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Where Do Great Ideas Come From?

At a Photo Club meeting I attended recently, the President made a comment on another meeting he had attended, where someone in the audience asked the presenter where to find good subjects to photograph. The presenter in question started giving specifics instead of identifying the core issues in question, Attitude and Perspective.

Clients often ask me the same question about ideas, “Where or how does one come up with a good idea for a business or service, for a new product to develop or a theme for an ad?” Oddly enough, the answer is the same; it depends on your attitude and perspective because inspiration is everywhere. Everywhere around you, there are clues to great ideas but you have to be receptive to see or hear them. Once you are open to really listening and observing, you tend to notice things you weren’t aware of in the past. It’s sometimes uncomfortable to look at the world around you and respond to it differently than others do, but it can be very rewarding.

Is the world around you a place of abundance and opportunity or a difficult barren place? Do you think of life as a constant struggle or an adventure?

Continue reading “Where Do Great Ideas Come From?”

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Can a Hobby Help You Lose Weight?

How important can a hobby be in your weight loss efforts? Do you think that having a hobby can keep you from gaining weight or even help you to lose weight?
If you think about what a hobby means it could help you in your efforts with any negative behavior.

When you start a hobby there is usually a learning curve. You have to learn how to do whatever hobby you’re starting. If you decide to crochet or quilt you’ll need to take some lessons. Or maybe you’ve decided to take up painting or jewelry making, or playing tennis. If you’ve never done these things before you’ll probably need to spend some time learning how to do them either by self-learning online or by going to some kind of offline classes. Whatever hobby you take up there will probably be a given amount of time allocated to learning about how to do this particular hobby. Continue reading “Can a Hobby Help You Lose Weight?”

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What Exactly Is Suet?

Suet is the mildly flavored beef fat from the kidney area. Traditionally this fat was also known as tallow, which was a main ingredient in candles and soap. It has a low melting point and can be easily combined with other bird-friendly ingredients, such as rolled oats, cracked corn, sunflower seed and peanut butter, etc. For an excellent high-energy food that the birds readily accept, suet can’t be beat.

Best suet in my opinion:

  • Birdwatchers Best Nutty Butter Suet manufactured at Pine Tree Farms, Interlaken, NY, USA
  • Heath Berry Blast All-Season Suet made by Heath Outdoor Products, Coopersville, MI, USA

Both are concentrated, long-lasting and packed with goodies and not fillers. My birds are very fond of both of them.

Backyard birds that enjoy suet: woodpeckers, including pleated, downy, hairy, red bellied and northern flickers; nuthatches, chickadees, blue jays, finches, juncos, crows, ravens, starlings and grackles. Continue reading “What Exactly Is Suet?”

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Three Ways to Travel Without Traveling

What do you love most about travel? I love the feeling of freedom from my day-to-day routine, freedom from pressures, and mostly freedom from stress! Plus, the adventure of seeing new sights, meeting new people, and immersing myself in another culture.

So how do you get that without actually traveling? My favorite way is to read a great book. It can be an old favorite, or a new adventure, but it has to pull me right in and keep me there so snuggly that I can’t even think about anything else! My whole body says, “Aaahh.” Then I get excited about what’s going to happen next. The atmosphere and adventure of another time and place can work its magic to make me feel I’ve left my own home and flown off to some great new experience.

My most recent favorite book for that type of “travel without travel” is Adventures of a World-Traveling Scientist by Stanley Randolf. Imagine discovering secrets of unusual cultures, weird animal species, new perspectives (like “following your Soul Voice”), and scary moments just around the corner! From China to Rarotonga, I felt very-well-traveled, like an aristocrat from earlier lore. Continue reading “Three Ways to Travel Without Traveling”

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Can You Guess the Names of These 12 Unique Fruits and Vegetables From Colombia?

Unique Fruits and Vegetables from Colombia

Call yourself an experienced South American traveler? Here’s a quick little quiz for you. Read the description, then try to guess the name of the fruit or vegetable described. You can check your answers later in the article.

Can You Guess The Names of These Strange Foods?

1. I’m long and yellow but I’m not a banana. You can boil me or roast me while I’m green or later when I’m sweet and yellow. Can you guess what I am? That’s right! __________ Enjoy me roasted plantain with cheese.

2. What’s red on the inside and the outside with spines all over on the outside? Even my juice is red. My juice is used in food coloring, body paint and makeup. Do you know what I am? Can you say __________? Continue reading “Can You Guess the Names of These 12 Unique Fruits and Vegetables From Colombia?”

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Simple Hypnosis For Weight Loss And Eating Disorders – Fast And Permanent Results

I became interested in hypnosis, because I had a compulsive craving for sweets and unhealthy food. I struggled with this problem for years. I tried a few methods: different types of diets, changing eating habits, different nutrition type routines, powerful exercise regimes. None of these willpower based approaches worked for me permanently. I started to research about hypnosis. Saw plenty of positive feedback, so I decided to try it

Through hypnosis, I got rid of my problem permanently. It was easier than I had imagined it. I did not experience any feeling of deprivation. Gradually the routine of eating healthy, clean, food, became natural and even enjoyable! As a positive side effect, I lost few extra pounds, with no struggle, reaching the weight I was looking for. Continue reading “Simple Hypnosis For Weight Loss And Eating Disorders – Fast And Permanent Results”

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How to Tame a Lovebird

Lovebirds are beautiful creatures and amazing pets. They add beauty and charm to your home. Just the sight of these pretty birds is a refreshing experience. If you tame a Lovebird then the joy they bring into your life have a doubling effect. Lovebirds of any age can be tamed and trained. However, if you have hand reared baby Lovebirds then they are much more easier to tame than adults.

Decide how many Lovebirds you want to tame and start with a single bird at a time. Taming a Lovebird requires its undivided attention. A pair of Lovebirds will socialize with each other and the process becomes more difficult for you. A single bird will consider a human as his companion and will learn the process much quickly and easily and the training becomes a fun experience for your bird.

Taming a Lovebird requires a lot of patience, time and practice for your bird. A tamed Lovebird is well worth the time you spend on taming. The best time to start training is as early as possible. The training should be divided into three to five sessions of no more than ten to fifteen minutes each. The training sessions should be conducted almost daily. Continue reading “How to Tame a Lovebird”

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How to Have Your Wedding Reception on a Budget

Food at your reception

“How can we budget for reception food and music/entertainment?” is one of the most frequent questions we are asked. That is because the reception is the most expensive part of your wedding. However, you can plan it within your budget and have a memorable event.

You must be very particular when choosing your wedding reception site. It must be appropriate and fit in with your wedding reception plan and budget. It does not have to be a traditional hall. How about having your wedding in a historical home, a park, a museum, fair grounds, public gardens, on the beach, etc.

You also need to know if the venue supplies you with all your furniture and dining needs. If not, you must calculate rental fees.

When choosing a wedding site, choose slow period and either a Friday evening, Sunday afternoon or a weekday, When caterers are not busy. If you do, you’ll be able to negotiate with vendors for the best deals. Continue reading “How to Have Your Wedding Reception on a Budget”

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Rune Power – Attract Landvaettir Norse Spirits For Protection

The main reason why we Northern European Nordic/Germanic peoples have lost a high place in this politically correct world is because we have lost much of our spirituality. We not only have lost our connections to the Runes which are powerful keys to the Universal Creative energies, but we have also lost contact with the Nature Spirits who protect our folk.

We have become too civilized and taken the path of materialism and thus forsaking nature. We have become too Christian and allowed our Nature Spirits to be demoted.

But now thanks to the New Age of Aquarius and our new Paradigm of Quantum Physics we can reconnect with our runes and Gods/Goddesses and Nature Spirits. These laws have been successfully proven by the greatest minds of our day.

Continue reading “Rune Power – Attract Landvaettir Norse Spirits For Protection”

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Discovering Hemingway’s Cuba

I fell in love with Cuba, or at least the idea of Hemingway’s Cuba, in my mid teens. I read an article about the writer and delighted in the romance of a bygone age, salsa and adventure preserved in time. Maybe the idea of vintage cars made the historic more tangible. I determined that one day I would go and discover it for myself. It was twenty years before I would travel to La Isle Grande in 2008, nearly 50 years after Hemingway’s death.

I was less naïve in the romance of Hemingway’s life but still enamoured enough to want to find out more about the man and the country. Havana was as beautiful as I’d hoped. I had learnt a little Spanish for day to day – enough to help me survive service-only food stores and even ask directions.

I was staying in the old town and made myself busy by visiting the usual tourist haunts of cigar and rum factories, and exploring streets of crumbling architecture – making sense of the many influences from Moorish to Mafioso. As splendidly as the Hotel Nacional stands many of the buildings looked very much like they were returning to nature. Overgrown maybe in part to urban gardening established in the período especial, the special period, when the dissolution of the Soviet Union severely hit the Cuban economy in 1991. Continue reading “Discovering Hemingway’s Cuba”