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Showing posts with the label Index S

Strange Funky Ceramic Vase with Handle and “Crackle” Finish

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Funky Ceramic Vase with Handle and “Crackle” Finish ______________________     “You say freak, I say unique.”  ― Christian Baloga ___________________________ This vase is probably the oddest item I have ever found and actually bought; I found it about two years ago at a thrift shop. At first, I didn’t like it a lot, and I nearly passed it up, but it’s so different that, over time, it has grown on me. It’s  a green, white, and blue striped vase with handle, with a “crackle” finish. There is a signature on the bottom, but it’s an unreadable squiggle. It looks old, but it just could have had a rough life (when I acquired it, it smelled like cigarette smoke), obviously well-used. Has anybody seen this kind of ceramic, and, if so, does anyone know anything about it? I looked on the internet, but I found nothing about this type of ceramic. In my search, I may be using incorrect terminology, or it could be a homemade, one-of-a-kind, item.

So What Happens When a Airplane Drops Altitude Dramatically?

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The mark of fear is not easily removed.  – Ernest Gaines   _______________________ I can tell you what happens from firsthand experience.  In 2006, Jerry and I were on a flight to Minneapolis – I think it was Delta or Northwest – when, suddenly, the plane dropped several thousand feet in a few seconds. You notice it; your stomach feels as though it has been left behind, somewhere up in the sky. And you know you’re in trouble when the airline attendants are rushing up and down the aisle, and the pilot, voice shaking, says, “Attendants, take your seats.” You really are convinced that you’re going down – I even asked the flight attendant, “Are we going to be okay?” No answer (gulp). Too busy battening down the potential projectiles. No time for announcements. We leveled out and continued flying over Pennsylvania at 10,000 feet. The pilot (bless him) announced on the intercom that something had possibly gone wrong with the environmental controls (the same proble

....So, Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

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Chicks Before Crossing the Road For the First Time Remixed Photo Original:  Wikipedia: HerbertT _______________________  I saw this in an email (Thanks, Mark Siegel) and thought it was worth a share here; I have enhanced some of the chicken responses and added a few of my own. SARAH PALIN: The chicken crossed the road because he could see Russia on the other side, and, gosh-darn it, he’s a maverick! BARACK OBAMA: Let me be clear, the chicken crossed the road because it was time for change! The chicken wanted change! Real change! Change he could believe in! And the other side has expanded Medicaid to chickens who qualify for subsidized health care. JOHN McCAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road, uh, pay no attention to that cockfight in the House ring... HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken

Should YOU Rebrand Yourself?

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Mirror, Mirror, in my hand, Tell me, truly, my grand new brand? ____________________________ If you manage a personal blog, you might decide that it’s not worth rebranding, but it may be a good idea, especially if very few visitors are visiting your site. My former blog name was cool enough, but I didn’t have the matching domain in .com. Also, “Food for Thought” was taking me in a direction where I no longer wanted to go, at least exclusively; I was kind of stuck in food and diet topics, and I was beginning to find this boring. In addition, the search engines were burying my blog on something like page 15 because, evidently, “Food for Thought” is a highly competitive term. I selected “Life is a Brand” because branding is a popular topic, it fits my professional branding themes ( Brands Z and Brandite ), and I was able to register the matching .com, .net, and .org domains directly from the registrar, without paying aftermarket prices. For me, acquiring a cheap domain for th

Summer, the 20-Minute Rule, and Republicans

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One swallow alone does not make the summer . --Cervantes, Don Quixote It's hot today, thunderstorms expected later. Summer is not my favorite season, and this summer seems particularly brutal. Global warming? I don't know, though I wouldn't rule it out... This, too, will soon pass. I'm back on my program, after a rather long lapse. I'm not sure what has happened--I suppose my head has been in the wrong place. Certainly, my fork and spoon have been dipping in the wrong places. I am trying something a bit different: waiting 20 minutes after dinner before eating desert, and waiting at least 20 minutes after a snack before reaching for another one, even an on-points snack. It's very simple to do, and I figure I can wait 20 minutes easily enough ("I can do anything I want after 20 minutes"). I simply set the oven timer and go off to do something else. Sometimes I forget (so, no, I'm not hungry), and sometimes I wait impatiently for that

Shame on You, Jenny Craig for Hawking Your "Breaking News," "Best Program" BS!!!

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Advertising is legalized lying. --H. G. Wells When I wrote the May 12, 2011, article Shame on You, Consumer Reports , I was careful not to include Jenny Craig in any negative way, for JC did not make the decision to use the Jenny Craig sponsored trial "Effect of a Free Prepared Meal and Incentivized Weight Loss Program on Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance in Obese and Overweight Women" to decide "the best" program, but, rather, to test long-term efficacy of diet programs that provide both food and program fees to members for free. I even stressed the following: ...this article is not meant to disparage the Jenny Craig Program, which may be a fine program; I have never been a Jenny Craig member. My issue is with Consumer Reports and its research source for its rating of Jenny Craig. I believed (and still believe) that the underlying objective of the research was to prove that overall program efficacy and members' overall health would improve if

Thought for the Day--May 21, 2011: Save the Date! For the End of Days!

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"Oh, no! Where am I going to put all these pious earthlings????" _____________________ 2011 AD--On May 21st, Judgment Day will begin and the rapture (the taking up into heaven of God’s elect people) will occur at the end of the 23-year great tribulation. On October 21st, the world will be destroyed by fire (7000 years from the flood; 13,023 years from creation). -- eBibleFellowship Actually, according to the ebiblefellowship site, today is only the beginning of the end, so I will likely still be around to post on May 22. According to ebiblefellowship , the rapture begins today: The Bible teaches that on May 21st, 2011, only true believers elected by God to receive salvation will be raptured (taken up) out of this world to meet the Lord in the air and forever be with the Lord. So if some of the people you know--especially those who are deeply religious, have been tossing around today's date ad nauseum , and take the Bible literally--are missing, then you will know that the

Thought for the Day--May 12, 2011: Shame on You, Consumer Reports and How About a Refresher Course in Research Methodology 101?

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There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. --Attributed to Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843–1911) What gave [Jenny Craig] the edge over the big names we assessed--stalwarts such as Atkins, Ornish, and Weight Watchers--was a 332-person [actually, it was a 442-person study], two-year study of the program published in the Oct. 27, 2010, Journal of the American Medical Association. [Title of article, which was omitted from CR's ratings or its accompanying article: "Effect of a Free Prepared Meal and Incentivized Weight Loss Program on Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance in Obese and Overweight Women," by Cheryl L. Rock, PhD, RD, et al, and published online on Oct. 9, 2010.] ...Jenny Craig's prepared food was decent, though not great, as we noted in "Diet Taste-off" in our February 2011 issue. --"Pick your ideal diet," Consumer Reports , June 2011, page 14, after selecting Jenny Craig as the number 1 diet (Score

Thought for the Day--May 4, 2011: STOP Stigmatizing Overweight Children

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The above image has been manipulated from an April 21, 2011, ad, from the website www.stopchildhoodobesity.com (see original ad below). ________________________________________ The original ad : According to Katu.com , "This advertisement, part of a 'Stop Child Obesity' campaign in Georgia, won some enthusiastic praise for their attention-grabbing tactics. But they also have outraged parents, activists and academics who feel the result is more stigma for an already beleaguered group of children." ________________________________ Stigma is not an effective motivator. --Rebecca Puhl, psychologist and a leading expert on weight discrimination (Yale University) "Shaming" and bullying a child into losing weight rarely works. I know this from personal experience; as a chubby child (I wasn't quite "fat," whatever that means), my well-meaning grandmother (who raised me) would often embarrass me in front of relatives, including children, in the hope tha

Thought for the Day--April 21, 2011: Step Away from the Scale...

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I think the hardest thing is losing weight. That's the hardest thing more than anything else. --Aretha Franklin When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings. --W. E. B. Du Bois I'm still working on my obsession with jumping on the scale every few minutes. It's just a number, but if it doesn't move downward, I become a bit distressed. So why not avoid the scale altogether, that is, until my weekly weigh-in at Weight Watchers? This topic is also covered on Eat Smaller Portions , perhaps more in depth. Later, my cyber friends.

Thought for the Day--April 17, 2011: Smaller Portions

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To lengthen your life, shorten your meals. Proverb It doesn't matter what kind of diet you choose, the bottom line: to lose weight and keep it off, you must eat less food. Now that doesn't mean you should not ever eat yummy treats--just eat smaller portions of them. I know this is hard; I struggle with portion control each and every day, and I have been at this for more than seven months. I just take one day at a time, and when (not if) I "fall," I simply start over. If I'm on the wagon 80% of the time, then I will succeed. No more excuses. If you're going to eat large portions, make sure you select foods so low in calories (like lettuce), that it takes more effort to eat it than it does to add fat to your body. Eat well, my cyber friends; just don't eat 24/7.

Thought for the Day--April 12, 2011: Social Isolation

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If isolation tempers the strong, it is the stumbling-block of the uncertain. --Paul Cezanne Yesterday, in "Dear Abby," a former boyfriend was concerned about his ex-girlfriend who has gone into voluntary isolation because of her weight. He wanted to see her (as a friend), but she refused, citing her weight. Abby advised that he should call one of her relatives to get her help. Abby's right: this lady does need help because social isolation--all too common when people, especially women, gain a lot of weight and become morbidly obese and even just slightly obese--is not good for humans who need some kind of social interaction. But it's not all that simple to solve. Fear of being ridiculed is very real; unfortunately, there are some very cruel people out there who apparently lack empathy for fat people (and probably for other people who don't fit social norms). I know that when my weight has been at its highest, I just didn't want to go out in public--and for goo

Thought for the Day--March 19, 2011: Size Distortion

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Slide Show of Plus Size Models Many of the above models are plus size, but some are not. However, all are absolutely beautiful. _______________________ Keep this in mind: size 12-14 is about average for American women, which is hardly overweight, depending on height and body build. One can be perfectly healthy at sizes 12 and 14. In fact, one can be healthy at larger sizes as well, for other factors, such as activity levels and genetics, can be at play. But if you believe the cult of celebrity, size 14 is absolutely obese. The other day on The Today Show , a commentator on a plus-size fashion segment nonchalantly noted size 14 as a plus size. Really? Is it any wonder that far too many young (and even older) American women have a distorted body image? Don't fall for for the hype that has been promoted by Madison Avenue and by spokeswomen (and men) who live in a rarefied bubble of celebrity, where size 10 is a fashion disaster and size 0 is the Holy Grail. I don't know about you,

Thought for the Day--March 14, 2011: Standing Up for Yourself

Be assertive, when you need to be. It's one thing to be nice and pleasant, but it's quite another to allow others to stomp all over you. Stand up for yourself. You can be pleasant but firm about what you want and need. If niceties don't work, then you should feel free to ratchet it up a bit. The flip side: choose your battles carefully. Sometimes it pays to allow the small stuff to roll right off your back. That way, when you really need to be assertive, it will mean something.

Thought for the Day--February 4, 2011: Steady as She Goes...

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Inch by inch, ounce by ounce, steady as she goes. It's a process. The pounds didn't appear overnight, so don't expect them to slide off overnight. And during this process, enjoy life and what you eat. If you deprive yourself totally, it is likely you will backslide.

Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment