Summer Weddings: Dos and Don’ts
Do provide heat relief. No matter how much you love the sun, your
guests will probably want a few ways to escape the heat. Make sure an outdoor venue offers some shade or air-conditioning (tent rentals can include portable air-conditioning systems). Instead of having guests sweat it out through the ceremony, just before it starts, have an usher pass out small ice-cold hand towels across the rows. Scatter decorative tubs or baskets filled with bottles of water near the ceremony site — and once the dancing begins, place water in close proximity to the action. And don’t forget your vendors: Set up an area where they can grab cold beverages as well.
Don’t forgo save-the-dates. Summer is the prime time for vacays, especially when it comes to families with school-age kids. Send out an announcement in advance to get your wedding marked on everyone’s calendar early.
Do serve lighter fare. Heavy food and heat don’t mix. Follow the farm-to-table trend and choose a seasonal menu that includes grilled entrees and local, fresh produce. Gazpacho shooters and grilled fruit skewers make tempting appetizers, and for dessert, consider fruit pies or tarts in lieu of cake. Frozen cocktails (mint, cucumber, or watermelon are popular flavors) or even Popsicles (use the sticks that catch drips) can be festive touches too.
Don’t time your outdoor wedding to begin midday. With the sun at its strongest, overheated guests won’t be in a party mood. It can also be tricky to get folks to enjoy adult beverages and sit down to a big meal when they’re baking. Shoot for a late afternoon or early evening start time. The ideal plan: Schedule dinner for sunset (provided the sun isn’t setting too late on your date); then work the rest of the event around that timing.
Do consider stay-cool attire. A bride should feel comfortable and confident — not sticky. For your wedding dress, choose a light fabric that breathes, such as silk.
Or follow the example of many modern brides who are opting for shorter skirts. If you can’t resist the heavy traditional ball gown, wear it during the ceremony and then change into an elegant sheath for dancing. A groom can look dapper in a crisp linen suit and leather sandals, or for the ultimate in beach-casual, khakis and a button-down are perfect.
Don’t overlook sun and bug protection. Sunburn can give the term “blushing bride” a whole new meaning. Prior to getting dressed, the bride, groom, and attendants should apply sunscreen to skin that will be exposed. Consider wearing a moisturizer and foundation or powder that contains SPF (just give it a test-drive for allergies weeks beforehand). In the guest bathroom, include a basket with sunblock wipes as well as bug spray (which should also be available at the ceremony site).
Source: http://wedding.theknot.com/real-weddings/summer-weddings/
A Heart-Healthy Diet: Eat the Right Fats
Years ago, we were told that the best way to lower cholesterol and protect the heart was to cut out fat altogether. But now we know that certain types of fats, called unsaturated fats, actually increase HDL cholesterol levels — the good cholesterol that has a protective effect on the heart. What we need less of are saturated fats and trans fats — think doughnuts, French fries, and T-bone steaks.
The Difference Between HDL and LDL Cholesterol
Low-density lipoprotein or LDL cholesterol is called “bad” cholesterol because this type of cholesterol puts you at risk for heart disease. LDL cholesterol can build up inside your arteries, mixing with other substances to form a tough, rigid lining called plaque. This plaque makes the artery narrow inside, meaning that less blood can flow through to your heart, in turn putting you at increased risk for heart attacks.
“A diet high in saturated and trans fats elevates the LDL cholesterol,” says Lisa R. Young, PhD, dietitian and adjunct professor in the department of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University. A heart-healthy diet avoids fats that promote LDL cholesterol, but includes HDL cholesterol-boosting fats.
High-density lipoprotein or HDL cholesterol has the opposite effect of LDL cholesterol. “HDL cholesterol is like Drano,” explains Young. “It unclogs the system.” Instead of sticking to the artery walls, HDL cholesterol moves through the bloodstream to the liver, where it can be broken down and cleared out.
“For the good fats to include in your diet, look at the Mediterranean diet,” says Young. “Aim for a diet that is higher in canola and olive oil.” These types of monounsaturated fats, along with other plant-based oils, help keep your HDL cholesterol levels high.
Source: http://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/
Love with Pearls
This story maybe the most moving story that I had met with pearls. It was happened in the mother’s day in Beijing. Now I’ll share it with you.
“Mother’s day is round the corner, after almost 9 years of living alone in Beijing, I miss my mum very much. She lives with my dad in my home town, south of China. I had a day-off and planed of shopping for a present for my mum today. I turned on the TV while taking my breakfast. Then a big news rush into my ears, Bin Laden was dead. The news reminds me the American family I met in the 2002, a few days before the Mother’s day. Four daughters arranged a family vacation to China for their mother, because their father lost his life in the 9/11 incident regrettably.
I’ve worked as a sale consultant in our FANGHUA Pearls store in Beijing. The daughters clustered their mum into our store, to look for a piece of pearl jewellery for present of Mother’s Day. The girls discuss and pick the gift very carefully. Finally, when they put a pearl strand necklace on their mother, all of us were touched by the beautiful moment. I took a photo of them with the founder of FANGHUA Pearls.
I couldn’t imagine the feeling the family may have in this Mother’s Day when Bin Laden was just dead. I started to look for the photo that I took for them. I found it, and kept on watching it for a long time. Life is really treasure. I’m so luck to enjoy an intact family, although I can’t see my parents every day, I can meet they when I wish.
Suddenly, I picked my cellphone and dialled to my mum. The first words after my mum’s hello I said were “I love you.” My voice may be a little bit exciting. My mother paused for a while, then，asked “what happened?”
It was too hard for me to give a full answer at this time. I just said, “I’m so lucky, because there is nothing happened to us.”
Measuring Your Personal Fitness Level
Evaluating your fitness level is not a one-size-fits-all process. Differences in lifestyle, muscle tissue, genetic makeup, and overall health all help determine your personal fitness level.
“It is an individual measurement that is not always dependent on how much physical activity you do,” notes Jim Pivarnik, PhD, president of the American College of Sports Medicine and director of the Center for Physical Activity and Health at Michigan State University in East Lansing .
So how can you tell if your exercise and healthy diet habits are paying off? There are several ways to measure your fitness level.
The Five Components of Fitness
“Measuring fitness is multi-dimensional,” explains Pivarnik. “Long-distance runners have excellent cardiovascular health, but if all you are is legs and lungs, you won’t have a lot of strength or flexibility. By the same measure, someone who is overweight and aerobically fit is healthier than someone who is in the normal weight range but doesn’t exercise.”
Overall physical fitness is said to consist of five different elements:
1. Aerobic or cardiovascular endurance
2. Muscular strength
3. Muscular endurance
4. Flexibility
5. Body composition
Thorough fitness evaluations include exercises and activities that specifically measure your ability to participate in aerobic, or cardiovascular, exercise as well as your muscular strength, endurance, and joint flexibility. Special tools are also used to determine your body composition or percentage of total body fat.
Working to optimize each of these five components of fitness is crucial to enhancing your overall fitness and general health.
Source: http://www.everydayhealth.com/fitness/measuring-personal-fitness-level.aspx
Homemade Mother’s Day Cards Ideas
Perhaps no other holiday inspires homemade creativity than Mother’s Day. And it is these small homemade cards that remain with mom for years. Something that she can pull out twenty years later and still bring a tear to her eye, try that with a bottle of perfume. So for all the kids out there, don’t worry about your card being perfect, just knowing that it came from your heart and hands is enough for mom.
A beautiful and easy card to make is the Stained Glass Mother’s Day Card. When you open this little gem in the light it resembles a lovely stained glass window. All you need is black card stock, colored tissue paper, double sided tape, scissors and a pencil. You can even create a butterfly and place in the middle.
Another great idea is the Watering Can Mother’s Day Card. This is a real keepsake, but this one takes a few more supplies than most, but still is labeled as easy to make. Nothing gets the tears flowing like a Fingerprint Mother’s Day Card. To preserve a little child’s fingerprints is a true gift for mom. And all you need is construction paper, acrylic paints, crayon and a small paint brush.
Mom probably has tons of purses, but none will mean more to her than a homemade Purse and Notepad Card. This is a combination Mother’s Day Card and notepad! This one is a bit more involved, but still most average toddlers should be able to pull it off.
Nothing says “Happy Mother’s Day” more than the old classic Paper Plate Mother’s Day Card. All you need is some paper plates, crayons or markers, scissors and glue stick. In no time at all you’ll have a classic card for mom.
The beauty of these cards is that often it is the little errors that make them endearing and as stated earlier, this is what stays in mom’s heart over the years.
Source: http://www.mymothersdayblog.com/
Vitamin Fortified Foods
Is too much of a good thing not a good thing anymore? People have become concerned about the level of vitamins in their foods. So many products marketed will proudly trumpet how many milligrams of vitamin C or B or whatever is loaded into their food. Is this as important as the marketing people would have you believe? Is it even necessary?
For example, it’s not difficult to consume 600 percent of your daily recommended value of B vitamins or 2,000 percent of the recommended amount of vitamin C in a single sitting. Many energy bars, juices and other products are crammed with sky-high levels of vitamins. Gulp down an Odwalla Blueberry B Monster smoothie and get 360 percent of the daily value of four types of B vitamins. Swallow a shot of Emergen-C and you could get more than 1,600 percent of the daily value of vitamin C.
When it comes to vitamin consumption, “some is good, but more is not necessarily better,” says Joan Salge Blake, a clinical associate professor of nutrition at Boston University. Vitamin C is a case in point. Adults need between 75 and 90 milligrams a day, but many fortified juice drinks and self-proclaimed immune-boosting products, sometimes called “functional foods,” provide 10 times that amount in a single serving.
A little extra vitamin C may be helpful: Studies suggest that taking about twice the recommended amount could shorten the duration of colds. But consuming much more than that has little benefit, largely because vitamin C is water soluble, says Mary Ellen Camire, professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Maine in Orono. As with all water soluble vitamins, your body will eliminate the excess through your urine. And that makes for very expensive urine. There are also other side effects like cramps, nausea and diarrhea after taking several grams of vitamin C or more in a single day.
The B vitamins are another good example. Over-consumption risks depend on the B vitamin in question: Consuming 500 milligrams a day or more of B6 can cause reversible nerve damage, whereas several hundred times the recommended amount of B12 is harmless – as far as we know. Vitamin A, meanwhile, dissolves in fat, so any excess beyond what the body needs can get stored in tissue. For that reason, consuming mile-high levels of these vitamins poses its own risks. As high levels of the vitamin build up, they can cause nausea and vomiting, blurry vision, lack of coordination and, eventually, liver damage.
What about heavily fortified foods? Does is hurt to eat too many bowls of breakfast cereal that is advertised as chock full of vitamins? So far, no evidence has been found of that. What is more likely is problems caused by high sugar content and lack of fiber. In fact, the risk from having too many vitamins in your food has more to do with the perception created. This is similar to labeling a food low in fat or calories. Too often, people get a false sense of trust in the food and over consumption can result. One may eat 2 cookies if they are labeled as ”chewy” but they may eat 10 if the label says ‘reduced fat’. Even if the fat is only 10% less. Automatically trusting a food is good for you only because of a healthy-sounding label may just be the biggest danger.
Source: http://www.idealsilver.com/2010/12/09/vitamin-fortified-foods/
3 Steps to a Happier You
For greater peace of mind, learn the secrets to self-compassion.
High self-esteem has long been touted by psychologists as the key to happiness and success. But these days, experts are questioning self-esteem’s status as a personal cure-all—noting that it’s hard to acquire, even harder to hang on to, and can lead to arrogance and narcissism. What does create a healthy, resilient psyche, it turns out, is self-compassion. When things go badly, a be-kind-to-yourself mind-set makes you feel less anxious, depressed, and angry, and helps you recover more quickly from setbacks, according to groundbreaking research from Duke University. Best of all, self-compassion is easy to develop. Here’s how.
Step 1: Realize that you’re only human.
Goofing up, getting dumped, just plain losing it, and the like happen—to everyone. “Whatever failures, losses, or humiliations we face are part of the human experience—and adding self-criticism to the mix only increases the pain,” says study author Mark Leary, Ph.D., director of social psychology at Duke University. “You’re not unique in your trouble, and it doesn’t point to a shameful personal flaw.”
To embrace this frame of mind, say mantras to yourself such as, Everyone goofs up now and then, or Guess I’m human after all! Reinforce this line of thinking by reminding yourself of people you know who’ve dealt with the same setback you’re facing. You can also visit self-help websites like dailystrength.org to see how many others are in your boat and to take comfort in their stories.
These measures help you sidestep the sense of isolation and self-bashing that make the situation feel worse. Heck, you may even start feeling affection for your idiosyncrasies and flaws as you realize that they’re just part of what makes you you.
Step 2: Feel your pain.
Rushing through or denying your bad feelings won’t make them go away, but wallowing isn’t healthy, either. Mindful acceptance—that is, truly feeling your feelings—allows you to face your pain and then move on. “If you get mentally lost in blaming yourself or others, you prolong your suffering,” notes psychology professor Kristin Neff, Ph.D., of the University of Texas at Austin. “But if you simply allow yourself to feel the emotion and let it run its course—which is often a wave that builds and tapers off—it dissipates much more quickly.”
Start by closing your eyes and taking a few slow, deep breaths to center yourself, while recalling what you want: to be peaceful and free from suffering. Then focus on the physical sensations in your body, such as constriction in your chest, a tight throat, a clenched jaw. Note how those sensations shift and change. If your mind strays, gently bring it back to your body until the emotion ebbs away. Do the exercise as needed, whenever painful feelings emerge, and you’ll feel less fearful, anxious, and depressed.
Step 3: Talk to yourself with kindness.
Now that you’ve moved past the difficult feelings that often come with life’s obstacles, focus on comforting yourself. If you can talk to yourself as mercifully as you would to your best friend, you’ll start to see yourself as worthy of that care and forgiveness. And eventually, you’ll be able to tap into that self-loving mind-set whenever you’re in a tough spot.
To find the right words, think about what you’d say to comfort someone close to you if he faced the same issue—then say it to yourself. Or picture a wise friend advising you lovingly; you can even write yourself a letter, as if it came from her. Consider using a prop to summon up these comforting thoughts, says Paul Gilbert, Ph.D., who’s done clinical research on self-compassion at the University of Derby in England. “Try holding a small, favorite object or even a stone, like quartz, when doing these processes,” he advises. “Keep it handy and rub it to cue up soothing feelings when you need them.”
Learning to be more loving toward yourself also brings a less obvious but equally important benefit: You’ll soon find yourself extending that compassion to others and, in the process, making the world a kinder place.
Source:
http://www.idealsilver.com/2010/03/18/3-steps-to-a-happier-you/
How Do Chanel Become the World’s Most Famous Brand
“Double C” has become a kind of fashion, and also the brand which woman on this earth all want to have! Eternal Chanel which has become the world’s most famous brand.
CHANEL madam (GABRIELLE CHANEL) was born in 1883 and died in 1971. COCO was her childhood name, although she left us for a long time, her classical style has always been the ancestor of fashionable bound.
Her favorite color is black and white, and she liked to realize an absolute beauty and perfect harmony of these two colors. She left many views about fashion to lead this era of popular. She thought real beauty is both the inside and outside. Although pop change constantly, the style will never be eliminated. At the same time she believed in the “simple” is the optimal way to present the good sense. She left many classical designs including: NO. 5 perfume, tweed, double-color shoes, small black dress, etc. Classic accessory is the chain belt handbag which advocate woman to empty their hands. Her beloved camellia is also shining in silks pattern which satins in dinner packages.
Although Chanel started her business by clothes, she began to entrust producing lipstick and makeup early in 1925 for her own and the guest. Only these displayed in her boutiques were hit CHANEL name.5 listed began to produce in 1921, now it has become very excellent project of Chanel. She launched new perfume every once in a while. Chanel also made great efforts in leading cosmetics which were introduced every season and unsold if outlet.
All products are attracted by market extremely and have great charm. Chanel also rolls out skin care series in recent years, which are different skin care process for oily, neutral and dry skin. In these years Chanel has attacked Asian skincare product and showed strong ambitions for it.
Chanel itself was very smart and dared to challenge the traditional shapes and liberate the traditional things against the secular naysayers, such as mixing male and female attire, making sportswear become fashion clothes and using shoulder bagand suit to liberate the type of woman while to create female fashion age and so on. Modern small black dress has been fashionable now to break mourning regulation in black clothes only. Chanel has created a time of her own! She opened the boutiques in 1921 and in the same year NO. 5 perfumes were also born. She boldly said: “can you also do activities while wearing huge hat?” To end the age of huge hat, the concise millinery she designed has become a fashion top, she have a lot of innovative ideas. She showed outstandingly, showing her exciting thoroughly thoughts for human hearts.
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/fashion-articles/
Jimmy Choo
Jimmy Choo EDP is the very debut fragrance of the luxury shoe brand. It was long in the making, in the sense of having been announced very early on in 2007 for a spring 2009 release which was pushed back to a winter 2011 one. Will it be capable of generating as much excitement as a pair of Choos? is probably the aim of the label. The bottle, inspired by Venetian Murano glass and red-carpet-ready high heels studded with crystals is pure eye candy. The pinks are delicately vintage. The rounded flacon offers the heft of a paperweight. The cap is a nice, moody blue-black and sets an angular contrast with the faded rosy glass of the honeycombed flacon. The scent creation itself was entrusted to perfumer Olivier Polge who is becoming more and more of an established signature in the fragrance industry.
The composition is, beyond its image, one of those Russian-doll fragrances with several famous accords embedded in them which aim to cover all bases or nearly all of them while carrying the mission of making sense to a wider spectrum of the population. The final kicker is that there is even an unadvertised oud note in it which sparkles instead of smoldering, as is more usual. Jimmy Choo EDP was developed under the supervision of creative director Tamara Mellon who says that she loves to wear perfume and is actually posing for the advert. The scent is said to be wishing to create an “aura of strength and beauty” for the Choo woman; smelling the perfume you see how they did that. The perfume is a bit edgy, but also mucho trendy. It is lifestyle-oriented rather than a work of art. It also taps into Polge’s anterior work for other brands, in particular Balenciaga and Viktor & Rolf…
The concoction officially positions itself as being “a fruity chypre, with warm, rich and woody nuances. Modern women inspired it: it is strong, powerful, replete with seduction, combining mystery and an assertive sexuality,” although it also surprises you with its aldehydic personality meant to inject a good dose of attitude to the perfume and the woman who wears it. Fruity chypres offer a new twist this year as far as I can tell from my recent encounter with Reb’l Fleur and now Jimmy Choo EDP. They are being used as the language of immediately approachable elegance. Since the fruity-floral medley is considered easy, integrating this association into a chypre structure is a way of adding sophistication to a likeable pair. What I notice is that these recent fruity chypres prefer to go back to a more classic mossy feeling rather than continue to enrich the rose-patchouli neo-chypre lineage which was devised in the past few years to salvage the genre due to IFRA regulations. As substitutive mossy ingredients have been found, there is a return to classicism in chypres.
Because the perfume is a lifestyle fragrance, it does not aim to be uncompromising and driven by art. On the contrary, it rather makes me think of a TV set with many programs on it to be watched on a given day. I also used the jukebox analogy in the past. In a certain sense, Jimmy Choo was created for entertainment purposes. Like an olfactory TV or radio, it broadcasts different, contrasted effluvia that will keep you happily occupied and surprised throughout the several hours of wear. It smells really good in different ways. If it is mysterious, it is so in the sense of borrowing from the nature of a cameleon. It shuns consistency and integrity. It embraces pluralism and loves to cherry-pick trends. It is very much à la page while managing to keep a distinct personality. The Choo perfume is probably a great embodiment of what a fashionista is all about: mixing styles, her own way.
Source: http://www.mimifroufrou.com
The Benefits of Yoga
Babies are born yogis. Once we were all able to pull our toes up by our ears and laugh about it. Then we aged, got injured, began carrying stress in our shoulders and back.
In short, we lost our balance.
Yoga is an ancient practice that helps create a sense of union in body, mind, and spirit. It brings us balance.
I was seriously out of balance when I started practicing yoga in 1999. I had plantar fascitiis in both feet, and my doctor had put the kibosh on all the things I loved to do: walking, hiking, and playing tennis. I was desperate for exercise. Yoga became my salvation and even enhanced my other fitness activities.
I practice hatha yoga at least twice a week, but I consider yoga to be part of my daily life because after awhile you no longer just practice yoga – you live it.
Stretching into a Fit Life
Yoga becomes part of your physical life. Your body grows stronger, more toned, and more flexible as you move from one asana-or pose-to the other. I spent a week in Mexico at a yoga retreat, and it was the first vacation on which I lost weight. “Rather than building muscle, yoga builds muscle tone,” says Shakta Kaur Khalsa, author of the K.I.S.S. Guide to Yoga. “Because yoga helps maintain a balanced metabolism, it also helps to regulate weight. Additionally, yoga stretches muscles lengthwise, causing fat to be eliminated around the cells, thus reducing cellulite.”
I do yoga poses throughout the day. After hours at my computer, I stretch my stiff shoulders and arms. When I need a boost of energy, I do energizing poses. When I am feeling exhausted at the end of the day, I do restorative poses.
Yoga becomes part of your mental life. Yoga teaches you to focus on breathing while you hold the poses. This attention to breath is calming; it dissolves stress and anxiety. I use yogic breathing on the tennis courts, in the dentist’s chair, when I’m stuck in traffic.
You should always leave a yoga practice feeling energized, not tired. If you feel tired after yoga, it means you spent the time “fighting” yourself, trying to force yourself into poses. In yoga, you “surrender” to the pose by letting go of the tension.
Yoga becomes part of your spiritual life. Yoga is practiced by people from all religions; it is nondenominational. Yoga teaches “right” living in how we deal with ourselves and others. As I work on a difficult pose, I learn patience, forgiveness, and the value of gentleness. Yoga advocates proper eating, but you don’t have to be a vegetarian to practice yoga.
There have been some medical studies on the positive effects of yoga. And a growing number of doctors are following the lead of cardiologist Dr. Dean Ornish and incorporating yoga into their patient recovery programs.
But for the most part, the evidence of the benefits of yoga is anecdotal. They range from the simple “I can touch my toes again” to “it helped me handle my disease.” A woman who was diagnosed with hepatitis C, for example, said: “Yoga has helped me immensely to deal with the hepatitis C treatment. I truly feel that the reason that I have had such a successful treatment so far is that my whole being was ready, calm, and accepting of what would be-and throughout the treatment the ability to focus, breathe, and stretch the limits of my body and mind has definitely kept me together.”
Getting Started
Anyone can do yoga-no matter how young or old you are, whether you’re a couch potato or a professional athlete. Size and fitness level do not matter because there are modifications for every yoga pose. The idea is to explore your limits, not strive for some pretzel-like perfection.
Start by going to a yoga class. Look for a teacher who challenges you but does not push, who offers modifications, and who works one-on-one with students. Wear comfortable clothing that allows you to move. Use a yoga mat for cushioning and to keep from slipping. If there is no yoga studio in your town, practice with a video and read books. Just remember one thing: “No pain, no gain” is NOT the yoga way. If it hurts, stop. Patience and feeling good about yourself and your world is the way of the yogi.
Source: http://www.yogamovement.com/resources/benefits.html