History of St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day began because of a sixteen year old boy who was kidnapped from Britain and brought to Ireland to become a slave. The Saint who went to Ireland to help the young man adopted the Catholic name Patrick.

St. Patrick died on March 17^th during 461 AD.  We celebrate St. Patrick every March 17^th. Because the day falls between lent and Easter, back in the old days, people were allowed to celebrate the holiday with a pint or two of beer on this day.  Today's young and old celebrate with two, three, four and so on of beers and spirits.  

When many Irish people migrated to places like the United States and Canada we adopted different ways to celebrate the holiday filled with beer, the color green, and corn beef with cabbage.

Green Recipes

If you are feeling festive today, here are some simple green meals!  As always, I encourage you to mix it up and stay clean and green.  Equal size protein, about your fist size with a vegetable.  Reserve your carbohydrates for after your work out or in the morning to burn it off.  

Green Smoothie

Needed:

½-Banana

½ C- Strawberries

½ C- Blueberries

1 C- Milk/ Greek Yogurt

1 C- Spinach/ Kale

Try to substitute your milk with Almond Milk, non fat milk, water, or soy milk.  I enjoy adding ice and.  Blend all ingredients together to a consistency of your liking and enjoy!

Green Salad

Needed:

4-6oz- Cut Grilled Chicken

1 Handful Almonds

1oz- Goat Cheese

1 Sliced Pear

1 Handful Dried Cranberries

1 Plate of Lettuce

Choose your lettuce, cook your chicken, and throw on the toppings!  Food prep is one of the most difficult task to clean eating, but positive prep work goes a long way in order not to eat randomly.  

College Talk: St. Fratty’s Day

If you are in college you’ve probably heard about the lovely fictional holiday “St. Fratty’s Day.” For those parents, grand parents, aunts and uncles out there, this is a holiday celebrated around St. Patrick’s Day weekend. To sum it up, it is pretty much huge parties where everyone wears green and has a shamrock painted somewhere on their body. There have been some crazy stories about these parties so here are some tips to help you stay safe. Share them with your kids, grand kids, nieces and nephews.

Never leave your drink unattended.

Have a leprechaun (friend) with you at all times.

Don’t go for the green punch.

Just because you may be Irish, doesn’t mean you have to drown yourself in beers.

Ubers work.

These may be typical party guidelines but a little refresher never hurts. Stay safe, smart, and have fun!

Go Green Challenge

I challenge you to go green this month. Whether it be to start recycling, cut five minutes from your shower, or start using a re-useable water bottle! Tag a picture with all your Green Ideas @FarmersInsurance on Facebook to help spread the word. 

Farmers Financial Fast Fact, by Glenn P Domingo, LUTCF, CSP

What is an Annuity and how can it help in retirement ?

An annuity is an insurance product that pays out income, and can be used as part of a retirement strategy. Annuities are a popular choice for investors who want to receive a steady income stream in retirement.

Here's how an annuity works: you make an investment in the annuity, and it then makes payments to you on a future date or series of dates. The income you receive from an annuity can be doled out monthly, quarterly, annually or even in a lump sum payment.

The size of your payments are determined by a variety of factors, including the length of your payment period.

You can opt to receive payments for the rest of your life, or for a set number of years. How much you receive depends on whether you opt for a guaranteed payout (fixed annuity) or a payout stream determined by the performance of your annuity's underlying investments (variable annuity).

While annuities can be useful retirement planning tools, they can also be a lousy investment choice for certain people because of their notoriously high expenses. Financial planners and insurance salesmen will frequently try to steer seniors or other people in various stages toward retirement into annuities. Anyone who considers an annuity should research it thoroughly first, before deciding whether it's an appropriate investment for someone in their situation. ( cnn money. com )

Thanks again for your eyes and ears and internet time to read our family blog.  It has been a long winter for me and I am looking forward to Spring.  Winter has been a season of reflection and healing.  I am still dealing with my Nerve and Neck injury and will keep you posted on the treatment and rehabilitation.  Looking forward to our next blog in April.  Remember to ask my dad about funding your IRA before April 17th.  Take care and have a wonderful Easter. 

Kindly, your Blogger on the East Coast, Amanda :))