Monday, July 29, 2013
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Saturday, June 8, 2013
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
55+ Communities: The Difference Between Nursing Homes, Continuing Care Retirement And Active Living
If you're approaching retirement age, you might be wondering about the difference between the types of housing options for seniors. From continuing care to 55+ communities, there are a number of options to help seniors, no matter what they're looking for. Living in one of these places can provide seniors with a variety of activities to keep them busy, but how do you know which is right for you?
55+ Communities
These are specially planned areas with seniors in mind. They're typically in warmer weather climates and offer amenities like fitness centers with pools, spas, tennis courts, bocce courts, golf courses, meeting rooms, ball rooms, arts and crafts centers, dancing lessons, on-site restaurants and more. Residents can choose to live in their own home or apartment and many offer gated security that's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Although these 55+ communities are for people as they live out their retirement years, they are not retirement homes. They do not have nursing staff or other medical personnel on site and are not intended for residents with serious medical conditions that require constant care.
55+ Communities: The Difference Between Nursing Homes, Continuing Care Retirement And Active Living
55+ communities have age requirements that must be met before residents can move in. Consideration is made if one member of a couple is over 55, however many have restrictions on the length of time guests under 55 can stay in the community. This sometimes mean that other family members need to stay in a hotel for an extended visit, so check on these restrictions before buying a home if you expect to have long-term out of town guests.
Some 55+ communities that offer active living lifestyles offer special weekend getaways for people who are thinking of moving to the area. If you're interested in trying out the active living lifestyle before committing yourself to buying a home and moving in full-time, consider one of these weekends. This will let you try out a number of 55+ communities to make sure you've found the one that's right for you.
Nursing Homes
Nursing homes provide round the clock care to residents. They're ideal for people who need continuous care like physical, occupational or other therapies. Nurses and other staff will help residents bathe, get dressed, eat and more. Once someone goes to live in a nursing home, they often stay there for the rest of their life, although some residents can be rehabilitated to the point where they no longer require long-term professional care.
Continuing Care Retirement Communities
A continuing care retirement community blends aspects of active living with the care available at a nursing home. They're the ideal situation for seniors who require daily assistance, yet do not need the constant, round the clock care of a nursing home. Seniors can live independently, yet move into assisted living as it's necessary. These typically don't offer as many amenities as 55+ communities.
Choosing where to live after retirement can be a big decision. Many seniors have active living lifestyles before retirement, and want to continue this lifestyle afterwards. Knowing the difference between these types of housing options can help you make a knowledgeable decision on the one that best fits your needs.
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Chris Harmen writes for Solivita, a community that offers Florida active living. 55+ communities like Solivita offer a number of amenities such as private golf courses, luxury fitness centers and more.
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Monday, February 25, 2013
Guide To Free (Or Cheap) Building Materials
Do you need a backyard storage shed, but feel you cannot afford the high cost of building materials? Have you ever contemplated building a summer cabin or perhaps a house but the cost of materials is prohibitive? These projects may seem like something you would just as soon leave to the hired professionals, especially for us carpentry challenged folks, but what if you just want materials for a planter to showcase your special flowers or a new home for "Fido"? I am about to make a bold proclamation by stating that you can get the materials you need for FREE! Yes, you heard it right...FREE! "How," you ask, "might this be possible?" Listen closely my friends, and I will show you how to do just that.
Before we begin, I should let you in on the only two things you will need to accomplish this seemingly impossible task of finding free materials...patience, and flexibility. The reasoning behind these two very important attributes shall become clear as we move along.
The first step is to decide what materials you need for your project, and also some alternatives that will work if necessary. This is where the flexibility comes in. You may not get the "exact" materials you need, but some alternatives are just as good. Suppose you are building a deck on the summer cabin. If you are vying for a position in the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" you probably wouldn't read this far into this article, so I am guessing that functionality and price considerations are more important than beautiful craftsmanship. I would suggest using pallets as a starting point. They are sturdy, easy to assemble, and readily available. Plus they can be covered later for a more aesthetic appearance. We built a porch on our cabin using pallets that we covered with decking material that we later found. Check lumberyards, electrical/plumbing supply outlets, door and window shops, just about any place that receives large shipments of merchandise. These places are easily identified by the monstrous stacks of pallets in the alley or behind the building, and most places will give you as many as you want. Electric companies are also good sources for the large wire spools that make excellent patio tables, birdbath stands, and any other use you might imagine.
Guide To Free (Or Cheap) Building Materials
Always be on the lookout for neighbors and others that are doing their own remodeling projects. They often have discarded materials and are happy to give them away rather than having them hauled off at their expense. For our cabin, we asked a home remodeler for unwanted materials and that's where we acquired the doors, windows, roof sheathing, stove pipe, screws, nails, among other things.
Many times you might find elderly residents who would love to have their yard cleared of years worth of accumulated stuff, but they are incapable of doing the job themselves and not financially able to hire someone to do it for them. Make a deal to clean their yard in exchange for the materials.
Local lumber mills have mountains of byproduct that is unusable for their purposes but perfect for many homeowner projects. Check with the office for availability and restrictions.
Old discarded tires are strewn all over the countryside, but may just turn into a beautiful landscape piece for the artistic homeowner, or filled with cement to become shed supports. Automobile junkyards may offer useable materials for the visionary builder...use your imagination. Pickup bench seats can be conformed into unusual but classic breakfast niche booth seats.
You will most assuredly have more success in your quest for free materials if you become a Classified Ad reader. Read them every day. Look for anything that says "free" but be sure to call early because these things go fast. There is a gold mine waiting to be had for the asking. Many times you might find free items just because you are willing to haul them away. If you are really energetic, you may find an ad for a house to be torn down in exchange for the materials. Here is a great source for lumber, bricks and blocks, trusses, windows, doors, plumbing fixtures, and the list goes on.
New construction sites offer a plethora of material gathering options. Many times there will be a huge dumpster on site for material discards that may be just the thing you are looking for. You may find dimension lumber, insulation, electrical wiring, PVC pipe, etc. Please be sure to check with the construction foreman before taking these materials.
If you happen to need "like new" building materials without the exorbitant cost, check your surrounding communities for a salvage lumberyard. These establishments offer "scratch and dent" or otherwise rejected building materials at substantial discounts.
As you can see, there are endless possibilities when it comes to recycling "pre-owned" building materials, but a better price cannot be found. Forethought must be applied and sometimes you must patiently wait for the perfect opportunity, but the end result will be well worth the effort. Just keep your eyes open and don't be afraid to think outside the box.
Guide To Free (Or Cheap) Building Materials Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
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To find more resources for "almost free" stuff including furniture and decorating on a budget Click Here
Ferrel Kenda is an Internet author and specializes in affiliate marketing and promotion.
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Sunday, February 17, 2013
Inexpensive Kids Birthday Party Locations
While throwing your child a birthday party is high on any parents list, most people don't want to spend a fortune for the celebration. Depending on the time of year and your budget, there are some great options for the location of the party (other than your home).
If you do decide to throw a party outside your home, be sure to include your child in the location decision. If the child is young, you may want to bring them to the location prior to the party so that they can get comfortable and excited about the upcoming event. Most kids look forwarding to opening their presents at the end of their party. So whatever option you choose, make sure you set aside a special place where all the party goers can place the birthday gifts.
1. Town Park Shelter. Many local communities offer rental shelters at the parks where they have picnic tables, grills and play equipment for the kids. The older children can go play while the adults hang out. The food doesn't have to be gourmet, instead keep it simple and easy like barbecuing hot dogs or burgers or a couple baked lasagnas with salad. Follow up with a fun birthday cake from your local warehouse club, grocery store or your own kitchen.
Inexpensive Kids Birthday Party Locations
2. Fast Food Restaurant. Both McDonald's and Hardees offer kids parties that include a party hostess, food and cake at reasonable prices. The other great thing about these restaurants is that many have Playlands or plastic ball pits so that the kids can be entertained while the adults chit-chat and relax a bit.
3. Children's or Science Museum. If you have a larger budget, a local science or children's museum can be a great place to hold a birthday party. Some places have party hostesses and provide some supplies, so just check what they provide in your city. You may only need to bring a birthday cake and presents.
4. Movie Theater. Many towns have inexpensive or dollar show theaters that will rent out the entire theater or give you big group discount as well as discounts on snacks and soda. Some theaters will let you bring in some of your own snacks and a cake so just check and see what can be done at your local theater by speaking with the manager.
5. Neighborhood Club House. If you live in a planned community, chances are that you have a club house in your neighborhood or apartment complex. Often these rooms are either free or can be rented for a nominal fee by residents. The club house would likely give you more room than your home, but it would still be close enough that you could set up the birthday party relatively easily. Not to mention, you don't have to clean your house!
6. Local Fire Department. Often times, local fire departments have rooms that they will allow local residents utilize for free or for a nominal fee. Some fire departments will even give the children of a private birthday party a tour of the department and let them try on some of the firefighters' gear and get their photos taken. These pictures make great keepsake gifts for all the children.
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Can't make the birthday party or need a unique birthday gift this year? All About Gifts & Baskets has a huge selection of Kids Birthday Gift Baskets for any age. From candy to cookies, chocolate to books, let us take care of all your gift basket needs. Shop online and ship direct to the birthday boy or girl.
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Saturday, February 9, 2013
What Font Should You Use For Your Book?
One of the most common questions asked by would-be self-publishers who are intent on designing and typesetting their book themselves is, "What font should I use?"
I'm always relieved when somebody asks the question. At least, it means they're not just blindly going to use the ubiquitous default fonts found in most word processing programs.
However, there is almost no way to answer the question. It's like asking, "What's the best car model for commuting to work everyday?"
What Font Should You Use For Your Book?
You'll get a different answer from almost everyone you ask. And they might all be correct.
I am willing to offer one hard-and-fast rule, however: don't use Times New Roman or Times Roman. That will brand your book as the work of an amateur at first glance. And there are other, very practical, reasons for not using it. Times Roman and Times New Roman were designed for the narrow columns of newspapers, originally for the London Times back in the 1930s. Today, almost no newspapers still use it. How, or why, it became a word processing standard, I have no idea. The font tends to set very tight, making the text block on the page dense and dark.
Here are two caveats before proceeding to few recommendations:
The typeface you choose may depend on how your book will be printed. If you look closely at most serif fonts (like Times), you will notice that there are thick and thin portions of each letter. If your book will be printed digitally, you should steer away from fonts with segments that are very thin. They tend to become too faint and affect readability.
Don't get carried away with the thousands of font choices available. Most are specialty fonts suitable for titles, headlines, advertising, emotional impact, etc. And never use more than a very few fonts in a single book -- we usually choose one serif font for the main text body, a sans serif for chapter titles and headings within the chapters. Depending on the book, we may select a third font for captions on photos, graphics, tables, etc. (or maybe just a different size, weight, or style of one of the other two). We may select a specialty font for use on the front cover for the title and subtitle.
For 90% of books, any of the following fonts are excellent choices:
Palatino Linotype
Book Antiqua (tends to set tight, so you may have to loosen it up a bit)
Georgia
Goudy Old Style
Adobe Garamond Pro (tends to have a short x-height, so it might seem too small in typical sizes)
Bookman (the name sort of gives it away, doesn't it?)
Century Schoolbook (tends to be a bit wide, creating extra pages)
You need to look at several paragraphs of each font to see what, if any, adjustments you may find necessary in things like character spacing and kerning. You want to avoid little confusions, like:
"vv" (double v) that looks like the letter "w"
"cl" (c l) that looks like the letter "d"
Such things can make the reading experience annoying.
If you ask other designers, you will likely get other suggestions, but I wouldn't be surprised to see at least some of the above included in their recommendations.
You may run across some books with more unusual font choices, but there are often good reasons for it. Maybe the book is a humor book for which the designer chose a lighthearted font, for example. Such decisions should be made with care and thoughtful consideration for the effects on readability.
Never decide on your font or font size based only on viewing how it looks on your monitor. Most trade paperback books are printed in 10 or 11 point size, but some fonts require larger - or even smaller - sizes. If 12 points looks too big and 11 too small, you can try 11.5 - no need to stick with integer sizes. You might be surprised how much difference a half-point (or even a quarter-point) can make on the overall "feel" of the page.
You also have to decide on appropriate leading (pronounced like the metal), which is the distance from the baseline of one line of text to the baseline for the next line, measured in points. The result is usually expressed as a ratio of the font size in points to the selected leading in points. So, you might say you have set the body text in Georgia 11/14 or Bookman 10/12.5 (11-point size with 14 points leading and 10-point size with 12.5 points leading, respectively).
Word processing programs tend to work in decimal inches, forcing you to convert leading from points into inches. A standard point is equal to 0.0138 inches. Professional typesetting/layout programs (like Adobe InDesign) allow you to use points and picas to define all type measurements and settings. although you can also specify those settings in various other units (including inches).
Typically, book designers will develop more than one design for each book's interior, using different fonts, sizes, and leadings. They should typeset a few pages of the actual manuscript and print them out with the same page settings they plan to use in the final book (e.g., 6" x 9" pages). This allows the client to compare them side-by-side and evaluate them for readability and overall look.
And don't forget your target audience. Very young readers and very old readers do better with larger type. Books that are very textually dense with long paragraphs frequently need more leading and a wider font.
Ultimately, you have to choose based on what your gut reaction is to the typeset samples. It never hurts to ask other people to read it and tell you if one option is easier to read than another.
If you want to gain an appreciation for typography and how to make appropriate design decisions, I recommend the following excellent books:
The Complete Manual of Typography by James Felici
The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
Book Design and Production by Pete Masterson
For those who insist on using Microsoft Word to typeset books, you really should buy and study Perfect Pages by Aaron Shepard. He is the reigning guru of how to do it.
It is far better to buy professional layout software and then learn all you can about typography and how to apply those principles to book design...or to hire a professional to do for you. The latter course will leave you more time to develop a dynamic marketing plan for your latest book and start writing your next one!
What Font Should You Use For Your Book? Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection
Walt Shiel is the Managing Partner and Publishing Mentor at Five Rainbows Services for Authors & Publishers, a subsidiary of Slipdown Mountain Publications where he serves as Publisher. Besides offering a full range of affordable publishing solutions, Five Rainbows can tailor a mentoring program to help you achieve your specific goals for your book! And be sure to check out Walt's View From the Publishing Trenches blog.
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Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Chowder Soups - What Makes A Chowder, A Chowder?
Chowder Soups have been around for ages. But how did they get started and why are they so popular? Read on for a little chowder soup history... you'll have a mouth-watering experience, I guarantee it!
Chowder is typically a rich, creamy soup that is chock full of all kinds of ingredients that make it similar to a stew. The ingredients usually include seafood, vegetables and cream. However, over time, the basic seafood chowder has evolved to include all kinds of different flavors and textures.
Traditionally made chowder has a base of bacon and is thickened up with crackers that have been broken into the base. Today, there are all kinds of variations using everything from seafood and poultry, to just using vegetables - a good example is corn chowder.
Chowder Soups - What Makes A Chowder, A Chowder?
Famous chowders are found here in the United States. And THE MOST famous one would be Clam Chowder! There are two styles of clam chowder. One is called New England style clam chowder and uses a base of cream. The other popular version of clam chowder is called Manhattan style clam chowder and it uses a base of pureed tomatoes. Both are very delicious and each has a hearty and warm flavor that pleases most palates.
In earlier days, the seafaring communities developed slightly different flavors of chowders. The local fishermen would throw samples of their catches into a large cauldron or pot and boil the chunks of fish with all kinds of vegetables and potatoes. France calls this chowder soup "Chaudiere" - which is the name of the pot it is cooked in. The French also liked to throw in smashed crackers and biscuits to make the soup thicken into a stew-like consistency.
Americans adopted this seafood stew from the French settlers in the Northern colonies. "Chaudiere" eventually became "Chowder" to Americans and the first known and written recipe used that name for it's header in 1751. History tells us, however, that the recipe was extremely popular long before this so-called first written recipe. A good example is the British. They made their form of the seafood stew for many years before it became popular in the United States.
The early American Chowder soups included onions, bacon, fish, all kinds of spices, crackers or biscuits, claret and water and are often mistaken for bisque soups. But there is a difference between chowders and bisques. But that's a whole different story. You can find out more about Bisque Soups at the Soup Hoopla website - just follow the link below.
In the 1800's American cooks started to make the transition to using clams in their recipes - mostly because of the abundance of shell fish found in the New Colonies. Cooks began experimenting and adding cream to the chowders. They then began to differentiate different and unique types of chowder based on the ingredients used. Thus, other types of chowders appeared such as the above mentioned Corn Chowder or Sausage Bean Chowder or Beef Chowder.
Therefore, Chowder doesn't always have to include seafood. It's believed that all kinds of vegetable or meat chowders came into existence because the cook was just using up whatever ingredients he or she had lying around the kitchen.
By now you know that chowder comes in many flavors and is generally loved by all. You can try some of the recipes I have listed at my Soup Hoopla Web site and in addition to that, I have great instructions for making a basic chowder.
When you eat chowder, you are partaking in a little bit history too. Enjoy it and reflect on the abundance this country has to offer us.
Chowder Soups - What Makes A Chowder, A Chowder? Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection
Sara Gray is an avid lover of appetizers (and anything really to do with food!) and has created a couple of fun and informative websites. Easy Appetizer Recipes is where you can find delicious ideas for all kinds of hot and cold appetizers, raclette grilling, tapas small plates, snacks, chips and dip ideas, and holiday appetizers. And Soup Hoopla! has everything you ever wanted to know about soups, chowders, and stews - and of course, fabulous recipes too.
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