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Your mental health is often drastically improved when you use the techniques Dr. Kuhn teaches in this article. When you are able to experience this improvement, your relationships blossom, career paths open, and people find you attractive and accessible. You deserve to have fun and joy in your life - and Cliff Kuhn, M.D. will help you do that.

In the classic Frank Capra film, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey’s mental health is overwhelmed by the difficulties of his life and he wishes he’d never been born. George’s guardian angel grants his wish and takes him to a grim reality as it would’ve been without him. George feels nothing when he reaches into his coat pocket to retrieve the flower his daughter, Zuzu, placed there - and that’s when George knows that his wish has come true…he’s never been born.

Wishing she had never been born, Roberta became my patient, seeking desperately to improve her mental health. Like the fictional George Bailey character, Roberta’s depression and anxiety had grown so strong as to threaten her ability to lead any semblance of a normal life. Fortunately for Roberta, she soon discovered exactly why the natural medicine of humor is one of the most powerful adjunctive treatments for improving mental health, because humor literally pours water on the fire of depression and anxiety.

Roberta is not alone. As many as 35% of all Americans suffer from depression and anxiety, the twins that make mental health elusive for millions. Your depression and anxiety is exacerbated by your seriousness - taking yourself too seriously. As we move into adulthood, we unfortunately buy into the notion that responsible and productive people must be “serious.” As we make the biggest mistake of our lives and relegate our humor nature and fun to recreational activities (if we experience fun at all), we doom ourselves to all the symptoms of the corresponding seriousness that fills the void - declining health, rising stress, increased pain, lessened energy, impaired creativity, and more.

The good news for your mental health, however, is that we know how to shrink your deadly seriousness to practically nothing and reduce almost completely the sway it holds over your health, vitality, wellness, and zest. The natural medicine of humor is an incredibly powerful resource that you already possess; you’ve only forgotten how to use it to maximum effectiveness. You will soon discover that, while not a panacea, the natural medicine of humor is a tremendous tonic for depression or anxiety and will also supercharge other treatments because it is an amazing adjunctive medicine too!

I have distilled the natural medicine of humor, through my years of medical practice, into an amazing prescription I call The Fun Factor. Based on what I learned over twenty years ago from a terminally ill fifteen-year-old patient, I created a unique set of principles I call the Fun Commandments, then forged these Commandments into my Fun Factor prescription and have been prescribing The Fun Factor with great success for years. This report will show you how to use just three of my Fun Commandments to turn your mental health around, and gain new joy, pleasure, and appreciation from your life!

Improve Your Mental Health Using My Fun Factor Prescription

Step One: Always Go the Extra Smile

The first Fun Commandment I recommend for improved mental health is: Always Go the Extra Smile. This Commandment is doubly helpfully for depression and anxiety because not only does it provide measurable emotional and physical relief, but it also is completely under your control - regardless of your circumstances. Because smiling remains totally under your control, it can be your greatest resource for using humor’s natural medicine to accelerate your mental health.

Smiling produces measurable physical benefits you can experience immediately: your stress decreases, your immunity improves, your pain and frustration tolerances increase, and your creativity soars. And guess what? You experience all these benefits even if your smile is “fake.” That’s right…forcing a smile onto your face perks up your immune system and lightens your mood just as readily as a genuine smile. Fake a smile and you’ll soon feel well enough to wear a real one!

This is great news for your proactive stance on sustainable mental health. You have an amazing amount of pre-emptive control over your mood - you can, literally, choose more energy and happiness. The key for your use of this Fun Commandment in enhancing your mental health is to start practicing right now, so that smiling becomes an entrenched, habitual method of accessing the natural medicine of humor. If you wait to smile until your mental health has taken a turn for the worse, and depression or anxiety has taken hold of you, it will not be as effective.

Step Two: Act and Interact

Smiling leads us right into the second Fun Commandment you’ll find instrumental in maintaining your mental health: Act and Interact. Humor’s natural medicine works best when we are sharing ourselves and this Commandment will teach you how to capitalize on the control you’ve taken over your physiology and mood by smiling. Acting and interacting is now easier for you to do because you’re smiling more. Not only is your mood improved, but your smile is also a pleasant invitation to other people.

My suggestion is that you solidify the power of this Commandment by setting a reasonable goal regarding the number of people you will interact with each day. These social interactions are great for your mental health, forcing you to exchange information and ideas with another person. Combined with your commitment to smiling, your interactions should be pleasant, because your heightened energy, lessened pain, and lowered stress levels are very attractive to others.

Beyond keeping you out of isolation, there is another reason why acting and interacting with the people you encounter fosters improved mental health. It allows you to avoid spiritual “flat tires.” Spiritual flat tires occur when you sidestep, or avoid, an interaction that is about to happen naturally - you duck into an office to avoid encountering someone in a hallway or you don’t answer the phone because you don’t want to talk to the person calling. This type of avoidance drains and deletes your reservoir of powerful natural energy and siphons your mental health reserves.

Have you ever noticed that it usually takes you twice as much mental and physical energy to avoid doing a job than you would have expended just doing it? It also takes twice the energy to avoid acting and interacting with the people who cross your path because you are, in effect, saying, “I’m going to correct the mistake that nature made by putting this person in my path and I’m going to correct it by being mentally and spiritually negligent.” Mental and spiritual negligence have the same effect as physical negligence (isn’t it strange how you get tired if you don’t exercise?). If your mental health can afford to allow this much energy to be drained, then you have a much bigger reservoir than I!

But spiritual flat tires do more than drain our energy, they are detrimental in at least two additional ways:

We miss out on an interaction with a teacher. If nature didn’t have a lesson for you, that person you just avoided would not have been placed in your path. You say that the person you just avoided was a negative influence or would’ve wasted your time? I know we have legitimate schedules to keep, but if I am avoiding people based on my prejudgment of them, I’m cutting myself off from my greatest teachers - those very same people.
We all learn tolerance from the intolerant, patience from the impatient, temperance from the intemperate, gentleness from the ruffian, etc. I am supremely grateful for those teachers and the lessons they give me.

We create a small, nagging spiritual void of dishonesty, the kind of dishonesty that keeps us from laying our heads down with complete peace of mind each night. Our spiritual flat tire is caused by the pothole our avoidance created; it is a natural consequence, or symptom, of our spiritual dishonesty. These consequences clutter our lives with mental and emotional baggage that further drains us of our energy and vitality.

Step Three: Celebrate Everything

The third Fun Commandment which will help you use the natural medicine of humor to charge up your mental health is: Celebrate Everything. Celebrating everything may sound like a monumental task to someone who’s mental health isn’t up to par, but you will find this part of my doctor’s orders much easier to fulfill once you start practicing my first two Commandments. In fact, celebrating everything is more than a maintenance step providing sustainable mental health. It will also become your lifestyle, the more you practice it, because you will enjoy the results so much.

How do you celebrate everything and how will this keep your mental health on the upswing? The epitome of this Commandment is found in the old joke about the boy who wanted a pony for his birthday. Instead, he found a room full of manure waiting for him. But he dove right into the dung, gleefully exclaiming, “With all this manure, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”

Laugh as we might, we’re quick to remember that, as adults, we would never allow ourselves such “naive” enthusiasm. Why not? Do you realize what is behind such a “grown up,” “mature” decision? Your deadly seriousness (taking yourself too seriously) encourages the attitude that a mature adult should not let herself be so optimistic and thus mental health is jeopardized.

We could do more than chuckle at this birthday boy’s unabashed optimism - we should emulate it! When was the last time you encountered an unexpected pile of manure in your life? You had absolutely no control over the mess, right? But you had absolute control over your reaction to it and this is the key to using celebration to keep your mental health improved!

When you celebrate everything, the natural medicine of humor creates spiritual, emotional, and mental health like nothing you’ve felt before. You will find that your fears become much less controlling when you are celebrating everything because it no longer matters so much how things turn out. In fact, you are literally ready for anything because you are prepared to find the blessing in whatever happens.

My daughter-in-law, for example, broke her back last year. My son, who is often my model for the embodiment of my Fun Commandments, can tick off a laundry list of blessings his family has received as a direct result of his wife’s “tragedy.” Not that his mental health hasn’t been challenged, but faced with the choice of depression and anxiety over an event he couldn’t control versus finding the blessings waiting for him, he has chosen the latter.

The choice to celebrate everything is not a panacea; my son’s choice did not change the reality of his wife’s injury. What did change, however, was his ability to respond to the injury and, thus, keep his mental health on an even keel. Celebrating everything changes our lives because it allows us to positively control the only things we have control over - our actions, ideas, and attitudes.

There you have it. Start by going the extra smile, use your newfound smiling energy and vitality to act and interact with people, and celebrate everything to maintain your positive momentum. Say good-bye to imprisonment from depression and anxiety and welcome to your new world of improved mental health!
Start Using The Fun Factor to Improve Your Mental Health…Right Now

Here are some simple, easy steps you can take right now to turbo-charge your mental health.

Subscribe to my Fun Times newsletter. The Fun Times is all about using your natural power of humor to increase the quality of your life - including your mental health. The Fun Times is 100% free, and is delivered instantly, every week, to your email inbox. If you sign up now, I’ll also throw in a copy of my “Stop Your Seriousness” Ecourse and my book, Ten Ways You Can Be Happier…Right Now! which will show you how you can use my Fun Factor prescription in your life to increase your mental health!

Check out The Fun Factor. This prescription has changed so many lives for the better - it would be a shame if you passed it up. Check it out here if you’re sick of wishing for mental health and want to finally achieve your greatest mental health!
My patient Roberta, by the way, learned to use these three Fun Commandments - and the rest of my Fun Factor prescription. She has enjoyed the same job for three years now and was recently engaged to be married. Roberta occasionally has setbacks, as most people suffering from depression or anxiety do. But, her mental health has never been stronger as she continues to apply The Fun Factor to her life.

In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey is so shocked by the grim vision of a world without him that he decides he wants to live again and begs to return. He knows he is back when he finds Zuzu’s flower petals in his coat pocket again.

Let this article be like finding Zuzu’s petals. Move forward today with a new, positive outlook on your improved mental health by using my Fun Factor prescription.

Clifford Kuhn, M.D., America’s Laugh Doctor, teaches people and organizations to be more healthy and successful through the use of fun and humor. A psychiatrist, and the former associate chairperson of the University of Louisville’s renowned Department of Psychiatry, Dr. Kuhn now dispenses his prescription for turbo-charging your health, success, and vitality from http://www.natural-humor-medicine.com/EZA3 On his website you will find tons of fun, free ways for you to maximize your sense of humor, and enjoy a life others will envy.

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How well are you preparing yourself for your voyage into major
exams? Are you using your time, money, and resources in the best
possible way to get great exam results? Or are you rushing
through, hoping that on test day you’ll somehow manage?

There was a very interesting program on the Discovery Channel
the other day about the Mongolian attempt to invade Japan in 1274.
Do you know the story? According to the program, the Mongols had
the best fleet of seafaring vessels in the world using cutting
edge 13th century technology. Their ships could survive a hull
breach because the ship was divided into waterproof sections,
which means that only a small portion of the ship would take on
water.

They also had the world’s most powerful bow, with a range of
over 300 meters (that’s three football fields laid end to end!),
and there was also evidence to show that the Mongols had a long
range explosive weapon — basically a bomb — as well.

So why were they defeated? You probably know the traditional
answer, that a ‘Divine Wind’ saved the Japanese. When it destroys
your home or your city, it is a typhoon or a hurricane, but when
it repels your invaders, it is a ‘Divine Wind.’
At this point you’re probably wondering what this has to do with
your exam results, so hang in there, I’m about to tell you.

This attempted invasion of 1274 was actually lost long before
the ‘Divine Wind’ (typhoon). It was lost when Kublai Khan, the
leader of the Mongolian army, so powerful that they had a myth
of invincibility surrounding them, made a decision to take a
short cut. The evidence at the bottom of the ocean shows that he
decided to use river boats rather sea worthy vessels. The ocean
vessels were great ships with a keel to keep the ship balanced
and enable it to weather a strong typhoon and stay afloat. River
boats have a flat bottom and no way to balance during an ocean
storm, so they are easily capsized.

With one decision, the decision to not prepare properly, Kublai
Khan sowed the seeds for the failure of the invasion, and also
destroyed the myth of invincibility of the Mongolian Empire thus
leading to its ultimate destruction.

It’s these little decisions you make, how well you decide to
prepare, that will ultimately determine how well you can weather
the storm — and get the great exams results that you know you
want and deserve.

How much better could you be preparing than
what you are doing right now? How much more wisely could you be
using your time? How great will it be going into your exam
knowing that you have truly done everything in your power to be
successful on your exams, and get those great exam results?

Here’s to Your Success!
Teresa Bolen

Copyright 2006 by Teresa Bolen. All rights reserved.

Teresa Bolen is a teacher at Todaiji Academy, one of the top 5
schools in Japan, and the author of Master Plan to Master Exams:
How to Discover Your Hidden Abilities to Create the Success You
Desire. You can get her ‘Academic Excellence Report’ at
http://www.MasterPlanToMasterExams.com.

‘Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life
you have imagined.’
— Henry David Thoreau –

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The pearl has always been a rather prim and proper piece of
jewelry - classic and seeped in tradition that never goes out of
style. Well things they are a changing! This year not only has
the pearl is had a very glamorous make over it’s a front and
center fashion statement! Yes, the classic strand still exists
as it always will. But we warned we are seeing some vary daring
looks from the pearl this season. Extra long lengths, tasseled
multi strands, pearls with semi precious stone accents, pearls
on gold or silver chains. The pearl has been transformed into a
fun and fashionable accessory.

The glow or radiance of a pearl is the most important quality.
Avoid pearls that are chalky or dull as they will be weak and
may crack or peal. The surface of the pearl should be blemish
free - no bumps or cracks. Inspect under a bright light. Baroque
pearls are the exception to this rule - their charm is in their
irregularities.

Pearls are measured in millimeters. The larger the pearl the
higher the cost. A 6 mm pearl is going to be much less than a 12
mm pearl. The least expensive pearls are the freshwaters which
mainly come from China. They come in all shapes, sizes, and
colors. Average size is around 7 mm

The best way to care for your pearls is simply to wear them. The
natural skin oils keep them moisturized. Do not put them on
until you are done with your cosmetics. This includes hair,
facial, and perfume. The residues from these products will ruin
your pearls. Do not wear your pearls in the water - chlorinated
and salt water will damage them. Polish with a soft cloth and
never use jewelry cleaning products on your pearls.

Quality pearls are not cheap but they will last a lifetime.
Freshwater pearls are becoming very affordable. Not all of us
will be in the market for “Real Pearls” and lucky us there are
plenty of options. Swarovski makes a crystal pearl that is of
the finest quality and quite difficult to tell from a true pearl
for a fraction of the cost and they are available in a variety
of colors. There is an endless supply of imitation pearl or
costume jewelry pearls on the market. These are offered in a
wide variety of styles and colors. Great fun at affordable
prices.

So you ask what’s “In Style” this season? Well I’m glad you
asked! Pearl rings get the green flag - from low settings to
monster large solitaire pearls, they are all the rave. A pearl
ring can go from romantic and simple to sleek and stunning. The
Bib Necklace makes a very dramatic statement. A broad necklace
that tapers towards the back just like a baby’s bib [thus the
name]. They range from extremely wide to as narrow as a “. This
style works great with a simple black dress or strapless
neckline.

The multi-strand necklace is ever so preppy. They range from 12″
to 18″ and pearls are usually small to medium. The object of
these necklaces is for every pearl to be in perfect placement.
Very versatile and fashionable. The opera length necklace simply
never disappears from the fashion scene. They measure 36″ or
longer and they can be worn as a long single lean line, doubled
up, tied in a knot, wherever the moment takes you. These long
strands are terrific for dressing up a pair of jeans or semi
casual look.

The tassel necklace from the footloose and fancy free1920s has
made a come back, and rightly so! Today tassels are often made
from tiny seed pearls or irregular baroques. They range in
length fro short at 16″ to navel length at 36″. The tassel
necklace swings and sways with your movement making it a must
have for those night of dancing.

This season for first time, we are seeing pearls mixed with
colored gems such as amethyst, peridot, or topaz. They
compliment each other nicely - pearls with their soft and subtle
shades mixed with semi precious gems with their vibrant and bold
color. Picture it - what a fashion statement!

Pearls mixed with silver is also new this season. Long silver
chain dangle earrings accented with pearls, or freshwater
droplets set on silver. This season the pearl is all about the
color. Pearls are available in many hues but this season the
“hot spot” is “lavender” and the lavender family ranging from
pale iris to plum.

If you already own a beautiful classic pearl necklace its very
easy to transform it into something from this season. Try adding
a group of charms or pendants, fastening a vintage brooch or
clip[ on earring at the bottom. You could mix various lengths or
sizes of pearls together or entwine a silver or gold chain. How
about mixing your real pearls with your fake pearls? The options
are as endless as your imagination.

Remember when you freshen your wardrobe for the spring, freshen
your costume jewelry too and Make Your Fashion Statement!

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An affiliate web site is enough to make you some serious cash, and one does not really require to bother themselves trying to build a web site which will most probably look second rate anyhow, at least when compared to the frequently extremely professional affiliate web sites.

Yes, it has often been advised by experts for people to create their own sites to use to direct highly targeted traffic to their affiliate web sites. But that piece of advice was originally issued when the World Wide Web was a very small place. Even blogs did not exist. Today blogs not only exist and dominate the net, but they are so many that they’re almost drowning most web sites out of existence.

The situation is made much more complicated where somebody is using promotional articles to market and promote their affiliate web site. It means that you will have to direct traffic from your article to your web site and then re-direct the same traffic onto your affiliate web site. That’s quite a long journey and you are guaranteed to lose many along the way. Why not just use the articles to direct your prospects direct to your affiliate web site? This means that most of your time will be devoted to working on your content and not to trying to maintain a web site that has very poor traffic anyway.

This writer uses articles and also maintains various blogs, because blogs are really just very convenient vehicles for good content. I see no need to have cumbersome web sites, which I have had in the past and they have tended to be more of a bother than an asset.

By combining well distributed, quality articles and blogs to post the same articles at, one can make some very serious money from affiliate programs without having their own web site.

Learn more about the best home business opportunity from a blogger who rakes in thousands of dollars… and growing from their home business. Also get the bloggers’ amazing free report How I used only free articles marketing to get thousands of hits daily at my site.

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Color contacts can be one of the most intriguing and interesting ways to change your look, but the question for most contact wearers is how to find the most beautiful color contacts for your eyes. Many people want beautiful color contacts that look like their own eyes as opposed to the fake look that some color contacts can produce. Others, however, enjoy the bold dramatic look of a completely different eye color. All About Vision lists several ways to choose the most beautiful color contacts for your look.

The Bold and the Beautiful

All About Vision offers that the first type of color contact winner is someone who wants to make a bold statement to the rest of the world. All About Vision offers that a brown eyed person could achieve this by wearing a green or blue pair of colored contacts. They also offer that a darker skin tone can be turned bolder by a bright pair of contacts. Also, they recommend contact lenses that will contrast with the eye makeup that you may wear.

The Natural Look

Still there are those who would rather wear a natural looking pair of contacts. Subtle changes are good for people who only want to enhance the natural beauty of your eyes. For example, if your eyes are blue, go for a green or a hazel. Also, go for an enhancer lens that deepens the natural color of your eyes. Instead of going against your makeup, go with the flow of your makeup if you want a more natural look.

Where you Wear Them

All About Vision offers that color contact wearers should consider where they are planning to where their contacts. If they want a natural every day look, follow All About Visions recommendations. If you want a fun and funky look for going out, consider the more bold recommendations.

Timothy Gorman is a successful Webmaster and publisher of Vision-Doctor.com. He provides more contact lens tips and discount color contact lenses that you can research and purchase in your pajamas on his website.

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About a decade ago the thought of a wall-mounted TV may possibly have looked like something from a sci-fi film It was out of the reach of most avid buyers, with higher fees that required taking out a 2nd mortgage to gain these particularly glossy tellies. Nevertheless, over time, these wonderful TV sets reached the level of attainability. However, still not something you can just go out and pay for, it has nowadays progressively become much more of an option. Marked-up prices for these flat panel High-Definition Television sets are at this moment diminishing more rapidly than new home prices, and have made the electronics dream a reality.

Currently there are 2 competing flat-panel equipment; plasma and LCD. Despite the fact that each brand gives a brilliant picture & these sets do look the same from the front, the machinery on the inside is very much different. And whereas LCD tellies have been limited to 37-inches and smaller, television sets with the liquid crystal display technology are now in sizes as huge as plasma. If you are looking to grab an offer on a 26″ LCD TV then look no further than Digital Direct.

Nonetheless, in spite of that, many shoppers consider plasma to offer more than a few fundamental advantages over LCD tellies. The key advantages is that plasma sets usually contain deeper black levels-indicating that the blacks are really black and not barely a dark gray. This in turn means that the colours are much more colourful & realistic. The most current models from Pioneer and Hitachi have actually taken the black levels to undreamt of depths, and thus have constructed the greatest images we have witnessed to date.

Regardless of the gossip that plasma television sets “needs to be recharged” after 5,000 hours, nothing could be far more from the truth. These days flat panel plasma TV’s should often work for 60,000 hours or more, offering years of first-class telly viewing. Although there has been a worry over issues like that of burn-in (fittingly so, as this may possible ruin that expensive television), the most modern models have equipment to tackle image retention, providing pixel shift methods that slowly move the complete screen and more critically, eliminate any ghosting should static images essentially “stick” the picture. This includes a white wash mode besides an opposite mode to eliminate any burn-in.

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The 3 most common wrong conclusions in search of God are as
follows:

1. Time

2. Space

3. Human

Make sure you avoid them, and then search for truth.

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Must we re-think the weekly menu and grocery list 52 times a year! What if we create a basic monthly menu and general shopping list which can be used over and over? Of course, this is flexible, and new items can be added to your menu while the ones you’re tired of can be deleted, but the idea is to MAKE a menu plan, PRINT IT OUT and take it with you when you MUST make an emergency trip to the grocery store.

Hopefully, this will prevent the problem of “I got a full basket of groceries and NOTHING to eat!” Most of these are simple meals that don’t need a lot of fuss to get to the table.

My 5-week plan has 5 dinner meals each week. This allows for one leftover night and one night out.

You can make the meals as simple or complicated as you want. For example, many grocery stores offer baked chicken in the deli. You may choose to purchase this instead of baking it yourself at home. You may choose canned green beans and instant mashed potatoes or you may have the time to make the baked chicken yourself, fresh green beans and homemade mashed potatoes.

You decide what works for you!

Week One:
- Hamburgers, lettuce, tomato, cheese, oven fried potatoes
- Baked Chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy
- Macaroni and Cheese, Spinach
- Pea Soup and ham, garlic bread
- Shrimp and rice, broccoli

Week Two:
- Tuna noodle casserole, corn, chicken soup, cheese, noodles, mayo
- Polish sausage, pan-fried potatoes, red cabbage
- Veal stew, potatoes, carrots, beef bouillon
- Tacos, cheese, taco seasoning, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, ground beef
- Chicken Chinese meal, snow peas, rice, chicken breast, carrots

Week Three:

- Chicken breast, rice, spinach, mushrooms
- Spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread, salad
- Pork chops, Au gratin potatoes, sauerkraut or red cabbage
- Beef Stew, potatoes, and carrots
- Lasagna, salad

Week Four:

- Hot dogs, baked beans, sauerkraut
- Steak, rice, salad
- Omelets and pan-fried potatoes
- Meatloaf, potatoes, carrots
- Soup and sandwich (egg or tuna salad), chicken noodle soup

Week Five:

- Homemade Pizza, salad
- Vegetable dinner, steamed squash, corn on cob, carrots, green beans, hot rolls
- Cabbage rolls, soft bread steaks, salad
- Chicken noodle casserole, carrots or vegetable in season
- Shrimp, red beans and rice, steamed broccoli

Focus on the weekly specials of fruit and vegetables in season; changing as needed.

Staples: flour, sugar, cereal, orange juice, soup, mayo, condiments, salt and pepper, paper products, cleaning products, personal products.

by Leslie Sausage
heart4home.net

Leslie Sausage lives with her husband in rural Texas. She is the mom of four grown children, a freelance writer and an elementary school teacher! She is the author of several eBooks. For creative, practical and fun ideas please visit her web site at http://www.heart4home.net

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A few days ago, I critiqued a chapter for a writer I’d been working with for some months. The main thing we’d been working on was ‘de-cluttering’ her writing. In many sections of her work her natural style came through: it was smooth and easy to read, and I could see the promise there.

In other sections, the pace slowed down dramatically. The action was explained and then explained again in slightly different words. Really, there was no need to ‘explain’ it at all. Readers bring a vast amount of experience to every book they read. They have seen countless movies and TV shows; they watch the nightly news coverage; they read books, magazines and newspapers. Want proof?

I’m going to write a list of common events. Note the images that come into your mind when you read these words.

• driving a car

• having a BBQ

• eating out in a ritzy restaurant

• a car accident

• a terrorist attack

Did I have to ‘explain’ these events? Did I have to outline how to turn the key and put the car into gear? Did I have to mention the type of clothes worn at a BBQ or a ritzy restaurant? What about a terrorist attack or a car accident?

I’m sure you were able to fill in most of the details from your own viewing or reading or personal experience. All I need to do as a writer is to use the viewpoint character in the scene as a ‘filter’ for the setting, emotions and immediate impressions. You can supply the rest.

Now let’s go back to the writer whose work I was critiquing. Ms. Writer had started to cut a lot of the clutter in her scenes, but I was still finding plenty to work on.

But this time… no. I hardly had to touch it. What had made the difference?

I emailed her with congratulations and asked what she’d been doing. I thought she may have spent more time editing, this time, before sending it off to me. Or perhaps she had put some distance between herself and the writing by putting it aside for a week before polishing?

Her answer surprised me - although it shouldn’t have. For a change, she told me, she’d sent this one virtually hot off the computer. After my response, she had come to the conclusion that maybe she’d spent too much time editing in the past - tinkering with it then tinkering some more. Now she was wondering if all she’d done was make it unnecessarily wordy!

An interesting question. Had she simply added clutter? Is it better to just write something, give it a quick read through, and then leave it? When have we done enough editing? When have we fiddled with something too much? Is there any way to know?

That, of course, is the hard part. At what point might we start to spoil a piece of writing instead of make it better?

There isn’t a pat answer. If there were, someone would have made a fortune by now selling you the secret. What you have to do is discover your own needs as a writer. You may be one of those who improves a piece of writing immeasurably after editing and polishing. On the other hand, you may write almost-perfect first drafts (lucky you) - and simply make things worse when you tinker. Here are a few tips to help you work out what’s best for you.

Get Feedback

It’s very hard to know whether your editing is on track without some kind of feedback. You can get this from a critique service, but that can get expensive. The best solution is to join a critique group - or start one up yourself. An online group works well for many writers: you can send email or download the results at a time that suits you.

You don’t need a big group. This is counter-productive, because you have to do your share of giving feedback as well as getting it. If you’re spending most of your writing time critiquing somebody else’s work, you’ll start feeling frustrated. One or two critique partners can work very well. Start by joining a writer’s discussion list, and after a few weeks you should get a good sense of who might make a good critique partner for you. Send an email and ask if that person is interested. (Try typing ‘discussion lists for writers’ into your search engine and you’ll find plenty of places on the Net where writers meet.)

When you’ve found a critique partner or two, start exchanging scenes and stories. You can then send the revised version and ask whether you’ve made it better or worse. After doing this a number of times with several people, you’ll have a good sense of what your natural editing/polishing skills are like.

Give Yourself Distance

This is well-worn advice, but worthwhile nonetheless. The very best way to ’see’ your own writing clearly is to give it space. The best editing is done after having some time away from the manuscript. You see mistakes so much more clearly when you’ve let the first draft sit for a week or more. Writers seem to find this incredibly hard to do - they want to write, edit and send it away!

Don’t. Give yourself time and space - the more the better. This is particularly important if you don’t have a critique partner. The longer you leave it, the better chance you have of looking at your own work through fresh eyes.

When To Stop Tinkering

What if you keep spotting something else that needs work? You’d love to send it away… but it never seems ready!

Welcome to the world of the chronic tinkerer. You are in danger of never getting anything published because nothing will ever be good enough to send away. Face it: we all find something that we should have fixed when it’s too late. Like most published authors, I’ve read through the advance copy of one of my books, winced at a sentence or a phrase or even a whole scene, and thought: I wish I could go back and rewrite that!

If I’d kept thinking that for draft after draft after draft, the book would never have made it to the publisher. Tell yourself that you’re going to keep improving as a writer. That means you’re always going to see something in your past drafts that needs fixing. But there comes a time when you have to stop - and just send it away.

How do you know when that is? There are a couple of ways.

1. You’re sick to death of your whole story. If you have to fix one more thing, you’re going to throw up. This is a sure sign you’ve done enough - for now. Send it away, or

2. Put it away for a while. Be firm with yourself. Resolve not to look at it again for at least four weeks. Then take it out, give it a quick read-through, and mark only the places where something screams out to be fixed. If it jars - work on it. If it reads smoothly enough, leave it alone. Fix it, then send it away.

3. If you trust your critique partner or group, ask them to tell you when they think your story is ready. Remind them not to suggest changes just for the sake of it - you need to know if it’s ready for a publisher, that’s all.

A Final Thought

If you feel you’ve done pretty well all you can to make sure your story is well-paced, well-told and free of technical errors, then send it away. It’s better to have something out there, testing the marketplace, than to spend five years tinkering. While you’re waiting for its acceptance, rejection or (if you’re lucky) some feedback, you can be working on your next story. And guess what? You’ll find that this is a great way to get some perspective on the first one, because you’re not obsessing over it night and day. If it does come back, either send it out to a different publisher or put it aside until you’ve finished your work in progress. Then look at it again. You’re sure to view it much more objectively. This is the time to decide whether it needs more work - or whether it should be treated just as a good learning experience.

(c) Copyright Marg McAlister

Marg McAlister has published magazine articles, short stories, books for children, ezines, promotional material, sales letters and web content. She has written 5 distance education courses on writing, and her online help for writers is popular all over the world. Sign up for her regular writers’ tipsheet at http://www.writing4success.com/

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An excellent TV commercial shows a roomful of employees receiving from a manager the paperwork for their employer-sponsored retirement plan. The manager tells them to read the information, check off their investment choices, and return the forms. The workers have that deer-in-the-headlights stare. When the manager asks, “Are there any questions?” every hand goes up.

The image is so good because it is so real. From the anecdotes that we hear, this situation is common at many US companies. Managing employees to productivity and profitability is plenty tough. Helping them save for retirement is something else again.

Although they usually have the best of intentions, companies don’t have the wherewithal to help every employee along every step to retirement nirvana. Most important, they don’t want the fiduciary responsibility for individual plans. If they make a mistake and an employee loses a bundle, here comes a lawsuit! A one-size-fits-all pension makes more sense, and the employee can handle his own 401K or 403B.

Often management hands off the duty to the representative of a fund family or other advisory service. That happened to us in the 1980s. The rep pulled out a list of funds and said the magic word-”diversify.” Then he told us that we needed a bond fund and an international fund and an index fund. “Technology’s big, so you should have money in that fund.” We checked the funds that he suggested, and we never saw or heard from the guy again. He was nowhere to be found when the market and all those funds crashed in 1987. That’s when we decided to think and act for ourselves.

Maybe you have decided the same thing and that led you to thr Retirement Funds section, you should be able to find a model portfolio that suits your investing goals and temperament.

First, do a little homework to make sure that your are making the best investing decisions. For employer-sponsored plans like 403Bs, that means going to your personnel department or plan manager and asking some questions. Make sure you know exactly how much you can contribute to your plan each pay period. Remember that workers over age 50 can add more dollars to their account due to “catch up” provisions added to tax law in 2003.

Most 403Bs offer several families of mutual funds. For convenience or other reasons, a plan administrator might try to steer you into one or two particular fund families, usually the larger ones. That’s not always a good deal. One reader was looking at the big companies for her plan until she discovered that our favorite group, albeit a smaller fund family, was also available. It will save her a ton on fees, etc. So make sure that you see every name on the fund list before making a choice.

Speaking of fees, there is a wide range of management fees and other costs associated with the funds that you choose. They can add up and greatly diminish your returns. Since the funds offer essential the same service, it’s often a good idea to pick the company with the lowest fees. Also check to see if the company charges an “account transfer fee” for moving in and out of funds on a regular basis, usually in 60 days or less. If you follow the portfolios, you’ll make changes depending on market conditions. You want no account transfer fees or the lowest fees possible.

Of course, you’ll want to check the track records of the funds. Returns vary, and the companies are quick to remind investors that solid returns in the past are no guarantee of future success. If you’re limiting yourself to index funds, the returns should be uniform across the board.

Once you’ve made your choice of fund family, put together a short list of specific funds that you are likely to use in your portfolio. The list should include an index fund, a money market fund, an international fund concentrating in Asia, a bond fund or two, and large, mid and small cap stock funds. Keep it simple.

Then set up your account according to your personal preferences or follow one of the model portfolios, and let the pre-tax salary dollars roll in.

Last, and most important in our view, you should spend about 10 minutes a week monitoring your portfolio. Check your returns and see if any funds are lagging. You’ll find our opinion about market direction and whether we’re adding to positions, heading to cash, or standing pat. If necessary, you can adjust your holdings with a few mouse clicks or a quick phone call.

Spend a little time preparing for your future today, and you’ll never have to sheepishly raise your hand at a company retirement meeting.

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