Friday, April 16, 2010

Unique Wedding Gifts for Parents of the Bride and Groom

Many engaged couples wish to show appreciation to their parents for funding their big day, yet struggle with finding ideas for such a meaningful gift. Fortunately, there are many options for unique wedding gifts for parents of the bride and groom.

Personalized Gifts

One idea is to produce a personalized wedding gift for parents. Personalized items provide a special memento of love and family history. Engraved frames with a heartfelt message and memorable photo will be cherished for years to come. Personal jewelry items such as a locket or cufflinks with the wedding date engraved are another option. Plaques with a special poem can be displayed with pride as a reminder of the merging of two families. Holiday ornaments may be engraved with couple’s names. A framed representation of the family tree (with the new son/daughter included) is another option.

Classic Gifts

Another idea is to give a classic item made from precious materials. The bride and groom may wish to give the timeless gift of crystal, in the form of a clock or vase. Silver candlestick holders or a serving piece provide another option.

Creative Gifts

Couples may wish to exercise their special talents by creating their own unique wedding gift for their parents. A handcrafted scrapbook chronicling the journey from childhood to marriage will bring tears to a parent’s eyes. A handmade quilt would become an instant family heirloom. Pottery, lovingly created or painted, will hold a place of honor on the mantel of the family home.

Gift Certificates

Yet another option is to give the gift of relaxation. After months of stressful (and expensive) wedding planning, most parents of the bride and groom would appreciate a gift certificate for a relaxing spa treatment or weekend getaway. Couples can get creative and research local recreational activities, bed and breakfasts and formal dining options.

Wedding Mementos

Once married, the bride and groom can provide parents with a special photo album with candid shots of the wedding preparations, ceremony and honeymoon.

Regardless of the wedding gift that a couple decides to give their parents, the heartfelt message of gratitude will be clearly and lovingly communicated.

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Breville juicer

Monday, March 22, 2010

Be Able to Hear and Walk Well Again

No matter how healthy or in shape you are you are still human that means that you can end up with hearing problems or walking problems or any number of other ailments caused by the deterioration of your body's normal abilities. The great thing is that modern science has allowed us to virtually defeat things like hearing loss and difficulty walking. The development and the improvement of devices like hearing aids and little scooters have helped many people overcome otherwise life altering problems.

One of the things that most of hold more dear to our hearts than anything else is our sense of sound. We all love to hear beautiful music and the sound of a child laughing. These are things that if they were unable to be heard would devastate our lives. Modern technology is on our side and is developing things to make it so that these horrible situations will not happen anymore. Granted there are limits to what science can do but with the leaps and bounds of progress we are seeing the time when it will come to an end does not seem to be in sight.

If you are struggling to walk or to hear then you need to get to the doctor to find out what technology is out there that will make you feel young again and give you the freedom and zest for life you had when you were younger. Lots of people think that these devices are expensive and they are but there are lots of ways to get them for free either through insurance or the government. Find out how this can happen for you.



Best Hearing Aid

Causes of Hearing Loss

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Overcoming Nerves - In Public Speaking And Entertaining - Part 1


Many people often assume that those of us who stand up to perform or take part in any form of public speaking are not troubled by nerves and that their own attempts would only be doomed to failure because of their feelings of nervousness and fear.

These thoughts only exacerbate the feelings. When they do attempt to speak, their mouth goes dry, the hands begin to sweat, the stomach churns and a feeling of nausea takes over. Very often they begin to tremble and the brain seems to stop working.

In this confused state they just ‘freeze’ and yet another negative experience is added to their memory banks, with the certain declaration of – “Never Again”.

First of all, we need to understand why we feel this nervousness. Let's face it, - we know we can speak; we’ve rehearsed and practiced well, the family thought the act or the tricks were great, or the speech was amusing, so there's really nothing to be afraid of there.

We've checked our 'flies', - so nothing to worry about in that respect. If you have prepared what you want to say and rehearsed your act well, then you should be 'home and dry' and it should be a breeze. I can assure you, if you have done the preparation, it will be a breeze, but you will still feel nervous.

During my entertaining days I suffered badly from nervousness prior to going on stage. As a matter of fact I still do to this day. My act always went down really well and I was inundated with bookings and re-bookings, so my confidence was always high. However, the nerves were always a nightmare prior to starting my act and I could never understand why.

An old experienced entertainer once told me that all good performers, whether in show business or sports performance or even academic or business performers, - feel nerves to varying degrees, and usually the higher standard of performance, - the greater the feeling of nerves and apprehension.

He explained that it's not the fear of not being able to perform, or of forgetting your lines, (or in the case of the sportsman, of not being able to run the race), it is actually the fear of not quite living up to your own high standards.

You see the good, conscientious performer sets his sights and standards as high as he possibly can, and so even as he improves, he keeps pushing his standards that little bit higher. You can therefore see why he will never free himself of these feelings of nerves and apprehension. It’s simply a concern that you will not live up to your own high standards.

So how do we overcome nerves? - Well, you don't. You simply learn to understand and nurture them as your friends and your guides, which help to ensure a really high standard of performance.

You could of course lower your sights, but this would surely lead to lowering your performance and eventually no performance at all. Yet, this is what most people do. They lower the standard of their performance, taking on only the easy stuff, the things they are confident they can do.

However, lowering the standard of your performance is not the way. It may just help decrease nerves, but it will eventually kill your performance completely. You see, when speakers or entertainers get a bad reception or "die", as we say, they very often never perform again. “Finished!”

You can become a "Public Speaking Superstar" - Just take a look at : "How To Conduct Effective Public Speaking"TODAY! at www.talktactics.co.uk.



Public Speaking Training

Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking

Friday, March 19, 2010

Stress Free Journey? Take a Look at a Garmin Nuvi 285W/285WT

It really seemed far-fetched to me when I discovered that for just one hundred and twenty nine dollars you can purchase yourself a brand-new Garmin Nuvi 285W/285WT. The features that this doohickey comes equipped with make it seem like it should cost much more. We can't go through each and every one in this report, but we can without fail go through the ones which excited me the most.

First and foremost you will respect the navigation feature of the Garmin Nuvi 285W/285WT. The Garmin Nuvi has approx 10 million preloaded map points to pick from for simple navigation. I know you may be thinking that this is just the run of the mill feature on all GPS gizmos in your car but this one is a bit different. The Garmin Nuvi 285W/285WT will speak the real names of the roads as you go along to get you successfully to the desired location. It is a text to speech feature that has proven to be extremely impressive.

The photo navigation feature of the Garmin Nuvi is another feature that'll make you grin like a kid on Christmas Day. There are six million installed points of interest from which you can just choose an image and you will be guided straight to your destination.

The beauty of the Garmin Nuvi 285WT is that it is not limited to just your car. The only thing that you will be missing as you walk with it in your hand is that you will not be able to charge its Lithium-ion battery as the car does when you install it on its dock. For instance you can make your travel plans, locations and schedule on your laptop and then wirelessly transfer them to your Garmin Nuvi 285WT. You can research the traffic status of whichever city you intend to go to and even plan on how much money you will have to budget on gas to get there. You can even check the latest news headlines with the free nine month trial subscription to MSN Direct.

One more feature that a lot of you will also appreciate is the Bluetooth technology. The Garmin Nuvi comes with a microphone and speaker so that you will be able to make and receive phone calls. With the aid of the touch screen, you can appreciate how simple this is in the car as you navigate via a photo of the White House!

In summary - the main features:

Voice Prompting
Bluetooth technology
6 million preloaded points of interest
Photo navigation
Touch screen (4.3 inches)
Programmable plus preloaded warnings for safety zones

I would certainly recommend Garmin Nuvi 285W/285WT - you just can't get a better specified GPS navigator of this build quality and speed for the same price.


Go to http://www.garminnuvi285wt.com to read my full review and product comparison, check out the demo video and find out how you can save up to 52%!

Rich has been a long term gadget addict for the last 30 years. His wife, family and credit cards suffer the stress and strain of researching the latest gizmos so you don't have to! Get your free guide to The Garmin Nuvi 285WT and learn how you can get up to 52% off the RRP, for a limited time only.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Hi Tech Greenhouses?

You probably don’t want to be constantly looking after your greenhouse yourself – opening the windows when it gets too hot, going round every few days and all the rest. It’s much easier to get automatic systems to do these chores for you.

To water your plants, you should install irrigation systems. These are basically small pipes that run underground and slowly release water into the soil – greenhouse models are very similar to the ones used on commercial farms, only smaller. These irrigation systems allow you to quite simply and easily set how much water your plants are getting with a tap, instead of you having to go and water them all by hand. Many plants will also respond better to being watered at the roots than they do to being watered on the topsoil, and they will often grow bigger, which is an added bonus.

The other thing you need is a cooling system. While it might seem odd to have a cooling system in a greenhouse, it is possible for them to get so hot inside that all the plants will get cooked and die, especially in a hot summer. Again, the cooling system will be a series of underground pipes, allowing hot air to be taken down underground and stored during the day, and then released when it is cooler in the night.

While greenhouses might seem to be quite basic things altogether, though, there’s nothing stopping you from going all high-tech with them. More advanced systems have electronic climate control, allowing you to set the exact temperature of your greenhouse, and will open and close underground tubes and other escape routes for hot air in order to keep the temperature in your greenhouse tightly controlled. This can be useful for growing plants that only do well in one specific climate, such as some kinds of tropical flowers.



how to build a greenhouse | build your own greenhouse


Tuesday, March 9, 2010

What You Need to Know Before Buying a Hearing Aid

You finally get up the nerve to go to the hearing aid office and get your ears tested. They break the news that you need a hearing aid. Your mind is swimming with visions of having to wear that huge thing on your ear. How could this have happened? Why me?! And then they start telling you about all of the different types you can get. All that terminology just goes right over your head. Don't they know your in shock! How on earth can you make a decision when you don't even know what they're talking about!

There are hundreds of different hearing aids. It can be a very complicated world of technological terms. Sometimes, those of us that work with hearing aids all the time can forget just how foreign they can sound to you. To make matters worse, the manufacturers like to call things different names, so they sound like something different. No wonder there's so much confusion!

I am going to try to unravel some of the mystery for you. When you get down to it, there are really only a few terms you need to understand.

There are seven primary styles of hearing aids: ITE, Half Shell, ITC, Mini Canal, CIC, BTE, and Open Ear.

In the Ear (ITE) ITE's are the largest custom style of hearing aid. They fill the bowl of your ear and can have the most power and features available.

Half Shell (HS) The Half Shell fills about half the bowl of your ear. They are able to have a good deal of power and features, use a smaller battery, but are more cosmetically appealing.

In the Canal (ITC) The next smallest size is the custom ITC. Harder to see than the larger hearing aids, but also not able to have as much power or as many features.

Mini Canal (MC) Smaller than the ITC hearing aid, the custom mini canal uses a smaller battery and has even less power available. Features can also be more limited.

Completely in the Canal (CIC) The CIC is the smallest custom in the ear hearing aid and very popular due to its cosmetic appeal and ease of use. There are usually no manual controls on a CIC, telephone usage is often better because they are less likely to whistle. Lack of power is the main reason people cannot use this style, though a small ear canal may keep you from being able to wear one also.

Behind the Ear (BTE) This hearing instrument sits behind your ear and is connected to your ear by a tube with an earmold. BTE hearing aids have the most power and features available.

Open Ear (OE) and Receiver in Canal (RIC) This hearing aid is a fairly new style of BTE made available in recent years and are much smaller then a traditional BTE. They are meant primarily for high frequency hearing loss. It is connected to your ear by a very thin tube or wire with a small earbud on the tip. They are called Open Ear because they leave the ear canal less blocked than other styles of hearing aid.

Important Features:

Directional Microphones - These are available on most BTE, OE, ITE, Half Shell, and ITC styles of hearing aids. They are the best feature you can have on your hearing aid for hearing in noisy places, such as restaurants. (They reduce sounds from behind, so that it does not interfere with the sound in front of you) Directional microphones can be automatic; they automatically turn on when the sound level in the room gets too loud. Some are also be adaptive, which means they can follow moving sounds, or reduce several different sounds at the same time.

Noise Reduction - Noise reduction doesn't really reduce noise, it reduces amplification in the frequencies where there is noise and no speech. If there is a fan running in the background, the hearing aid will not amplify it as much as it will speech. When the hearing aid finds both speech and noise at a frequency, you still get both. More advanced the hearing instruments manage noise better by breaking the frequencies up into smaller pieces.

Memories - There are two types of memories available on a hearing aid, manual and automatic. Many hearing aids have a push button that allows you to have different settings (memories) for different situations such as quiet places, noisy places, and music or telephone. The hearing aid beeps when you push the button to let you know which memory you are using. Advanced hearing aids can have memories that are automatic. Instead of pushing a button, the hearing aid does it for you! Some hearing aids can even have a combination of both.

Feedback Cancellation - Feedback (or that annoying whistling sound) is the number one complaint people have about hearing aids. Most hearing aid wearers experience feedback when they put their hand over their ear, or use the phone. Feedback Cancellation will take down the amount of feedback (whistling) that you hear.

Bands / Channels - Bands are what we use to adjust the volume in a hearing aid. More bands means more control when we program the hearing instrument to your hearing loss.

Channels are used to adjust the part of the hearing aid that keeps the sound from getting too loud. Channels can also refer to the hearing aid noise reduction system. For noise reduction, more channels is definitely better because the hearing aid can break the sound up into smaller pieces and isolate noise from speech.

These are the main things you need to understand about your hearing aid. If you really want the best one for you, I recommend you focus on telling your professional what benefits you want from your hearing instrument. Let them know what frustrates you to give them a better idea of how they can help you. Their goal is to help you hear better, and when that happens, everyone wins.


Compare Hearing Aids

Hearing Aids Newton MA

Monday, March 8, 2010

Have You Ever Had Your Palm Red? Online Psychic Readings Are As Easy As 1, 2, 3

Okay, I couldn't resist flashing back to childishness and old jokes, and I don't have any red paint on me at the moment. Nowadays, you don't need to leave your own home to have an online psychic reading of your future and like everything else, you will find it online. You can even train to be a psychic online because many psychics are offering to teach you how. They “provide clear information” about the latest psychical research with news from “trustworthy” official psychic organizations with the official bodies and federations, along with teaching about psychic abilities and offer to teach you how to do readings. There are classes, study courses, clairvoyance readings practice, just to name a few options. You can learn to read Tarot cards and different practices such as Mediumistic and Rune readings, along with listening to audio recordings of the New Age gurus. Some online psychics invite you to visit their chat rooms and be social with other psychics and meet new people.

There are true psyches around, and the good ones offer their services for the good of others. Many work for police departments looking for missing people or searching for bad people. True psychics are not out to clean you out and some do make a living out of telling people their futures. There are many though that are just complete thieves and those are the ones you need to look out for. They promote themselves as clairvoyants or psychics and claim they have powers that enable them to read a persons future, make contact with a dead loved one, or tell you who your going to marry. However, they are not psychics, they just have the ability to read people well and tell them what they want to hear, and all the while filling their pockets with peoples' hard earned money. Here are a few tips to help you see a fraud psychic.

• The most common method is “cold reading,” this involves reading body language, and listening to your voice.

• Over confidence is a good warning, if they build themselves up to were they can do no wrong, watch out!

• Questions about your background. This is unnecessary, if a “psychic asks you where were you born, your parents religion, or even educational level, move on.

• Gaining your cooperation in advance. These “psychics” claim they need your full cooperation and if nothing happens, you weren't a “true believer.”

Now, you are not able to see these things with online psychic reading, so you should be very careful when paying for online readings. Try not to take online psychic readings too seriously and use them for what they are there for, to have fun and to satisfy your curiosity about online psychics. Do you really want to know what your future holds for you? Wouldn't you rather be surprised about what exciting things the future holds for you and yours?



Astrological Readings | Psychic Readings Online