Fresh Inspirations: As You Like It

Copyright 2006 Melissa Galt

Do you have a useless niche, a room without a reason, an available closet? Transform it into a space with a purpose! No, of course, it doesn’t have to fit anyone else’s definition of useful, only yours, but let’s consider some fresh ideas . . .

Conversation Station: Finding yourself constantly on the phone but tired of using a cell phone or an ear piece? What about having a good old retro rotary dial or even just a normal sized cordless but in a designated niche just for calling? You can create a calling corner, as it were, beneath the stairs or even in a closet that isn’t storing useful goods. Consider adding a small desk complete with your choice of desk accessories, and I mean the good stuff. Go find a divine desk blotter, an old fashioned address book, a card holder, and even an inbox and outbox. It is a mini conversation station and a great way to renew the art of correspondence and keeping in touch.

Tis Better To Give and Give Beautifully: Whenever I have a gift to take I am always running about madly searching for the last bit of wrapping paper, tape, and scissors two minutes before I am to be out the door. How much nicer it would be to have a dedicated space stocked with creative wrapping elements and the room to use them. So consider devising your own gift niche. Even when going to a party and taking a bottle of wine, the presentation counts and so does originality and effort. Sure you can use one of those gift bags, but why not dress it up, personalize it with charms, sequins, notes and more all available at the local party supply store. If you regularly attend baby and bridal showers, anniversary celebrations, birthdays, and corporate shindigs, presents with all the trimmings really make a statement.

Zen for Better Balance: I actually know a couple of clients that have meditation rooms on their wish list, and what a great idea! A space of quiet and calm designed solely to wind down and synthesize the pressures of every day into positive energies for every life. It can include a chaise or day bed, or even just long floor cushions, an étagère with space for soothing elements of inspiration including crystals and scented candles. A mirror to witness your transformation, and a source of relaxing sounds or music are essential. Think of this as creating a way station for better balance and re-energizing.

Of course there are other rooms, niches, and nooks you can create; it depends on what you want. So take a good look around - is your house missing the haven you most want? Make it happen!

How to buy a green Fridge Freezer

Many items that we take for granted in the home have undergone major design changes in recent years. Our understanding of those changes has sometimes failed to keep pace. Take the humble fridge freezer, for example. How should you go about examining the features of the various models that are available. To begin with, you need to understand the various features that are advertised by sales people in high street stores or described online. In the UK all fridge freezers are given an energy rating for starters but what do these ratings really mean? Fridge freezers will probably be one of the largest users of energy in your home - possibly second only to your central heating. This may come as a surprise! The reason why fridge freezers use so much energy is because they are switched on all the time - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Having an energy inefficient fridge freezer not only costs you money but also has an environmental impact. Until the last 5 years or so many popular brands were extremely inefficient. The new energy ratings, however, aim to show the consumer how various machines compare. They also help to name and shame brands who do not take the environment seriously. The ratings scheme grades every fridge freezer on the market, with an A++ rating being the most energy efficient rating available. The ratings scheme then moves down to A+, A, B and C (with C being the least environmentally friendly). So, put simply, aim for an A++ or an A+ energy rating if you want to be kind to the environment, while also saving some money on your electricity bills.

Find Great Furnitures for Your Home

Finding a perfect furniture for your home is never easy. You must plan what furniture to buy and how much it cost. First of all you must set the budget to buy the furniture. Second you must look at your room capacity.

You must know how much money do you have. If you have much money you can buy any expensive furnitures you can. If you have tight budget you must buy cheap furnitures. Don't forget to check the furniture's condition before you buy it especially when you buy expensive one.

After you set the budget, you must look at your room capacity, if you have a large room, you can buy big and many furnitures. If you only have small room, you must buy small furnitures. It is not good if your small room is filled by many furnitures.

After you know your budget and your room, you should find affordable furniture stores. You can buy furniture online, phone order, or come to their store. It is better if you come to their offline store. You can look the real furniture condition in there.

Bed room furniture is one of room which need good furniture to fill. For bedroom furniture online store you can try bed-furnitures.com, you can find many great furnitures for your room. You can look for beding, mattresses and more. With a good of a <a href="http://www.mylampset.com/">lamp set</a>, your bed room will great.

Kitchen furniture also great room to express your idea. <a href="http://www.mykitchenfurnitures.com/">Mykitchenfurnitures.com</a> is good online web store you can try to buy. They have many good furnitures, grill rack, stool, cookware, dinnerware and many more.

I hope with your new furnitures you life will be better.

How to Buy a Funeral or Cremation Urn

Buying an urn is something most people hope they never have to do. Unfortunately, at some point in our lives we will probably have to purchase an urn or a casket for a loved one. Here are a few things you will want to know. First, what happens if you go to a funeral home or cremation society and decide not to purchase an urn from the selection that is offered? In that case, you will receive your loved on in is a very unattractive plastic or cardboard box. It is estimated that 50%-70% of the time people leave a funeral home with this minimum option. It makes no difference if you spend $500 or $1,800 on the cremation, the boxes look the same. Many people are shocked when they go to pick up the ashes of a loved one and get a plastic or cardboard box back. The ideal combination for selecting an urn is one that can be personalized or in some way is reflective of the person’s life inside as well as being practical for what you plan to do with the ashes of the deceased. What you need to think about is; what do you plan to do with the remains? Here are a few of your options: 1. Bury the ashes. 2. Scatter the ashes. 3. Leave them in your home until you make a decision or until you die and someone else will have to decide what to do with them. 4. Put them in a niche in a mausoleum. 5. Divide the ashes up among family members. 6. Travel with the urn to a memorial service and then do one of the above. If you plan on burying the ashes you will want to check with the cemetery and see if they have a requirement. There are a few “Green Cemeteries” in the country that only allow biodegradable urns. Many cemeteries will have guidelines for you to follow. Scattering ashes can be a delicate art. There are plenty of stories of people placing the ashes off of boats only to have the wind blow the ashes back into the person’s face. This can also happen in aircraft. While the urn will not do much to prevent that, you may want to consider a biodegradable bag if you plan to place the ashes in a lake, stream or ocean. This way you will not have a problem with wind or waves and the same time you won’t be harming the ecosystem. When selecting an urn for scattering, you may want to consider a memory chest or an urn that can hold photos and other mementos. Again, if you use a biodegradable bag you can keep the urn to hold keepsakes. There are some urns on the market that are designed to be used in water. You can do an internet search or ask your funeral director for assistance. If you are scattering on someone else’s property you will want to get permission if you would like to do it the legal way. You may also need a permit. Personally, I’ve spoken to many people that do their own thing with remains and it’s basically don’t ask and don’t tell. If you plan to take the remains home, you will obviously want to choose a safe place out of reach of young children or pets. You may also consider the weight of the urn. Some bronze urns can be very heavy, and if you need to dust around the urn or move it consider the weight. Another thing to consider, what would you like done with the ashes after you are gone? You may want to mention this in your will or put a note on the bottom of the urn. If you have chosen a mausoleum, you will want to place a call to get their guidelines. Many mausoleums will not accept wooden urns or anything besides plastic, ceramic or metal. You will also want to play close attention to size. Each niche has a specific size and you will want to make sure the urn you select fits inside the urn. You may also consider having the urn engraved or somehow personalized. If a natural disaster were to occur it is more likely that the remains will be identified if the urn is personalized. Should you plan to share the ashes with loved ones, you will want to choose smaller urns or boxes for the remains. The ashes should be placed in a small zip lock bag and then into the smaller urn. Usually you will have one larger urn and a few smaller urns depending on how many people have expressed interest in receiving part of the ashes. Options like pieces of blown glass and even diamond rings are available that have the ashes put into the piece. If you plan to travel on a commercial airplane with an urn, you will want to make sure the urn is Transportation Security Administration (TSA) compliant for travel. Urns should not be made of metal due to the Transportation Security Administration's new procedure on the transport of crematory containers as carry-on baggage on airplanes. Passengers may still carry-on crematory containers, but they must pass through an X-ray machine. If an urn is made of metal or is metal-lined, it will show up as opaque on X-ray machines, preventing the security screener from being able to see what is inside - an obvious security risk. Please review this site for more detailed information http://www.tsa.gov/public/interapp/editorial/editorial_1296.xml. Also consider who will see the urn. Will the design look dignified and respectable at a life celebration or memorial service? You may want to consider materials that are soft to the touch and colors that are soothing and up-to-date. Finally, think about price. How much would you like to spend? You may want to ask the Funeral Director if they have a variety of catalogs that you could look through and you will want to check on the internet where you will find urns in many materials, designs and prices. In summary, while it is never an easy decision choosing the right urn, by following these guidelines hopefully the process will be a bit easier.

Making a game of moving

Just over a week ago I was told I had to pack up and move yet again to another apartment. This brings the number to 3 times in only a year and a half. Needless to say I was not too happy. It became evident to me that the more I resisted the idea, the worse I felt about it, so I decided to go with the flow and make my move into an exciting game. I started looking forward to the move, was excited to see my new apartment, used the opportunity to get rid of clutter and was able to support a charity in the process. My move truly turned out to be quite an adventure and a great learning experience. When the movers knocked at my door it had started snowing heavily and there was not a single sole who could speak English. However this did not dampen my spirits and we managed very well. It turned out that I found some very willing translators, all the administrators were very understanding and the movers were extremely speedy and efficient despite the weather. Four days later I was completely moved, unpacked and settled in. My phone was reconnected, I had high-speed Internet access, the TV cable guys arrived a day early and I was once again part of the “real world”. I can honestly say that it could not have gone more smoothly had I been in my home country. On reflection I noted that life is life wherever we are. We could be in Korea, South Africa or the USA, but life situations happen on a daily basis. In essence this is the very nature of life. There is no escaping it. But, what we often fail to recognize is that it is during these life situations that we are presented with the opportunities that help us to grow and become better people. When obstacles present themselves, ease and facilitate an easy transition or find a solution by asking “How can I make this work?” and not “Why is this happening to me?” One of the things that disempowers us in life is when we take ourselves too seriously. We could lighten up a bit, have more fun and enjoy things more. Treat life like a game. This does mean to undermine the seriousness of certain events, but when we view life as a game, we are able to be more effective in finding solutions and enjoying the process. When I decided to treat my move as a game and adventure, miracles happened. People went out of their way to help me, I moved into a dream apartment and I now wake up in the morning with a view second to none. Quote of the week “Life is a challenge, meet it! Life is a dream, realize it! Life is a game, play it! Life is Love, enjoy it!” Sri Sathya Sai Baba This weeks challenge How would you feel about “playing the game”? Use this tool with a life situation this week and if you have difficulties in taking this approach, ask yourself this one question: “What is the worst thing that could happen?”

Father's Day Gift Ideas Anything But The Necktie

Poor old Dad. Did you know that more collect calls are made on Father' Day than any other day of the year? Alright Mom's before you laugh too hard, Mother's Day is right behind at number 2. So maybe you've decided you're going to make up for all those bad neckties you gave dad when you were younger, and let's not forget the time you left the garage door open and it rained on all of his tools.

Like most holiday's Father's Day gift giving ideas have gotten much more sophisticated in recent years, here are a couple of ideas to get you in the right frame of mind. Is your Dad a big golf fan, if he is, how about some personalized golf balls or club covers. That's something he can show off to all his buddies at the course. If your Dad's not the athletic type but more of grill master there are some other great gift ideas you may want to think about. Why not find some gourmet bar-b-que sauces flavors from Europe, the Mediterranean, and Asia are starting to become very popular nowadays. If your Dad is more of a traditionalist how about a smoker box for his grill. Find some exotic flavors like apple or peach wood to make thing interesting. If money's no object look into one of the bar-b-que camps that are popping up across the country. Think of it as a spa-vacation where dad gets cooking tips from a famous or celebrity chef.

Let's say you're really ready to kick things up and money's no object, then why not consider race car school. They come in one or two day packages with professional race car drivers. Then Dad gets to take an actual stock car for a few laps around around the famous racetracks you see on TV. Some schools are now offering exotic cars like Lamborghini's and Ferrari's as well. But what if your Dad really has the need for speed, then you air combat. Retired military aircraft pilots take you up jets and through a series of white knuckle maneuvers and acrobatics, and throw in some simulated air to air combat. This one is sure to put a smile on Dad's face.

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How Gambling Horoscopes Help you Win

Many people believe that by using astrology you can tell your future, and maybe it can not, but by following the advice given in Horoscopes many people find great luck, so how else can it be explained. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that if you believe it is true that you will have good luck on a certain day you probably will. This does not mean that the prediction was right, but if you believe good things are going to happen to you at work, in your personal life or in a casino, you will give off a positive energy that attracts other positive energies and this will help good things happen. Some people do not believe this theory either. They feel that if you believe good things are going to happen and they do it is because you were in a better mood and making better decisions which will bring about better results. No one can tell how exactly gambling horoscopes help a person win in a casino, but the fact remains that they do help people win all the time. Studies have been done to try to show exactly how horoscopes work, but no one has ever been able to come up with an explanation that seems believable. All they have been able to show is that the more you believe the better and more accurate the predictions will be. This may be because if you really believe in the accuracy of the gambling Horoscope you will find things that you rationalize to make fit into the horoscopes prediction. No one has ever been able to find any reason any form of prognosticating works, but people do believe in it and it is that belief in it that seems to make the things come true. Studies have been done in the past and have proven beyond doubt that a person who has a more positive outlook will tend to have better luck and will generally be a happier person; where as a person with a negative outlook will constantly have negative events take place around them. The only explanation scientists have ever given for this is to say that the average human only uses 10% of the brain and that the explanation for these events is hidden in the 90% of the brain we do not use, and that maybe if and when we learn the secrete for unlocking these areas of the brain we will then be able to get a better understanding of how all types of psychic predictions work. But until then all I can tell you is that if you believe that the prediction will come true then it will come true. By reading your horoscope and waiting until it says you will have a good day, then going to the casino to do some gambling you will greatly increase your chances of having a winning day and the more you believe it will happen the more it increases your chances of being successful.