What They Say About December 21 2012

The other day (Jan 21 2008), we happened to bumped into a documentary show in the History Channel titled Decoding The Past. We were not quite certain what the show was all about, but we watched it anyway. Decoding The Past show told about the different predictions for the future, about what will happen, and sometimes when it will happen. But the eerrie part mentioned in the show is the prediction that were told by both the Mayans calendar and the I Ching. I dont know how true and how accurate they really are, but according to the Mayans calendar and the I Ching pattern that on December 21, 2012 there will be a planetary alignment that will drastically change the polarity of the earth. The polar change would mean a shift in the the location of north, east, west and south. This major shift of the poles when it happen could possibly trigger major earthquakes, volcanos to errupt, and tsunami occurrences too.

I personally dont know if such prediction is accurate and true, but according to the aired tv show, many predictions as predicted by the Mayans calendar and the I Ching came true. And since December 21 2012 is like four year from now, it is definitely hard to imagine! Definitely a very unexpected news and prediction, and I personally not ready for such a thing to happen. What about you, have you heard of these predictions? And what are your views and thoughts on these issues?

Sunday And Gloomy

One of my favorite day of the week is Sunday, its a weekend, no rush waking up, no rush going somewhere. But when I opened the Weather Channel this morning the forecast for our area is gonna be raining for the rest of the week, supposedly starting tommorrow Monday and up to around Thursday. But i think the rain storm is moving in early, because it looks cold and dark outside with all the rain clouds moving in already here in northern CA. There is no sign of the blue sky nor the sun, just gray sky in sight.

But on the brighter side, we are not going somewhere today, we can just relax, watch TV, or do some blogging. We have leftover spaghetti sauce from the other night, and some Round Table King Arthur Supreme Pizza from last night, so its gonna be a tasteful meal without having to go through a lot of work cooking. I just need to boil some water and cook some spaghetti noodles to go with the left-over sauce. Might have to eat the spaghetti meal first because its older compare to the pizza and i think spaghetti sauce cannot be stored very long time even when refrigerated, or its gonna spoil.

Normally, when we prepare spaghetti sauce, we take note of the cooking date to make sure that we know how long its been in the refrigerator. When its more than 4-7 days old, we usually dont use it anymore, I am not certain the shelf-life of spaghetti sauce, but sometimes its always better to be safe than sorry, having it set for so long in the refrigerator might be unhealthy, so its important that you know the date of cooking so you can decide when its too old to eat anymore.

Warm Air In And Cold Air Out

During winter times, we usually keep the heater on whole day. Many households have automatic timers for their heater nowadays so that it will automatically turn on and off according to the specified temperature. But even if we have heaters, fireplaces, gas heater, and/or wood burning stove on most days during winter or cold season, there is no excuse why we should waste heat energy and not be economical about our heat resources. To save some on your electricity bill, gas, wood, or wood pellets, trying to make your home warm this season, there are some things that we can do to make the house warm and stay warm:

Windows Closed Tight. If possible, dont open the windows because it will be wide route for the warm air in the house to escape right away, and you are allowing the cold air outside to go into the house easier, which would make the house colder faster everytime you often the windows. If you have blinds and drapes in your window, it would be better if you close them to so that it will help block the cold even more. Drapes with lining works the best in blocking the cold in the window, and keeping the warm air in.

Open Doors Only When Needed. Just like the windows, doors are big opening that will easily allow warm air to escape and let the cold air to get in. Try to minimize opening the door all the time, only open them when you needed to, and dont let it open too long because it will only take few minutes for the air to escape, and before you know it, you need to turn your heater up again, eating more energy.

Temporary Seal Unused Vents. For example, if you are using the wood burning stove, not the central electric heater in the house, then you might want to try to cover the heater vents (only if they are in used), specially if they are run through the areas in your house that are not insulated, and the vent is not wrapped with insulation. Non-insulated heater vents that have direct exposure to the temperature outside, and is connected directly to several rooms of the house, will be another way for cold air to get through inside.

www.MakeLifeUNEXPECTED.com Transition

To all my blog readers and visitors, I would like to let you know that I finally got the domain name running for this blog, MAKE LIFE UNEXPECTED. Instead of the old one, jazevox.blogspot.com, the new domain name for this blog is now www.MakeLifeUNexpected.com The old one still works, and will be automatically forwarded to the new domain, though.

It took me awhile to have the domain name hook up, because my registrar could not figure out my request several times. I finally have it running, hopefully you will the take time to ADD my new domain name www.MakeLifeUNexpected.com in you blogrolls or links too, i would truly appreciate it! Thank you so much and have a wonderful day to you.

More Places For Coffee Breaks

This morning, I was reading an article in one of the Wall Street Journal newspaper. In the frontpage, the story is talking about McDonalds company planning to add coffee bars to most if not all their McDonalds outlet here in the United States, which according to the article is around 14,000 establishments?

Yes, you read it right, McDonalds coffee bars with stuff like Latte, Cappuchino, Mocha, and all kinds of stuff, similar to what Starbucks Coffee and Java City have been offering for years. Its been months since I saw that tv show in Travel Channel, where they featured about all the unique McDonald outlets in the world. And one of the international outlet that really caught my attention in the show was the coffee shop called McCafe that been successfully operating in a place around Canada, i believe that was in Montreal Canada. I thought, that was so cool, specialized coffee at MdDonalds. Before that tv show, i never knew that there was such thing, a coffee shop or bar operated by McDonalds.

And now, the Wall Street Journal newspaper article mentioned that McDonalds is planning to open up coffee bars in most of the current McDonalds outlet! Its definitely a major competition for the big coffee giants like Starbucks. We love Starbucks coffee, as well as Java City coffees, so its gonna be quite interesting to taste the newcomer, McDonalds coffees, and decide how good they taste as well. So I cannot wait to be able to finally drop by in one of their new coffee bar, once they open up in our area.

Personally, I think, with McDonalds new coffee bars coming up here in the USA, its gonna be cool, more choices for the consumers, and hopefully, competitions will cause some prices of coffees lowered down a little bit and becomes more affordable for more people! So its a good thing in a way, specially in the side of the consumers. What about you, what do you think of having more coffee shops around, where you can have more choices as to where to buy your latte or cappuccino or mocha?

Accent Your Home With Quality Lightings

No matter how much you spend on your interior or outdoor decorating, without the proper lightings, and without right lamp design and architecture to match the decorating theme, the appeal of the place will somehow feel like there is something missing and incomplete. In most cases, when it comes to home and office decorating, using the right lightings to put in the room or outside is an important part to make the whole project complete and stands out like you intended to achieve. But finding that one particular lighting design that works best for your decorating project might not be an easy thing to do if you are looking at the wrong places in the first place. You might have a specific lighting or lamp design architecture in mind, but finding that particular design might be quite a task if you look in a store that does not really offer you a lot of options to look for the one lamp or lighting that closely match what you are looking for. So if you are serious about getting the right quality lighting for your indoor or outdoor decorating project that you need, Upscale Lighting homepage offers all kinds of different styles and types of lightings or lamps that you can choose like chandeliers, lamp shades, track lightings, bathroom fixtures, lanterns, ceilings lamps, and a lot more. With all the several different choices that you can choose, you are more likely to find that one lighting architecture that you are looking for, that matches your decor at home or office. Browsing through the Upscale Lighting homepage to find the right lamp that you want will definitely be a breeze because the website provides many different ways to browse through their pages like going through the items by type, indoor or outdoor. And if you browse though the Brand Overview of Upscale Lighting you can browse through the different lightings listed by brands. Upscale Lighting offers all kinds of lighting fixtures including hard to find state-of-the-art light bulbs like Lemnis Pharox LED Bulb

Cold And Flu Battle

Winter time is usually the season that triggers cold and flu. It is a nastly virus that you can easily get all around you. But there are measures that you can take to help prevent or avoid spreading cold and flu.

Cold and flu are usually transmitted thru the eyes and nose. In this regard, try to be careful that you do not infect your eyes and nose with anything that is contaminated with cold and flu germs. One common habit that people do is touching things and then unknowingly rub the eyes and nose afterwards. But if you wash you hands frequently, the germs that you picked up with your hands, will not be transfered thru your nose and eyes.

Try to avoid crowed area, specially in places where there are a lot of people that are sick like sneezing or coughing. But if you have to be in these places, try to cover your mouth and nose with clean handkerchief so that you wont eventually inhale and partake the cold and flu germs that are possibly spread in the air, by other people in the crowd.

If you have cold and flu, be considerate, and take extra careful to make sure that you wont spread the germs around you and to your love ones. If you have to sneeze or cough, try covering your mouth and nose in between your elbow, not your hands, so that the germs will not transfered to your hands, and then later on you use your hands to touch things, and get contaminated.

If you have cold and flu, it might help you feel better to take great amount of Vitamin C, which you can get from fruits, vitamin C supplement. To make you feel better, try to have a nice warm chicken soup to help you feel better.

Try to always take the time to sanitize things in your homes and office that are frequently used using hands like computer keyboards, telephone, door handles, toilet seats, and more.

Try to get flu vaccine that you can usually get in many clinics and pharmacies in most places. If you have medicare coverage, flu vaccination might be covered, but if not, expect to pay around $15 to $50 per person flu vaccine. The price you pay usually depends largely on the group or specialist that offers and administer the vaccination service.

And sometimes, its not good to take matters all by yourself. If you feel really sick, see a physician, and seek a doctors advice, to know what are options that you can take to help you with your cold and flu battle.

After Christmas Sale Brings Huge Savings

My hubby and I truly like the After Christmas sales, where most seasonal items like Christmas gifts and decors are marked down generously in most stores! So generous, you can usually expect around 65 to 75 percent off specially during this time of year, more than a week after Christmas. The good thing about After Christmas shopping is that all items that you buy that time, you can definitely use the following year and the years to come! The only main difference between shopping before Christmas, and after Christmas is the huge savings that you make.

We just went shopping at Walmart today, checking out their leftover Christmas gifts and decors, all marked up 75 percent off! We grabbed a lot of stuff, and everything totalled to only around thirty (30) dollars in christmas items. But if we had bought all those items at normal prices, we could had paid around one hundred twenty (120) dollars! So it is saving us ninety (90) dollars by buying them this week. We will just store them properly for the year, and looking forward to using them for next holiday! Its not about being cheap, its about saving and being wise about shopping.

Between Leather And Fabric Materials

Do you have strong preference as far as what type of material your living room chiar, or car seats should be made of? This always not an easy choice for me because of the pros and cons of each of these materials:

Leather. They are more durable, sturdy and can handle pretty much rough and tough sometimes, maybe not the extremes. Leathers are also easily to clean and maintain, just wipe spilled stuff and you are pretty much done. You can also buy special treatment to make leather materials looking new and nice. But the problem with leather is that it can get really cold when its cold, and when a person is sweaty, your skin will stick kinda gluey in the material, eeww. Also if you are going with a more feminine, colorful, traditional, or tropical decors, leather wont match with the theme very well. And its not like you can buy another sofa/seats everytime you change the room or car theme. But for car leather with lighter color tone like beige, if might just work...

Fabric Material. I personally would prefer fabric material over leather because of the pros: more soft and gentle, wont stick to your skin when you sweat and of course they are not totally dependent on the room temperature, you can seat there comfortable because it wont feel like you are seating on a cement or vinyl when its cold, and it wont affect comfort and feel that much even when its hot in the room. Fabric material also have softer look that easily goes well with different types of home decorating themes. The problem with fabric is that, if you spill or spoil something in there, it could possibly ruin the whole fabric and it will be hard to clean specially if the fabric is a permanent cover, stapled and hammered to fit perfectly, not a slip cover, which you can just remove and wash!

What about you? Which material do you prefer as a seat cover for both your living room chairs and car seats?

My Mission Organization

I am definitely someone who likes to organize things around the house. But recently, I can see a lot of chaos and misplaced things all around the desk, floors, and table. As much as I can, I try to take time to organized, but if living space and storage space are an issue, then getting orgranized by putting things in proper places is definitely harder to achieve.

So this New Year 2008, i wish to declutter things, segragate stuff all around. And I want to share some of my techniques I used to organize stuff. Things and practices that works for me when I am organizing:

Handy Garbage Bin. Whichever room I am organizing at that instant, I always have a garbage can next to me, where I can put all the throw aways, so that I dont have to deal with them again another time if set them in the floor, the bed, or table. If an item is garbage, then it should be put in the garbage right away so that I dont deal with the same things twice later on.

Paper Bin for Shreddables. There are some paperworks and old records that are definitely not worth keeping but are taking some space in the house. But some of these paperworks contents sensitive information that you might not want to share with whoever decides to lurk around your trash files. So I always have a paper bin where I can throw the papers that needs to be shreded. I usually just shred them later in a day or two, when I can, that way I dont have to stop the sorting job to shred the papers.

Group Things By Type. I usually make designated temporary locations, with imagenary lines where I place things by type like all the papers here, the books there, breakables here, seasonal decors there, crafting stuff, toys, clothings, etc. Once I finished grouping everything by type, then I go through each of the items per group, and which one I want to store, which one I want to use, and which one I want to throw away or donate.

Box Things Up. For things that I dont use often on a daily basis like seasonal decors, or toys, or collectibles, I usually like to put them in storage boxes. It is important and necessary that I label each of the boxes and put a summary of the contents and stick them outside the box so that if we need one thing in the box, we dont have to open all boxes, just to look for one item. If the labels placed in each boxes, it is easier just to read the labels and know what are inside the box. No more finding the needle in the hay stack.

Containers, Containers, Containers. Containers comes really handy regardless the size: small, medium, large containers. All like things together in a container, make things so much easier to find them later on. Small things like clips and pins would be ideal stored in smaller containers, while volleyballs and other sporting goods might need large boxes. There are several types of cute, stylish, and matching containers in all types of shapes and sizes that you can easily buy in several stores nowadays. By using these decorative and artistic containers, no more worrying about home theme decor eye sore specially when placed in a visible locations of the house.

Folders and Binders. There are all kinds of paper works, so I usually grab the puncher and organized most of the papers in a nice way but putting them in binders, one binder for tax papers, another binder for insurances, a binder for manuals, etc. Most binders are easy to put labels into, so that you can find the very paper you are looking for without having to go through a mountful of papers filed together in a desk with no labels.

So hopefully, we all can start the New Year with a more organized and less clutter environment for a relaxing and non-stressful year. Happy New Year 2008!

Written by: JAZEVOX. All Rights Reserved.