What Will Your Legacy Be

How many of us have ever wondered if we have made any difference in this world?

As in the words of the Lee Ann Womack song, remember, "as you move through the days and the years of your life, you do not go unnoticed. You leave a trail, impressions and footsteps, unquestionable proof that you existed in the live of those around you. If you ever think you've not made much of a difference in the world, you have to me." And, I thank you.

Many who accomplish something worth leaving behind start from humble beginnings.

Think about Mozart, who learned to play the piano at age 4 years. At age 5, he began composing music. By age 14, he had composed several instrumental and orchestral pieces. Although he died in poverty, he created over 600 works of music, which are studied and performed by musicians throughout the world. When Mozart dreamed, there were symphonies and concertos playing in his head, and that is something worth leaving behind.

Think about Da Vinci, who was born the illegitimate son of a peasant woman and an Italian merchant. He became a brilliant engineer, painter, and creator of masterpieces as a relatively young man. When Da Vinci dreamed he saw marble as beautiful sculpture. He looked at the walls of a church and saw The Last Supper. The looked at a blank canvas and saw the Mona Lisa. All of those were somethings worth leaving behind.

Now, think about Oseola Mc Carthy. Her formal education did not surpass grade six, although she knew education was vitally important to life. She was forced to drop out of school at a young age to help her family. She wanted to be a nurse, but spent her life working as a washer woman who saved a portion of her meager wages on a regular basis, enabling her to amass a tremendous savings, of which she donated $150,000, to a scholarship fund for students at the University of Southern Mississippi. When Ms. Mc Carthy dreamed she saw a future full of possibilities for young people to do even better than she did.

When I think of the gift I want to leave behind, I dream of a world full of beautiful colors, and shapes, and sizes, and sounds, and textures. My world is full of vibrant reds, and purples, and greens, and blues, and yellows; all mixing together to create a monage of endless patterns. When I think of something worth leaving behind, I reflect on all the experiences in my life that have left an indelible mark on my consciousness. I think of the time in basic training, when I had my hair beautifully styled by one of soldiers on my team that was a cosmetologist, and being sent out to the sawdust pit to "exercise," in the dark of night during a rainstorm in Fort Leonardwood, Missouri.

The exercise session began as I propped my chin up with my hands and tried to continuing rolling left and right, protecting my well coiffed hair. With the onslaught of front, back, go (ie, push-up, crunch, run-in-place) being wailed louder and louder from the drill sergeants standing in the staircase (some chuckling hysterically), the ridiculousness of me trying to save my hair from a certain drenching was laughable. That moment was meant to teach us to maintain a positive and fearless mental attitude, even in a time of stress.

When I think of something worth leaving behind, I can smell my late grandmother's coconut buns baking in the oven, or my mom's homemade bread and ice cream, or my dad's big pot of soup, made with last nights leftovers and anything else he found in the refrigerator.

I think of the beautiful paintings my brother has created that now adorn my walls.

I think of the egg cartoons another brother craftily sketched all over walls of the house we grew up in. Although this amused us, my mother did not find the jokes so funny.

I think of the quirky things some of my students do to imitate the people they love.

When I think of something worth leaving behind, I think of all the people surrounding me on a daily basis, and the great encouragement that we can give each other. I think of a world where people take stock of their talents and gifts, and find ways to share them with the world at-large. I think of a way to create the type of community where each of our world views can connect what is in our heads with what is in our hearts to leave a lasting impression on all.

Most importantly, when I think of something worth leaving behind, I think about the gifts that we can share with each other. That the seeds we plant and water with our words of encouragement become blessings. That feelings become songs. More than the tangible, time together becomes memories. Each of us has talents and gifts that are worth sharing, a diversity that truly makes this community so wonderful, and that is really something worth leaving behind. As you conclude this article, please take a moment to inventory your gifts and talents that you can share with the world and make sure to give generously of the gifts that have been bestowed upon you. This world can only be a better place, if everyone were to use their talents to the fullest. Take care of yourself and make a pact to make a difference.

Adrienne Vyfhuis is a motivational trainer, and creativity coach in the Washington, DC area, with a background in biomedical engineering and clinical psychology, who specializes in career and academic development with young adults and career professionals at all levels. She currently runs a training business and facilitates seminars on dreams development, self-motivation, discipline and staying focused. She has developed and facilitated hundreds of workshops around those topics and currently has several journals in publication which enhance her clients ability to record and continually improve their focus and life progression. She is particularly skilled in teaching parents and grandparents to work with developing the skills, and abilities of their children for life-long impact. Check the website at: http://5houserocks.com for more information.

Get free Nurse Jokes by americas favorite Nurse Comedian Karyn Buxman

Where to Go on Your First Date

That is an age-old question. Cave men had it made. They firmly believed in kidnapping and taking their date to a filthy cave out in the middle of nowhere. Those were what was known as the good old days. Now days first date destinations and plans are a little trickier. First let’s cover where NOT to go on a first date.

The old standby of dinner and a movie is a really poor choice for a first date. How will you get to know the lady if you are sitting in a darkened theater with a movie being shown? If you choose the movie, there is probably going to be a lot of frantic car chases and a lot of blood involved. Neither are conducive to creating a memorable evening.

Also, don’t take your date to your parent’s house! She will know right away that you are a mama’s boy and you will never see her again.

Don’t take your date to a sleazy bar with a motel out back. You will scare the poor woman to death. She will jump out of the car and hitchhike back to town believing that she would be safer with a burly truck driver than with you.
Now, some good first date ideas are:

Begin with a simple lunch or coffee date. You want to keep the date casual so suggesting meeting up for lunch or coffee can be a good start. This way, if the date didn’t go so well, you can end the date there but if you enjoy each other company, you have the rest of the day to spend getting to know each other better.

Here are some ideas of where to go if the lunch or coffee date tells you’re there is some good chemistry happening:

If it is the season, an amusement park or a theme park is a good first date idea. It doesn’t matter how old you are, we can all be big kids at heart. There’re so much you can do at amusement parks and theme parks that most likely you will forget about the dating pressure and just have fun.

Most well populated areas have an array of museums covering many different subjects. Visiting one that is dedicated to something that you have in common with the woman is another good first date idea.


Let us show you the steps to marriage separation reconciliation.

Give Your Child Piano Lessons at Home

Did you know that you can give your child piano lessons at home? It won't cost you very much and is very simple to do. The first thing that needs to be done is to download a simple piano course on the Internet. You can use these lessons for your child and you will be saving hundreds if not thousands of dollars by doing it this way. The cost of piano lessons from a private instructor is outrageous to say the least, and if you add up the cost of the amount of years you want your child to be taking the lessons it is astronomical. Take a couple of hours per week and teach them yourself and get the satisfaction you can get from being their teacher.

Children love to express themselves, and piano lessons give them a way to do this. If you look at the concentration level it takes for a child to get through their lessons, you will really appreciate how much emotion they are actually putting into their music. There is so much expression and creativity in a child's playing of the piano and it is something to be respected. The next time your child practices the piano take a look at his expression and you will have a real source of pride in your child.

When you give your child piano lessons you are giving them a basic building block to learn other instruments. Once a child has developed enough knowledge to play intermediate songs on the piano they will have built up a new source of self-confidence. They will have pride in their accomplishments and this will lead them towards playing other instruments. They will be able to pick up the concepts and technical aspects of any other musical instrument much easier if they have a solid piano base from which to grow.

When you give your child piano lessons at home you are making a real investment in their future. Your child will gain a sense of music appreciation that will stay with them for the rest of his life. He will value music and the arts a lot more for his entire life because of the time invested now. As the creator of fine music he will understand more about song creation and have a deep respect for musicians and their art. This love of music will help guide them through their life, and will even influence them in any of their intellectual undertakings in the future.

As a parent you have taught your children more than you even realize. Why not teach them how to play the piano as well? You will be able to share both their joy and their frustration, and when they fully master one step, you can share in their pride. Teach your child piano lessons and it may be may be one of the best things you ever do in your life.

My name is Bryan and I have been playing the piano for over ten years. I personally know what it takes to become a good piano player. If you want to learn how to play the piano, visit http://www.lifesmusic.com

Discover online piano course reviews in the Play Piano Guide.

Hiring a Quality Home Movers

Moving from one dwelling place to another is a normal scene in Singapore. A number of occupants are not home owners. They are just tenants. The reason is that owning a house is not easy especially for non Singaporean citizens who obviously make up the lion's share of Singapore's manpower. Thus housing service is mostly on a yearly contract basis.

Given this real scenario and considering the volatile behavior of the real estate market, the demand for home movers is high in Singapore. While there are many service providers, it pays to do your job in screening out the most dependable home movers particularly if you are short of cash. And the necessity to make a good choice is paramount if you would like proper care on the manner your stuff are transported.

The rate of home movers in Singapore can be quite expensive. It may turn out to be much more costly later if you happen to hire unskilled home movers who can only mess up with your priceless stuffs. Other companies engaged in this service because it is good money and those duly registered and professionaly trained to give moving service. You definitely opt to engage home movers who can offer the best rate and the best service possible.

If there is one good venue to locate these movers in Singapore, it is through the internet. Check on ebay Singapore. Search using the keyword "Singapore home movers" and you can most likely generate a good search list. What makes ebay a good source of info is that you can refer to testimonials of previous clients. Yes, while these feedbacks are not 100% reliable you can have at the minimum an idea on the kind of service.

Also, online forums which are Singapore based in nature can give you some guide on home movers. Just concentrate on heavy traffic blogs and forums. Of course, not missing out the classifieds. Home movers tend to post ads on online classifieds because ad posting here for free, if not at a very minimal rate.

With your filtered list, you expect to tap the most reliable home movers in town which will give lesser hassle house moving service for you.


We recommend this Singapore Movers

Option Trading Strategies For Long Term Investors

Option trading is typically associated with three different investor types. There are hedging strategies employed by large institutional investors, income-producing strategies for cash flow investors, and more aggressive trading strategies favored by speculators.

But where the does the long term investor fit in? Are there any option trading strategies that the conservative investor can employ to enhance his or her long term returns?

In fact, there are.

Leveraged Investing

There are actually a number of option trading strategies that can be employed by the long term investor. Leveraged Investing is the name I've given this approach, and these are the strategies I use myself.

The point of Leveraged Investing is to use options to acquire stock for a discount and then to generate additional returns above and beyond the actual performance of the stock itself.

Here are just two examples:

[Please note: in the interest of simplicity, commissions have been excluded from all examples.]

Example #1 - Writing Covered Calls. Writing covered calls is a popular, and generally conservative, income-producing strategy. A call option gives the holder the right, but not the obligation, to purchase 100 shares of the underlying stock at a certain price (strike price) by a certain date (expiration date).

Conversely, when you write, or sell, a call option on shares that you own, you sell (you receive a premium in the form of cash) someone else the right to purchase your stock at a certain price at or prior to the expiration date. If you own 100 shares of a stock trading at $28/share, you could write a $30 covered call expiring in one month. If the stock closes above $30/share, you'll be obligated to sell your shares for $30/share. But if the stock closes at or below $30/share, the call option will expire worthless and you're free to repeat the process. Either way, the premium received is yours to keep.

Writing covered calls is a great way to generate additional income from your investments, but the long term investor must take extra precautions to avoid being called out and forced to sell his or her long term holdings (I call one such precaution, The 1/3 Covered Call Writing Strategy--it basically consists of writing covered calls on only a portion of your portfolio in order to give yourself greater flexibility and protection against sharp moves higher by the stock).

Example #2 - Writing Puts to Acquire Stock at a Discount. A put option, in contrast, gives the holder the right, but not the obligation, to sell 100 shares of the underlying stock at a certain price by a certain date. When you write, or sell, a put, you're essentially insuring someone else's shares against a drop below the agreed upon strike price.

Like writing covered calls, writing puts can be a great source of income. In fact, the risk-reward profiles for writing puts and writing covered calls are essentially the same. Whereas call writers may write calls out of the money, at the money, or even in the money (the most conservative approach), put writers will typically write out of the money puts (e.g. writing a put with a $30 strike price on a stock currently trading at $32/share).

But for the long term investor, income is of less importance than the opportunity to buy a stock at a lower price that what it's currently trading at. Writing an at the money put will greatly improve the likelihood of acquiring the stock, and you'll also receive the most pure premium.

Example: Suppose you write an at the money put on a stock that you really like. If the stock is trading at $30/share and you write the put at the $30 strike price for, let's say, $2.50 in premium (or $250 in cash since each option contract represents 100 shares of the underlying stock) you're setting yourself up for a win-win situation. That's not to say you can't lose money on the deal, but look at the two possible scenarios.

• If the stock closes at $30/share or higher, you keep the original premium you received (which, in our example, represents an approximate 8% return in one month). You're then free to write another at the money put for additional premium.
• If the stock closes below $30/share, factoring in the premium you received, you end up purchasing the stock for $27.50/share. Obviously, if the stock gets cut in half, the premium you received will be small consolation, but what if the stock merely slips down to $29.50/share? You thought it was a good deal at $30/share and now you've acquired it for $2.50/share less.

Conclusion:

As they say, options involve risk and may not be suitable for everyone. But not all option trading strategies have to be high risk propositions. Some approaches, in fact, may offer substantial benefits for the conservative investor. If you are a long term investor, it may be worth your while to conduct additional research to see if there should be a place in your portfolio for options.

About The Author:

Brad Castro is a practitioner and promoter of Leveraged Investing, or option trading techniques and strategies designed to simulate successful value investing. Leveraged Investing has two objectives: to acquire stock in quality companies as cheaply as possible and then to squeeze more returns from those stocks once they've been acquired. Please visit http://www.great-option-trading-strategies.com for more information.

Emini Trading Strategies

30 Minute Emini Day Trading System

Choosing the Best Holiday Destination

Working 9 – 5, raising a family, worrying about the mortgage and trying to make time for all the people, pressures and demands in your life can take its toll. You need a break from time to time and because it is so essential that you use your holiday time for completely unwinding and de-stressing it is absolutely critical that you pick out the best holiday destination each time and avoid wasting your days away, your hard earned cash and your quality time with loved ones.

This guide to choosing the best holiday destination for you covers the top ten points you should consider when planning that next getaway.

1) The Time Of The Year – when are you planning on taking your next holiday? Certain destinations are only attractive to holidaymakers at a given time of the year because of climatic conditions. Think carefully about when you’ll be travelling and then examine the rainfall and temperature charts for your shortlist of destinations and make sure it will be neither extremely too hot or cold or wet or windy when you plan to holiday.

2) Your Budget – your budget will have a major bearing on where you travel to and also when you can travel. Travelling out of season on a last minute package holiday will of course save you lots of money, but there are other ways to make your money go further. Travel agents nowadays offer early bird booking discounts for example, alternatively you could book each stage of the holiday separately and possibly save more by calling airlines, hotels and hire car companies direct and asking about any special offers or discounts they offer and maybe you could even consider a house swap to save on accommodation costs.

3) Distance – long haul flights are no fun unless you can travel business class! And what’s more, having to travel to your ideal destination over a 12 or even 24 hour period and then suffering jetlag when you arrive and upon your return will maybe eat up as much as half of your holiday in real terms. Think about the distance you would like to travel in terms of hours sat on a plane, in departures, on a bus, in the car or even on a train…and then research destinations accordingly.

4) Travelling Parents – if you have children and you’re planning a family holiday a whole load of new criteria come into the planning. If you have young pre-school children you may be able to travel out of the peak school holiday times and thus save yourself thousands…but you will have the added hassle of having to travel with half a tonne of baby paraphernalia! Research your airline and resort in terms of the facilities they offer parents. Also, you must consider the heat, sun and humidity factors when travelling as children suffer more and also tend to vocalise more than us when uncomfortable for long periods of time!

5) Facilities – what facilities are in or around the resorts you’re considering and what facilities to you require? If you can’t be more than a day away from the internet make sure there’s access from your hotel, if you’re travelling with children is there a laundry service offered – or better still if you’re on a budget, do they have a laundry room in the hotel that you can access? Do you need to carry an iron, a hair dryer, a carry cot or even a child’s car seat with you or will your hotel and hire car company be able to supply you with all the bulky items you need? Ask, don’t assume!

6) Amenities – if you want to keep fit when away is there a hotel gym, what about a spa so that you can make the most of your time away? Is there an onsite bar and restaurant, what about gift shops and a mini market? Think about all the amenities you would like to have access to before you begin your research and then when you find an attractive destination tick off your list of desirable amenities against what it offers.

7) Entertainment – when it comes to your idea of a good time does that include wild night life or easy access to sites of historic or cultural interest? Are you after pubs, clubs, bars and restaurants for a 24 hour party or would you like to be able to drive to a stunning castle, take a boat trip out to sea, wander away from the crowds and find entertainment in tranquillity? You will have a good idea of the entertainment requirements you and travelling companions require – just make sure you pick a resort that fits in with those requirements!

8) Beach Flop Or Activity Holiday – are you happy to flop on the sand and soak up the sun or would you be happier hiking in the Himalayas? Think carefully about what exactly would bring you the most pleasure from your time away. Don’t go with the flow and copy the crowds if your idea of a nice time is simply relaxing in your garden at home for two weeks then do that! Your holiday time is your own so make of it what you can and what you want.

9) Health Requirements – if you or your family have any particular health issues from asthma to diabetes, from a physical handicap to even a fear of flying you should take all of these factors into the planning. Certain destinations are less sophisticated in terms of medical facilities available and even in terms of access to prescription drugs, some are more inaccessible in terms of travelling to or even getting around than others. Also, some destinations carry disease warnings and require you to have inoculations before you travel or to take malaria drugs when on the ground for example. Consider your preferred destination in terms of the health aspects for your whole family.

10) Take Recommendations – listen to family, friends and colleagues when they tell you about where they’ve been that was good and where they’ve been that was terrible; learn from their experiences and disaster stories and take any recommendations from trusted and like minded sources. Such recommendations can be a great place to begin your research and if you find that the destination likely suits you to a tee you will be able to find out about the best places to eat, the must see sights and the friendliest staff before you head out which will give you an extra confidence boost and get your holiday off to a flying start.

Have fun!

Rhiannon Williamson is a freelance writer whose articles about traveling and living abroad have appeared in many major travel and expatriate publications throughout the world.

You can find more of her articles at: http://www.AboutNorthCyprus.com/

travel cot - baby travel crib