Picnic Tables for Casual Dining Fun
January 30, 2005
Picnic tables are the perfect solution for an afternoon or evening get together. They offer everything from different shapes of a picnic table, to ones that fold up in a box. Picnic tables and outdoor benches are great for kids because they are strong, sturdy, and can handle lots of abuse. I remember the picnic tables on the playground when I was young; most of the time you were lucky if you didn’t get lots of splinters from them. Now they come in all kinds of materials such as ? wood, aluminum, plastic, steel mesh, PVC, and recycled material. There are plans that you can find online or from your home improvement store if you feel inclined to do it yourself. If you really want to get close to nature and have a casual day outdoors with the kids, forget the table and just get out picnic blanket. Picnics can also be quite romantic. Doesn’t it sound like fun with a bottle of wine and some cheese, just lying back on the blanket watching the clouds change shapes? It’s a great way to spend a lazy afternoon with someone you care about.
Outdoor benches are a good complement to the picnic table, allowing extra seating for the parents to watch the kids playing games. An outdoor bench placed near a fire pit or a hammock close to the pool allows ease and lots of mingling at your next picnic. Don’t forget about the picnic games. There are tons of them that you can think of as impromptu fun outdoors. They aren’t just for kids anymore, grownups enjoy them too. When it comes to the picnic food, get the kids involved. They will easily let you know what they want for their favorite meal and it will be fun for them to help you make it. Take some of the burden of planning off of you and put it on them. They will feel more apart of things if you do.
Even if your party is in your backyard on your own picnic table, it’s fun to get out the picnic baskets. Pack them ahead of time allowing for less stress on the actual day of the picnic. Include lots of games, plastic dishes, napkins, and plastic glasses. A plastic tablecloth makes for easy clean up if the kids get a little messy. It doesn’t matter if you live in the city or go for a country outing. Make sure the picnic table is under a shade tree, the kids have lots of games to play, and there is plenty of homemade ice cream and lemonade. Grandpa and grandma have their outdoor benches to sit on watching all the festivities. Ahhh?life is good.
Bev Hlavka is a successful freelance writer offering guidance and suggestions for consumers buying outdoor kitchens, hammocks, picnic tables and more. Her many articles can be found at http://www.patio-furniture-4u.com. She gives information and tips at http://www.patio-furniture-4u.com/Picnic%20Tables.htm to help you save money and make informed buying decisions
5 Ways to Absolutely Destroy Your Finances!
January 30, 2005
Ben Stein has a book called How to Ruin Your Finances. To be honest, I’m not sure an entire book is needed on the subject-there are some fairly quick and easy ways to accomplish the task. (Before continuing, let me be clear that I do not actually recommend such activities-This is a reductio absurdum argument, meant to spur an opposing realization.)
#1: Buy everything, yes, everything
You never know when a neighbor may come over to use your dish towels, so make sure they are Ralph Lauren, less than six months old, and all the same color. While you’re at it, buy things that you don’t need now, but may need in the future, such as eleven new sweaters, a top-of-the-line treadmill, and some bestselling novels (just in case you ever read the 38 already on your bookshelf).
#2: Charge all purchases
That way you can itemize all your spending, which is sort of like budgeting. When the bill comes each month, be consistent-pay only the minimum. If there’s anything left at the end of the month, see #1.
#3: Don’t be concerned about retirement
That’s what Social Security is for! Our country is run by intelligent economists, and they’ll make certain there’s enough for you in 25 years.
#4: Buy a $4 million home, with 1% down, and a 30-year mortgage
Then, spend your entire working life paying it off. Don’t worry if you haven’t invested in anything else-you can sell the home when you reach 65, rapidly adjust your lifestyle to match your new one-bedroom condo, and live off the difference.
#5: Start being frugal ‘tomorrow’
Please, finish your $7 mocha latte and go about your day. After all, this article was obviously written for the other guy!
© 2005 Matthew S. Clement, All rights reserved
Matthew S. Clement is a financial planner and investment advisor representative with Financial Network Investment Corporation, member SIPC. He provides holistic wealth management and retirement planning to individuals and businesses. He can be reached in New York at (845) 942-8578, or by email: ClementM@FinancialNetwork.com
A Cigar Box Purse or Handbag is a Unique Fashion Accessory With a Touch of Old World Charm
January 30, 2005
There’s an unmistakable charm about a cigar box purse or handbag. Neat, petite and elegant, and decorated with romantic, quaint and quirky images from a bygone era, these design gems are becoming increasingly sought after fashion accessories. You can buy cigar box purses and handbags made from real cigar boxes, or they can be decorated with just about any image you can imagine, including classic movie stars, fashion photographs, dancers, animals, flowers or abstract designs. If you shop around online, you’ll find a huge range of cigar box purses and handbags, many of them uniquely designed and sold by the artist who created them. You can even have a cigar box purse or handbag custom made using a favorite image of a pet, a special place, person or thing, or perhaps a cherished old photograph of a great aunt or grandmother taken in a bygone era. Any image is suitable, so long as it’s your own, and there is no copyright existing in the photograph or artwork. Or if you’re particularly creative, you could even make the purse or handbag yourself.
Making your own cigar box purse or handbag.
It’s very simple to make a cigar box purse or handbag yourself, and you’ll have the satisfaction of having something which is absolutely unique. A handbag or purse you’ve made yourself also makes a lovely gift for someone special. You can buy a simple wooden box, or a real cigar box if you can find one, some paint and lacquer, and the hinges, corners, handle and clasp from purse hardware suppliers which you’ll find online. Of course, you’ll also need a photograph or piece of artwork to use on the box. Choosing an image, a color scheme and purse hardware pieces which work together artistically is great fun, and very satisfying when it all comes together. It’s a very simple job to paint the box, glue on the image, cover the whole thing with a few coats of lacquer, then attach all of the purse hardware components.
Lynn Donn is the webmaster for http://www.unique-handbags-and-purses.com Her website offers tips and information on all the latest trends in purses and handbags for the fashion enthusiast.
Top Three Reasons To Get Involved At Your Childs School
January 30, 2005
You may think once your child has gone off to school full-time (officially a First-Grader) that he/she no longer needs you…
You could not be more wrong…
Just consider the following three benefits of being an active part of your child’s new school life.
1) You get to see your child more than before and after school. Whether you feel that you need this interaction or not, your child will surely appreciate it.
2) You get to know your child’s classmates. You can better identify with who and what he/she is talking about when they come home from school.
3) You get to meet your child’s various teachers, principals, school nurses, school secretaries etc… basically every adult who has any interaction with your child. These relationships alone can prove valuable in keeping you “in the loop” with what’s really going on at school.
If these three basic reasons are not enough to motivate you, consider this: If you are not the parent volunteer for your child’s class, somebody else will be… and thus they will know more about your child and his/her activities at school than you will. After raising and nurturing your child for the past five or six year, is this what you really want?
Resource Box - © Danielle Hollister (2004) is the Publisher of BellaOnline Quotations Zine - A free newsletter for quote lovers featuring more than 10,000 quotations in dozens of categories like - love, friendship, children, inspiration, success, wisdom, family, life, and many more. Read it online at - http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8364.asp
Woodworking ? Creative, Relaxing and Timeless
January 30, 2005
The title reflects Woodworking as a hobby, not as a vocation. Vocational woodworking is pretty much the opposite of the adjectives in the title because of the intense pressure to produce quickly in order to make it pay the bills. So we’ll stick with the hobby orientation for purposes of this article.
Many people start a project with very little thought. This is okay if you are working from plans, material lists and cutting lists in a woodworking magazine, but when you strike out on your own, this lack of planning often results in a project that becomes very difficult to manage somewhere in the middle, when more wood needs to be added, or, more often, the final piece has to shrink just a little to make do. The project gets less fun as measurement adjustments keep being made to the original plan to keep the modified parts fitting with each other. It’s kind of like playing chess with a saw, anticipating three moves ahead what the measurements are going to have to be because of the one deviation you made three steps ago.
What I would like to accomplish here is to lay out a sequence of events that need to take place as you migrate from the canned projects in the woodworking books and magazines to your own project planning.
Recreational woodworking starts with an idea of something functional (a shelf, a table, a bench, a box, a desk) or something meaningful (a toy, a piece of art, a frame), or a combination of the two. This idea can be born of inspiration from looking through woodworking magazines, seeing something in a model home, or a need that exists in your own home.
Most often the concept is sketched out. Traditionally, this is done on the back of an envelope or a partially used napkin, so be sure to have some of those lying around. Once you have the sketch, you have to decide how big you want this thing to be. Often, this is determined by available space or intended function. Staying true to our adage, "measure twice, cut once", a rough dimensioned drawing is created. If this is to be a functional piece (desk, cabinet, etc.), be sure to stay reasonably close to standard measurements for desk heights, knee-hole allowances, kick spaces, cabinet heights, rail and stile widths, file drawer dimensions, etc. You’ll be glad you did.
By now, the concept has evolved enough that the desired finish (paint, stain, varnish, oil) has been narrowed down, and a type of wood has been selected that is appropriate for the project, budget and finish. With so many choices of wood and finish conveniently available today, this can be quite an exercise.
Now that the type of wood and finish have been determined, it is time to decide what kinds of joints you are going to make (assuming you are not making a boomerang or hollowed-out canoe or some other one-piece thing). Considerations are strength, the look you are trying to achieve, your equipment and capabilities, and the amount of time you can invest. This can be one of the more strenuous mental exercises because of the range of choices. The look of a bung or button, the clean lines of hidden biscuit or dowel joints, the strength and intricacy of the dovetail, the simplicity of nails and glue. All have their place, and you have to decide.
Along with the joints, hardware has to be planned. Based on the hardware, you have to adjust your dimensioned drawing to accommodate clearances for drawer rails, those extra half inches for lap and dado joints, hidden hinge overlaps, insert depths for frame-and-panel door panels, etc. You also have to consider depth of relieves and radii of router profiles to make sure your stock is thick enough to allow your concept to mature as planned.
A final dimensioned drawing is created, allowing for all joint and hardware considerations, and a cutting list is prepared from this drawing. Note: This drawing does not have to be to scale, or look professional in any way. It helps the visualization process if it is proportional, but the real important aspect of this drawing is documenting the measurements. Don’t be concerned about the appearance of the drawing - that is not what you will be displaying.
Now, finally, we can go to our lumber supplier and select the actual wood we will be working with. This is not where you want to save time. For the parts of the project that will show, especially for projects where the natural wood is intended to be a design feature, extra care should be taken to select the grains and natural attributes that will best fit your concept. If you are saving money intending to plane "three-sides-good" lumber, make sure the width runs far enough on the pieces selected with enough margin to get the length needed for each piece AFTER PLANING. Measure the finished surface to the beginning of the raw edge. For framework, cleats and carcasses look for straight, unknotted pieces. Warps and twists can be overcome, but they make the whole project less fun.
With this level of preparation and with sharp tools, the project will proceed nicely and the finished piece will bring you satisfaction, many years of service, and can sometimes even become a treasured family heirloom. Note: The heirloom status is often true of a desk, a well-made toy or a rocking chair. Don’t set your expectations too high for laundry shelves.
Kent Walters is currently an amateur woodworker in Houston, Texas. His entrance to the craft was similar to many - woodshop in school. He continued the craft some time later as a toymaker on a drill press, sander and spray booth. He was a furniture maker at one time, building mostly desks, book cases, wall units, display cases and cabinets.
As time moves on, he is "downsizing" to intarsia and toys ? panels are getting too heavy to lift, and heirlooms are becoming more important than they once were. For more articles, resources and a woodworker’s website directory, see http://www.woodworkingcenter.com.
What Will I Do When I Grow Up? Says The 45 Year Old Woman
January 30, 2005
I have always rather envied those people who have a burning vocation; they knew the career they wanted to follow and went for it. If, like me, you have never really known what you want to do, the years fly past and you still have to earn a living. But doing what?
I did well at school and it was assumed that I’d go onto university. I wasn’t happy at home and being keen to move out I end up leaving school after 5th year to study for a degree in Hotel and Catering Management at Strathclyde Uni. Well my heart was never really in it and I dropped out after 1st year, against all advice.
I went to live with my aunt in north London and found a job in the newsagent’s kiosk in the Strand Palace Hotel. I was very keen to visit Greece. I’d a very romantic notion of it. None of my friends were interested so it was either go alone or not at all. I saved up from my meagre wages and booked an open return on the coach to Athens in June 1978. I think it cost £25 return.
I planned to travel down through the Peloponese and then do some island hopping. I was not impressed by Athens but had already paid for a 3-night hotel stay in there. The train journey down to Kalamata in the Peloponese was wonderful, a narrow gauge railway, the carriages had wooden slated seats. I was the only tourist on the train. I then visited Crete, Rhodes, Kos, and Kalmynos. It was in my next port of call, Samos, that I met my husband. He was doing his 2-year military service. Although I did think that I’d fallen in love, I thought be sensible you have heard all these stories about holidays romances. Suffice to stay I was back in Samos a few months later. He finished his national service just before Christmas 1979 and we were married in Glasgow in February 1980.
We had been so intent on just being together that we hadn’t really thought through how we were going to live. My husband had studied at a naval college before his national service but we didn’t want him to go and work in the merchant navy. He couldn’t even work when he first came over to the UK, until his work permit was sorted out.
We decided that the best way to save up the money for the deposit for our own home was for me to do a “live-in” job as a housekeeper. We would be provided with a small flat to live in and have virtually no expenses. We managed to stand that for a year and had saved £5000, enough for a deposit on a place of our own. My husband now had a steady job at the Hyde Park Hotel, so we could apply for a mortgage.
I continued with a succession of menial temporary jobs. By 1982, I was getting fed up, so enrolled in a secretarial course at a private college. This paid off; I found a job as PA/secretary in a publisher’s office. Little did I know but this would be the high point of my career to the present day. I worked a 32 and a half hour week, was reasonably paid, I had an office junior to do the routine tasks and work was great fun. The company published 2 magazines, one was a naturist magazine, Health and Efficiency, and the other a bodybuilding magazine.
However we were living in a one bedroom flat with no garden in East London. We couldn’t afford to buy something bigger or in a more salubrious area. We were thinking about having a family, so when my husband saw Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire advertising for staff, we though why not move to Scotland, housing would certainly be a lot cheaper. My husband got the job at Gleneagles and he moved up, leaving me to sell our flat in London. He lived in staff accommodation at Gleneagles and started house hunting.
He found a house in Muthill, near Crieff. It was quite large so I decided to try my hand at bed and breakfast and we registered with an agency that sent German kids over to the UK to stay with a family and receive English lessons. That wasn’t exactly a roaring success. In 1986 I saw an advert for market research interviewers and decided to apply. I did my first survey in Pitlochry. It was quite hard at first but I did quite enjoy being out and about and chatting to loads of different people.
However I discovered I was pregnant in the Autumn of 1986 and when I went for my scan was informed that it was twins! My husband was in his 2nd year as a mature student at Stirling University. We thought it would be better if we could move nearer Stirling, as he needed the car to get to university and I would be pretty stuck in the village with twin babies. Our house in Muthill took ages to sell but we moved to Tullibody, in February 1988.
In the spring I went back to work as a market research interviewer. It fitted in well with family life, as I would go out to work evenings and weekends and we didn’t need to pay for any childcare. As the boys grew up and had a nursery place when they were 4, I thought I should be doing something better than trailing around asking a whole load of questions. I saw places funded by the European Social Fund for women to study for an HNC in Admin at the local college. They were even offering free creche places. I had been thinking about going back to university and was advised that it would be easier to gain admission if I could provide evidence of recent study.
The year at college was harder work than I had envisaged, then the 4 years at university, studying for a business studies degree, were even harder, and I was still doing market research most weekends. Now I hardly thought I was going to be headhunted into a top management position when I completed my studies but I did think I’d be able to find a semi-decent job.
After looking around a bit for a job, I decided that I would try to start my own business. I wanted to work locally weekdays during the day. I knew that there was a strong demand locally for domestic cleaners and thought I would try setting up a domestic cleaning service. Sure enough my research was correct there was demand and after a few leaflet drops locally and a few personal recommendations, I started to advertise for staff. After a year and a half I had 7 part time staff. However things were not going smoothly, I was doing cleaning every day myself and there always seemed to be at least one staff member off. The quality began to drop if I was always on hand to crack the whip. I was hardly making any profit and was spending around 30 hours a week just cleaning, never mind wages. weekly rotas, leaflet drops. I realised that I would have to expand to be profitable but couldn’t find reliable staff to maintain quality. I’d been doing quite a lot of work cleaning rented staff accommodation, between lets for a company that was relocating to the Stirling area. They were having a new office custom built for them. The office manager verbally assured me that I would have the contract to clean the new office. I thought that this would be the salvation of the business, as I could easily supervise employees while on one site. The logistics of the domestic cleaning were very complicated. However the contract never came to fruition. The office manager told me that my business was too small to take on the contract and her deputy told me that they were legally bound to take on the cleaning contractor that the whole business park used. Who knows what the truth was but basically I was left in the lurch. I decided to give up the business.
I drifted back into market research telling myself that I would just do the more interesting social survey work. I started with a company who only did social surveys and was told there was plenty of work available. I think I had about 3 jobs from them over 6 months. When I was doing a sex survey for them in Perth I bumped into another interviewer. She told me that the company she worked for were about to start a big social survey where the same families would be interviewed every year for the next 3 years. I phoned the area manager the next day, we hit it off and things seemed to be going well. After a few months the area manager asked me to apply for the position of deputy. Believe it or not, as deputy manager I was still paid by the hour. I actually had more hassle, made less money and had less flexibility than working as an interviewer. I still had to go out interviewing and would get home in the evening to a pile of faxes and phone messages, when I just wanted to relax.
I lasted around 6 months as deputy. I rationalised that I had tried studying, tried a promoted post, I wasn’t that ambitious and no employer seemed prepared to offer me a decent job, so I would have to be realistic and just plod on as an interviewer. Well that lasted for around a year then the area manger was forced to retire at 65 and the new manager wanted to greatly reduce my work on the annual social survey and force me to do all other sorts of surveys I wasn’t interested in.
I was wracking my brain about what on earth I was going to do to earn a crust. I had started thinking that I would like to start a travel business. It was a growth market, I wouldn’t need any employees, and I could work from home. The Internet was really catching on (this was 2002) and I thought that it would allow me, to gain some market exposure, even as a small fish. I also thought it would be wonderful to work in a field in which I had a great personal interest. I signed up with a flight supplier as a travel broker in August 2002.
That was almost two years ago. I am still working as a market research interviewer and the business is slowly growing. It’s been an ongoing dilemma to me, whether to give up the interviewing and just concentrate on the business. At some points I have been doing market research six days a week, so really have not had much time or energy to devote to the business. However I have been loathed to give up the steady income. By the same token if I don’t focus on the business then it will never really take off.
My initial business was Europe a la Carte. I thought that there was a niche in the market to assist people who were looking for something different to the traditional package holiday, put together a tailor made trip to Europe. It is possible to do this yourself on the Internet but it’s pretty time consuming. I reckoned that there was a significant minority of people who would value some assistance with planning and booking their trip.
From enquiries I received I began to realise that there was demand for cultural and activity holidays in Europe. The sister site, European Cultural & Activity Tours, was started in January 2003. May aim was to build up a good selection of holidays offered by small specialist suppliers throughout Europe.
I have to say that I am extremely lucky that one of my sons is really good on the computer. He has designed my sites and databases. My other son has also helped me with newsletters and photos.
I have begun to get more bookings and last week I had my first repeat customer. I have learnt a lot in the last two years about IT, the Internet and marketing. I have tried my hand at writing articles for the websites.
I have had some interesting trips to meet up with suppliers and visits to the areas that I promote. I have worked really hard but I haven’t really minded that as I have, on the whole, enjoyed the work. I am working toward my dream of having a profitable business in a field I find fascinating. I believe that I have found what I want to do now that I am grown up!
Karen is a travel consultant and writer specialising in travel to Europe. She has two websites: http://www.europealacarte.co.uk http://www.europe-culture-activity-tours.com
