Ten Ways to Shake Job Stress
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In his classic, The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran writes, “Always you have been told that work is a curse ... but I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born.”
Unfortunately Kahlil’s words don’t jibe with a new Designer Replica Handbags Australian study that found almost one in six cases of depression among working people are caused by job stress, that nearly one in five (17 percent) of working women suffering from depression attribute their condition to job stress and more than one in eight (13 percent) of working men do the same. In the last decade, the number of American workers that say job stress is a major problem in their lives has doubled. In fact, the U.S. Department of Health reported that 70 percent of physical and mental complaints at work are related to stress.
What do we do? Bring our Kleenex to work and hope we aren’t caught crying, or give our notice with no other job in reach? Thankfully, we have a few steps between these two extremes.
1. Don’t Quit Yet
Let me just say this first: chances are higher that you will feel worse if you quit than if you keep on showing up to a job that you hate. Why? If you’re not working, you’ll have even more time to think about how much you hated your job on top of the acute anxiety, you feel when you think about how you’re going to pay your next phone, electric, and mortgage bill without the regular paycheck being deposited automatically into your bank account. And then there’s the isolation of having no one to talk to during the day, because, one small detail: everyone else you know is probably working. So just sit tight until you read through, say, ten of these tips before you gladly give your notice, okay?
2. Learn Some Calming Techniques
You know what’s cool about most relaxation techniques? You can do them while you’re listening to your boss give you your next assignment. Let’s say, as he’s telling you that he hired a nice woman half your age that you now report to, that you suddenly feel lots of tight pressure in your shoulders—naturally, because you have the desire to slug him. You relax your shoulders in a way that relieves some of that tension and tells your body that slugging him isn’t an option (right now, anyway).
Then, as you walk back to your desk, where the kid right out of college hands you five assignments due by the end of the day, you can take ten deep breaths, counting to four as you inhale and to four again as you exhale. If you’re allowed to listen to music or white noise at work (or if you work from your home, as I do), you might want to invest in a CD of ocean waves. Whenever I listen to mine, I take a few seconds to visualize myself on the sandy beach of Siesta Key, Florida, hunting for seashells; it’s a short moment that allows me to catch my sanity.
3. Turn Your Things Off
I’m not talking about your sex drive, although if you’re depressed, chances are that that’s off, too. I mean your BlackBerry or iPhone, or at least the “ding” noise alerting you to every new (“URGENT!”) email that you don’t think drives you crazy but does. Trust me. When you turn it off for an afternoon, a day—or even commit to a weekend without it!—you’ll see that it’s responsible for a sizable chunk of your madness.
It’s ironic that very technological advances that were supposed to free us end up imprisoning us to our work, argues integrative doctor PRADA Handbags Roberta Lee in her astute book The Superstress Solution. In her introduction, she cites a recent survey commissioned by Support.com: forty percent of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds said they couldn’t cope without their cell phone, yet the same students reported less stress and had lower heart rates and blood pressure when they stopped using them for three days.
You don’t need to join the monastery. Just try turning things off for a few evenings and see how you feel.
4. Make a Schedule and Stick to It
Yes, I’m a tad obsessive-compulsive, but I can feel the stress in me rise and threaten explosion if I don’t have a handy-dandy schedule in front of me that I can follow. No one gives it to me. I make it up, and therein lies its power—I am taking control back into my own anxious hands! So, upon getting five assignments due the same week from a supervisor, I do the panic dance for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then I take out my work calendar and start nailing down my deadlines. Assignment one needs to be done by lunchtime on Tuesday. Assignment two needs to be done by Thursday morning, so that I have two full days to complete Assignment three before the week is over. Get it? Things don’t typically run that smoothly, of course, but by breaking down the goals or tasks into manageable bites, I stress less and produce more. 5. Improve Your Working Conditions
As a highly sensitive person, I can’t work in certain atmospheres. I need a window ... and proper lighting ... and an assistant who will fetch me iced-tea whenever I want, with lemon and not too much ice (kidding on that). But there are simple ways you can improve even the most sterile and miserable working conditions: putting a nice plant in your cubicle, hanging or framing personal photos (a recent study say that looking at pictures of loved ones reduces pain), using a 10,000 lux daylight-balanced light (a lamp used for Seasonal Affective Disorder, but doesn’t look any different from an average desk light). Keeping a clean desk will also help you feel less overwhelmed.
6. Get a Life Outside of Work
If I were to name the single most important lesson I learned when I was in a psych ward, it would be this: get a life outside of work. You see, pre-psych ward, I had invested all my self-esteem into my profession. Thus, each career flop set me back a considerable chunk. If a book bombed, so did my self-confidence. My goal when I left my in-patient psych program in 2006 was to get a life and to sustain that life.
I’m doing better today. I swim in a master’s program. I joined a book group. I’m involved with a moms’ group at the kids’ school. None of these things is related to my job. I’ve met a whole other set of friends aside from my fellow bloggers, editors, and writers.
7. Get into the (Right) Zone
No doubt you’re behind at work and feel like no matter how much you get done the day before, you always begin the next day at the foot of a mountain. You may very well have more work than is humanly possible for one person to accomplish. However, according to Elisha Hermes Wallets Goldstein, psychologist and author of the meditative CD Mindful Solutions for Success and Stress Reduction at Work, identifying the four zones of your workday can help you do your job in less time, which will lower your stress.
This Attention Zones Model was developed by Rand Stagen of Stagen’s Leadership Academy, who maintains that during our day, we are in one of four zones: a reactive zone, a proactive zone, a distracted zone, or a waste zone. The goal is to stay out of the distracted and waste zones: responding to unimportant calls and emails or killing time by surfing the Web, etc. Explains Goldstein: “The cultivation of mindful awareness allows you to non-judgmentally name what is happening right now, and turn your attention to your top priorities in the moment.”
8. Take a Break
Guess how many Americans took two weeks of vacation last year? A measly 14 percent. Huffington Post blogger Keri Henley lists some other surprising statistics in her post Why Americans Are the Worst Vacationers. Even though Europeans work 300 fewer hours than Americans (most get between four and six weeks of paid vacation), the level of productivity per worker is the same, or slightly higher than ours, and 137 other countries are ahead of us in guaranteeing at least some vacation time. Writes Henley, “Vacations are not just luxuries or pithy pastimes for the rich. Statistics [show] that other countries who take regular vacations are happier, and live longer than we do.”
Vacations protect us from job burnout. Often times we emerge from a break with a new perspective that can help us navigate through the maze of impending deadlines. Whenever I shut down for a few weeks, I always come back to the page with a clearer mission and renewed passion.
9. Ask Yourself: Is This Toxic?
There certainly are work situations you want to leave. I should have left my first “real job” sooner. After being cut down every day for nine months, my self-esteem had plunged to below sea level, and it took me years to build up my self-confidence. In her book, Toxic Work, Barbara Bailey Reinhold writes, “The syndrome of toxic work overtakes you when what’s happening to you at work causes protracted bouts of distress, culminating in emotional suffering or physical symptoms and [is] heightened by the perceived inability to stop the pain and move on to find or create a more rewarding situation.”
This is where a mentor or advisor of some sort is very helpful. He or she may be able to identify some possible solutions within your toxic work situation, or provide you with the motivation and support you need to leave.
10. Go with Your Gut
In her book Listen: Trusting Your Inner Voice in Times of Crisis, author Lynn Robinson coaches us on how to identify our intuitive voice, or gut feeling. She tells us to pay attention to body signals: excitement, enthusiasm, and energy all say, “Go for it, girlfriend!” Boredom, anxiety, and resentment mark a dead end. In one of her exercises, Robinson instructs us to imagine ourselves having made a decision that we are deliberating on today. Once we have made the decision, how do we feel? Excited? Nauseous? Then she tells us to imagine ourselves a year from the time we made our decision. Are we glad we made that decision? Has our life improved? How are we feeling? What do our friends and family say?
Along these lines, I think anything we can do to identify and hear our gut instincts is going to help us out of any workplace—or life—rut. We may never love our jobs or whistle at work (you know people who do that, right?), but tuning into our instincts Prada Scarf may help us increase our odds of finding some satisfaction and fulfillment in the hours we sit in front of a computer or a supervisor.
Sunscreen May Increase Skin Cancer
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A new study by an eco-consumer Designer Replica Handbags group finds that some sunblocks may increase the growth rate of skin cancer cells. Is yours among them?
Think SPF 50 sunscreen will keep you completely safe from the sun's rays? Don't bet on it. According to a new study by the Environmental Working Group — a nonprofit that seeks to "expose threats to your health and the environment, and to find solutions" — three out of five sunscreens offer "inadequate protection from the sun or actually contain toxic ingredients." Only 5 percent of the roughly 1,400 lotions tested by EWG met the group's stringent safety standards, while 42 percent may actually contribute to the growth of skin cancer. How is that possible? Here, a guide:
Wait ... using sunscreen can promote skin cancer?
It seems almost cruel, but that's what the animal tests conducted by the Environmental Working Group suggest. The main culprit is vitamin A, which many sunscreen makers include in their products for its purported anti-aging properties. Unfortunately, says EWG, the common vitamin A derivative retinyl palmitate also speeds up the growth of cancerous cells in lab mice by as much as 21 percent when combined with sunlight. Skeptics caution, however, that just because this effect occurs in mice, doesn't mean it occurs in humans.
Are there any other health concerns with sunscreen?
The EWG also warns against products — an estimated 60 percent of those on the market — that include the potentially "hormone-disrupting compound" oxybenzone, added to boost protection against UVA rays. There is no consensus on the issue, however, and many experts maintain that oxybenzone is safe.
Has the government taken a position on which sunblocks are safe?
Not yet. The Food and Drug Administration is issuing new safety and labeling guidelines for sunscreens — in the works since 1978 — as early as October. But the rules won't be enforced for a year or more, says the EWG, meaning "the first federally regulated sunscreens won't go on store shelves before the summer of 2012." The group also claims that the FDA has been aware of the problems with vitamin A for many years, but has neglected to alert the public or take any regulatory action.
Is EWG being overly alarmist?
The sunscreen lobbying group the Personal Care Products Council calls EWG's report "reckless," saying unfiltered exposure to the sun is a far greater threat to your health than the ingredients in any sunscreen. At least some skin doctors agree. "EWG is kind of the Chicken Little of the sunscreen arena," says Florida dermatologist James Spencer. EWG acknowledges that the evidence underpinning some of its warnings is "not conclusive," but argues, why risk using "suspect" products?
So which sunscreens should I use?
Avoid most of them, according to EWG. Of the 500 most popular sunscreens tested, the group recommends only 39. The top scorers include products from Jason Natural Cosmetics and All Terrain brands. (See the EWG's best-rated sunscreens.) EWG recommends lotions over sprays or powders. Consumer Reports, however, lists five spray-on sunscreens as its top protectors (Target tops the list) in terms of blocking UVA and UVB rays.
How can I best protect myself against the sun?
Cover yourself with hats and clothing, as much as possible. When you use sunscreen — and you should definitely use sunscreen — make sure you're applying the proper amount (about a shot glass full, or twice as much as people typically use, says the EWG) about Gucci bags 20 minutes before you go outside. Reapply the full amount every two hours — or sooner, if you've been sweating, swimming, or dried off with a towel.
Childbirth Deaths Rising in the US
Chinese lawmakers and political advisors have called for legislation for comprehensive protection of citizens' personal information.
Their call came just days after the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, approved a criminal law amendment banning government and corporate employees with access to personal data to sell or leak such information.
But for some lawmakers and political advisors, the amendment is not quite enough.
Xu Long, an entrepreneur-turned deputy to the NPC, urged for a privacy protection law which would appoint a specialized administration responsible for personal information safety.
The privacy protection law should also specify compensation for damage caused by personal information leakage, Xu said.
Lack of regulation to protect personal information had led to widespread harassment in China.
An online survey conducted last year showed nearly 89 percent of the 2,422 people polled claimed they had suffered because personal information had been leaked.
Anonymous messages, phone calls and spam were listed as the most reported means of harassment after personal information was made known to unauthorized agencies and individuals, according to the survey.
Zhu Zhengfu, a lawyer from the southern province of Guangdong and also a member of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, backed Xu's call by telling of his own experience of being a victim to leakage of personal information.
"I registered some of my personal information a couple of years ago when I purchased a car and bought insurances for it," Zhu said.
"Ever since then, every year when the insurances near expiration, I would receive dozens of calls trying to sell me insurances, and they Prada Scarf knew everything about my car model, my plate number, even my address," he said.
The criminal law amendment did not clearly define "personal information", which could cover a wide range of concepts, Zhu said.
A privacy protection law, or a legal explanation to clearly define the concept of personal information is our top priority here, he said.
How did the ’80s become a punchline?
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Give anything 20 years and it'll PRADA Handbags start to look like the makings of a joke. And so -- welcome back to the '80s, or, as LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge" put it, "borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered '80s." You don't even need to have had first-hand experience with the decade to make fun of it.
Today's opening of "MacGruber" -- which Karina Longworth's review clusters alongside "Hot Tub Time Machine" and "Cop Out" as movies whose primary subject is a decade's worth of pop culture rather than actual people -- confirms what we already knew: VH1's "I Love The 80s" was far, far more insidious than we figured.
Compare and contrast -- the trailers for "MacGruber" and "Hot Tub Time Machine" are below:
The '70s didn't suddenly see a big spate of films mocking the '50s, nor the '80s the '60s and so forth. There is a joke in "Dazed and Confused" -- the only one that really guns for the low-hanging fruit -- where a character speculates on the rule of how every other decade is awesome, and figures out since the '70s suck, maybe the '80s will be totally awesome. But that's about it.
That an entire decade's worth of pop culture is, in and of itself, a punchline, is new and unnerving. It's different from the numerous films taking old TV franchises as a starting point for a movie. The idea isn't playing with an established brand and resurrecting familiar images; it's toying with passed-down imagery as a joke whose currency is already established.
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The idea that changes in fashion (accessories, clothing, music, so on) automatically constitute hilarity, then, is a special rule we've come up with for the '80s. Familiarity breeds contemptuous affection for a decade that's just stupid, which was VH1's whole premise -- mention just a title or name, then laugh away. What's unclear is whether thirtysomethings now getting to make their own movies will be able to sell that to kids too young to directly remember the '80s, those for whom the below montage conjures no nostalgia.
What really gives me pause is wondering whether this is a one-off or a harbinger of something more sinister. 20 years hence, will we be deluged with movies portraying the aughts as a time of toxic smart-phone abuse, American Apparel and people writing their Hermes Wallets own Wikipedia entries? It's easy to reduce a decade to its pop-culture sound-bites and trend topics when you have no memory of being complicit with them. Sneering is easy, compassion is hard.
Marriage gets better when kids leave the nest
Study of women finds an empty nest has its benefits
Marriages get better after the children grow up and move out, according to a UC Berkeley study that analyzed the marital satisfaction of more than 100 women over 18 years.
The study by three professors from UC Berkeley's department of psychology and Institute of Personality & Social Research questioned the women at the average ages of 43 in 1981, 52 in 1989 and 61 in 1998 and found that marriages grew increasingly better after the kids packed up and left.
"We found that marital satisfaction increased as the women transitioned to an empty nest," said Sara Gorchoff, one of the authors of the study and a doctoral candidate in the psychology department. "It was not that they spent more time with their partners but that they were better enjoying the time they spent with their partners."
Though the women in the study were not named, several other Bay Area mothers shared similar views.
Terry Toczynski, a 55-year-old mother of three, said she noticed an improvement in her marriage when her three children went off to school. They were gone for about a year before one of them temporarily moved back recently.
"In the time they weren't there, we didn't have to focus 100 percent on raising children, and it was definitely better for us," the Berkeley woman said. "We were a couple again, two individuals who chose to live together and be with each other. Got good at conversations
"At first, it is very quiet, but there is a lot of good in the lack of noise. We got good at having conversations. Our time is about us."
The 123 women in the study were born between 1937 and 1939 and were first questioned for a study on creativity while they were seniors at Mills College in Oakland. Since then, they have participated in numerous studies, including one on the effect of the women's movement.
"We realized what an opportunity we had to study these women over the years," said Gorchoff, who conducted the study with psychology Professors Oliver John and Ravenna Helson.
Though all the women Designer Replica Handbags attended college, they chose different career paths and had varying income levels and numbers of children. Their martial status varied as well.
Some changed partners, some didn't. Whatever the case, the study showed that they all reported becoming more satisfied when their children moved away from home.
"The increase was not at all dependent on whether they remarried," Gorchoff said. "And the women did not report that the general global satisfaction with their lives got better, just their marriages. They were enjoying the time with their partners more."
Shahla Piff, 59, of San Bruno said she initially felt like her purpose in life was gone when her two sons moved out about six years ago but soon realized her marriage was growing stronger.
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"We had time to pay attention to each other," said Piff, whose sons are 26 and 28. "The boys were taking a lot of our attention and energy. When they left, we could behave like adults. We could do fun stuff, like travel and go to art shows. "It gives us more time to focus on each other and our interests."
Marriages improved with age overall, according to the study, but women who experienced the transition to an empty nest were happier with their mates than women with children in the home and women whose children had been gone for a while.
The first survey was done when most of the women still had children at home, the second when some of them still had kids at home, and the third when most kids were gone. All were in middle age during the first survey. Some got married, some raised kids, some were divorced, some remarried and some were in domestic partnerships.
The women rated how satisfied they were in their relationships using a five-point scale.
"The transition to an empty nest may be associated with an increase in the quantity of time and energy invested in one's marriage, an increase in the quality of time spent with one's partner and with perceptions of one's child's success," the study said.
Not everyone agrees. Barbara Lockwood, a 58-year-old Brookdale (Santa Cruz County) woman whose sons left home in 1998, said her marriage has remained pretty much the same.
Empty Nest Travel Club
Lockwood started the Empty Nest Travel Club for parents whose kids had moved out, because her husband doesn't like to travel and she wanted to see the world.
"The kids leaving was a Gucci bags big adjustment and part of the reason I want to travel more, but I wouldn't say my marriage got more satisfying," Lockwood said. "We are now focused on ourselves and our discussions are about health problems, not the kids."
The study, titled "Contextualizing Change in Marital Satisfaction During Middle Age," was published in the November issue of the journal Psychological Science.
Five Mini-Animals That Make Great Pets
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On April 22, 2010, Tiz A Miniature Horse Farm in Barnstead, New Hampshire, made headlines nationwide when it became the birthplace of PRADA Handbags the world’s smallest stallion, Einstein. The six-pound, fourteen-inch-tall foal beat out the previous world-record holder, a dwarf horse named Thumbelina, by three pounds to secure his title. Since then, we’ve all been ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the pint-size pinto while watching the farm’s YouTube video of him trotting around his new digs.
Einstein is no doubt eating up his fifteen minutes, but when the frenzy over him subsides, there’s a whole host of other miniature animals clamoring for your attention—and possibly a bed in your family room (or at least your backyard). Lose the lapdog—these downsized four-legged friends prove that good things come in small packages.
Micro-Pigs
Weighing only nine ounces at birth (and yielding perhaps half a strip of bacon on their best day), micro-pigs have become more and more popular as house pets ever since Victoria Beckham reportedly bought two of them for her husband, soccer phenom David, for Christmas in 2009. Their small size belies their big price tag—the piglets can fetch $1,200 a pop—but their long life span (nineteen years, on average) makes them a sound investment for people with porcine propensities. They’re also known for being loving, intelligent, and nonallergenic, but be warned: they don’t stay small forever. They won’t achieve the same proportions as their full-size counterparts, but adult micro-pigs can weigh up to fifty pounds and be a foot tall—in other words, not exactly the best bedfellows.
Fennec Fox
With a mature weight of only three pounds—about half of which comprises their oversize ears—fennec foxes are mostly wild but, if trained carefully, have the potential to become domesticated and behaviorally similar to dogs: they can learn to fetch, walk on a leash, use Hermes Wallets a litter box, and come when called. Quick-moving and extremely active, fennecs thrive on constant exercise (always in an enclosed area, as they’re prone to escaping) but also love basking in the sun. These sociable creatures are friendly to their owners and strangers alike, but their boisterous nature may prove too much for other house pets to handle. If you’re in the market for one of these mischievous animals, be prepared to commit to a rigorous training and socialization regimen.
Miniature Donkeys
Miniature donkeys are renowned as desirable pets for children, physically disabled people, and the elderly, thanks to their robust health, their communicative nature, their loving personality, and the strong attachments they form with their owners. They also require very little space: up to ten donkeys can live on one acre of land. These animals generally stand between thirty-one and Designer Replica Handbags thirty-eight inches tall and, when cared for properly, have a life span of twenty-five to a whopping forty years. A word of caution: miniature donkeys are native to the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and are reputedly difficult—though not impossible—to import into the United States because of Department of Agriculture quarantine restrictions.
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Pygmy Goats
Originally from Africa, pygmy goats began appearing in the United States in the 1950s. Easy to raise, affectionate, and playful, the goats make appealing companions for everyone from suburban families to 4-H members. Kids start off at only two to four pounds; full-grown goats can weigh ten times that much but typically don’t exceed seventeen inches in height. As agreeable as they are, pygmy goats do have some special needs: they’re very social creatures, so if you’re considering buying one, make it two; they hate the rain, so you’ll need to provide them with a well-sealed outdoor sleeping enclosure; and they’re very vocal, so alert your neighbors to your intentions before you bring these animals home.
Muntjac Deer
Also called barking deer, Muntjac deer are the oldest known deer, dating back to prehistoric times and originating in southern Asia and China. Two smaller Gucci bags species in this family, the Leaf Muntjac and the Reeves Muntjac, have been bred in the United States since the late 1990s; the Leaf deer weigh ten to twenty pounds, the Reeves twenty to twenty-five pounds. Once Muntjacs acclimate to their surroundings, they make loyal, fun-loving pets who run and play tag with their owners, as well as follow them around the house and give them kisses. They can live inside or outside or as indoor-outdoor pets (install a doggy door in your home and let them have the run of your property) and can be litter-trained within one day, just like kittens. If you decide to allow your Muntjac deer to roam freely, be aware that these agile animals can jump very high—most Leaf Muntjacs can clear five feet and can easily climb stairs—so take precautions to deer-proof your home, just as you’d secure it for your young child.
Animal Instincts
As adorable as these diminutive animals are, don’t lose sight of the fact that acquiring one as a house pet requires significant foresight and research. In addition to reading up on your prospective companion’s special dietary, shelter, and training requirements, be sure to familiarize yourself with the legal ramifications of housing such a unique pet in your particular geographical location, as well as any federal guidelines regarding importing the animal into the United States, if applicable. If you’re in the clear on those fronts, move on to tracking down a veterinarian in your area who’s knowledgeable about Prada Scarf your pet’s specific health needs and able to treat any ailments that befall the animal. By putting in the extra effort on the front end, you can have your very own Einstein for years to come.
The Californian’s tale
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When I was young, I went looking for gold in California. I never found enough to make me rich. But I did discover a beautiful part PRADA Handbags of the country. It was called “the Stanislau.” The Stanislau was like Heaven on Earth. It had bright green hills and deep forests where soft winds touched the trees. Other men, also looking for gold, had reached the Stanislau hills of California many years before I did. They had built a town in the valley with sidewalks and stores, banks and schools. They had also built pretty little houses for their families.
At first, they found a lot of gold in the Stanislau hills. But their good luck did not last. After a few years, the gold disappeared. By the time I reached the Stanislau, all the people were gone, too. Grass now grew in the streets. And the little houses were covered by wild rose bushes. Only the sound of insects filled the air as I walked through the empty town that summer day so long ago. Then, I realized I was not alone after all.
A man was smiling at me as he stood in front of one of the little houses. This house was not covered by wild rose bushes. A nice little garden in front of the house was full of blue and yellow flowers. White curtains hung from the windows and floated in the soft summer wind.
Still smiling, the man opened the door of his house and motioned to me. I went inside and could not believe my eyes.I had Hermes Wallets been living for weeks in rough mining camps with other gold miners. We slept on the hard ground, ate canned beans from cold metal plates and spent our days in the difficult search for gold. Here in this little house, my spirit seemed to come to life again.
I saw a bright rug on the shining wooden floor. Pictures hung all around the room. And on little tables there were seashells, books and china vases full of flowers. A woman had made this house into a home. The pleasure I felt in my heart must have shown on my face. The man read my thoughts. “Yes,” he smiled, “it is all her work. Everything in this room has felt the touch of her hand.”
One of the pictures on the wall was not hanging straight. He noticed it and went to fix it. He stepped back several times to make sure the picture was really straight. Then he gave it a gentle touch with his hand. “She always does that,” he explained to me. “It is like the finishing pat a mother gives her child’s hair after she has brushed it. I have seen her fix all these things so often that I can do it just the way she does. I don’t know why I do it. I just do it.”
As he talked, I realized there was something in this room that he wanted me to discover. I looked around. When my eyes reached a corner of the room near the fireplace, he broke into a happy laugh and rubbed his hands together. “That’s it!” he cried out. “You have found it! I knew you would. It is her picture. I went to a little black shelf Designer Replica Handbags that held a small picture of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. There was a sweetness and softness in the woman’s expression that I had never seen before.
The man took the picture from my hands and stared at it. “She was nineteen on her last birthday. That was the day we were married. When you see her…oh, just wait until you meet her!”
“Where is she now?” I asked.
“Oh, she is away,” the man sighed, putting the picture back on the little black shelf. “She went to visit her parents. They live forty or fifty miles from here. She has been gone two weeks today.”
“When will she be back?” I asked. “Well, this is Wednesday,” he said slowly. “She will be back on Saturday, in the evening.”
I felt a sharp sense of regret. “I am sorry, because I will be gone by then,” I said.
“Gone? No! Why should you go? Don’t go. She will be so sorry. You see, she likes to have people come and stay with us.”
“No, I really must leave,” I said firmly.
He picked up her picture and held it before my eyes. “Here,” he said. “Now you tell her to her face that you could have stayed to meet her and you would not.”
Something made me change my mind as I looked at the picture for a second time. I decided to stay. The man told me his name was Henry. That night, Henry and I talked about many different things, but mainly about her. The next day passed quietly.
Thursday evening we had a visitor. He was a big, grey-haired miner named Tom. “I just came for a few minutes to ask when she is coming home,” he explained. “Is there any news?” “Oh yes,” the man replied. “I got a letter. Would you like to hear it? He took a yellowed letter out of his shirt pocket and read it to us. It was full Gucci bags of loving messages to him and to other people – their close friends and neighbors. When the man finished reading it, he looked at his friend. “Oh no, you are doing it again, Tom! You always cry when I read a letter from her. I’m going to tell her this time!”
“No, you must not do that, Henry,” the grey-haired miner said. “I am getting old. And any little sorrow makes me cry. I really was hoping she would be here tonight.”
The next day, Friday, another old miner came to visit. He asked to hear the letter. The message in it made him cry,too. “We all miss her so much,” he said. Saturday finally came. I found I was looking at my watch very often.Henry noticed this. “You don’t think something has happened to her, do you?” he asked me. I smiled and said that I was sure she was just fine. But he did not seem satisfied.I was glad to see his two friends, Tom and Joe, coming down the road as the sun began to set. The old miners werecarrying guitars. They also brought flowers and a bottle of whiskey. They put the flowers in vases and began to playsome fast and lively songs on their guitars.
Henry’s friends kept giving him glasses of whiskey, which they made him drink. When I reached for one of the twoglasses left on the table, Tom stopped my arm. “Drop that glass and take the other one!” he whispered. He gave theremaining glass of whiskey to Henry just as the clock began to strike midnight.Henry emptied the glass. His face grew whiter and whiter. “Boys,” he said, “I am feeling sick. I want to lie down.”
Henry was asleep almost before the words were out of his mouth. In a moment, his two friends had picked him up and carried him into the bedroom. They closed the door and came back.They seemed to be getting ready to leave. So I said, “Please don’t go gentlemen. She will not know me. I am a stranger to her.”
They looked at each other. “His wife has been dead for nineteen years,” Tom said. “Dead?” I whispered.
“Dead or worse,” he said.
“She went to see her parents about six months after she got married. On her way back, on a Saturday evening in June, when she was almost here, the Indians captured her. No one ever saw her again. Henry lost his mind. He thinks she Prada Scarf is still alive. When June comes, he thinks she has gone on her trip to see her parents. Then he begins to wait for her to come back. He gets out that old letter. And we come around to visit so he can read it to us.
“On the Saturday night she is supposed to come home, we come here to be with him. We put a sleeping drug in his drink so he will sleep through the night. Then he is all right for another year.” Joe picked up his hat and his guitar. “We have done this every June for nineteen years,” he said. “The first year there were twenty-seven of us. Now just the two of us are left.” He opened the door of the pretty little house. And the two old men disappeared into the darkness of the Stanislau.
Danger from Home
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Most people are aware that outdoor air pollution can damage their health, but many do not know that indoor air pollution can also have Designer Replica Handbags significant health effects. Environmental Protection Agency studies indicate that indoor levels of pollutants may be 2～5 times, and occasionally more than 100 times, higher than outdoor levels. These levels of indoor air pollutants may be of particular concern because most people spend about 90％ of their time indoors.
There are many sources of indoor air pollution in any home. These include combustion sources such as oil, gas, coal, wood, and tobacco products; building materials and furnishings as diverse as deteriorated asbestos-containing insulation, wet or damp carpet, and cabinetry or furniture made of certain pressed wood products; products for household cleaning and maintenance, personal care, or hobbies; central heating and cooling systems and humidification devices; and outdoor sources such as radon, pesticides, and outdoor air pollution.
Immediate effects may show up after a single exposure or repeated exposures. These include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, headaches, dizziness, and fatigue. Such immediate effects are usually short-term and treatable. Sometimes the treatment is simply eliminating the person's exposure to the source of the pollution, if it can be identified. Symptoms of some diseases, including asthma, hypersensitivity, pneumonitis, and fever, may also show up soon after exposure to some indoor air pollutants.
The likelihood of immediate reactions to indoor air pollutants depends on several factors. Age and pre existing medical conditions are two important influences. In other cases, whether a person reacts to a pollutant depends on individual sensitivity, which varies tremendously from person to person. Some people can become sensitized to biological pollutants after repeated exposures, and it appears that some people can become sensitized to chemical pollutants as well.
Certain immediate effects are similar to those from colds or other viral diseases, so it is often difficult to determine if the symptoms are a result of exposure to indoor air pollution. For this reason, it is important to pay attention to the time and place the symptoms occur. If the symptoms fade or go away when a person is away from the home and return when the person returns, an effort should be made to identify indoor air sources that may be possible causes. Some effects may be made worse by an inadequate supply of outdoor air or from the heating, cooling, or humidity conditions prevalent in the home.
Other health effects may show up either years after exposure has occurred or only after long or repeated periods of exposure. These effects, which include some respiratory diseases, heart disease, and cancer, can be severely debilitating or fatal. It is prudent to try to improve the indoor air quality in your home even if symptoms are not noticeable.
While pollutants commonly found in indoor air are responsible for many harmful effects, there is considerable uncertainty about what concentrations or periods of exposure are necessary to produce specific health problems. People also react very differently to Gucci bags exposure to indoor air pollutants. Therefore, further research is needed to better understand the effects of indoor air pollution and to find efficient ways to protect our health.
The Baggy Yellow
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The baggy yellow shirt had Hermes Wallets long sleeves, four extra-large pockets trimmed in black thread and snaps up the front. It was faded from years of wear but still in decent shape. I found it in 1963 when I was home from university on school recess, rummaging through bags of clothes Mom intended to give away.
"You're not talking that old thing, are you?" Mom said when she saw me packing the yellow shirt. "I wore that when I was pregnant with your brother in 1954!"
"It's just the thing to wear over my clothes during art class, Mom. Thanks!" I slipped it into my suitcase before she could object.
The yellow shirt became a part of my university wardrobe. I loved it. After graduation, I wore the shirt the day I moved into my new apartment and on Saturday mornings when I cleaned.
The next day, I married. When I became pregnant, I wore the yellow shirt during big-belly days. I missed Mom and the rest of my family, since we were living far away from them. But that shirt helped. I smiled, remembering that Mother had worn it when she was pregnant, 15 years earlier.
That Christmas, mindful of the warm feelings the shirt had given me, I patched one elbow, washed and pressed the shirt, wrapped it on holiday paper and sent it to Mom.
When Mom wrote to thank me for her "real" gifts, she said the yellow shirt was lovely. She never mentioned it again.
The next year, my husband, daughter and I stopped at Mom an Dad's mattress. I don't know how long it took her to find it, but almost two years passed before I discovered it under the base of our living-room floor lamp. The yellow shirt was just I needed now while refinishing furniture. The walnut stains added character.
In 1975 my husband and I divorced. With my three children, I prepared to move back to the area where I grew up. As I packed, a deep depression overtook me. I wondered if I could succeed on my own. I wondered if I would find a job. I paged through the Bible, looking Designer Replica Handbags for comfort. In Ephesians, I read, "So use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy whenever he attacks, and when it is all over, you will be standing up."
I tried to picture my self wearing God's armor, but all I saw was the stained yellow shirt. Slowly, it dawned on me. Wasn't my mother's love a piece of God's armor? My courage was renewed.
Unpacking in our new home, I knew I had to get the shirt back to Mother. The next time I visited her, I tucked it in her bottom dresser drawer. Meanwhile, I found a good job at a radio station.
A year later I discovered the yellow shirt hidden in a rag bag in my cleaning closet. Something new had been added. Embroidered in bright green across the breast pocket were the words "I BELONG TO PAT."
Not to be outdone, I got out my own embroidery materials and added an apostrophe and seven more letters. Now the shirt proudly proclaimed, "I BELONG TO PAT'S MOTHER."
But I didn't stop there. I zigzagged all the frayed seams, then had a friend mail the shirt I Na fancy box to Mom from out of town. We enclosed an official-looking that she was the recipient of an award for good deeds.
I would have given anything to see Mom's face when she opened the box. But, of course, she never mentioned it.
Two years later, in 1978, I remarried. The day of our wedding, Harold and I put our car in a friend's garage to avoid practical jokers. After the wedding, while my husband drove us to our honeymoon suite, I reached for a pillow in the car to rest my head. It felt lumpy. I unzipped the case and found, wrapped in wedding paper, the yellow shirt. Inside a pocket was a note: "Read John 14: 27-29. I loved you both, Mother."
That night I paged through a Bible in the hotel room and found the verses: "I am leaving you with a gift: peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn't fragile like the peace the world gives. So don't be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again, if you really love me, you will be very happy for me, for now I can Gucci bags go to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do, you will believe in me."
The shirt was Mother's final gift. She had known for three months that she had terminal amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Mother died the following year at age 57.
I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her grave, but I'm glad I didn't, because it is a vivid reminder of the love-filled game she and I played for 16 years.
Besides, my older daughter is in university now, majoring in art. And every art student needs a baggy yellow shirt with big pockets.
The Power of Silence
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What did you not say yesterday? Were there things you wish you had said but held back? Did you corral certain words, certain sentences, and hold PRADA Handbags them for another opportunity? Were some thoughts pushed below the surface, allowed to be changed with time, perhaps to be forgotten forever? How many “I love you’s” went unsaid that would have healed an aching heart? As with sleep, you cannot store them and build a reserve to tap into at a later date. Their power, their balming effect, quickly dissipates with disuse. They work only in the moment that they were intended. Left idle, their potential is gone, the object of their delivery untouched by kindness, by tenderness.
“I love you.” It is so simple to say. Three words. There are many other opportunities to say them, but none more important and possessing more potential than now. Words can have the opposite effect if left unsaid, almost as if they were spoken as opposites. Silence can equal the opposite. “I love you” unsaid can become “I don’t love you” out loud. Your most tender and endearing thoughts, if not allowed to fly free from the prison of your mind, may silently tell someone that you don’t care. How many times has your silence told your partner or child that you didn’t love them? How often has an unsaid word created the opposite effect? Think of all the lives that would have been changed had armies of sentences been allowed to roam free. Those who go through life cloaked in spoken endearments, wrapped and comforted in the voiced love of others, are truly blessed. The power of the spoken word is mighty. The power of silence can be mightier still.
Countless millions of words have been written and spoken since the beginning of human history. A total of all the words in all the libraries of the world, past and present, and every word of every conversation, idle chatter, lecture, broadcast, and speech in history would be dwarfed by the vast legions of words left unsaid, those rendered impotent by silence. Not that it is a good thing to instantly speak every thought that comes to mind: chaos would ensue. We have to Designer Replica Handbags be selective of our words and deliver them into the pattern of conversation where appropriate; however, it is our mental editing that isolates certain words and thoughts as unspeakable, and sentences them to die (pun intended).
Words can change the world. They can incite, torture, kill, comfort, heal, encourage, humiliate, anger, inspire, sadden, give joy, make one laugh, and they can forever change one’s life. There are many kinds of words: “In other words,” four-letter-words, words that are read, words to make you blue; there is the spoken word, the written word, the forgotten word; we put words in someone’s mouth, and we don’t have the words to express.... Words, words, everywhere, and not a thought to speak. And the unsaid words—oh, how they could have changed the course of history! Would they have altered the destructive lives of John Wilkes Booth, Adolph Hitler, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jeffrey Daumer, or the Son of Sam? Would the unspoken “I love you’s” have given them a new lease on life had those three words been bestowed upon them?
The power of words and their silent cousins: “What did you say?” “Nothing.” Think of the consequences had that “nothing” actually been, “I was wrong. I’m sorry. I apologize and want to make it up to you.” Instead, a relationship was probably hurt forever, or even eventually terminated. “Ouch, that hurts,” if left unsaid, can become one of many familiar wedges in a marriage, or any relationship. Not expressed, it can fester inside, becoming worse and much larger over time than it originally was. It also will accumulate other unsaid “ouches,” and grow to become a very powerful “I hate your guts.” It can eat at one’s insides if not voiced. Actually, its release will help the relationship; its incarceration will destroy.
Don’t withhold. Let the hostages go. Release the words while they still hold their meaning. Release them before they change in silence. The loneliest place in the world, more desolate and forbidding than the blackest cell of any prison, is a silent marriage/partnership. All the city lights from Manhattan to Bangkok could probably be powered by the turbulent energy of the silent, but unrelenting, dialogues churning in the minds of an unhappy couple. And it would be possible, as well, to freeze solid the oceans of the world by the dynamics between the two.
Allow your thoughts to be heard. You are the most powerful person on earth. You alone possess the ability to change your world, make friends, and influence people. You have the key. Use your words for good. They can help you. Don’t withhold them, for Prada Scarf in their muted state they can turn on you. Life is a fine balance of releasing the right words in the right order at the right time, and deciding which words are truly better left unsaid.
Darning-Needle
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There was once a Darning-needle who thought herself so fine that she believed she was an embroidery-needle. 'Take great care to hold me tight!' said PRADA Handbags the Darning-needle to the Fingers who were holding her. 'Don't let me fall! If I once fall on the ground I shall never be found again, I am so fine!' 'It is all right!' said the Fingers, seizing her round the waist. 'Look, I am coming with my train!' said the Darning-needle as she drew a long thread after her; but there was no knot at the end of the thread. The Fingers were using the needle on the cook's shoe. The upper leather was unstitched and had to be sewn together. 'This is common work!' said the Darning-needle.
'I shall never get through it. I am breaking! I am breaking!' And in fact she did break. 'Didn't I tell you so!' said the Darning-needle. 'I am too fine!' 'Now she is good for nothing!' said the Fingers; but they had to hold her tight while the cook dropped some sealing-wax on the needle and stuck it in the front of her dress. 'Now I am a breast-pin!' said the Darning-needle. 'I always knew I should be promoted. When one is something, one will become something!' And she laughed to herself; you can never see when a Darning-needle is laughing. Then she sat up as proudly as if she were in a State coach, and looked all round her. 'May I be allowed to ask if you are gold?' she said to her neighbour, the Pin. 'You have a very nice appearance, and a peculiar head; but it is too small! You must take pains to make it grow, for it is not everyone who has a head of sealing- wax.' And so saying the Darning-needle raised herself up so proudly that she fell out of the dress, right into the sink which the cook was rinsing out.
'Now I am off on my travels!' said the Darning-needle. 'I do hope I sha'n't get lost!' She did indeed get lost. 'I am too fine for this world!' said she as she lay in the gutter; 'but I know who I am, and that is always a little satisfaction!' And the Darning-needle kept her proud bearing and did not lose her good-temper. All kinds of things swam over her--shavings, bits of straw, and scraps of old newspapers. 'Just look how they sail along!' said the Darning-needle. 'They don't know what is underneath them! Here I am sticking fast! There goes a shaving thinking of nothing in the world but of itself, a mere chip! There goes a straw--well, how it does twist and twirl, to be sure! Don't think so much about yourself, or you will be knocked against a stone. There floats a bit of newspaper. What is written on it is long ago forgotten, and yet how proud it is! I am sitting patient and quiet. I know who I am, and that is enough for me!'
One day something thick lay near her which glittered so brightly that the Darning-needle thought it must be a diamond. But it was a bit of bottle-glass, and because it sparkled the Darning-needle spoke to it, and gave herself out as a breast-pin. 'No doubt you are a diamond?' 'Yes, something of that kind!' And each believed that the other was something very costly; and Designer Replica Handbags they both said how very proud the world must be of them. 'I have come from a lady's work-box,' said Darning-needle, 'and this lady was a cook; she had five fingers on each hand; anything so proud as these fingers I have never seen! And yet they were only there to take me out of the work-box and to put me back again!' 'Were they of noble birth, then?' asked the bit of bottle-glass.
'Of noble birth!' said the Darning-needle; 'no indeed, but proud! They were five brothers, all called ''Fingers.'' They held themselves proudly one against the other, although they were of different sizes. The outside one, the Thumb, was short and fat; he was outside the rank, and had only one bend in his back, and could only make one bow; but he said that if he were cut off from a man that he was no longer any use as a soldier. Dip-into- everything, the second finger, dipped into sweet things as well as sour things, pointed to the sun and the moon, and guided the pen when they wrote. Longman, the third, looked at the others over his shoulder. Goldband, the fourth, had a gold sash round his waist; and little Playman did nothing at all, and was the more proud. There was too much ostentation, and so I came away.' 'And now we are sitting and shining here!' said the bit of bottle-glass. At that moment more water came into the gutter; it streamed over the edges and washed the bit of bottle-glass away.
'Ah! now he has been promoted!' said the Darning-needle. 'I remain here; I am too fine. But that is my pride, which is a sign of respectability!' And she sat there very proudly, thinking lofty thoughts. 'I really believe I must have been born a sunbeam, I am so fine! It seems to me as if the sunbeams were always looking under the water for me. Ah, I am so fine that my own mother cannot find me! If I had my old eye which broke off, I believe I could weep; but I can't--it is not fine to weep!' One day two street-urchins were playing and wading in the gutter, picking up old nails, pennies, and such things. It was rather dirty work, but it was a great delight to them. 'Oh, oh!' cried out one, as he pricked himself with the Darning-needle; 'he is a fine fellow though!' 'I am not a fellow; I am a young lady!' said the Darning-needle; but no one heard.
The sealing-wax had gone, and she had become quite black; but black makes one look very slim, and so she thought she was even finer than before. 'Here comes an egg-shell sailing along!' said the boys, and they stuck the Darning-needle into the egg-shell. 'The walls white and I black--what a pretty contrast it makes!' said the Darning-needle. 'Now I can be seen to advantage! If only I am not sea-sick! I should give myself up for lost!' But she was not sea-sick, and did not give Prada Scarf herself up. 'It is a good thing to be steeled against sea-sickness; here one has indeed an advantage over man! Now my qualms are over. The finer one is the more one can beat.' 'Crack!' said the egg-shell as a wagon-wheel went over it. 'Oh! how it presses!' said the Darning-needle. 'I shall indeed be sea-sick now. I am breaking!' But she did not break, although the wagon-wheel went over her; she lay there at full length, and there she may lie.
How condoms could save the world’s forests
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A new programme from the PRADA Handbags world's largest single buyer of condoms could boost rubber tapping and reduce deforestation, says Conor Foley from Green Futures, part of the Guardian Environment Network
Brazil's reputation as a "sexy country" dates back to the seminal work of Gilberto Freyre, who wrote a rather idealised account of how its sensuous and promiscuous past had produced a beautiful inter-racial population. Although the country's shocking levels of contemporary inequality and violence cruelly mock his central thesis of a 'racial democracy', the 'sexy Brazil' image lives on. It's there in Rio's famous carnival, in the beautiful bodies in bikini-floss that adorn its beaches and, more darkly, as home to one of the world's largest prostitution and sex trafficking industries.
But Brazil has also developed a highly effective anti-HIV/AIDS campaign, which is widely credited with having prevented the type of epidemic that has devastated other developing countries. It's succeeded despite the wrath of the Catholic Church, of the previous US Administration – which made health funding conditional on countries signing 'morality pledges' – and of the big drug companies, whose patents Brazil has flouted to bring down the cost of antiretroviral drugs. In the face of such criticism, Brazilian officials refused to change their approach, arguing that a key part of their success has been because they deal in an accepting, open way with high-risk groups. The Director of its national AIDS programme famously rejected the US Government's restrictions as "theological, fundamentalist and Shiite".
The Brazilian Government is the largest single buyer of condoms in the world, importing around a billion of them every year. These are promoted using high profile advertisements and a variety of outlets targeted to reach at-risk groups. Most recently, the Government has started to Designer Replica Handbags include condoms in the basic basket of goods that it distributes for free to low income families as part of its strategy to combat hunger. This serves a double purpose, since there is a clear link between family planning and poverty reduction. When the Pope visited Brazil two years ago, President Lula took the opportunity to speak out strongly in favour of sex education and proper provision of contraception for teenagers.
In 2008, the Government announced the start of a new programme to produce condoms using environmentally sustainable rubber, which will curb its dependence on imported contraceptives, provide jobs for local people and help preserve the world's largest rainforest. It opened a new factory, located in the northwestern Acre state, which will produce 100 million condoms a year. The latex comes from the Chico Mendes Reserve, named after the celebrated conservationist and rubber tapper who was killed by ranchers in 1988.
Tapping rubber has long been a traditional way of life for many in the Amazon. It is sustainable because it does not kill the trees, but the rubber is more expensive than oil-based synthetic products, which have driven down prices and put rubber-tappers out of business. By contrast, the condom project is both environmentally and economically sustainable. It will provide an income to around 550 families and reduce the incentives for deforestation. The Government says the condoms are the only ones in the world made of latex harvested from a tropical forest.
Similar schemes are also being developed to produce and market handbags and purses from sustainable rubber. Treetap, for example, has patented a latex, which it sells under its own brand name, certifying that its goods are produced from natural rubber on a Gucci bags fair trade basis. The company has placed rainforest preservation at the centre of its business plan, and works closely with the Rubber Tappers Association which Mendes founded.
'Sexy Brazil' is an already established brand, and if the Government's sustainable condoms project proves successful domestically, then they could become a product for export.
After all, who could refuse a longer-lasting Brazilian orgasm?