Tuscan Living and The Slow Food Movement

Show Us How To Feel The Sweetness Of Life!

Live La Dolce Vita!

Soldo Vito In Empoli, Italy Brings Tuscan Beauty Into His Food And Life!

You Can Too!

by Harris Jensen, MD

Editor, Good Day Journal

Tuscany seems magical to the world.  Ten million visitors come to this area about the size of Colorado every year, and for good reason.  Something special is happening here, as it has for 3,000 years.  The people have a love for the sweet life (la dolce vita) that is infectious!

The sweet life?

Yes.  They find sweetness in great food.  

They cook lean meats and vegetables with aromatic herbs, and use olive oil to carry the wonderful bouquet of flavors to your taste buds.  Eat Tuscan stir fried vegetables with Tuscan pork as I did this June, and your taste buds want to stand up and applaud!  Mix paste of artichoke with thyme and other aromatic herbs freshly picked, and another taste sensation will fill your mouth! 

More!  Your taste buds want more!

No high fructose corn syrup, no sick "overfull feeling" and no high fat and high salt and high sugar ingredients.  This is natural food, slowly grown, slowly prepared, and bursting with flavor...and well overflowing with goodness.  The stuff is fresh and tastey.  This isn't American fast food.  This Tuscan food makes you feel full and feel good!

The goodness of nature is getting inside you.  

You aren't just eating Tuscany, you are thinking it, drinking it, living it.  Here's a video introduction to a Tuscan farm I recently visited where I learned more about living "The Sweet Life."

My family was invited by the family of Soldo and Katerina Vito to spend some time at their villa in June.   We found them on the site Vacation Rental By Owner.  We happily accepted their invitation.  My family had heard about Tuscany for years.  But was that just marketing?  Just hype?  What is there so special about Tuscany?  What is La Dolce Vita anyway besides the name of a movie?

Their farm was located right in the middle of the greatest places to visit in Tuscany.  They are located just outside of Empoli, and to the west is Florence, east is Pisa with its leaning tower, south is the medieval walled town of San Gimignano, and north is Vinci, birthplace of Leonardo.  Here's the map on that:

Use Pets Forever At Colorado State University!

They help people who are ill or elderly care for their dogs and cats in Colorado

What A Great Outreach!

by Harris Jensen, MD

Editor, Good Day Journal

If you are very elderly or very ill, your pet dog or cat may be your lifeline.  Without your pet, life may just not be worth living, or it may be too much of a struggle to keep living in your home.

Without your pet, you may be headed for a nursing home and the loss of your possessions, your freedom, your integrity, your way of life.

Health club membership is a legitimate tax write off, perhaps

IRS rules for Health Savings Accounts are here!

Health Savings Accounts allow you to use pretax money to pay for some medical expenses...just follow the rules from the IRS and your accountant!

by Harris Jensen, MD

Editor, Good Day Journal

Google and Intuit Take Top Honors

Portfoliositez Is A Winner Too!

Web sites are great for marketing your business too!

by Harris Jensen, MD

Editor, Good Day Journal.Com

Job hunting is brutal now days.  Nothing beats a good marketing approach, showing the world what you are good at.  And there's nothing like having a web site with all the bells and whistles to market yourself.  People starting their own business

A good approach is to have a web site that has:

Two Websites Help People Find Help Affording Expensive Medications

by Harris Jensen, MD

Editor, Good Day Journal

The hunt to find financial help affording great but pricey medications is a tough one for many people.

Great web sites that can help some people include:

Together RX Access.com

Patient assistance.com

Free medicine revolution .com

or consult the manufacturer directly by typing in the name of the manufacturer and adding "patient assistance" in your Google search.

HJ

by Harris Jensen, MD

Editor, Good Day Journal

Got a home repair project and want to cut costs and go green?  Use of used materials will fit the bill, go to Resource Yard in Fort Collins, CO.

HJ

Log Fancy

Rustic Log Furniture Made By A Real Mountain Man!

Jim Smith!

The Book "Mountain Boy" Chronicles His Life As A Boy At Home In The Wilderness

by Harris Jensen, MD

Editor, Good Day Journal

( To see log furniture made by the mountain man Jim Smith, see the link Log Furniture.)Jim Smith was raised in the mountains.  The Rocky Mountains.  His Dad brought him up high in the Poudre Canyon to live in a log cabin when he was just eight years old.  There he continued to learn to fish and hunt, live off the land, fend for himself.

He walked every day to school.

(Above is a phto of  a rustic log table made by Mr. Smith)

Alone.

For two miles.

From age 8 to 10.

Coming home, he'd read the Bible, make dinner for himself.

"I'd fix macaroni and cheese but I'd clean everything up, take good care of things.  My Dad taught me to respect everything.  That meant other people, the animals, what you cooked and cleaned with, what you fished and hunted with.

"How did you respect the trout in the mountain streams there?" I asked him

"I ate them," he said.

"How about the deer and elk?"  I asked.

"I ate them too," he replied, laughing. 

He had to eat something for protein, so he hunted for it.  He wouldn't call himself poor.  He was rich with the freedom to roam the mountains, to hunt and trap, at such a young age.

He found arrowheads and even a military sword near Belleview, Colorado, as a young boy.

He looks back at his younger years as charmed ones.  He had a father who understood his love for nature and nature's God.

Each day after dinner, he'd read the Bible like his father taught him to. 

"What did you learn from the Bible?" I asked him.

"How to live," he said.

"Treat everyone with respect. Live an honest life.  Work hard.  Be thankful for what you got."

Down home wisdom learned from mountain people.

Jim had many adventures in his young life and they are one's I've been writing up and recording in the book "Mountain Boy."

Gary Ogden Will  Repair What You Want, The Way You Want It!

He's One Of The Best In Fort Collins For Home Improvement And Home Repair!  Friendly, Fast And Economical!

by Harris Jensen, MD

Editor, Good Day Journal

"I got a leaky faucet." My porch needs fixing."   "I need a doorbell put in."  "My porchlight went out."  "I need to put on new siding and a new sliding glass door."  "I need to put in some fencing for a dog yard."  "I have some broken rafters in a shed."  "I have some leaky plastic pipes."

Help!

Free Applications Help Job Hunters In This Tough Economy!

by Harris Jensen, MD

Editor, Good Day Journal

The story is all too common.  A hard working man or woman, the backbone of the American Economy, gets laid off when the business is downsizing.

Now the dominoes can fall: the lack of income can threaten payments on credit cards, the mortgage, and stress mounts up in the family.