company policy. Take this example of a front-desk clerk at Walt Disney World’s Polynesian Village resort. As a guest was checking out, she told the desk clerk that she had a wonderful visit but had been heartbroken when she lost several rolls of film she hadn’t yet developed. The clerk not only sympathized with the guest, she also told the woman to leave a couple of unused rolls. “Leave the rest to me,” the clerk said.

Two weeks later the guest received a package at her home. In it were photos of the entire cast of the luau show, personally autographed by each performer. There were also pictures of the parade and fireworks in the theme park, which the desk clerk had taken on her own time.

The guest wrote, telling Disney that never had she received such compassionate service from any business.

Changing your mind can be very expensive when it comes to tattoos! According to the American Society for Dermatological Surgery, the average cost is between $250 and $500 per office visit -- and removal can require 6 to 12 visits. Even though tattoos hit the mainstream in the 1990s (and now even Barbie has some ink!), don't expect your health insurance to pay for the removal procedure. It is a cosmetic procedure and is usually not covered. When you add the cost of removal to the $45 to $150-per-hour charge to get your tattoo in the first place, it's worth serious thought before taking the plunge.

Our thoughts can kidnap our attention and keep us from appreciating the simple things in life. A person has about 60,000 thoughts a day, give or take a few. Sometimes, however, we are not aware of them until they interfere with something we’re doing—like trying to sleep or stay focused at a meeting or trying NOT to fall asleep at a meeting.

A water bearer head two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck.

One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

One day, the cracked pot spoke to the water bearer, "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Moral: We're all cracked pots. But it's those cracks and flaws that make our lives so interesting and rewarding. Look for the good in the cracks.

Colds, sinus infections, and other upper respiratory tract infections are the leading reason for visits to the doctor in the United States. But according to a study reported by Yahoo News, eating yogurt could help you avoid a cold and many ailments associated with allergies.

Yogurt contains probiotics—bacteria that can benefit the body’s immune system. In addition to yogurt, probiotics are found in fermented and non-fermented dairy products and in soy products like miso and soy drinks.

A review of data involving more than 3,000 participants found that patients who consumed foods with probiotics for more than one week came down with 12 percent fewer upper respiratory infections than those who were treated with a placebo, or who ate probiotic foods for less than a week.

In addition to the serious celebrations of Shabbat, March also hosts some less well known observances:

International Women's Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women’s Day, is marked on March 8 every year. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political and social achievements.

Pi Day, March 14. The Greek letter (

) is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th. Pi = 3.1415926535… Could be a hint to our quiz question.

St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. Every year on this day, the Chicago River, San Antonio River, and River Liffey in Dublin, Ireland, are all dyed green for the day.

150th Anniversary of the Patent on the Pencil, March 30. In 1858, Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia was granted a patent for the first pencil with an attached eraser. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled the patent invalid since it was merely a combination of two previous inventions.

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

People over 40 shouldn’t just plan for retirement, they should rehearse for it.

Because retirement can last 20 to 30 years, it’s more important than ever that “pre-retirees” (those who plan to retire in five to seven years) practice how they want to live without work as the organizational focus of their lives:

· Try out different retirement lifestyles. For example, many people dream of traveling in an RV or going abroad. Practice this by renting a camper and going on the road for a long vacation. You may discover that travel is exhausting or boring. The same holds true for relocation dreams. Rent a home where you think you may want to retire to see if it really is where you’d like to live. The community may not be your cup of tea. Work these details out before you commit to a change.

· Live with your spouse 24 hours a day. Most couples spend much of their early years working and, thus, spending much of their time apart. It may take some time to get used to the other person’s schedule, habits, and routines.

· Practice living on a retirement budget. Most retirees’ income is significantly less than their pre-retirement income. Add up all the Social Security benefits, pension, estimated income from the sale of your home, 401(k) and IRA savings to calculate what you can realistically expect to live on each month. Live on that amount for a month to determine what changes, if any, you need to make to your plans.

Spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere on March 20, 2012, at 1:14 A.M. (EDT).

Aspirin is one of those ordinary things that’s been around forever. But how did aspirin come into the world?

Aspirin, or its technical name acetylsalicylic acid, belongs to a group of drugs called salicylates. It’s commonly used for minor aches and pains, to reduce fever, and to relieve inflammation. Aspirin also inhibits the production of platelets in the blood, making it useful in preventing clots that may cause heart attacks and strokes. In addition, low doses of aspirin administered immediately after a heart attack can reduce the risk of a second attack or damage to cardiac tissue.

Hippocrates and other early physicians used extracts of willow bark or the plant spiraea (found in Europe and Asia) to treat headaches, pain, and fevers. These plants contain a naturally occurring chemical called salicin.

In 1853, French chemist Charles Frederic Gerhardt created acetylsalicylic acid. In 1897 chemists at Bayer AG produced a version of salicin that was gentler on the stomach than pure salicylic acid. The new drug’s name, “aspirin,” was based on the word “spiraea.” By 1899 it was being sold by Bayer throughout the world.

Following World War I, “aspirin” became a generic term, although Aspirin with a capital A remains a registered trademark of Bayer.

According to Dr. Mehmet Oz, how much you weigh is less important than where you carry your weight. If excess weight is predominantly around your middle (as opposed to hips and legs), that could significantly raise your risk for heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and certain types of cancers.

As a rule of thumb, Dr. Oz says your waist shouldn’t be any larger than half your height. So if you’re 5 feet, 4 inches (for a total of 64 inches), your waist should measure no more than 32 inches. For an accurate measurement, pull in your stomach as much as possible and have a string or measuring tape meet at your belly button.

1. Mop up your winter bills. You had a great Christmas. Now if you need to take on an extra job, get rid of an item of luxury, or dip slightly into savings, it's important to pay off Christmas debt rather than letting it pile up in the corners.

2. Now that the taxes are in the bag, it's time to organize for next year. Think of it as tax maintenance. Like painting the Golden Gate Bridge...once you're finished, it's time to start again.

3. Add on to your savings. If you can get rid of financial clutter, put that savings into your retirement fund. Or create a vacation fund. Or as mother always said, add it to next year's Christmas fund and you won't have to stress about gifts when the time comes to make merry.

4. Schedule a day when you can sit alone or with your partner to review your insurance, retirement contributions, and other savings plans. Annual analysis of your financial position in the world helps keep things fresh and on track.

You can’t escape social networking: Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and all their online cousins are everywhere. If you’ve got kids, chances are they’re eager to join all their friends in cyberspace.

Worrying about their safety is natural, but hoping social networks will go away isn’t realistic. You’re better off working with your children so they don’t hide their online activities from you.

Start with kid-friendly sites. Facebook is far from the only place for people to go. Many schools now have kid-friendly classroom options for networking.

Talk about privacy. Have a serious discussion with your kids about guarding their personal information online, including their address, name, names of friends, etc.

Use parental controls—online and offline. Kids don’t always get to choose what’s served up to them online. Use parental controls to block sites. Also tell you kids you require access to their email, texts, and other interactions.

Here’s a tip that could add great health benefits to your life. The next time you’re using garlic in a recipe, after you’ve chopped or crushed it, let it sit for 15 minutes before cooking with it. The cancer fighting properties, active agents— allyl sulfide compounds, are produced when the garlic cloves are chopped or crushed. However, heating the garlic just after it is chopped or crushed stops the chemical reaction that needs to take place to produce the sulfides. So give your garlic time to produce those anti-cancer properties!

November - December Trivia Quiz Answer

Question: On what part of the body would one wear a diadem?

Answer: On one's head as a diadem is a crown. (www.funtrivia.com)

Congratulations to Jana Taylor! Your name was randomly selected from all of the correct entries. You won a $50 Wal-Mart gift card. Congratulations!

February - March Trivia Quiz Question

Question: If you traveled due west from Tokyo, what country on the mainland of Asia would you hit first?

Everyone who contacts Elisa via email (elisa@brunerteam.com) or phone (832-746-7911) with the correct answer by March 15th will be entered into a drawing for a $50 Pappas gift card.