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GirlfriendsCafe - Cash for 2009 ContestLink: http://www.girlfriendscafe.com
GirlfriendsCafe is pleased to announce our "Cash for 2009" contest for our members. Members can enter every day for a chance to win a $100.00 American Express Certificate! The winner will be drawn on February 1st. Membership to GirlfriendsCafe is free! Submitted by: Linda Allen 01/15/09
Gardening for Food and Fun A garden was once used to grow beautiful flowers and fruits and vegetables. Today land is becoming increasingly scarce and so is time. Learn to garden again to grow your own food, save money and spend a bit of quality time with the family. A garden can be used in many ways. Some people create flower gardens to enhance the look of their homes. Short, tall, fuzzy, speckled, and brightly colored plants exist to be adored. A flower garden is also fragrant for the nose and welcoming to wildlife, such as hummingbirds, butterflies, and more. Gardening can be twofold. First, create a garden for vegetables. It doesn’t have to be several acres long. You can clear away a small plot big enough to grow food for you and your entire family. There is nothing like a cabbage or head of lettuce that was plucked fresh from your own backyard garden. Home grown vegetables have not been processed which means all of their nutrients are still intact. You can absolutely taste the difference between homegrown and store bought veggies when you bite into them. Growing your own garden is not only healthier for your body, but sure helps the wallet too. For every tomato, carrot, squash, or bean that you grow, that is one less thing to add to the grocery list. Fruits are another gardening option. Fruit can be expensive in the grocery store. Grow your own fruits and taste the sweetness as it was intended to be enjoyed, without all the freezing or chemicals that were used to make it shelf-stable longer. When you get a craving for something sweet, pop in the garden and pick a juicy watermelon or cantaloupe for a healthy alternative to cookies, cake or candy. Children can help in the garden. Armed with a pair of gloves and some tools, you can show them how to plant seeds, clear weeds, water, and tell if the fruits and vegetables are ripe. An apple tastes so much sweeter when it is plucked from your own tree. Toddlers love pulling food from the garden so grab a bucket and head out once every day or two to pick from the garden with your little ones. If you don’t have a lot of land or no place to stake out a garden, use other alternatives. Large planters can accommodate a fair variety of fruits and vegetables. Tomatoes can even be grown upside down in a container. Many dwarf fruit trees can be placed in a large pot to grow without getting root bound. Planting isn’t strictly limited to round pots either. Use whatever you have lying around. Kids will love to fill old tires, broken pots, old cups, and other items to create fruit and vegetable planters. This is referred to as container gardening. People do it a lot in the city where it is all concrete jungle. You can even grow herbs in small pots and sit them on the window sill. When it is time to harvest, let the kids go around and pluck the ripe ones. Be sure to use organic pesticide treatments to ensure that your food won’t poison you when you are ready to eat it. A family can save a lot of money by growing their own garden. Seeds are cheaper than bulbs and still grow tasty vegetables and beautiful flowers. Fruits and vegetables can be canned for the winter months to be eaten later. Teaching your child to garden is a useful tool that can be used all their life. By: Linda Allen 01/12/09
Is Your Life Fulfilling?
This is a loaded question, but in a good way. Before you attempt to answer, use the scale of your dreams and goals to assist with the answer. Don’t depend on outside influences like the thoughts of others or the feelings of society. Be honest with yourself, after all only you are reading this and only you will know the answer. At one time or another we have set goals. Goals give us a reason for getting up in the morning. We are always moving towards something that makes an impact on our life. If you are in college, graduation day represents a goal. It may be four years down the road, but it is still in sight. When you find a job, the goal may change to one of promotion. We strive to be better than we are not because of others but because of our drive to do more than simply breathe the air. Each person wants their time on this planet to mean something. The meaning could be for us alone or for our families or the world. What are some of your goals and dreams? If you’ve never taken the time to write them down, buy a journal and do just that. It could take more than one sitting if you are rusty at delving deep within your mind. No matter how outrageous they seem, write ALL of your aspirations down. The culmination of dreams is not necessarily a lifelong career. You may want to scale a mountain, but that doesn’t mean you want to be a mountain climber. Scaling a mountain is an experience you’d like to have and fulfilling that adds a measure of character to your life. You may not meet all of our goals. An unmet goal either leads us down a better path or it sours our attitude. Strive for the former. Some of us are so set on keeping up with the Jones’ that we don’t realize the harm we are doing to our own level of joy in the process. Take a good, long look at your goals and dreams list. Who knew you had so many desires. Life is not about pursuing one path and staying on it for the rest of your life. It is about the detours and rest stops we choose to take that turn us into well-rounded and understanding people. Only you can answer the question, “Is Your Life Fulfilling?” No one knows your heart like you do. It is the question many long for someone else to answer for them, but you’ll soon realize that any answer another would give will be wrong because they are not you. You know you best. Use your goals and dreams as a guide to find the fulfillment you long for. By: Linda Allen 01/09/09
Frugal Family FunWe all need to take a break now and again. Spending time with the family is relaxing and can be a bit adventurous at times. If you are looking for ways to spend quality time without breaking the bank keep reading for some frugal family fun.  1. Camping If you’ve never experienced the great outdoors, it is a great way to get away and have a few laughs. Camping teaches survival skills and lets kids and adults experience what it is like to live with nature instead of against it. If one member of the family has great camping experience, he or she can guide the rest of the group. Catch your supper and cook it over an open flame. Sing songs, have marshmallow treats, tell stories, and hike to new places. Camp in areas far away from Yogi Bear and Wile E. Coyote but which still maintain the element of adventure the vast wilderness has to offer. 2. Weekend trips For a large family weekend trips are more economical sometimes than taking a week’s vacation. Everyone can pile in the car and head to the mountains or the coast for a weekend of fun. For one night, everyone can sleep in one or two hotel rooms. Consider it to be “roughing it.” Visit a national park, zoo, museum, national monument, or other point of interest. Pack drinks, snacks, and lunches to avoid incurring too many food costs. Using a digital camera for pictures saves on the expense of film. You can even save money with photo printing websites that will print your pictures online and your family can view and order the ones they want. 3. Family vacation These are always fun. As a kid, there is nothing better than getting away to someplace new and having a ball. If this is your intent, start saving early. Investigate methods of travel to find the most economical for your budget and family size. Follow travel deals instead of just the peak and off-peak seasons. Even in peak times, families can find good travel deals so that everyone can have a good time. If you are traveling to an area where family lives ask if you can bunk with them for a few days. It cuts down on costs and you get to visit. 4. Have family picnics. Parks have come a long way in the last few years. They have cookout shelters and trails for running, cycling, or hiking, water activities, and playgrounds. One Saturday a month, gather the entire family (including extended family in the same city) and have a picnic cookout in the park. Reserve a shelter in advance and ask each person to contribute to the meal. Bring along board games, balls, blankets, bikes, and your best pair of sneakers. Get an early start and spend the day doing whatever you want to have fun and relax. Having fun doesn’t have to come with a high price tag. There are ways to engage the interest of the entire family without worrying about money. By: Linda Allen 01/07/09
Marketing Tips For Your Work At Home BusinessJust about any kind of business can thrive on efficient marketing methods, whether it is a traditional business or a work at home business. Finding which ones will work best, however, will certainly be more than a little tricky. Your best bet would be to choose some methods that have worked great in the past. Here are a few marketing tips and ideas for your work at home or online business to get you going. Create A Marketing Strategy People today are looking for instant information and "killer" tips to get their work at home business started and growing quickly. You probably are, too. You need to remember, though, that there has been a saying around for many years that you get what you pay for. This is also true with business and for when you create a marketing strategy. Instead of being in too much of a hurry, you should take some extra time to start reading about various marketing techniques, and learn them well. Consider it to be a good investment into your business and it will help you to avoid mistakes that will only waste your time. Once you understand some methods that have been proven to work, jot down some notes and download some Ebooks on the subject. This will show you some great ways to use those methods, and more. Altogether, you want to find a number of them that you want to use and then create a plan for implementing each of them. Start with only two, maybe three, and test them and tweak them for better performance as you go along. This will also mean that you need to record exactly what you do, keywords used, software, promotions, and everything else related to it. Build an Attractive Web Site Since most businesses use the Web these days, you want a Web site that will make people glad to visit it. Yes, that too is part of marketing your business. It is part of building your brand. Something as simple as a sloppy Website associated with your business name, or your personal name, can be a turnoff that people will remember - and not return. Learn about key words and how to choose them and use them. You want to make sure your Web site is search engine optimized (SEO) and that your content is, too. While some marketing methods may make this unnecessary, having it optimized will bring in even more potential customers. Consider Off-line Methods Whether you work online only, or have a more traditional work at home business, you can profit from using off-line methods. These actually work now just about as effectively as before the days of the Internet, and still pack a punch today - they work. A combination of Internet advertising, post cards, snail mail advertising, radio, TV, magazine and newspaper ads, can produce powerful results. After all, don’t forget that not everyone is on the Internet yet. Use the New Technologies Latest developments on the Internet are showing fantastic results, too, and many big companies are using them successfully. This includes things like blogs, social marketing (YouTube, Facebook, etc.), videos, and more. You will also want to learn how to simplify the processes where possible and automate them where you can. Marketing your work at home business can be accomplished by learning first the proper way to do it. This means a little study, and watching to make sure you do it right. Then learn how to get them coming back to you through things like online newsletters, promotional items, reports, etc. This ensures that you get the customers you want quicker and will be able to keep them coming back to your work at home business, too. By: Linda Allen |
04:59:10 pm, by Linda 
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