Author Archives: schatzi

Gifts For Gardeners

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Getting a gift for a gardener ought to be easy. Whether they are just learning or an expert, you’ll find the holidays are the ideal time to give them gifts they will enjoy. When spring rolls around, they’ll have had plenty of time to decide how and where to use the gift you’ve given them.

You won’t have to go far to find the perfect gift. You probably have a gardeners’ catalog in your mailbox, a garden supply store nearby, and access to the Internet. There are many websites for wonderful selections.

Practical Gifts Are Great

Your local hardware store or garden supply should have a good line of practical gifts. For the gardening beginner, gifts such as a shovel or trowel, garden hose or other digging and planting tools are ideal. Perhaps your gardener would like to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. There are certain flowers and plants that will draw them to a garden, and you can most likely find them at your local garden supply. Not too sure about buying plants? How about a gift certificate to a garden supply store?

Gifts By The Basket Full

Another great gift present is a basket full of excellent “stuff” for the gardener. You can buy one already assembled, or find a basket you like and fill it with some of the many items you will find in a garden shop. A basket with just essentials is a good choice for the beginner. It could include gloves, poison oak/ivy medication, flower seeds, plant food, a rain gauge, a Farmers Almanac, and special hand cream.

Books By The Wheelbarrow Full

Gardening books can be a treasured gift for the gardener on your list. Any bookstore will carry books covering a variety of gardening topics. Pick among specialty garden books, such as wildflower gardens, vegetable gardens, or drought-tolerant gardens. Buy them a book on the subject of perennials and annuals. Which flowers are best suited to their climate? How do you choose plants that grow best in their type of soil? These and countless other questions are answered in the many books available on gardening. You’ll find that some of the larger bookstores have whole sections devoted to gardening.

The Garden Stone: An Enduring Gift

A garden stone is another favorite gift for gardeners. Garden stones can be found in unusual shapes and colors, or inscribed with famous quotations or poems. Kits are available to make garden stones with a child’s handprint and name added to it. That’s the making of wonderful memories for the child and for the gardener. You can also buy a garden stone and personalize it by putting your favorite gardener’s name, or the year the garden was established. Personalization can turn a plain gift into something unique.

On the more practical side, there are hundreds of gifts to choose from. Hose carts and attractive boxes for storing garden hoses out of sight are easy to find. Water sprinklers and fertilizer sprinklers are also good gifts. You can find clever water sprinklers, like one in the shape of a John Deere Tractor.

Whimsical And Imaginative Gifts

Some gifts add whimsy and fun to a garden. They are easy to find, and make perfect gifts, whatever your gardener’s knowledge. Gazing balls are available in all sizes and colors, and add a creative dimension to the garden. Holders for the gazing balls come in dozens of various shapes, sizes and materials, too.

Among the most fashionable gifts for gardeners are wind spinners and flags. You can find wind spinners in an assortment of colors, such as the patriotic red, white, and blue spinner, or the rainbow spinner. Garden flags are a popular gift because they can be changed to coordinate with the seasons, or more frequently just to create a new look in the garden.

Unusual Gift Ideas

Looking for something a little more unusual? Your gardener might love an exotic plant, such as the amaryllis exotica, a gift of unusual Iris bulbs, or a sago palm. How about a succulent garden growing kit, or a Shitake mushroom log?

Statues of animals, gnomes or angels of have regained popularity after many years of being out of favor, and they make great garden gifts. Birdbaths and bird feeders attract birds, a source of joy for most gardeners. You’ll also find wonderful hummingbird feeders that will keep these beautiful birds coming all rear round.

Whatever your gardener’s preferences are, you’ll be able to find the perfect gift..

Peace With Food Means Making Peace With Your Life

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The yearning to find peace with food is usually a palpable one. When women speak about their motivation to stop struggling with food, find a weight that works for them, stop bingeing, and feel healthy and fit, the energy is usually intense. When you struggle with food, the wish to find peace-permanent peace-usually runs pretty deep.

No more diets. Pants that always fit. Feeling confident that your weight is going to be about the same as it was last week or last month or even last year. Peace with food means that food, weight, or your diet is not the first thing you think about when you wake up or before you go to bed. Peace with food means that sometimes the chips go stale and the leftover candy gets forgotten in the back of the cupboard.

Because the food is no longer that important.

Peace with food is definitely possible. But in order to get there, you have to go beyond the food. And in order to do that, many women need to come face to face with something much bigger.

In order to make peace with food, you must make peace with your life.

Many women say they want peace with food and an end to yo-yo dieting. They say they’d do just about anything to achieve it. But the truth is, many women are trying to stop overeating without changing anything else.

It doesn’t work.

“I am lonely and I can’t do anything about it-so I eat.”

“I don’t have time to eat lunch and then I come home and binge.”

“I’m dealing with people who are angry and unreasonable. How do I make that okay?”

“I need someone to hold me accountable.”

“I’m busy from the time I wake up until I go to bed. There is no time for me. Food is my comfort. How am I supposed to stop eating?”

Peace with food isn’t really about food. Oh, on one level it is. It’s about feeling in control and effective and able to make choices that are in your best interest. It means (usually) not choosing foods or portions that leave you feeling uncomfortable or sick afterwards. It’s about you (not what’s on the plate) having the power and the control. But I hope you can see that I’m talking about so much more than food here.

Food only loses its power when we own our own power and stop using food as a band aid. Too often, food is the quick fix for things that we are not willing (or are too fearful) to address directly.

No food plan in the world is going to help the women above with their loneliness, their unwillingness to take time for themselves, their struggles with assertiveness, and their ability to ask for help. These are really gnarly difficult parts of life to wrestle with. Honestly, fighting with the chocolate chip cookies (and even feeling guilty when you lose), can feel a lot less daunting. It’s easier (in the short run) to stay on the diet roller coaster than it is to make peace with food.

Peace with food requires making peace with your life. And sometimes that means creating a life that you can feel peaceful with. Learning to say no. Addressing the difficult relationships. Finding ways to take good care of yourself and sometimes putting yourself first. It means addressing the places that may feel scary: loneliness, fear, worry-even boredom. Taking risks that you might have been putting off taking for years. It’s hard stuff to swallow, but the payoffs can be huge. Creating peace with food really does have the potential to transform your life.

And before you get too overwhelmed, please remember that there are real tools (that work much better than diets) to help you do all these things. All of these challenges get more manageable and less terrifying when you find someone to help you through them-and when you take them on in small, palatable bites.

So imagine again that your pants always fit and your weight stays where you want it to. That you don’t diet and you don’t binge and you generally make good choices. And this time understand that it happens because you’ve looked the loneliness in the eye and gotten the help that you need to change it. You’ve learned to stand tall and speak up on your own behalf. You aren’t ending the day feeling exhausted and used up and like you don’t have the energy to do more than open the ice cream.

You’ve rebalanced your life. You’ve done the hard work. You’ve unleashed your inner champion. That’s what it takes to make peace with food.

Celebrate Your Uniqueness to Scale Up Career in the Fashion Industry

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If getting yourself heard and giving voice to your opinion is what you always asked, then the domain of fashion has a lot to offer you! But what the fashion industry seeks from you? To build career in this field, it is essential to develop certain skill-sets along with acquiring knowledge of its processes, principles used and other technical aspects.

Below are the few advices that a fashion aspirant can follow to scale up career in this field:

  • Don’t be afraid to take chances! Don’t merely adhere to the trends! Don’t be afraid to be afraid to buck the trends or do anything different.
  • Go beyond a certain comfort zone you have built around yourself! Of course, it’s a move which is considered risky by the most, but if you genuinely seek the answers of the questions you have always nourished, you need to carve out your own niche and celebrate your uniqueness.
  • Be passionate, do your own thing, know your strengths, stay tuned on what’s going on in the fashion industry. Participate in competitions and other opportunities that come in your way.
  • Communication is an important aspect the young learners should always keep in mind. Communicate a lot online and in every other way, start early to apply at opportunities and make yourself noticed. There are many networks of sites and services specializing in self-promotion, consulting and online portfolio sites. These networks give an excellent opportunity to make your selves visible to the masses and to the industry people, specifically.
  • The role that fashion plays is all about getting heard, it is all about lucrativeness and creativity, it is how you hold interest of the audience and capture their minds. It is the next big thing- a way of self-expression and following your creative instincts. Luxury and glamour are not the only terms to which the fashion industry is associated. Of course, some of the learners will cater that corner of the business but not all.
  • If you keep on doing the same thing, and become the product yourself creating yet an another product, the world will remain the same. The world of Fashion is associated with ‘change’ and ‘dynamism’. This allows professionals to keep challenging their skills, giving them opportunities to do something new.
  • You must be curious and learn to look at things with a different angle to come up with unique ideas. This also requires aspirants to possess an eye for detail so that their work exhibits professionalism as well as novelty.
  • Fashion gives us freedom and a wonderful opportunity to give shape to our ideas, passion, and talent.

This industry facilitates a great opportunity to use fashion as freedom of expression, thereby, exhibiting feelings & sending message using their creativity which reaches a large public audience. Therefore, it provides a significant opportunity to be heard and seen, which is so important for a society in today’s world full of crisis.

Tips for First-Time Parents in Selecting Their Kids’ Clothing

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As beginners in the art of parenting, young moms and dads have to navigate through fundamentals, such as selecting their child’s clothes either fresh from the racks or from an online catalog of kids clothing. However, choosing baby clothes from RTW stores is easier done than selecting the right size and fit through an online shop’s catalog. This is why first-time parents should take note of the following tips in selecting their baby’s clothes and other accessories.

Select the Size and Fit Based on Weight Rather than Your Baby’s Age

Some babies grow up too fast for their age. Some infants also have bigger bodies than others of the same age. Because of the disparity in the physical development of babies, young mothers and fathers are better off choosing children’s clothes based on the child’s current height (or length) and body weight. Naturally, this means that larger kids are meant for clothes that are one size bigger than those recommended for their age.

Websites that sell infant and kids clothing generally include a size and length chart for their shoppers. Different brands have different standards in how large their clothes are going to be for a certain age range. For example, your child may fit well into sleepwear made for babies 3 to 6 months old, but actually needs shirts or dresses fit for infants six months old and above.

Choose Kids Clothing Based on the Fabric and Other Materials Used

To accommodate the speediness of growth among little children, a good measure for buying clothes is to choose those made from stretchable fabric. Moreover, first-time moms or dads should check the label for additional info, such as the percentage of cotton to polymer. Spandex is fine for adults, but it can be too hot to wear for infants. This fabric retains body heat because it’s made especially for exercise clothing, which should prevent dehydration in the wearer.

Always choose cotton or some other natural fiber over synthetic types because they won’t harm your baby’s skin and keep the child comfortably warm. Most baby clothes today are made from hypoallergenic materials and manufacturers make sure their labels explicitly states that. If the labels have foreign text, then learn to read the symbols instead. Full-body suits for infants or baby blankets made of cotton normally have tags with an image of a cotton bud and its portion of the textile.

Finally, first-time parents should choose baby clothes that are easy to put on or take off during diaper changes. Also, these clothes should be wash-and-dry types. Current generations of couples have it easier with Velcro openings and zippered fronts in kids clothing. Our grandparents had to deal with wooden or pearl buttons that easily came off once their babies got too big for their clothes.