Ode to the Road (The Road Trips of our Lives)
by Patti Teel
Recently, in the early morning dawn, I dreamed I was a child again, helping my parents to pack up our white Rambler for our annual summer vacation. When I awoke, I had a yen to pack up my car and take off. This feeling is not unfamiliar to me. It reoccurs every summer and seems to be imbedded in my subconscious by wonderful, childhood vacation memories.
I encourage you to take a sentimental journey by reminiscing on your own childhood family vacations, and then on trips taken later on in your life. Although you might not remember what you did last week, vacation memories are often surprisingly vivid even those from long ago. Road trips reflect how we viewed life at various ages and stages of our life. Take time out to remember the excitement you felt as a child, a young adult and perhaps as a parent-as you left your every day routine behind to explore and share exciting new places with your family.
Childhood Vacations: The most wonderful thing about our childhood vacations is spending time together with our parents, brothers, and sisters. At no other time is a family more of a cohesive unit than when traveling together-especially on a road trip.
When I was a child, our family vacations were spent in the beautiful outdoors. I loved being near the water and fondly recall lakeside vacations that were spent water skiing, swimming, and boating. Reminisce on the places and activities that kept you happily occupied on your childhood vacations. These memories hold the key to places and interests that are just waiting to be rediscovered.
Teen and Young Adult Years: Life is exhilarating and we're likely to impetuously seize opportunities to independently travel with our friends, rather than our parents. Problematic scenarios such as running out of money or having car trouble are the furthest things from our mind. Looking back at my own naivety and lack of sensibility reminds me why I question the judgment of my teenage daughter. Mark Twain's quote could certainly have been written by me, "Providence protects fools and idiots. I know because I have tested it."
The Parenting Years: Anticipating problems becomes very important to us when we're parents and the well-being of our precious cargo is foremost on our minds. Parents have the responsibility of planning, packing, and paying for their family's trip as well as making sure that it's fun and safe. Vacations can be quite arduous, especially when our kids are young. And yet-the memories of those family vacations will warm your heart and make you smile for years and years to come. And one day your kids will remember their wonderful family vacations and pass the legacy on to their own children.
The Kids are Grown: My most recent road trips demarcate a new phase in my life. With all three of my children over the age of 18, I've returned to the days when I can take spur of the moment road trips. They are as exhilarating today as they were when I was young, but now I have the common sense that I lacked as a teenager. For the first time in decades, I've taken childfree trips with my husband and several of my friends. I've also taken several long distance road trips by myself. If you need to clear your mind or get your creative juices flowing, I highly recommend that you take a road trip on your own. The task of driving occupies enough of the left-brain to free your right-brained creativity. Solo road trips can be a spiritual journey, helping us to learn to listen to ourselves. We can stop whenever we like, wherever we like, for as long as we like. And it gives us the opportunity to reminisce on the road trips of our lives.
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Tips For Insuring A Second Home
Tips For Insuring A Second Home
by David Thomson
If you are lucky enough to own a second home in which you spend the weekends or holidays, then you will of course need to take out home contents insurance to cover the possessions within it just as you do your main home. However when it comes to insuring a holiday home it is of course more expensive, this is due to the fact that for a large amount of time the home is not being lived in and so is deemed as a bigger risk. However there are steps you can take to lower the amount that you have to pay for your premium.
The biggest reason why it costs more to insure a second home is the fact that you are not residing in it and as such for a large part of the time it is standing empty, which means there is more chance of it getting broken into. Steps you can take to remedy this and to bring down the premium include fitting the latest security features to the home. The better protected the property is, then the lower the risk and the cheaper the premium.
Installing the latest alarms which are listed with many insurers can go a long way to making sure your property is secure to the standard listed with insurers.
Other security features which can lower your home contents insurance include installing smoke detectors; doors and window alarms and locks; and making sure your property is totally enclosed by fencing. Insurers believe that the security in and around your home make a 30% difference between it being targeted by thieves and not bring targeted.
If your second home is in a neighborhood watch area or you have a house sitter or at least someone who can check on your property on a daily basis then this too can reduce the quote for the insurance on your second home.
When looking for insurance for your holiday home then the best way to purchase it is by doing so via a specialist broker. This will allow you to get the best quote for your circumstances.
Companies do vary in what they offer and especially in what is included or not in the policy for the amount that you are asked to pay
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Monday, May 12, 2008
Best Steakhouse USA is Your Source to Indulge in Your Tastes
Best Steakhouse USA is Your Source to Indulge in Your Tastes
by Neil Folley
Have you ever wondered what would happen if there was no steakhouses? Well, this is something that is simply unacceptable, especially more for steak lovers. This is something that they can never ever imagine. Steak lovers are huge in number and this is the reason why steakhouses try to be the best steakhouse in USA. To become the best steakhouse is not an easy task for any steakhouse. They will have to fulfill several parameters to be able to actually vie for being the best.
One thing you must realize is that a steakhouse is not all about serving people with a piece of meat and potatoes. There are many more things to a steakhouse then just beef and potatoes. The ambience, d�cor and the interiors are one of the first things that attract customers. To become the best steakhouse in USA, steakhouse owners will have to take special care of their steakhouses. This will help them to attract the maximum number of customers and become immensely popular among steak lovers.
Word of the mouth is a very good way of getting new clients to come to your place. So first of all you will have to satisfy all the wants of your existing clients if you want them to spread good words about your steakhouse. Mostly you will find that steak lovers take the opinion of fellow people who love to eat out in a steakhouse. Make sure that your interiors of the steakhouse are attractive enough to attract the best steak lovers in your city. Only the best can attract the best, so you must take all efforts to make your steakhouse the best.
All Steakhouses that aim to cater to the taste buds of steak lovers must make sure that they have different varieties of steak to serve to customers. Steak lovers like to have their steaks cooked at varied temperatures. The taste of steak differs greatly depending on the degree on which steak is cooked. Some of the varieties of cooked that are very popular among steak lovers are rare steak, medium rare steak and medium steak.
Steakhouses also serve a wide variety of soups to customers. French onion soup is one hot favorite among customers who frequent a steakhouse. One can also find lots of surf and turf dishes to satisfy their tastes in a steakhouse. A surf and turf dish actually satisfies two tastes at a time. One can enjoy eating a good piece of steak that is cooked rare or medium as per their liking and also enjoy eating seafood. Different types of sea food like lobster and crispy side dishes like potatoes, cheese and macaroni can be found in a steakhouse.
So if you plan to eat out in a steakhouse with your family and friends, make sure that you do the bookings well in advance. Last minute bookings can often mean that you will not be able to find bookings and may not be able to enjoy your eating out session. A weekend crowd mostly means that finding a proper place will be difficult if you do not make arrangements for this well in advance.
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How Families Can Pave The Way To Success
How Families Can Pave The Way To Success
by Ian McAllister
If a hurricane swept your home away, would your family know how to survive? Would you be self-sufficient? Self-sufficiency comes from sharing many active family pursuits.
A research doctor asked me to prepare equipment for him requiring needlework because "I always had servants to do that for me, so I don't know how to thread a needle."
We were filling in a form when I was asked if I was pregnant (I'm a man) and I replied that as I watched people in the city there were more pregnant men than women. They must have no activities.
Kid Pursuits
Man is better than the other animals because of his brain. If we don't use our brains we lose our superiority. Healthy kids love a constant round of activities because it stimulates that human brain. Each new pursuit will build new skills and ways of thinking.
If you spend all your time in front of the TV the kids will have to find projects of their own. Many kids now spend hours playing computer games each day. What manual skills are they building? How to push some buttons!
Systematic Kid Pursuits
Plan long-term projects including preparing for a vacation, so that the family can experience budgeting, arts and crafts, gardening, cooking, keeping and butchering animals or just fishing and cleaning the fish. Don't let your family pursuits be so few and uneducational that your children could end up dieing within sight of food and water because they don't know how to unzip a banana, or clarify a mud puddle.
How can your family become more versatile? Practice learning new things. The more you learn the faster you can learn, and the more options you will have in an emergency.
Our research was brought to a standstill by a frozen water-pipe. The rules said that the gardener had to dig up the pipe then the plumber had to fix the pipe. But the gardener was on holiday. So the boss and I dug a trench to uncover the pipe, replaced the broken section, and covered everything up again, even shovelling snow back on top for extra insulation. Neither of the trade unions ever knew that we had avoided a two-week delay by doing their work ourselves.
Even your maths will improve. If the recipe serves eight, and there are three of you, how do you work out how much to use where the recipe says two tablespoons? If you are papering a wall and need half-sheets in several places how do you work out the total number of rolls that you will need? How do you work out the number of seeds to plant in the garden, bearing in mind how many people will eat the produce and how much they will eat, and the germination rate of the seeds?
Products of the kids construction will have to be proudly displayed. They may not have craftsman finish and flair, but each project represents another ability that might be needed one day. It doesn't matter if pottery is distorted if it carries water to avoid dieing of thirst.
And yes(!) boys need to learn to cook and sew. If they go to college and they can't cook their health will probably deteriorate. If they allowed a friend to bleed to death out in the bush because they couldn't thread a needle to sew them up imagine how they would feel.
A young lady might just have to stand and look helpless to get the boys clustering round to fix her car, do the gardening, clean the gutters, kill the hens, fix the door lock etc. but if she doesn't know how to do it herself, will she have as many helpers when she is 50 years old?
Conclusion
Vegetating before a TV is OK until civilization changes, perhaps tomorrow. If global warming floods coastal cities what would your family do?
About The Author
Over and over again the author is thankful for parents that showed us how to be self-reliant and versatile. Get great ideas for family endeavours here:
http://familypursuits.com/ and family health here
http://healthforu.info/health/healthfood/
Foggy Wine Glasses Are Not The End Of The World!
Foggy Wine Glasses Are Not The End Of The World!
by Ken Finnigan
Perhaps one of the most troubling problems which usually occurs that takes the enjoyment out of having a glass of wine is when even though your glasses are clean, look very foggy. We have all encountered it at one time or another and probably all can agree that there is something detracting about a foggy wine glass. Before you decide to throw out your glasses or invest in a set of inexpensive ones with the thought that fogging is inevitable so you might as well be ready to throw them away when the time comes, there are a few things that you can do to prevent fogging and bring back the glorious sparkle and shine to foggy glasses that you remember from when they were first purchased.
I know that some think that it�s perfectly all right to put wine glasses in the dishwasher, and some machines even have special sections on the top rack to hold wine glass stems in place. We all know that crystal should never be put in the dishwasher, so I assume said stem holders are for everyday glasses. My dishwasher has them and I still won�t use it to wash wine glasses. Why? There are two main reasons for this, the first is that dishwasher detergent tends to be a lot more harsh and abrasive and can etch your wine glasses making it fog with repeated washing, and second is that the temperature in a dishwasher can become so hot that it can actually cause a glass to crack.
With that being said, when washing wine glasses by hand the best method is actually quite simple, especially since you should be able to simply rinse out yours glasses to clean them. First, it is important to remember to use lukewarm water and not hot water. Abrasive cleaning agents should be avoided at all costs; and if you feel the need to use soap it is best to only use mild liquid dish soap. Remember to never use hard scrubbing sponges and cloths and to rinse the glasses thoroughly or the soap will leave a film deposit which will fog with build up and time and thus defeats the purpose of taking care when washing your glasses.
If you have taken care of your glasses and hand-washed them and still find they are starting to fog, there is still something you can do. Soak the foggy glasses in straight white vinegar for two to three hours. Then wash with warm water and mild liquid dish soap and repeat the soaking process if necessary to remove the remaining residue. It might be a bit of a time consuming process, but it will be worth it in the end when you have sparkling glasses that look beautiful!
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Improved Search Engine Rank: Google Page Rank Misconceptions
Improved Search Engine Rank: Google Page Rank Misconceptions
by Peter Nisbet
Improved search engine rank is attainable through good search engine optimization, part of which is the maximizing of your Google Page Rank through intelligent linking with other web pages. In this first part of 2 on the subject of Google Page Rank, we will look at the argument for attaining high listings through a linking strategy.
Google Page Rank is a buzz term at the moment since many believe it to be more important to your search engine listing than search engine optimization. If we ignore for the moment the fact that Page Rank is, in itself, a form of SEO, then there are arguments for and against that belief.
Before we investigate these arguments, let�s understand some fundamentals of search engine listings. First, most search engines list web pages, not domains (websites). What that means is that every web page in a domain has to be relevant to a specific search term if it is to be listed.
Secondly, a search engine customer is the person who is using that engine to seek information. It is not an advertiser or the owner of a website. It is the user seeking information. The form of words that is used by that customer is called a �search term�. This becomes a �keyword� when applied to a webmaster trying to anticipate the form of words that a user will employ to search for their information.
A search engine works by analyzing the semantic content of a web page and determining the relative importance of the vocabulary used, taking into account the title tags, the heading tags and the first text it detects. It will also check out text related contextually to what it considers to be the main �keywords� and then rank that page according to how relevant it calculates it to be for the main theme of the page.
It will then examine the number of other web pages that are linked to it, and regard that as a measure of how important, or relevant to the �keyword�, that the page is. The value of the links is regarded as peer approval of the content. All of these factors determine how high that page is listed for search terms that are similar contextually to the content of the page.
Without doubt, there are web pages that are listed high in the search engine indices that contain very little in the way of useful content on the keywords for which they are listed, and have virtually no contextual relevance to any search term. However, a careful investigation of these sites will reveal two things.
The first is that many such web pages are frequently listed highly only for relatively obscure search terms. If a search engine customer uses a common search term to find the information they are seeking, they will very rarely be led to a site that has little content other than links, but it is possible. The second is that they contains large numbers of links out to other web pages, and it can be assumed that they have at least an equal number of web pages linking back.
It is possible to find such web pages for many keywords. An example is on the first page on Google for the keyword �Data VOIP Solutions�. There is a website there that is comprised only of links. The site itself has little content, but every link leads to either another website that provides useful content, or another internal page full of more links and no content. That is how links can be used to lift a web page high in the SE listings.
Such sites frequently contain only the bare minimum of conventional search engine optimization, but the competition is so low that they gain high listings. You will also find them to contain large numbers of internal pages, every one of which contain the same internal and external links.
It is true, therefore, that it is possible to get a high listing without much content, but with a large number of links. However, is that a legitimate argument for those promoting links against content? Could you reasonably apply that strategy to your website? Could a genuine website really contain thousands of links to other internal pages and external pages on other websites, and still maintain its intended purpose?
In the second part of this article, titled �Search Engine Rank: Google Page Rank Misconceptions� wI will explode some myths about Page Rank, and explain how many people are wasting their time with reciprocal links, and perhaps even losing through them. It may be that a linking strategy is not so much an option, as a choice between the type of website that you want: to provide genuine information or to make money regardless of content.
Improved search engine rank might be synonymous with Google Page Rank, but perhaps only if you want to sacrifice the integrity of your website.
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Secret Recipes Frittlers Part 2 (Italian Pasties)
Secret Recipes Frittlers Part 2 (Italian Pasties)
by Tony Pescatore
Secret Recipes Frittlers Part 2 (Italian Pasties)
Hello a couple months ago I did an article on my families all time favourite secret recipe Frittlers (Italian Pasties). There is 2 ways you can make them one is with oil the other without oil. I love them both ways out of 5 with oil I give it 5 without oil I give it 4.75 still sensational. The article I did 2 months ago was with oil so I�ve updated this with the way to do it without oil.
The reason for this without oil is healthier then with oil so if you would like to try it but without oil this is for you. I have them both ways and love them.
Firstly the oil recipe I did 2-3 months ago is below and underneath it is how to do it without oil Secret Recipes Frittlers Part 2 (Italian Pasties).
You are in for a treat. We name the recipe Frittlers (Italian Pasties)
With Oil Secret Recipes Frittlers Part 1 (Italian Pasties)
Ingredients
7g yeast,
1 cup lukewarm water � if need more add extra but don�t make it soggy,
3 cups plain flour,
pinch of salt,
pepper,
cheese, not mozzarella cheese but either shredded tasty cheese or shredded plain cheese,
ham,
tomatoes,
tuna (chunk tuna) instead of ham
canola oil
Put flour in bowl make a hole in the centre then add water and yeast mix together with pinch of salt. Work the dough don�t make it real dry. Then put in plastic bag, close bag up. Then put in a warm spot such as under blankets somewhere warm for about 1hour to 1.5 hours for it to rise to double its size.
While it�s rising get ham and cheese, not mozzarella cheese but either shredded tasty cheese or shredded plain cheese. Cut up ham add cheese then mix together.
Roll out dough to pasty round sizes do one at a time, add ham, cheese and sprinkle of pepper no salt then roll up pasty. When rolled up with filling at the ends with a fork press it and go around the edges. Then prick it lightly with fork twice around the middle.
Continue doing that until finished. Once done put 2 at a time in a frying pan with canola oil so oil covers the whole lot make sure oil is hot. (Just be careful because of heat) Cook to nice gold colour about 4-5 minutes then turn over and do other side. Take them out and put on paper towel to get rid of some of the oil. Can eat them basically straight away or you might wait to they cool down that is up to you.
There is no problems with freezing them they still taste fantastic.
If you want to add tomatoes you can but have it within 24 hours but don�t freeze any with tomatoes, what I do is if take them out the freezer when they thaw out I cut in half and add tomato and put in oven or griller.
Can also have chunk tuna instead of ham with the cheese. Tuna and cheese is also okay to freeze.
Also if you like you can add chopped up onion or anything that you enjoy.
Without Oil Secret Recipes Frittlers Part 2 (Italian Pasties)
You do exactly the same as with oil but instead of using oil and cooking them in a frying pan put them in the oven for roughly 10-15 minutes on 200 Degrees Celsius or 400 Degrees Fahrenheit then flip over again for extra 10 minutes and enjoy. (You can put on just a touch of oil on the Frittlers just before putting them in the oven).
This family secret recipe is one your family and friends will really appreciate, bon appetite!
Secret Recipes Frittlers Part 2 (Italian Pasties)
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