Posts Tagged ‘dirt’
Transform Your Bedroom with These Four Top Tips
This is a guest post.
Clear The Clutter
Bedrooms are magnets for clutter. Since most of us tend to spend very little time awake in the room, we think nothing of throwing clothes on the floor or leaving the bed unmade as we head out the door. Yet the old saying ‘tidy house, tidy mind’ really does ring true, and a cluttered room is actually able to impact our sleep.
Yet ‘clearing the clutter’ doesn’t merely mean tidying away clothes, books and anything else that covers the surface area of the room. Anything that doesn’t assist with relaxation or romance should be removed – and this includes the television. As pleasant as it may seem to lie in bed and watch TV, save this for sick days, since research has demonstrated that not only does a television in the bedroom affect the sleep, but it also affects the sex drive.
Dress Up Old Furniture
There is no need to replace tired looking wardrobes and drawers – a lick of paint or carefully applied wallpaper can give old furniture a complete new lease of life, while simultaneously brightening and complementing the room’s décor. However, be careful not to make the room appear cluttered again by using too many patterns. If your walls are already very decorative, ensure to keep your furniture a plain colour. However, if your walls are painted in block colours, jazzing up your furniture with some bright pictures or patterns should look fantastic.
Don’t Forget About The Windows
While we take it for granted that the outside of our windows will be washed on a regular basis, we often forget to do the same to the inside. To ensure you’re able to get the maximum amount of light into your room, wash the windows regularly.
Additionally, if your windows are sporting a tired looking pair of curtains, take them down. Curtains attract dirt and dust and can start to look worn quite quickly. Roller blinds are a great alternative, and due to the simplistic nature of the product, usually very budget friendly too. Roller blinds are additionally very easy to clean, and are incredibly versatile. In fact, some stockists of roller blinds allow customers to choose whatever image they wish to be printed upon them, meaning that if you can’t find a design to fit with your décor, roller blinds may be the answer.
Bring Some Life To The Room
Plants are a fantastic and cost-effective way to make over any room, and not simply because they look good. Plants improve the air quality of a room – which is of great importance in a bedroom wherein the windows may not be opened often in order to reduce noise or maintain temperature while sleeping. What’s more, if you have children it can be great to get them involved in learning to care for something. This can benefit them in the future should any new additions to the family come along.
This article was written by Amy Fowler on behalf of Creatively Different Blinds. Amy writes on a variety of topics including roller blinds and other ways to make over a room.
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I’m Saving Babies Lives And So Can You
One of the things I have to write about the Pampers Mommy Blogger Event was meeting the CEO of Unicef Caryl Stern. Pampers and Unicef have teamed together to rid the world of tetanus. When we got to talk with her, there was not a dry eye in the room. Let me show you why:
First, to get a better understanding, you need to watch this video. I need to warn you though, it will break your heart. I watched it again today, and it still brings tears to my eyes:
This is not some marketing piece that Pampers did. This is an inhouse video that we begged them to let us show the world. I’ll admit, before this, I didn’t see the big deal. We all get vaccinated, so you don’t even think about tetanus. However, after watching these poor babies, how can your heart not go out to them? Let me give you some basic facts and statistics:
*Tetanus spores are found in soil, animal excretion, and can be airborne
*It acts through a production of a a toxin that effects your nervous system
*This disease rages through newborns within days of their exposure to the bacteria
*140,000 newborns and 30,000 moms die from this
*The fatality rate is 70%-100%
*Symptoms include muscle rigidity, painful muscle spasms, inability to eat, and seizures triggered by light or touch
If you didn’t watch the video, let me explain how these babies and moms are getting this. In Africa, there is no way to sanitize your hands before you deliver a baby. They use sharpened sugar cane to cut the umbilical cord, and they pack your wounds with dirt. Do you see a problem here since tetanus lives in the very dirt that they are using to stop bleeding?
Here is the crazy part of all of this; it costs 5 cents per vaccine. Yes, I repeat 5 cents.
I know my next question was “What can we do about this?” There are so many things you can do to help get rid of this terrible disease.
1. Buy specially marked Pampers with the sticker up above. You are buying diapers anyway, now you are helping a child. By the end of the year, they will have more Pampers products with the sticker. Make sure you watch for that.
2. Clean out your change. If you can get one vaccine for a nickel, can you imagine how many vaccines you could provide with the change in your house.
3. Donate. You will notice in my sidebar that I have this widget:
If you donate, make sure you use this. Then your donation will be earmarked for this vaccination program.
4. Blog about this. If you want to include this widget on your blog, let me know in a comment or by email. I will send you the code. We seriously need to raise awareness on this. The more of us who carry this on our blogs, the more people who know, the more people who donate, and the more children who are saved.
5. Talk to people you know about it. Again, get the word out. I have told everyone I know about this since I have gotten home.
6. Give with your kids. In my house, we are going to take the loose change we have and make a donation in my kids names. They are never too young to teach them about charity, and what better of a cause than one that helps children.
Pampers has sponsored 45 million vaccines already since they started this campaign. They also gave 1,000 vaccinations in my name, and gave 1,000 vaccinations for each blogger that was there (there was 15 in total). In a rough economy, I know it is hard to give, but truly, a little can go a long way.
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Wednesday’s Hero
This week’s hero is a good one. Robert Cone is the second Cousin of Wednesday Hero’s partner in crime, Greta.
85 years old from Delray Beach, Florida
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division
Surrounded by family, feted by a U.S. congressman and a Veterans of Foreign Wars color guard, one of the few surviving members of the “Filthy Thirteen” was honored on October 8, 2006 in a backyard on Massapoag Avenue.
Robert S. Cone, 85, now of Delray Beach, Fla., finally received the 13 military medals he was due for his service on D-Day during World War II, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, POW medal and Presidential Unit Citation.
“To tell you the truth, I never expected it. I’m very honored to get it and really feel good about it,” Cone said.
“He’s finding it an honor, and he’s a little embarrassed, to be honest,” said Cone’s son, Edward R. Cone, 45, who hosted the family barbecue that included a visit from U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch.
Only a few members remain of the 101st Airborne Division’s famed “Filthy Thirteen,” an elite parachute and demolition unit that volunteered for a suicide mission on June 5, 1944, the eve of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
The Filthy Thirteen, who shared a Quonset Hut in England, were a group of “pretty bad boys,” Edward Cone said, renowned for hard-living and fierce fighting. They are believed to be the inspiration for the 1967 movie “The Dirty Dozen,” although none of the Filthy Thirteen was a convict.
The unit’s mission was to parachute behind enemy lines on the night before D-Day to blow up bridges and impede the Nazis.
Many were killed on the drop. The survivors found it difficult to reunite on the ground because the pilots had panicked when the Germans opened fire.
Cone said he spent two days in a hedgerow battle and was shot in the right arm. When he escaped to a French farmhouse, the owner turned him over to the Nazis and he became a prisoner of war.
His unit and his family thought he was dead. His mother, in Roxbury, received a telegram from the War Department saying he had been killed in action.
Cone spent 11 months in three POW camps in Germany before being liberated by the Russians near the Polish border. He fought alongside the Russians as they made their escape, his son said.
Cone walked to freedom through Poland, Russia and Romania, journeyed by ship to Egypt and was eventually flow to Italy, finally making his way home.
All the medal ceremonies had taken place without him.
Cone married Ida, now his wife of 61 years; became a postal worker and plumber; raised three children in Hull; and spoke very little about the war, Edward Cone said.
About four years ago, Edward Cone decided to find out whether any of his father’s Army colleagues were still alive.
He found the Filthy Thirteen’s leader, Jake McNiece, in Oklahoma, and put his father in touch by telephone. Their conversation was recorded by the BBC and played on the anniversary of D-Day.
Later, the History Channel filmed its own segment on the pair, which still airs, Edward Cone said.
The group reunited in Taccoa, Ga., the home of their jump school.
“My Dad and I drove from here to Georgia. I heard everything on that trip,” Edward Cone said. “Three were alive from the unit. They talked and drank and told stories for days.”
Three years ago, McNiece published a book, “The Filthy Thirteen: From the Dustbowl to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest: The 101st Airborne’s Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers.”
It was McNiece who mentioned that Cone was due a few medals. Edward Cone and his fiance, Kate Guthrie of Leominster, who works at the Statehouse, gathered documentation and contacted Lynch.
The result was the Sunday party, also attended by Cone’s daughters, Ronna Townsend of Monroe Township, N.J., and Natalie Gaudet of Hampton, N.H., and most of his seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Cone admits he never talked much about the war before.
“I really didn’t,” Cone said. “But they insisted I tell the grandchildren and the great grandchildren. So I talk to them. I tell them stories. I tell them true stories. They all enjoy it.”
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
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