Favorite Home Remedies

Goodbyes are personal, especially if it’s coming from a loved one or a colleague. A person creates an impression and such an impression is carried through the memories of those who are close to him or her. It makes a departure quite complex. A simple goodbye may be enough, but you might as well use your creativity to make the parting of ways special. The extra mile you take in bidding someone farewell will make him or her feel grand. Chances are, your goodbye will forge a lifetime bond between you and that person.

Dedication Book

A collection of sweet yet honest messages is enough to melt a person’s heart to bits. Upon reading a dedication book, a person will feel loved, regardless if the messages are humorous or informal. To create one, just follow the procedure.

Procedure:

1. Cut several sheets of bond paper until they’re about the size of a small notebook.
2. Do the same for a two sheets of cardboard, but make them slightly larger than the bond paper.
3. Place the sheets in-between the two cardboard pieces.
4. Use a hole punch to bore a couple of holes at one side of the sheets and the cardboard.
5. Once done, slide a shoestring in one hole then make it exit through the other hole.
6. Tie the shoestring into a knot.
7. Decorate the covers of your dedication book with drawings or by pasting pictures and words.
8. Write a short message about the book’s recipient then sign it.
9. Pass it on to a buddy, loved one, or a colleague and ask him or her to do step 8. The chain of making dedications continues until everyone gets to say his or her piece.
10. Give the dedication book to its recipient.

Even after a long time, the dedication book will make the person remember all the good times he or she had with you. It will be treasured along with his or her most prized possession.

Surprise Party

When a person is moving to a different location, he or she is often expected to throw a farewell party, which comes as a welcome burden. Instead of letting your loved one or colleague shoulder the burden, you might as well throw the party along with your companions, but not just any party - a surprise party is always the most touching. Invite all the people that the person will leave him. You can also bring a few unexpected guests, so there will be surprises within the surprise. When everything is set, throw the party sooner than the recipient’s planned farewell. It will surely be received with tears of joy and lots of touching exchanges.

Group Present

Buying a present can be burdensome for your budget, but if your entire group bought or made a single, definitive present, the expenses will be pretty cheap. Besides, its recipient will view your group as a single entity, to be entered in his or her box of good memories. The present doesn’t have to be expensive as long as it is meaningful enough to make a lasting impression. Here some gift ideas:

• Rockband guitar or drum controller.
• A stylized box full of one liners coming from different members of your group.
• A scrapbook filled with honesty and bags of humor.
• A customized coffee mug with the pictures of your group printed on it.
• A CD which contains a custom playlist based on how each of you feel about the person leaving. Do some research on the songs’ lyrics just to make sure they fit the theme you envisioned.
• A dinner date with a local celebrity the person adores.
• An envelope filled with letters from your group. Send it via snail mail.

if you don’t agree with the choices, you can always tap your creative genius to come up with a good present. Just be honest with what you feel and use your mind to mold an idea out of that feeling. A good idea will eventually pop out.

An Honest Present Hits the Soul

A farewell present, no matter how simple it is, will rock the very foundations of it’s recipient’s soul. The person may not show it at first, but when he or she is alone, surveying it with care and conflict, the tips of his or her lips will certainly rise for a long time, perhaps forever, even though, it doesn’t seem obvious.

~

This is the author’s last post.

I had a great time sharing pieces of my life and experiences on this site as well as reading the comments. For months, I have considered this site as a third arm or a sixth finger. It will always have a special place in my mind, along with the other good memories I have. I’ll let you in on a little secret: some of the articles I wrote were based on actual events that happened in my life. I hope you appreciated them as much as I loved writing each article. Farewell everyone. Cheers.

One of the things I come back to again and again in my conversations with family, friends and colleagues is that there is no way to waste money on good health. Organic food can be pricey. A gym membership can be expensive compared to working out at home. Vitamins or medications can be burdensome. But if you can spend your money on one thing in this life, don’t let it be education, or your family, or your belongings. Spend it on health.

Warren Buffet is 78 and the second richest man on this blue dot. Do you think he’d be getting the accolades for wealth and investing acumen if he had died at 42? Maybe. Many rich people have died young. Many poor people have died old (and unlamented). Wealth and health have long been completely unrelated. I’m sure every one of us knows old poor people and young rich people, and the opposite, and many variations. But age has long been seen as a virtue, at least as valuable as wealth.

But the key question is: would you rather be old and moderately well to do, or die fabulously wealthy at a young age? I doubt many of us would wish to live a highroller lifestyle and die at 40 versus living a moderate middle-class lifestyle and dying at 80. Health is, in a sense, the ultimate prize.

If you consider a long life a valuable thing to pursue, it’s doubly amazing that so many people don’t bother. I pursued my career at the expense of my health for the best part of my twenties. I wasn’t thinking about life in my sixties – it was my money and I wanted it now. How many times have you told yourself that you’re just too busy at work to take some time to exercise?

I don’t exercise as much as I should. Four years ago I was running competitively, lifting weights 3-4 times per week and eating a 90% vegetarian diet – I was in the best shape of my life. But work, kids and life got in the way and I slid waaaaay back on the health scale. It’s easy to do, and if you’ve ever gotten in shape you know how simple it is to slide back. But that’s no excuse. Your health is the only thing – other than your mind – that you can control in this life.

Don’t neglect your health. I lost 100 pounds (actually a bit more) and it’s possible for anyone. Remember that your health is worth more than all the money in the world. Just ask someone who’s not healthy, and you’ll get a straight answer.

Photo by ~ggvic~

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there is no cost to good health

Health care reform is the hot topic right now. It’s all over the news and it’s become one of our government’s top priorities. President Obama and his administration talk about it quite a bit. They’ve been holding a variety of meetings and forums to discuss the topic and they’ve published several reports online discussing health reform. The official health care reform website, HealthReform.gov, hosts a variety of different resources on health reform.

We website features a “Health Reform Quiz” on the site - presumably to demonstrate how necessary health care reform really is. It poses 9 questions regarding health care, health insurance, and health reform, and then provides brief answers for each question. Although it seems like a compilation of interesting facts at first, after reading through it a few times, we don’t think its very effective. Feel free to view the complete Health Reform Quiz, but here are a few of the questions and answers that seemed unconvincing to us:

Q: Do more people die from work place injuries or from lack of health insurance each year?

A: 18,000 people die from complications as a result of being uninsured each year, while 5,657 people died from workplace injuries in 2007. In order to reduce preventable deaths it is imperative that health reform assures all Americans affordable coverage and improves patient safety.

Our Opinion: Does this comparison really matter? Why would they compare “lack of health insurance” to “work place injuries” - are they even connected? It would make more sense to compare the death rates of people with health insurance to people without health insurance. We fully understand that lack of health insurance can be detrimental to your health - but is this leading us to believe that you are significantly more likely to survive if you have health insurance? We’d like to see those statistics.

Q: True or False: Both men and women have a similar likelihood of being uninsured, but men are more likely to go into debt as a result of medical costs.

A: False: Women, especially in the deteriorating economy, are more likely to be adversely affected by the cost of are. They are 11% more likely than men to have medical debt or cost-related access problems. It is imperative that we protect families from high healthcare costs and that all Americans have quality, affordable care.

Our Opinion: I think they are missing the most important piece of the puzzle here: WHY? Why are women more likely to have medical debt? This question shouldn’t necessarily focus on the difference between men and women, but the reasons for health care discrimination. We’ve talked about gender discrimination in health insurance policies before - that should be the real topic of discussion, not who is more likely to go into medical debt. Fix the underlying problems first!

Q: Which is higher: the number of Americans who watch American Idol, or the number of Americans who lack a usual source of healthcare?

A: The number of Americans who lack a usual source of healthcare. 40 million people report that they do not have a usual source of healthcare while 25 to 35 million people tune in to watch American Idol. People most likely to experience a barrier to a usual source of care are uninsured and in the lowest income brackets. Providing a usual source of care will cost the system less and ensure better health. Health reform is necessary to reduce disparities and provide all Americans with quality healthcare.

Our Opinion: Again, this is just another silly comparison. When talking about health care, we’re considering the whole population: every single American living in this country requires health care at some point in their life. But when we’re talking about American Idol, we’re talking about a very limited portion of the population: only those who have the time to watch the show, and who are interested in that type of show. This question just seems like a feeble attempt to draw people into the issue by using the popularity of American Idol.

Honestly, it’s not that we’re trying to insult the Obama administration - we just expected more from their website. HealthReform.gov should be the best place to get information on health care reform, because it’s an actual U.S. Government web site, managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They should provide a comprehensive, all-inclusive look at our nation’s health care system. They should discuss the advantages of health care reform, along with the disadvantages. They should talk about how they want to reform the health care system, and what it will mean to Americans. They should answer real questions, like how much this is going to cost our country, what the cost of health care will be for Americans after the reform, whether this reform plan will eliminate private health insurance companies, and how the changes will impact doctors, nurses, and health care facilities.

What health care reform questions do you have? With all the talk going on these days, it’s hard to know what to think sometimes.

“Health Reform Quiz” Questions and Answers via HealthReform.gov

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from workplace expert Alexandra Levit, a Wall Street Journal writer and published author. Follow her on Twitter.

Technology is supposed to increase our productivity and reduce our work hours, yet many of us find the opposite to be true. We feel busier than ever, we stay at the office later than ever, and sometimes we leave without finishing a single task of substance! Do these five things right now and go to your family on time tonight.

1. Clear off your desk. When your office is cluttered, you’ll have the tendency to flutter around it aimlessly, without a clear sense of where you should channel your energy. I suggest thinking of every new item arriving on your desk as an insect that is infiltrating your territory. Your job is to dispose of it as quickly as possible, either by chucking it in the nearest recycling bin or putting it in its proper place. The only material on your desk should pertain to the task you’re working on at that very minute.

2. Get Your Google on. Manage your virtual world more time-efficiently by signing up for Google’s suite of offerings. The products, which include Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Sites, streamline tasks and facilitate collaboration among people working together on projects. Many are free, and the data are safely backed up and available everywhere you have an Internet connection.

3. Don’t buy that plane ticket. Do you really need to meet with that sales rep on the other side of the world? Video calling services like Skype, which is free and available in 28 languages, allow you to connect visually with anyone in the world via a webcam and a microphone. And what about that training seminar that will keep you out of the office for a week? Webinar technology like Cisco WebEx allows for one-way communication from an individual speaker to an audience, and it can include polling and electronic Q&A.

4. Order strategy – instead of donuts – for the team meeting. Do not call team meetings indiscriminately, and don’t put them on the calendar every week so that people take them for granted. Chit chat can be reserved for happy hour. We all know that real project work gets done outside the conference room and that we do not accomplish things simply by talking about them. Please don’t usurp an hour of valuable work time unless the meeting generates important strategy, delegates tasks to ensure team member accountability, or flags problems so that they can be managed before they get out of hand.

5. Nip procrastination in the bud. Raise your hand if you’ve spent weeks putting off a task that should only take a few hours because you know you don’t want to do it and fear you will spend too much time surfing the web and answering your e-mail? Fight the urge to put things off by breaking complex and overwhelming projects down into smaller chunks with easy starting points. After each mini-task has been completed, reward yourself with a special treat.

Alexandra Levit writes on workplace and career issues for the Wall Street Journal and is the author of They Don’t Teach Corporate in College and How’d You Score That Gig?

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

New York Times techonology writer David Pogue, a writer I admire, recently listed some of his best productivity tips — and it’s a good list. One thing I noted with interest is that he uses his email inbox as a to-do list, which is a fairly common practice.

And while there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, and I’ve done it myself, I wanted to make a quick counterargument.

An email inbox isn’t the best to-do list, and here’s why:

1. You can’t change the subject lines. This means your to-do list is made up of subject lines that often have nothing to do with the action you need to take. An email that says “today’s meeting” might really be an action to call someone or send a file to someone. You’ll need to open each email to find the actions, which is very inefficient. Or, you’ll need to remember what actions are associated with each email, and that defeats the point of a to-do list … the list is supposed to remember for you, and take the stress away from your brain.

2. There might be multiple actions in each email. What if an email contains 10 to-do items? You can’t delete or archive the email when you’ve done one or two of the actions. It’ll remain in your inbox until all 10 are done, as if nothing has been done. Also, you might forget that there are multiple actions in an email and file or delete it when you’ve done one of the actions — either that or you’ll be forced to remember that there are multiple actions in the email, again defeating the purpose of a to-do list.

3. You can’t re-order the emails (usually). Many email programs (such as the wonderful Gmail) just show the emails in the order they come in. Which means if you want to put the most important items at the top, you can’t. If you want to group all the items for errands, you’ll have to create a label for that and look there. It’s not as flexible as even the most simple to-do program.

4. You can’t prioritize your to-dos. Most readers know that I’m a fan of choosing your top 3 Most Important Tasks each day (see The Power of Less and Zen To Donefor more). But you can’t list just your top 3 Most Important Tasks in email — you have to list them all. In the order they come in. It’s possible to do a workaround for this, and create a label or folder just for important tasks, but then why use your email as a to-do list? Why not use an actual to-do list that works the way it’s supposed to?

5. An email inbox contains distractions. This is probably the worst thing on this list: if you’re looking at your to-dos in email, you’re in very big danger of new emails coming in and distracting you. I think it’s a bad idea to have email on all the time — it makes it difficult to focus. I’d prefer a simple to-do list that allows you to shut off email while you’re trying to get important work done.

So what’s a better method? Simple: choose a simple to-do list and as you process your email inbox, pull out the actions to the to-do list. A notebook or index card works fine, as does a simple program such as Taskpaper (my current favorite) or even a text file in Notepad or TextEdit. If you set up a keyboard shortcut for your to-do app or file, it just takes a second to copy and paste a to-do from an email.

I’m not saying you can’t work well and get great things done using an email inbox as a to-do list. David Pogue obviously manages to get a lot done this way, and I’ve done it from time to time. But it’s not the best way, at least for those who like a simple way to find individual, actionable items, to prioritize tasks, and to work without distractions.

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Apparently, there is a substance out there called spermine (yes, discovered in human sperm) that is said to be a powerful anti-oxidant used to diminish the appearance of lines and wrinkles by smoothing the skin.

A Norwegian company called get this, Bioforskning is synthesizing the substance in laboratories and selling it.

Spas such as Townhouse Spa and Graceful Services in New York are offering sperm-based facials.

Now I ask you this, would you pay $250 for a sperm-based facial?

Marshall University students are not interested in too much fun this summer, as some are actually spending their break counting mosquitoes.
One of the three Marshall University environmental science majors who are participating in the project, Chris Chadwick, said the group has often counted 1,800 in just one day.
The group [...]

For years we have been told that cooking our vegetables in a minimum amount of water, such as by steaming, was the best way to keep the nutrition in the vegetable.
A new study has turned that bit of traditional wisdom on its ear by discovering that some vegetables actually increase their [...]

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

One of the most striking things about my trip to Japan was how thin everyone was. I kept saying to my family, “There are no fat Japanese!”

That’s not entirely true, of course. Aside from sumo wrestlers, there are some Japanese people who are fat — but at least in my two-week trip to Tokyo, they were pretty hard to find.

Seriously: in America (including my hometown of Guam), you could walk around and half if not most of the people you see will be at least a little overweight. Many are outright obese. But in Japan, everyone is thin it seems. I could go a whole day without seeing a fat person, unless it was a tourist.

This is not groundbreaking news, I know — it’s long been known that the Japanese are among the healthiest people on Earth, with one of the lowest rates of obesity among developed nations and one of the longest average lifespans. But when you actually see it in person, it’s almost shocking.

During my stay in Japan, I formed some theories — and these won’t be groundbreaking either, but I think they’re worth reflecting on. Be aware, of course, that I’m not an expert in any related field here, and my observations are based on a two-week stay in Tokyo, and therefore are very, very limited. But here are the reasons the Japanese are not fat, in my opinion:

1. They eat a lot of seafood and veggies. It’s true that they eat red meat, and sometimes it’s fried. But red meat or poultry doesn’t seem to be the main staple of their diet as much as seafood, rice and veggies are. Meat seems to be eaten in smaller amounts (usually as a seasoning, not a main dish), or if it’s eaten in bigger amounts, it’s not an everyday occurrence. This is a generalization, of course, as is everything in this article, so there are many exceptions. Not everyone in Japan eats the same way.

2. They eat smaller portions. This is very striking, actually. While in American (and Guam) restaurants, the food is piled high in huge portions, or supersized in fast food restaurants, in Japanese restaurants the portions are … sensible. Not tiny, but definitely not large. You might get a bowl full of soup with some noodles and seafood (or meat), but if you take just the solid part it’s not a huge amount. Or you might get some seafood with rice and pickled veggies and miso soup — small amounts for each of those foods. The smaller portions is probably more important than the type of food they eat, in my opinion.

3. They walk and bike more than we do. This was pretty striking as well. It seems like everyone uses the subway stations and walks, every day. Their kids walk a good part of the way to school, instead of being dropped off by parents. And a LOT of people ride bicycles, everywhere. Usually not the kind you ride for exercise or training for races, but everyday, riding-around-the-city type of bicycles with baskets for a bag or two of groceries. This is all in contrast to us Americans, who ride cars everywhere, even to the corner store. (This is a generalization, of course — you my lovely readers are exceptions.)

It’s a combination of the walking, biking, eating smaller portions, and eating more seafood and veggies, that leads to the Japanese being pretty darn healthy in general. Any one of these changes would be a big improvement for most of us in America.

How I Lost 5 lbs. on My Summer Vacation
In just two weeks in Tokyo, without dieting or fasting, I lost 5 pounds and slimmed down.

I’m still not quite at my Leo vs. Bellyfat Challenge goal yet, but I’m getting there — I’m 17 lbs. lighter than I was when I started my challenge, all told. But the fastest fat loss during this challenge came in those two weeks.

And here’s the kicker: I wasn’t trying to lose weight!

Here’s how I did it:

1. I walked. For hours. Every day. My family and I walked all over Tokyo for two weeks — that’s me and Eva and the six kids, including one who rode around in a stroller. We walked about 15-20 minutes every morning to the subway station, then up and down stairs within the subway system (often transferring trains once or twice), then would walk for hours and hours exploring a new part of Tokyo. Then we’d repeat the subway trip and walk home, exhausted. Sometimes we’d walk for 10-12 hours in a day. Of course, we rested in between walking — stopping to enjoy a park or have a meal or a snack, or browse through a bookstore — but most of the time, we were walking. Great distances. Often hauling a 3-year-old toddler, a stroller, or a bag or two. Up and down lots of stairs and hills. It was an amazing amount of exercise, and by the end of the two weeks, my family and I were in great walking shape.

2. I ate moderate amounts. I didn’t stick to a meal plan, as I did early on in my Bellyfat Challenge, nor did I fast, as I started to do just before my Tokyo trip. I think both methods work great. But I decided to take a break from those methods during my vacation, and I didn’t worry about what or when I ate. My only thing was to eat until I was just full — to never stuff myself. I had desserts, I ate French fries (once in awhile), I ate white rice (I usually eat brown). I still ate fairly healthy most of the time, as I enjoy fruits and veggies a lot and fried foods kinda make me queasy, but I didn’t watch what I ate. I just ate moderate amounts.

These are really just my two Simple Fitness Rules, but the Tokyo tourist version of them, but they work. I didn’t have to worry as much about what I ate because I burned a ton of calories each day.

I hope to continue the walking, now that I’m back on Guam. As I’ve written about before, I’ve been walking more now that I’ve moved to a more central location here on Guam. I can walk to meetings, to restaurants, to see my sister, to the beach or playground. I’m going to step that up a little. There’s no way I can walk the ridiculous amounts I walked in Japan — I have a life, after all. But I hope to walk just about every day.

And not just for exercise — it’s important to walk with a purpose. While many of us will go walking for 30-45 minutes, for exercise, I’ve found that it’s better to walk somewhere, to do something. For example, when we walked all day around Tokyo Disneyland (which is obligatory if you have as many kids as I do), we didn’t think about walking — we were trying to get to the rides! And it was a fun (if tiring) day. On Guam, I hope to walk to places to do my work, walk with my kids to beaches and parks, go on hikes, walk on dates with my wife to restaurants and movies, walk to go on errands, and so on.

I encourage everyone to consider doing the same — you’ll be amazed at how great it feels.

Read more: Our Japan travel blog, and all our Japan photos.

If I was going to search deep within my (financial) soul I’d admit that most of my money decisions are based on fear. Fear’s a negative word, and I don’t think that in this case my decision making is always a negative process.  I am often quite happy with the result.  A great example has been my investing philosophy.  A little more than a year ago I got nervous about the direction the market was headed.  I took about a third of my retirement accounts’ total out of the market and put it into cash.  Good fear, right?  That chunk of my retirement savings would have been wiped out.

But after a year, I’ve only redeployed about a quarter of that third. You could make the argument – and I do, to myself – that holding onto cash is a defensive position.  Nothing about the current propped-up-through-stimulus-and-bailout money situation of the US economy should encourage a reasonable investor to get back in…should it?  Yet again and again we’ve seen these market drops come back.  So some of my reluctance is fear-based.

I’ve written about the reasons why I don’t talk about real estate investing. I said I don’t like “investing” in a primary residence, I don’t much about real estate or the business of real estate, and that the New York market – where I lived until recently – was too competitive.  I should have added that it usually seems like BIG chunks of money are needed for real estate investing.  Fear of investing in big chunks keeps me diversified in the stock market (index funds, right?) and keeps me afraid of real estate.

Fear of wasting money is good, certainly – but at least as far as investing goes, some fear and uncertainty are necessary to have any sort of reward. I’ve always dreaded a doomsday that seems unlikely to come – a final day with money and then a penniless dawn.  It could happen, of course – but with the ability to make more money (which I have) and good health (which I hope to continue to have) and a supportive family, it seems that I won’t face that doomsday.  So the fear is something more than trivial but also less than a doomsday event.

Does Warren Buffet fear loss? Probably not at this point – he’s old enough and seemingly content enough to be free of financial fear.  Does Bernie Madoff?  I guess now he will face his own doomsday now, and learn whether that fear should have been stronger.  How do you control fear of money?  Here are the things I try to do:

1. Remember that money is infinite. YOU may not have infinite amounts of money, but there is a lot of it out there, if you can just figure out how to get it.
2. You cannot anticipate every disaster, but you only need to anticipate one success. If you invest in a property, a billion things can go wrong – title problems, a fire, a sewage plant groundbreaking the day after you close, etc. etc.  You can’t prepare for everything.  Try to aim for success, not dodge failure.
3. Fear comes from you. Fear is not an externally-caused reaction.  Sure, we all get a jolt of adrenaline when we’re jumped by a cave bear, but you can control fear.  It’s not like being poked with a stick, where you have a reaction determined by nerves and muscle reflexes.  Fear is neurons firing off in your brain, and you can control your thoughts – they are the only thing in the world you CAN control.
4. Doomsday may come, true… but let fear of that day go. I do sometimes worry about all of my index funds and various other investments going to zero… but as I’ve often told my friends and family, if my retirement portfolio, invested in index funds that span the US market, goes to nil we’ve got bigger problems that worrying about retirement.  We’ll be reverting to a currency based on canned foods and shotgun shells.  Worry about your 401(k)’s fees, or your consumer debt with 21% interest rates – things you can do something about.  Don’t worry about the end of the world.  If the aliens come, you’re not prepared anyway.

Fear of money – worrying about its scarcity, or its disappearance – can cripple you from making more and even more importantly from enjoying life.

Photo by DownTown Pictures

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