March 2008

Maandelijks archief.

Journals You Can Keep

Gepost door admin op 30/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Spirituality On The Web

Besides your daily feelings, thoughts, and experiences journal, there are many ideas for journals or diaries that you can keep, some are suggested below. Buy a blank book or a notebook with a particular journal topic in mind and keep this book for only that topic. You may decide to keep several kinds of journals at the same time, so remember that you do not have to journal every day.

1. Family Journal - Journal about yourself and your family, the children, your parents, or relatives. You can have a weekly ‘family journal night,’ where the whole family can get together and either journal or discuss their journals. For any age, drawing is a way to journal thoughts.

2. Letter Journal - After you’ve written a letter, make a copy and keep it in its own file or binder.

3. Memory Journal - Think back, and journal one memory a day.

4. Gratitude Journal - Journal one thing in your life that you are grateful for that day.

5. Prayer Journal - Journal a prayer a day. Your prayer, a friend’s, the prayer from the paper, etc.

6. Good Thoughts Journal - Journal at least one good thought each day.

7. Books/Movies Journal - Journal the books you have read or the movies you have seen. What were your experiences? Who suggested the book or movie? Who did you see the movie with?

8. Couples Journal - Take time every day to write something to each other. Journal about each other, an experience of the day, a dream for the future, even an, “I’m sorry.”

9. Dream Journal - Upon waking, journal your dreams.

10. Friendship Journal - Journal your experiences and feelings about the lunch you just had with a friend, your visit with your sister, what you are looking forward to with a co-worker and the new work project.

11. Birthday Journal - Have your friends pick a date and journal why they picked that date, and ask them to retell a funny story, journal how you met, or say why they care for you as they do.

12. Recipe Journal - Journal past and present recipes. Include where you got the recipe, where and when you served it, who was there, and what they thought. You can keep a journal for salads, dinners, and a third for desserts.

13. Sports Journal - Journal your experiences with your favorite team.

14. Health Journal - Journal how you feel physically and what you are going thru health wise.

15. Diet/Exercise Journal - Journal what you eat, and your current times, distances, repetitions, weights, and other capabilities, tracking your progress.

16. Finance Journal - Daily you can journal all expenses, certain expenses, or have a place to keep this journal for family or employees to enter their expenses. You can also use this journal idea to track your present financial situation, or reflect on what you want to change or keep the same.

17. Collection/Hobby Journal - Journal your experiences and feelings about what you collect or your hobby, your stamps, coins, furniture, scrapbooking, dolls, etc. Besides journaling about the actual collection, you can record your feelings, what you saw, what you heard, who you met.

18. Focus Journal - Journal what you want to focus on tomorrow, or what you did focus on today.

19. Joke Journal - Journal a joke a day. Make one up or record a good one that you heard.

20. Travel Journal - Journal your travels, all those adventures and experiences.

www.the5yearjournal.com
info@the5yearjournal.com

EzineArticles Expert Author Doreene Clement

Doreene Clement, a cancer victor and author of The 5 Year Journal, is currently writing a new book, Blessed, about her life and her cancer experience. For more information http://www.the5yearjournal.com 480.423.8095

Copyright 2005 OMDC, LLC All Rights Reserved

Feel free to pass this along to your friends. About Journaling, http://www.the5yearjournal.com

A Facilitator’s Guide to Running a Stakeholder Analysis Workshop

Gepost door admin op 30/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Management Hub

This facilitator’s guide to running a stakeholder analysis workshop is for people whose success depends on getting other people involved with their objectives.

It contains two exercises, one to work with stakeholder groups, and one to emulate stakeholders where it is not easy to bring them all together. The aim of both is to engage stakeholders in dialogue, brainstorming and decision-making to secure their buy-in to an idea, project, or plan.

There are five key principles underpinning success in both exercises. These are:

1. People are motivated to co-operate when they stand to gain personally from the effort they put in. You will struggle to involve someone if they are not motivated to attain something important to them, i.e. something of personal value. So, look to get an outcome that is a win for all concerned.

2. You can only really understand someone’s motivation by spending time in their shoes, i.e. by taking their perspective, not as a commentator but by metaphorically stepping into their shoes, adopting their values, beliefs and experiences, and seeing the world from their perspective.

3. Assume that your own wants and needs are irrelevant to anyone else. If you push for your own ideas to be accepted, against those of other stakeholders, expect to have to keep pushing for a long time. The only solution that will succeed without constant pushing and struggling is one that connects with the personal values of each stakeholder in some way.

4. The only thing that matters is that stakeholders get value from the decision. Suppress your own ego, desires and opinions about the solution - they will serve to limit the process and produce a solution that only you may be motivated to promote.

5. Be careful when deciding who the stakeholders are. They are not only the people with financial interests. Anyone connected with the idea is a stakeholder in some way, e.g. marketing, IT, admin, shareholders, customers, suppliers, etc.

Exercise 1 and 2 are available at:
http://www.quadrant1.co.uk/corporate/stakeholders.php

Quadrant 1 International help individuals excel at their work and with their personal ambitions.

We are business people with many years experience in senior management and entrepreneurial positions. We have trained, coached and developed hundreds of managers and directors to greater success. We are authors of several international best selling books on personal development, and often present at major events around the world.

Sign-up for our free newsletters at http://www.quadrant1.com

Let It Ride Poker

Gepost door admin op 30/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Lady Luck

Let it ride is a poker variation. The object of the game is to
get a pair of 10s or better using three cards dealt to the
player and two “community” cards given to the dealer. In this
game everyone plays against the casino.

To start with, each player makes three bets of equal amount.
Then the dealer gives each player three cards and takes two
community cards placed face down. After seeing their first three
cards each player has the choice to take one of their three bets
back or to leave it out and ‘let it ride’.

Then the dealer turns over one of the two community cards, which
apply to all hands on the table, and each player has the option
to take out another bet or to ‘let it ride’. The player may
leave their bet in or take it out the second time irrespective
of their first decision.

The dealer then shows the second community card. Winners are
paid based on hands which have a pair of 10s or better with a
pair of 10s paying even money, as follows:

Tens or better 1 to 1 Two pair: pays 2 to 1 Three of a kind:
pays 3 to 1 Straight: pays 5 to 1 Flush: pays 8 to 1 Full house:
pays 11 to 1 Four of a kind: pays 50 to 1 Straight flush: pays
200 to 1 Royal flush: pays 1,000 to 1 House advantage 3.5%

Easiest Way to Play HYIPs and Win!

Gepost door admin op 30/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Finance Tips

Most people never get involved with HYIPs. There’s an obvious
reason for that. They think HYIPs are bad and very risky
investments at best. Well, I’m not here to dispel that myth. But
in the following few words, I will expose the simplest way to
win with HYIPs.

The HYIP boys aren’t going to like this information being put
out on the web. However, they do realize there are lots of folks
out there that never look before they jump. In other words, most
of the players in the internet investment circle never will read
these words. The ones that will read this are like you, curious
and always looking for an opportunity.

That is where most of the winners come from. The curious and
the opportunists. No matter what your endeavor in investing is,
we all agree that there is a modicum of risk no matter where you
put your money. A bank may go bankrupt. Someone might steal the
money from under your mattress.

I’ve had more checks stolen out of the mail than almost any
thing that could create a loss except the stock market crash of
2000.

Yet, of all these things I have lost less than $200 from
playing HYIPs.

After that terrible loss (I’m chuckling) I had to figure out
what went wrong and the answer is I had caught up to an HYIP
with bogus credentials as well as already having run its course.

You see, playing HYIPs is like going to the casino and playing
against the house. When you walk in you have high hopes of
winning and perhaps you win and you are up some amount. That’s
when you should quit. Because if you continue to play, the odds
no matter how small against you will over take you.

Comparing investing in HYIPs is just like winning at the game
table. You should go into the game (investment) with a real
estimate of what you can make and how long it will take to make
it. HYIPs never last forever, at least most are living an old
age if they’ve been around a few months. So, what does that tell
you? It should tell you that playing early is better than later.
It also tells you that the greedy are the most likely to lose
all. They simply play the game too long just as Bob Seeger sang
in the song “You’re Still the Same.”

To better your earnings you should play this way. Get in early,
and only keep your money in for two cycles. If you make your
estimate after two cycles walk away from the table a winner.
Know when to say when.

If you don’t have the self-control to play HYIPs that way, then
you would be better off not playing at all. Here’s to “table
stakes.”

Restaurant Reviews in London

Gepost door admin op 29/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Gourmets + Gourmands

Hardens food guide all started in the early noughty’s it was seen that London as a large city had no Burmese restaurant guides at all. The idea was to design something that was small and pocket sized that hungry people could use to assist them to decide where is a good Lebanese restaurant to eat. Over thirteen years ago the 1st London British traditional restaurant guide was published by hardens and has been a fantastic success ever since. Get some help with finding Restaurant Reviews.

What makes Hardens so great is that the London Restaurants are scored by the buyers, when the 1st ever book was published the food market was just starting to stir and with superb difficulty Hardens was able to ask around one hundred restaurant customers to take part in the first London wide restaurant survey. Over six hundred restaurant meals over a nine month period were sold to make the Hardens Restaurant guide what it is now.

Hardens have the published books and now have an educational website. The informative website is straightforward to move on and will tell people anything you need to know about pretty much any Mediterranean restaurant in London and give you suggestions split into sections so it makes it easier for you to narrow down what it is that you are exactly looking for.

The informative website itself has tons of bits recommended on it, it is trouble free to read and work your way through and this is thanks to the review guides excellent clear arrangement you can see all the coolest up and coming Irish restaurants and of course reviews on them. This bit is named Latest Reviews and is clearly sitting on the first page of the food site where you can view the vast list of game restaurants which changes every couple of months depending on what restaurant guides have been published. There is also a bit down the left side of the home page where customers can look for perhaps a specific South African restaurant or if you’re looking for a restaurant to go to in a specific area such as Birmingham and you want to separate the outstanding ones for the bad one this will do the job brilliantly for you.

Lucky? Financial Planning

Gepost door admin op 29/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Finance Tips

Recently, in our neighbourhood we witnessed a spectacular house fire where the home was completely destroyed. An obvious tragedy to the owner, yet a powerful reminder to be grateful for all we have - including our ability to plan ahead.

Usually these fire stories are reported along with appeals for donations for the unfortunate family who lost everything they owned. Everyone says “how sad” and pitch in with whatever they can. In this tragedy however, it was reported that the homeowner “luckily had insurance.”

Luckily??? Maybe thoughtfully? Or thankfully? But certainly not luckily?? Perhaps simply a poor choice of words, but then again, often what we say is how we think. Is it luck that someone lands a high paying job in his or her field of work? Is it luck that someone is able to retire in their early 50″s? Or live in a big home, drive nice cars and enjoy all the luxuries of a financially successful life? Unfortunately, we often hear people discussing financial success as lucky. Perhaps this is why many people are still “hoping” they will win the lottery to support them in their retirement. Same with the stock market: many people “play” the stock market because they think they are going to “get lucky”. They forget that what they are doing is making business decisions about companies to invest their money into.

There was no luck involved for this homeowner! They deliberately contacted an insurance provider and took precautions to protect their risk. This was part of their financial planning! If you are “hoping” you’re going to “get lucky” you aren’t taking control. Financial planning is about being in control.

There are many financial risks and any one of them could completely wipe you out financially and perhaps emotionally too. So, one of the first steps to establishing a solid financial plan is to understand your risks and to take precautions to minimize them. There is no luck involved in preparing in case a tragedy occurs. If you aren’t aware of where your risks are, or haven’t evaluated them recently, a review with a qualified financial advisor and reputable firm is in order. If a fire isn’t enough of a wake-up call to everyone of the magnitude and impact of financial risk, consider all the potential areas of exposure: death, sickness, loss of income, loss of money, old age, unexpected accidents or repairs, and on and on.

Obviously some areas can be covered by insurance: home, auto, disability, life, medical, critical illness, long term care, credit, business overhead, etc. But consider some of these in your evaluations:

Source of income: Is there more than one? How much are you in control of its continuity? Haven’t we all seen families almost devastated by a downsizing?

Investment protection: Do you have a loss protection plan or are you “hoping” for a recovery and planning on only positive returns? Why do you have the investments you have? Do you know someone who hung on to a “sure” investment only to find the money almost completely disappears?

Your retirement: How many sources of income are you planning to receive? Are you planning to retire at a particular age or at a particular financial landmark? Retirement means you are financially independent so you can chose to leave the workforce. Is that your plan?

Financial planning is not about luck!!! You must thoughtfully plan where you want to be and carefully put the pieces together to get you there - including protecting yourself against potential risks!!

MoneyMinding Inc. and Tracy Piercy accept no liability for the content of this article or for the results of any actions taken or not taken, on the basis of the information provided. The content is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional, personal financial advice.

Tracy Piercy - EzineArticles Expert Author

Tracy Piercy, a Certified Financial Planner, offers step by step proven success principles, tools, ideas and strategies integrated with practical financial planning strategies. She has worked in the financial industry, in insurance, banking, and as a well respected investment advisor with CIBC Wood Gundy, for more than 15 years. Tracy is the author of Enlightened Wealth, a personal money journal http://www.moneyminding.com.

Uses for Elliptical Gym Equipment

Gepost door admin op 29/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Tons Of Templates

As far as home gym equipment goes you may find that elliptical gym equipment is the most fun. Elliptical is a shortened term for elliptical motion something you may have come across on home gym equipment reviews. Elliptical motion equipment repeats one motion over and over to simulate an activity such as walking or running. Two pieces of elliptical equipment that you may be familiar with are the rowing machine and the stair climber. There are also ellipticals that simulate skiing, and cycling

Many people find that ellipticals are very fun and just as effective at getting you up to your target heart rate while exercising. The fun primarily comes in due to the ellipticals mechanical design which allows you to complete your motions fluidly over and over. This also creates less stress on your joints and muscles compared to the stress you may feel during a jog or stair climbing due to the repetitive pounding of your feet against a hard surface.

There are also pieces of home gym equipment called elliptical cross trainers. These trainers are designed to provide a full body workout with one simple machine. This can make your workout routine faster and it can help you to burn more calories.

The elliptical home gym equipment may be a lifesaver for those suffering from bone and joint problems. If you have arthritis or stress fractures you can still use elliptical equipment to exercise and maintain muscle mass. The ellipticals smooth motion and ease of use will go a long way towards easing pain experienced from workout routines. You can find out what other people think about ellipticals online at one of the many home gym equipment reviews sites.

When reading reviews, be sure it covers the entire machine form quality of parts used to warranty to the user experience.

Read more home gym equipment articles and home gym equipment reviews news or visit our home gym equipment site.

Watch Out For Credit Repairs

Gepost door admin op 29/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Great Mathematics Tips

It is very easy to find a site that is neat, professional-looking, and one that offers a free three-agency credit report and free credit report without a credit card.

This scam is too good to be true. Usually the only catch is an upfront charge to the consumer of $7.95 or something similar for each disputed item on your report. I was on the verge of signing up, but got a sneaking suspicion that something wasn’t right.

Every other site I’d seen offered an Equifax report for free, and a three-agency report for around $35. How could they offer it for free, and How could anyone get a free credit report without a credit card?

Skeptical, I researched the company and found multiple complaints. One of the prominent ones was a claim that they disputed every negative entry on your credit report without your approval, and then charged you $7.95 for each one.

I requested an explanation of the above link to give them a chance to share their side of the story. While I awaited their response I continued my research.

The Department of Justice says there is nothing a credit repair agency can do that you can’t do for free, making Clear Credit’s offer seem even more suspicious.

Almost all of the other sites I found made it clear that you should be suspicious of anyone claiming to improve your credit for a fee and offering free credit report without a credit card, because non-profit groups are available to help people with credit trouble.

My hopes were dashed in a matter of days. I received two e-mails from Clear Credit, but they didn’t contain an explanation. They told me to act now to improve my credit.

They spam a potential customer who made a perfectly legitimate request for more information. I was not impressed.

My search to find a quality three-agency credit report for a low price will continue, but Clear Credit is clearly off the list.

John Parsons is founder of http://CorporateNarc.Com. The mission of http://www.CorporateNarc.Com is to educate the public in consumer affairs and to provide consumers with up-to-date business information. In addition we hope to ensure better services for the consumer by exposing business fraud and corruption, as well as unfair and deceptive business practices.

This article my be reproduced as long as the author’s name and url to http://www.Corporatenarc.com are present at the end of the article.

Antioxidant Vitamins

Gepost door admin op 29/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Internet Nutrition Resources

The antioxidant vitamins found in fruits, vegetables, teas and supplements are proving to be powerful agents in the fight against disease causing free radicals.

The original concept was to take recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamins to a level that would prevent acute deficiency diseases like the Sailor’s disease scurvy. These are the standards by which RDA’s were created.

However, in recent years, research has shown that Vitamins taken in higher doses can prevent sever chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease. A debate still rages, but there is a plethora of research being done on Vitamin A, C, E, the antioxidant vitamins.

A National Institute of Health clinical trial involving people at high risk of developing advanced stages of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), showed that patients’ risk decreased by 25 percent when treated with high doses of antioxidant vitamins and zinc.

Another study at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta showed that taking Vitamin E along with multivitamins reduced risk from stroke and heart illness. Among patients who took the combination, mortality risk decreased by 15 percent for these two diseases.

This September, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) concluded a study investigating the relationship between Vitamin C and cancer, suggesting that Vitamin C may fight cancer. They found, in a laboratory setting, that high doses of Vitamin C injected directly into the bloodstream killed cancer cells.

Though the current RDA for Vitamin C is stuck at 60 mg, many researchers suggest that raising the RDA to between 100 and 200 mg would be a great way for people to get the antioxidants that they need to maintain overall well being.

Be careful when purchasing vitamins and supplements though. Research has shown that whole food vitamins, or vitamins with their co-factors, are much more effective than isolated nutrients. Nutrition is a complex process of thousands of chemical reactions within our bodies. Vitamins are always better in their natural state - in the foods we eat. Supplements should never be used in place of a poor diet.

The smart choice is to look for whole food vitamins to supplement an already good diet for the times you can’t get everything you need at meal time.

Alan LeStourgeon along with his wife Jean run the web site http://www.ezHealthyDiet.com where they explore what it means to eat a healthy diet, have a healthy home and live a healthier life.

Learning About Cellulite Exercise

Gepost door admin op 29/03/2008
Toegevoegd onder: World Of Shopping

Ah, exercise… It’s so healthy and good for you, yet we never seem to find the time to improve our lives through it. I know there are some days I really hate to do it, but I try to remember that it keeps me looking and feeling good!

Aside from a healthy diet, supplements and cellulite products, one of the single most important things to do is exercise. Exercise not only keeps us feeling healthy and young, but also improves overall circulation, detoxifies and helps to keep fats (a main contributor of cellulite) from settling on the body. However, there is no one cellulite exercise that will perform miracles on your butt and thighs if it is not part of the bigger picture.

Several cellulite exercises can be performed in your daily routine to contribute to the overall appearance of cellulite. Ideally, you want to incorporate two forms of cellulite exercise… aerobic/cardiovascular (running, power walking, swimming) and anaerobic (weight training).

Both of these serve a greater function in eliminating the problem areas in women, normally hips, butt and thighs. The cardiovascular portion of a workout improves the circulation of blood which allows the body to detoxify. It also reduces body fat, by burning it off. When you weight train, you build muscle tissue which also burns fat in a targeted area. So even if you aren’t fat so to speak, you can still focus on the areas that need improvement.

To begin, there are several alternatives you may wish to explore to start your cellulite exercise program. This may include anything from consulting with a trainer to show you the proper way to perform the training or perhaps just working on your own. Aerobic and anaerobic exercise can be performed separately or in conjunction with one another as part of the same workout.

What this means is you can, for example, power walk, run or swim one day and weight or spot train the next. Or… if you choose to perform the aerobic and anaerobic exercise at the same time it may include a short warm up to get the heart rate going, then performing 3-5 types of exercises in repetitions of 15 to 25 with very little in terms of a break in between. Maybe just enough time to chug some H2O! By repeating this routine of 3-5 cellulite exercises over and over, you not only focus on firming and toning muscles, but also keep that metabolism up which is very important to rid the body of fat and detoxify.

What constitutes a cellulite exercise? Well, primarily you want to focus on your thigh, butt and hamstrings (the muscle that’s behind and below your butt to the knee). These seem to be the areas where much fat tends to accumulate on women. Some good exercises for this area include lunges, leg curls, stiff-legged dead lifts and certain machines at the gym, more commonly known as abductor (outer) and adducter (inner) thigh machines. You may also do inner and outer thigh exercises on the floor with bands, leg lifts, etc.

Any combination of these cellulite exercises will help tighten and firm up the areas. As you become more accustomed to doing them, adding weight to your exercises challenges the muscles and helps them become stronger and more toned.

So in conclusion, add a healthy dose of cellulite exercise to your cellulite reduction program and diet to see the results happen!

Learn more information about exercises to reduce cellulite at our free resource:
http://reducecellulite.blogspot.com

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