Lovesleftovers: Thoughts On Life, Love and Loss

Why You Need a Blog

2011-05-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

So you have a blog and happily post as often as you possibly can. You write about things that are important to you. You share funny stories about your children, spouse, co-workers, neighbors. Maybe you even use your blog as way to let off some steam. Unhappy with the customer service you’ve received at your local superstore? Write about it. Your boss is a jerk? Write about him (leaving out his or her name of course). Your husband constantly leaves the toilet seat up or hogs the remote? Share all the irritating details on your blog. There are literally millions of blogs out there in cyberspace so why shouldn’t you be joining in on the blogging fun?

There are many reasons why you should consider starting a blog. Many free blog sites exist so there’s no financial commitment to make. Register, choose a theme and begin posting. It’s as easy as that. As mentioned above, blogging is a good way to share your life with others. Families set up blogs where each member has a chance to post updates to let relatives near and far know what’s going on in their lives. Include photos and videos and it’s almost like being there with your loved ones. If you’re looking to change careers or are currently out of work you should consider creating a blog. Include a resume page and links to relevant accomplishments and you can advertise yourself via your blog easily with one click. This is definitely an overlooked free marketing strategy for job seekers.

Do you have a business website? If the answer is yes, you should absolutely include a blog on your site. Write articles and how-to’s in your business field and your customers will appreciate the added information. Let’s say you own a tree trimming business and you have a business website. You can write articles about types of trees to plant, when the best time to trim is, known diseases prevalent in certain varieties of trees, how to start a leaf compost bin, and on and on. Inviting readers to leave comments and questions give you the opportunity to put in a good word for your company.

Blogs can be money makers all on their own. Most, if not all, free blogging sites do not allow advertising on blogs. But If you purchase your own domain name you can include money-making ads on your blog. There are numerous pay-per-click and affiliate programs available online. By placing company ads on your blog you make money when a visitor to your site clicks on an ad and/or buys a product from the company. You most likely will not get rich doing this but you get paid for doing very little and that’s a pretty good thing.

In order to make money from advertising on your blog you need to bring visitors to your site. Submitting your blog to search engines is key. An often overlooked method to bring visitors to your site is to write articles. There are many article network sites where you can submit articles on literally any topic. Your information, including your website address, appears with the article and that translates to free advertising for your site. I will go into more detail on this technique in future articles.

Blogging can be fun, an expressive outlet, a marketing tool and a money maker. Once you start blogging you’ll begin to look at things in an entirely different light. News reports, radio programs, even a trip to the grocery store can all be fodder for your blog writing. Keeping a small notebook and pen with you at all times helps you remember little tidbits of everyday life than can be written about later. Happy blogging!

How One Foam Hair Color Had Me Fuming

2011-05-25T17:08:00.000-07:00

I’m not new to hair coloring. I’ve been coloring my hair since my teen years. When all the girls at school were adding highlights I went hog wild with the peroxide and became an instant blonde. It proved a bit too startling for my liking and I cried until my mom helped me dye it back to my usual dark brown and stuck with it. But when my daughter was playing hair salon on my hair and informed me I had a “big, long white string” stuck in my hair I knew it was time to color those nasty grays. I vowed to make the time to color my hair every six weeks since then and have never looked back.

Hair color has come a long way over the years. Manufacturers have listened to consumers and have made great improvements by making their products more gentle and less smelly. I’ve tried just about every brand and color on the market but always come back to the same crème formula in my own dark brown shade. But when I began seeing the new foam styles I just had to see what all the hype was about. According to commercials, the foam was supposed to be less messy, easier to use and was better at covering the grays. So when my six weeks were up and the grays once more came in

I made my usual trek to the store to select a foam hair color and settled on Clairol’s Nice & Easy Foam, this time in a medium brown shade.
When I returned home I put on my usual ratty hair coloring clothes and read the instructions that came with the box. I mixed the color thoroughly as per the directions and began to apply the mixture to my head. First, I found the foam to be very runny despite shaking the bottle the necessary amount of time. Having to squeeze the bottle from the middle wasn’t the easiest of techniques. In my opinion, Clairol would do well to provide a pump bottle instead.

As I stood at the kitchen sink, the foam went flying everywhere. Plop on my kitchen counter. Plop on the floor. It was a much more tedious process than it had ever been when I used my usual crème color. By the time I got to the ends of my hair the color on my head had dried and caked on my scalp. I waited the required time and was pretty upset about the length of time it took me to rinse the color from my hair. It was pretty hard and crusty. So I decided to get in the shower to do a better rinse. And I rinsed and rinsed some more until I thought it was rinsed pretty thoroughly. Unfortunately all the scrubbing and rubbing had resulted in quite a bit of lost hair from the looks of the hair pile on my shower drain cover.

After taking the towel off my wet hair I saw that my hair was in no way a medium brown shade. It was black. Thinking because it was wet, I dried it. It was still black. Darn it! Was I the only one who had used this foam color and had this experience? A quick online search brought me to several message boards where women who had used Clairol’s foam color had pretty much the same experiences. Honestly if I had read some of the personal reviews prior to coloring I would have steered clear of the foam.

In addition to the above issues, it took three washings before the color was finally thoroughly washed from my hair. For three subsequent days I saw brown, murky water in my shower. And, it stained my scalp. Interestingly, other women on the message boards had this same experience.

Since I’m writing about my own personal experience with Clairol’s Nice & Easy Foam Color that’s all I can attest to. I have not tried any other brand of foam color. However, in Clairol’s defense I must say that, although the color was definitely not true to the “medium brown” description and did indeed result in a black color, it did cover the gray magnificently. And the fact that this was weeks ago and I still see no visible grays I remain impressed with the coverage. In addition, when I emailed Clairol and detailed my experience they immediately responded with their concern and mailed me a coupon for a free product of my choice. So they did get an A+ in customer service from me. Foam hair color is relatively new to the market and hopefully it will be perfected so that manufacturers can get the kinks out of the process. But for now I plan on sticking to my usual crème product.

Skim Scam

2011-05-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

I like to paint. I find it to be a lot cheaper than therapy. When I recently relocated I left so many of my beloved belongings behind (long story). Among those many things were my art supplies. So I recently took a trip to a neighborhood Michael’s Craft Store to begin building my art supplies back up. Seventy bucks later, I was well on the road to painting my way to happiness once more. Until I read a Yahoo article about skimming scams.

It seems Michael’s was recently yet another target of a debit card scam. Seems the arts and crafts chain had no idea what had happened, only finding out when they were contacted by “banking and law enforcement authorities” after they in turn had been contacted by customers. Numerous customers had noticed fraudulent charges made to their debit cards which ultimately had been traced back to transactions made at Michael’s stores. As I read further into the article I saw that the skimming scam had been perpetrated at Michael’s stores across the country. Then I came across a quote stating that several customers at my local store had had their debit card information compromised. Eeek!

I immediately checked my balance online and was relieved to see all was well with my account. Still unconvinced I then called the bank and was reassured that my account was uncompromised and they “had taken care of the informational breach”. Whew. To date, Michael’s claims it has removed all pin pads from all stores, but is still suggesting customers continue to monitor their accounts for suspicious behavior. However and obviously, skimming scammers are getting more and more sophisticated. Actual physical tampering of individual pin pads would have been necessary to conduct a scam like this. How did this happen?

These scams have been around for a few years now, but in the past have mostly been limited to gas stations and ATMS, places that aren’t usually monitored regularly. But the scam is obviously growing and getting more and more advanced. As was the case in the Michael’s scam, crooks were able to slip a tiny device into the pin pads that then allowed them to read the magnetic strip on debit cards as customers swiped them. And then a tiny camera was able to record customers as they entered their pin numbers. Some experts say that the average consumer has a one in five chance of being a victim. Unbelievable. So what are we supposed to do? We need to use our debit cards and most of us don’t feel comfortable carrying only cash. Here are some tips to avoid being scammed:

• Closely watch your bank statements and track debits closely. Watch for any unauthorized withdrawals or suspicious activity. Also watch your credit card statements for signs of skimming.
• Use one ATM and one particular gas pump; it will be easier to track which machine has the skimmer if you are scammed. Try to use an ATM that is located in a very public place or is located inside a bank lobby. Scammers are less likely to tamper with machines in those locations.
• When using your bank card, choose the "credit card" option instead of "debit card." It will be more difficult for scammers to make unauthorized purchases without your PIN

Your Book of Shadows

2007-09-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Think of your Book of Shadows (or BOS for short) as your own personal Wiccan Bible. A BOS is not a journal for your thoughts and feelings. whether it be magick related or not. Leave journal writings for a separate book. The BOS is much more than that. It's a sacred place where you record spells, whether your own or spells written by other practioners of Wicca. Your handcrafted spells are more desirable because whenever you write or make something original, you are putting your own, unique and positive energies into your workings.

Besides spells, your BOS can include the moon phases and symbols, astrological writings (whether yours, someone close to you or all 12 astrological signs), symbolic meanings of colors of candles, altar information, drawings and more writings directly related to your Wiccan path to enlightenment.

A BOS can be anything from a spiral notebook to a handcrafted wooden piece of art. The choice is yours and it depends how much you're willing to spend. It's fine to begin your BOS with a spiral notebook especially if you're just beginning your path. As you wish to include more information and writings you can move up to a larger, perhaps fancier book. Just remember it's preferable to have all your writings in one book, so this means copying any previous writings into your new BOS. Many online Wiccan stores have a selection of Books and they include everything between plain bound notebooks to elaborate wooden books. I, personaly, have a beautiful, handcrafted wooden BOS made especially for me by a friend. It's designed to be opened in order to add more pages as needed. This is important, because hopefully you will have so many writings and works that you will eventually come to the last page and will need more room. Having a book you can add pages then becomes pretty important.

Your BOS isn't meant to be shared. In fact, it's not even a good idea to show it to anyone. This is your Book and your alone. I am a firm believer that negative energy can wreak havoc on your emotions and health and you never know the intent of the person looking at your BOS. The one time it is okay to share your BOS is when and if you decide to hand it down to the next generation. If your daughter or son is following the Wiccan path, what better gift could you give?

A gift filled with love and invaluable information for a loved one is priceless.

Your Wiccan Altar

2007-09-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

The Witches Altar, is a special place among practicing Wiccans. Located in the home or outside, your altar is an area devoted to your "tools of the trade". Some Wiccans prefer an outdoor altar because it allows you to perform your spells and magick closest to the Earth's energies. However, having an outdoor altar isn't always practical.

Think of your altar as you would your Book of Shadows. You have made your Book of Shadows personal to you. It contains spells, meditations, astrological-related writings and much more, directly related and meaningful to you. And like your Book of Shadows, your altar should also reflect who you are as well.

Setting aside a specific corner of a room (usually your bedroom) is desirable. Having your tools within your living space brings a positive energy to you and those around you. Your altar can consist of a small table, a dresser top or anything that is convenient to you and your lifestyle. Often, it's not possible to have an area devoted solely to your altar and that's perfectly fine. In this case many practitioners opt for a portable altar. I, personally, have my altar contents stored in a beautiful wooden box that I have wood-burned a pentagram into. When I need to use them they are easily accesible and I can set my altar up quickly. I like adding my own unique handcrafted touches. In fact, whenever possible, this is desirable as it infuses your tools with your own positive energies.

Now, the "meat and potatoes" of the Witch's altar. Include candles in colors that mean something to you or colors that you are fond of. Candle colors can also be changed out to be directed toward a specific spell. i.e. pink or red for a love spell. black for a banishing spell, etc.

Cover your table or chosen surface with a beautiful cloth. Pick out some fabric that appeals to you and sew it into a table top cover. There are also many online Wiccan stores that specialize in Wiccan wares. Many carry beautiful altar clothes. Online Wiccan stores also are an excellent place to find other altar items. A chalice, athame, wand, bell, incense, cauldron, pentagram are also desirable items to include. Note that I say "desirable" and not absolutely necessary. As you grow in your Wiccan path you can add to your sacred space. It can be fun to shop and search for new items to add to your altar. But, remember, if you are adding second-hand items to your workings please also cleanse them. For one, you have no idea what these items were onced used for and two, as always ,directing your own unique energies into your wares is always preferable.

Often, the altar is designed to represent the Earth's four elements-Fire, Air, Earth, Wind and Water. Your chalice can contain the Water, The athame, candles or incense can represent fire, a wand can be used for Air, herbs and plants represent the Earth and a bell can represent Wind. Many times items will vary according to the practioner. There is no law that says you must use certain items to represent certain things to you. It is about YOU and no one else. Do what you feel in your heart is best for you. Remember these items are TOOLS. The energy is what matters and you are the one that sends energy through the tools. Use these tools wisely and remember-"An ye harm none, do what ye will".