Ice Storm/Lead Compliance Hurting Small Business

HURRICANES AND WEATHER
First of all, looking at the figure to the right...here is the color key:
Lavender - Freezing Rain Advisory
Pink - Winter Storm Warning
Blue-Gray - Winter Weather Advisory
Purple - Ice Storm Warning
Green - Short Term Forecast
Beige - Hazardous Weather Outlook
White - Nothing special

As I write this, this evening, Dallas area and surrounding counties are having an ice storm. It is going to be a messy morning on Wednesday as the swath of icy conditions extends from Texas into the northeast. If you are driving northward, please wait as long as possible (for daytime warming) and check road conditions. If you are flying anywhere, make sure you check with your airline as there bound to be a lot of delays and cancellations.

Highs Wednesday will be in teens and 20s from Midwest through the Great Lakes and Northern Plains and into the northeast. There will snow and ice from Memphis to Cleveland to Boston. There will be also be snow, ice and rain for the Intermountain Region and Pacific Northwest.

Houston will have a chilly day. Morning rain will taper off by mid-morning. Temperatures will start in the upper 30s and end up close to 50 with some sunshine by late afternoon. The rest of the week will be on the cool side with lows in the 40s and highs in the low 60s.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Let's do treacherous or traicionero, pronounced trah-ee-see-oh-neh-ROW. The road conditions north of Houston will be traicionero early Wednesday!

I spoke at a career fair today and met a wonderful lady who does medical missions in Mexico. She said that she has some rudimentary Spanish but oh how she wishes she had learned it as a youngster when it comes so easily. She listens to educational tapes etc. but it only gets her so far. We talked about all the benefits of early language learning. You see, the brains of children are inherently wired to help them pick up new languages quickly and effectively. Contrary to popular belief, their minds do not get confused. In fact, there is an amazing ability to compartmentalize, identify and sort language based on structure.

So, help your children learn other languages now!!! One fun way is through our award winning DVD, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco. This DVD has been recognized as a top educational product by Dr. Toy and Homeschool.com. Order it today from our web site www.frankandpaco.com/. You can also order from http://www.venturaes.com/, http://www.dololanguages.com/, http://www.carlexonline.com,www.thecuriousmindstore.com/, http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.bestbuy.com/, and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/. If you are more interested in a full immersion type product, go to http://www.frankypaco.com/.

AND MORE
I hope you will allow me to vent...about bureaucracy run amuk!!! In August 2008, the government passed a law that all products sold to children under the age of 12 have to demonstrate less than 300 ppm lead using one of the "accreditted testing laboratories". One of my buyers contacted me saying I have to give such proof by February 1. Now of course this all comes for a very good reason--all the high lead content products coming from China. I have yet to look at the Code of Federal Regulations citation but let me tell you what this means to me. Assuming I can even get a lab to do it in say a short time like 2 weeks, it will cost me $15,000 to do the analysis!!! Well, that is a deal breaker for this small potatoes farmer.

So, I contacted our supplier. He offered that they could give me a copy of testing done by one of the their big clients--with all identifying information removed for their confidentiality. Guess what the test results showed? Only 15 ppm!!!--much lower than the limit of 300 ppm.

I am just hoping and praying that these lab results will suffice. So, please say a prayer for me...I would sure appreciate it!!!

Have a safe Wednesday everyone!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman