Orchid Myths -The Truth
November 29, 2006
Here are some of the popular orchid myths
#1 Orchids are Carnivorous
They are not, in fact, they pollinate by luring insects to them but they do not eat the insects. This helps the orchid gardening
Orchid Myths#2 Orchids come from the Tropics
Some orchid flowers do come from the tropical climates but they grow in any climate and in any country, even Alaska.
#3 Orchids are Expensive.
Not anymore. Now with the increased number of orchid gardening and growers, the modern reproductive methods orchids now are reasonably priced.
#4 Orchids are Hard to Grow.
This orchid myths is now furthest from the truth. They are not anymore difficult than any other plant. They need the basics, water, light, air and fertilizer. And you can have a beautful orchid flowers that last for years.
Some Orchid Questions
#1 Are all orchids the same?
On the contrary o what most florists want you to believe, they come in over 28,000 varieties, they are the largest plant family. There are estimates of 110,000 hybrids today. They grow from thimble size (Mystacidium) to over 20 feet tall (Renanthera storei)
#2 What soil do they grow in?
Most orchids require no soil. In nature orchids are divided into 4 classes;
Epiphytes air plants (majority of orchids) grow on trees
Lithophytes air plants grow on rock surfaces
Saprophytes air plants grown on decaying vegetation
Terrestrials ground plants grow in soil
#3 Do orchids only last a short time?
On the contrary most species can last for years if taken care of. There are some plants which were propagated in the 18th century and continue to live today.
#4 How often do they bloom?
It varies according to the variety and hybrid but they can bloom from once to 2 - 4 times a year. The blossoms can last for weeks to months which is a real plus.
#5 How old is my plant?
Orchids can take years to come to maturity and bloom. Typically, the plants are anywhere from 5 to 8 years old.
#6 Is conservation of orchids important?
According to the American Orchid Society this is a priority. Threats to orchids come primarily from loss of habitat and collecting. The AOS encourages the purchase of only artificially propagated orchids.
#7 Should orchids be protected from a draft? This could be another orchid myths, but the answer is no, orchids prefer moving air but should not be over a heating or air conditioning vent.
Visit our Orchid Store: http://www.orchid-store.orchids-plus-more.com
** This article can be used freely as long as the author and the Orchids-Plus-More.com are identified within the article
Bob Roy has an orchid site with many articlea and information on orchids. His website is quite popular, http://www.orchids-plus-more.com. You will also see a large selection of stunning orchids
Exercise ? More is NOT Better!
November 29, 2006
Years ago when I was a professional bodybuilder, I fell into the mindset that the more I exercised, the less fat I ate, the better I would look and feel. At the time this seemed like the logical thing to do. And maybe in my mind that was correct. However, from my body’s standpoint, this was NOT the thing to do, nor was it healthy.
If you have exercised for any length of time, chances are you too have fallen into this mind trap. If I walk thirty minutes and burn three hundred calories, then I will walk an hour and burn twice as many. If I eat thirty grams of fat a day and lose two pounds, then I will eat ten grams a day and lose four pounds. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
While your mind might be able to take that, your body can not. You see this with a lot with people. Out of the blue they just hit a wall. Their bodies all of a sudden just say, "That’s it, I done- no more!" I believe exercising efficiently in less time will do more for you in the long run than trying to do more in the short run.
If you over exercise, your body gets to the point where it just goes through the motions. The only thing you are really doing is satisfying your brain. The muscles shut down, hit plateaus and ache. These are all signs of over doing it. They reality is, which will seem illogical is that the muscles grow and recuperate while they are resting, not during the workouts. This was very hard for me to understand until I worked out for a summer with Brian Silk Mr. Universe. Brian was lifting half the weight in half the time, performing half the exercising I was doing. Obviously I was doing something wrong.
He went on to explain to me just this. The hardest thing for me to do at that time was walk out of the gym when it seemed as though I was only through half my workout. One year later I won the Mr. Michigan Bodybuilding championships.
Here is my point:
Making progress in your exercise program comes down to; working smarter not harder, listening to your body, and understanding more exercise is bad for you in the long run. The magic is in this formula: Consistency + variety + efficiency = results!
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Your World Your Way - Trusting Yourself In Business
November 29, 2006
"It doesn’t interest me who you are, or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back."
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
You cannot have peace of mind or have a healthy business if you don’t trust yourself.
Trusting yourself is having a true sense of who you are, clarity about what you want and the presence of mind to honour yourself.
At times the pressure from being in business and just living itself, can cause you to make decisions you can’t really stand over. Not trusting yourself enough can leave you out on a limb because you’ve compromised yourself.
Say you’re negotiating a big contract? Don’t you need to be rock steady to make the best deal for you?
Not trusting yourself is not unusual; self-trust is something we build up over our lifetime, through our experiences and by consciously working towards it.
Why is self-trust so vital?
When we don’t trust ourselves enough, we lack a core reference point from which to operate. We may lose our sense of ourselves and ebb and flow according to other’s agendas. A small example of this is, once I agreed to accept payment from a client by cheque versus by standing order. I got burned by not being paid on time, month after month. When all is said and done I exposed myself unnecessarily. Ultimately no one was served.
We need self-trust most when we are in situations where we are unsure. We may be in the company of people who are more influential than we are, or we may be under pressure because we need something. For some reason or other, we’re off-centre.
If we only knew it, these are the times when it’s really critical for our business and our peace of mind that we trust ourselves.
In my opinion, if you’re not aware of what you’re doing, or not able to stop yourself even when you know you should, you cannot trust yourself. You are not in control. Whatever is on your mind is in control, not you.
Trusting yourself gives you a rock-solid foundation, which guarantees that decisions you make are beneficial.
How Do I Gain More Self Trust?
In any situation or circumstance.
For instance take the client who paid by cheque. On reflection, how could I have avoided putting myself in that situation?
If I were trusting myself, I would have
Five Ways To Keep Yourself In Check:
These are five tactics you can use to make sure you can trust yourself, even when the tendency is not to.
You need to build self-awareness, which is all about becoming an observer of yourself and watching how you respond in different situations and environments. Once you are conscious of your own danger zones, you can set up ways to change what you’re doing, to get the result you want.
How Do I Identify My Danger Zones?
Take time to reflect on experiences you’ve had where you didn’t trust yourself enough and ended up with problems. Check what was on your mind at the time. There are always warning signs, (gut responses) or intuitive messages you got. You probably ignored them at the time. Usually we only truly acknowledge them with hindsight.
Another way is to observe yourself in current situations and see how you operate. You’ll soon recognise your pitfalls. Then you can change your responses and build more self-trust.
It looks like you need to have presence of mind to be able to trust yourself.
Yes and this is where white space comes in. We need to stop and take time out just to be with ourselves.
What is White Space?
It’s:
- A designated chunk of time, for you alone. No ’shoulding’ on yourself! You do whatever you want.
- At least two hours, twice a week, with nothing scheduled or planned for it.
- Blocked out in your diary for the coming year.
- Built up over time to two hours/day or a half day/week or two days/week.
- Untouchable
You need to commit to it and also to shift your perception. You are not being self-indulgent. You are being responsible and empowering yourself to have choice and freedom.
How do I use White Space?
The decision on how you use it should come in the first moment you are in it. If you are unsure, just sit and be present and see what comes up. You will learn to be more spontaneous. It’s a bit like clearing clutter. Until you clear it, it’s hard to see what you have currently and what you can eventually have.
Remember:
To trust yourself, you’ve got to know yourself well. Knowing yourself means you are aware, you understand, you are conscious of what’s going on around you and how you are responding to it. It means you know what you want in any given situation. You learn to read signals and adjust your responses as necessary.
When you slow down and take time and space to build awareness, you will notice that you are:
- Observing yourself
- Eventually able to watch your mind in action
- Learning that when nothing is working, to do nothing
- Trusting yourself more and more
- Taking the pressure off and more sure of yourself
- More surefooted and strategic.
About The Author
Ann Kelly is a Personal and Business coach, with an established global reach. Her speciality is helping those who’ve sold their souls to their business or organisation and want a refund. Ann’s unique style has had a significant positive, impact upon many lives and businesses. Check out success stories and visit her website, at http://www.yourworldyourway.com. To arrange a complimentary 30 minute session please call Ann at +353-21-4354725 or email ann@yourworldyourway.com
Traffic Exchange Programs And Their Benefits
November 29, 2006
Traffic Exchange Programs And Their Benefits
by: Peter Tarrida del Mármol
Traffic Exchange programs are services that online users with a common objective use, in an effort to gain more exposure for their business.
There are different types of traffic exchange programs. There are some that will let you surf the Internet as you normally would, with the only exception being that you set your browser’s start page to their default advertising page. Once your homepage’s browser loads you earn a certain number of advertising credits. You get additional credits for clicking on links of other members in the program’s network. You can then use these credits for exposing your links to the network, with a chance of potential visitors and sales.
Some other traffic exchange services will make your surfing experience a bit more complex, since you would have to wait for a timer to expire in order to be awarded credits, and while that timer counts down you are forced to view another person’s website from the network.
Some of these measures were taken by the traffic exchange programs in an effort to minimize or eliminate cheating, since some users came up with ways to cheat the system by using software programs that auto surf and earn them credits.
Typically, participants to these traffic exchanges will surf the Internet with a slight modification of how they normally would, in an effort to collect credits.
One can conclude that the less distracting from the normal surfing experience, the more the webmaster would be willing to use that traffic exchange program. Also, the less forced an ad/website on a user, the more targeted he/she will be for that product or service. For example, someone who is reads a headline in a traffic exchange and clicks on it to view the website is more targeted than someone who views it because he/she is forced to wait for a timer to expire.
Now that you have an overview of what traffic exchange programs are, and how they work, we can go over their main benefits:
1. Free
Almost all traffic exchange services are free, although you can upgrade your membership to get additional benefits in some. This means that someone with a low or no budget can start advertising their website fast and for no cost.
2. Targeted Traffic (for Internet Marketing)
If your product is Internet marketing related then the traffic you would receive to your website will be somewhat targeted because it will be people like you, who are looking for more ways to increase their online income.
3. You can build a list.
You can have a page designed to give out a freebie or a 5 part e-course in exchange for an email address. You can then follow up with these leads and sell them more stuff in the future.
4. You can recruit affiliates
If you have your own product and affiliate program, you can recruit affiliates to sell your products for a commission. The more people selling your products, the more passive income you will make.
In conclusion, traffic exchanges offer a great free way of promoting your business. They should be included in your advertising arsenal but make sure that you leverage your time effectively, and you don’t surf for hours for those advertising credits. Try to find a traffic exchange program that will not hinder your normal surfing behavior, while advertising your business, and you will be one of the few people who maximize their time and effort with this free marketing tool.
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Playground Pettiness
November 29, 2006
Recently I took my two children to a popular new park in the area. It’s a beautiful new playground, all wood, divided into different areas of play for different age groups. It’s wonderful for me as well, as my children can play at age appropriate areas and I can see/interact with both of them at the same time. This is what makes it our entire family’s favorite playground, as well that for many other families in the area.
When we arrived at the park this particular day, there was only one other family there. It was extremely hot, and I told my kids we’d only be able to stay for a small amount of time. I wanted them to wear themselves out a bit, but not pass out. I assumed my normal location on a wooden bench and settled down, knowing that I would be able to see and hear whatever my children were doing. It didn’t take long before I noticed a problem.
There’s this really neat seat swing that my daughter (4) loves to swing in. She had taken up a position standing by the swing, waiting for it’s occupants to finish. After 10 minutes, I saw her run past me saying “no, leave me alone, I don’t want to play” to a smaller child who was chasing her. This smaller child belonged to the occupant of the swing. That occupant, was her Mother.
In the Mothers lap was a infant, approximately six to nine months old. There are infant swings right next to the red chair swing, but the Mother was enjoying the chair swing with the infant in her lap. When we had first arrived, I didn’t think too much about it. Unusual, yes. A problem, no. Until now.
Now this Mother is glaring at my daughter, who is running away from her daughter, because the Mother is still in the swing my daughter is waiting for. Everytime my daughter walked near the swing to continue to wait for her turn, this other little girl followed her. Her Mother was alternating her glare between me and my daughter, so I suggested that we play somewhere else until they were done. My daughter said firmly “No”. The Mother turned and fixed her death stare back on me, as if to say “what kind of parent are you?!”. I replied to my daughter “That’s fine, but you need to be nice to the other little girl”. Now she also glared at me. I just couldn’t win.
She stood there, waiting her turn for the swing another 5 minutes before the Mother got all huffy, grabbed her daughter by the arm, and dragged her and the baby off to another side of the park. Once again she was glaring at me, keeping her eyes fixated us as she walked away. Cursing at me I’m sure. I apologized to her, because obviously, she thought we’d done something wrong. She didn’t respond, kept that evil stare on us, and continued walking.
I wanted to cry, but instead I grabbed my daughter, told her that she shouldn’t have been so rude to the little girl (after all, that’s what little girls do, follow bigger girls around) and put her in the swing. I pushed her for about two minutes, called for my son, and headed to the car. In order to get there, we had to pass the other Mom on the way out, so once again I apologized, thinking naively maybe she hadn’t heard me the first time.
Again, I got the stare of death and no response.
In the car, my son wanted to know what had happened. I wasn’t even sure. “What had we done wrong??? Why was I apologizing to this strange, bitter Mother?” I thought to myself.
Then the answer came to me. Because I’m a nice person. That’s it, pure and simple. I don’t like seeing other people upset.
So, I told my son (and daughter) that what the other Mother had done was wrong. Instead of asking my daughter if she’d like a turn, or even addressing her with a simple “I’m not done yet sweetie, it’s going to be awhile” she just kept swinging. Ignoring her, as if she didn’t exist. She put her needs in front of not only her other childs, but she broke the cardinal rule of Motherhood; she turned her back on another child. You just don’t do that.
I personally don’t feel she should have been on the swing at all. That as soon as we arrived and my daughter walked over, she should have offered to get up. However, just because that’s what I would have done, doesn’t mean that’s how everyone should feel or act. That said, I won’t budge in my belief that she was acting childishly, not only because she didn’t address my daughter in some kind of friendly manner (after 20 minutes of waiting), but by the glaring and pouting she kept carrying on with. Shame on her.
A couple of days later, I wished I had done things differently. I wished I had approached the Mom and asked if we could have a turn on the swing. I wish I hadn’t apologized for something that I don’t feel was our fault. But most of all, I wish I’d never met her and her bitterness.
The moral of this story is, don’t expect a parent to do the right thing, they can be just as selfish as children. Maybe even more so.
Amy Fleeman is a married Mother of two and a loyal but overzealous beagle. Amy is the co-owner of http://www.RaisingOurKids.com and enjoys sharing her opinions and life experiences with the site visitors and newsletter readers. To hear more crazy stories and strong opinions, (along with rational parenting advice and some freebies) subscribe to RaisingOurKids Newsletter by clicking here.
Who Needs a Rear-view Mirror? Successful Living by Mastering Our Past
November 29, 2006
When driving, we need to check our rear-view mirror every few minutes to perceive dangers lurking behind - tailgaters, hecklers, over speeding cars, and drivers under the influence. Aside from anticipating threats, it helps us contemplate our next move, giving us enough time to be cautious before overtaking or stopping or . . . slowing down.
So for safety reasons, the rear-view mirror is essential when driving. In life, do we need to review the past to safely navigate the present and future and their unpredictable twists and turns?
Driving the highway of life is constantly accompanied by unforeseeable events. A reliable guide to the present and future is our previous experiences. A good handling of the past can enlighten us well today.
I know a woman who can’t seem to learn from her past. At a young age, she has had recurring unfortunate relationships - living in with men who have bad habits and vices. Abusive and exploitative, these men left her when she became inconvenient. Each time, she was left with children to take care of, with more physical injury, financial burden, and emotional hurts to endure. One man even sold her soul by forcing her to prostitution.
So far, she hasn’t reviewed her past and her life. In a few weeks or months, she will meet the same type of men - abusers and users.
Life’s patterns and perspective, whether productive or not, deserve a second look to determine their usefulness. Past mistakes likewise deserve a review so we can learn from them. An analysis of the past helps us see our strength in coping with challenges, losses, and defeats. In a significant way, a life review teaches valuable lessons better than a classroom.
Some people however are somehow stuck in the past in a harmful way. They constantly review past mistakes, losses, and problems without analyzing and realizing what they have learned and how they can avoid them in the future. They become preoccupied at the expense of their emotional health. Unable to live fully in the present, they overwhelm themselves with guilt, blame, and "what ifs" rumination. They focus on the hurts, tragedies, and disappointments.
As a result, they need a psychiatrist to help taper their turbulent emotions. Instead of learning from the past, they unlearned anything.
I know an elderly man who becomes obsessed with the past. He blamed his parents for his inability to finish school, blamed his friends for his low grades, his wife for his bad occupation, and his co-workers for his misfortunes. When I saw him, he was a bitter man and full of rage. He later became very depressed.
On further evaluation, I realized that this elderly man could have done something differently if he bothered to review his past. He could have corrected his unproductive patterns and ways early. Almost close to his death bed, it’s now too late.
How can you benefit from the past?
Review your life every few weeks or months. Some people even benefit from a daily review.
Check for patterns, habits, attitudes, behavior, and mindset that are counterproductive.
Correct those unproductive ways of living your life. Do you need to change your life’s perspective? Please do so and do it quick.
Learn from these reviews. These lessons can’t be acquired through expensive formal education.
Who needs a rear-view mirror? All of us! Only those who don’t want positive change will do otherwise. Remember, living a life is more important than driving.
Life is the product of actions and reactions interwoven in our daily existence. Life therefore requires a meticulous review of the past.
About The Author
Copyright 2003 Michael G. Rayel, MD. Dr. Rayel, author of First Aid to Mental Illness (Finalist, Reader’s Preference Choice Award 2002), has pioneered the CARE approach as a first aid for mental health. As an expert and an award-winning author, Dr. Rayel has appeared on radio and prominent newspapers. As a first aid advocate, he has conducted Mental Health First Aid workshops. To learn more about his work and books, visit www.drrayel.com.
