Gracious Living by Design

A valuable resource site for gracious living design

Wow! time has flown and so have I! I have been on a couple of business trips and otherwise occupied. So,it has been a while since I reported in here.

Please check out the following link info, which if you visit it, will keep you busy for a long time. Let me just say you will find resources for many things you will find useful. Take a look/see and then pick your areas of interest. Or just go down the list one by one. Products, ideas, and sources to solve lots of problems.

Gracious living is about finding stressless ways of doing things and you are going to find many things to help you design your life to run smoother. Have fun!

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/index.php

More ideas for fun and gracious living

I am hanging my head at how much time has slipped by since I was last here. Oh well, that's the beauty of blogging. It is not based on a deadline. I have been busy cooking up new business ideas.

But now for you—today I did some file cleaning and found some resources to pass along. Odds and ends.

The first, a handy device to quickly calculate the distance between cities.

http://www.indo.com/distance/

The second, to play with doctoring up pictures. Free program.

http://www.irfanview.com/

The third, the best site I have found of a website/blog design color chart.

http://www.hypersolutions.org

The fourth and fifth: Household hints on two of our favorite products. (For a Martha moment)

Bounce can do lots of things

It will chase ants away when you lay a sheet near them. It also repels mice. spread them around foundation areas, or in trailers or cars that are sitting and it keeps mice from entering your vehicle.
It takes the odor out of books and photo albums that don't get opened too often.
Repels mosquitoes. Tie a sheet of Bounce through a belt loop when outdoors during mosquito season.
Eliminates static electricity from your television (or computer) screen.
Wipe your television screen with a used sheet of Bounce to keep dust from resettling.
Dissolve soap scum from shower doors. Clean with a sheet of Bounce.
Freshen the air in your home. Place an individual sheet of Bounce in a drawer or hang in the closet.
Put Bounce sheet in vacuum cleaner.
Prevent thread from tangling. Run a threaded needle through sheet of Bounce before beginning to sew.
Prevent musty suitcases. Place an individual sheet of Bounce inside empty luggage before storing.
Freshen the air in your car. Place a sheet of Bounce under the front seat.
Clean baked-on foods from a cooking pan. Put a sheet in a pan, fill with water, let sit overnight, and sponge clean. The antistatic agent apparently weakens the bond between the food.
Eliminate odors in wastebaskets. Place a sheet of Bounce at the bottom of the wastebasket.
Collect cat hair. Rubbing the area with a sheet of Bounce will magnetically attract all the loose hairs.
Eliminate static electricity from venetian blinds. Wipe with a sheet of Bounce to prevent dust from resettling.
Wipe up sawdust from drilling or sand papering. A used sheet of Bounce will collect sawdust like a tack cloth.
Eliminate odors in dirty laundry. Place an individual sheet of Bounce at the bottom of a laundry bag or hamper.
Deodorize shoes or sneakers. Place a sheet of Bounce in your shoes or sneakers overnight.
Golfers put a Bounce sheet in their back pocket to keep the bees away.
Put a Bounce sheet in your sleeping bag and tent before folding and storing them. Keeps them smelling fresh.
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WD-40

The product began from a search for a rust preventative solvent and de-greaser to protect missile parts. WD-40 was created in 1953 by three technicians at the San Diego Rocket Chemical Company. It's name comes from the project that was to find a "water displacement" compound. They were successful with the fortieth formulation, thus WD-40.

The Corvair Company bought it in bulk to protect their Atlas missile parts. The workers were so pleased with the product, they began smuggling (also known as "shrinkage" or "stealing") it out to use at home. The executives decided there might be a consumer market for it and put it in aerosol cans.
The rest, as they say, is history.

It is a carefully guarded recipe known only to four people. Only one of them is the "brew master." There are about 2.5 million gallons of the stuff manufactured each year. It gets its distinctive smell from a fragrance that is added to the brew. Ken East says there is nothing in WD-40 that would hurt you.

Here are some of the uses:

Protects silver from tarnishing
Cleans and lubricates guitar strings
Gets oil spots off concrete driveways
Gives floors that 'just-waxed' sheen without making it slippery
Keeps flies off cows
Restores and cleans chalkboards
Removes lipstick stains
Loosens stubborn zippers
Untangles jewelry chains
Removes stains from stainless steel sinks
Removes dirt and grime from the barbecue grill
Keeps ceramic/terra cotta garden pots from oxidizing
Removes tomato stains from clothing
Keeps glass shower doors free of water spots
Camouflages scratches in ceramic and marble floors
Keeps scissors working smoothly
Lubricates noisy door hinges on vehicles and doors in homes
Gives a children's play gym slide a shine for a super fast slide
Lubricates gear shift and mower deck lever for ease of handling on riding mowers
Rids rocking chairs and swings of squeaky noises
Lubricates tracks in sticking home windows and makes them easier to open
Spraying an umbrella stem makes it easier to open and close
Restores and cleans padded leather dashboards in vehicles, as well as vinyl bumpers
Restores and cleans roof racks on vehicles
Lubricates and stops squeaks in electric fans
Lubricates wheel sprockets on tricycles, wagons and bicycles for easy handling
Lubricates fan belts on washers and dryers and keeps them running smoothly
Keeps rust from forming on saws and saw blades, and other tools
Removes splattered grease on stove
Keeps bathroom mirror from fogging
Lubricates prosthetic limbs
Keeps pigeons off the balcony (they hate the smell)
Removes all traces of duct tape
I have even heard of folks spraying it on their arms, hands, knees to relieve arthritis pain.
One fellow claims spraying it on fishing lures attracts fish.

When you gotta know you gotta know.

Well, I have been missing around here for a while. Busy, busy, busy. I have been listening in on some coaching teleclasses and also putting my ideas together for a real website. It takes some thinking and some visiting on many pages to clarify what I like and what I don't. I know, for sure, I really dislike black backgrounds with white text. They are common to find too. Curiously, I checked a recommended site today only to find the black with white type and the font so small on the content-rich pages I gave up reading. And these folks design websites and all sorts of packages of service. Go figure.

I guess investment of time always teaches you something and quite often it is how not to do something. That includes conducting teleclasses. I don't take a lot of them but when I do, especially if I pay for it, I expect to get a lot of information. Usually I think the investment pays off. I was in on one this week that surprised me, or rather disappointed me I should say. The teacher is a superb writer but the talent is not there for facilitating a teleclass. No plan and no solid content so it just wandered in all directions. It was a lesson in not the way to do one. Costly lesson.

It is amazing what anyone can search out on the Internet to learn something. So much is free. Many generous people share their knowledge and expertise. There are some good sites that teach organizing (www.onlineorganizing.com) and some newsletters to get almost any information. If you haven't downloaded the new Google search bar tool give it a go. And I also like www.ask.com, which summons Jeeves, the butler. He is a savvy guy who understand actual questions. He can take you places.

Gracious living with computers :)

Pretty great to find a helpful site when you need some computer know how.
Here's a link to one I really appreciate when my computer gets cranky.

www.protonic.com

A new environment adventure

Today I opened up a new web log and it has a url longer than my arm. Here goes:
http://graciousliving.typepad.com/the_write_event

If you happen over to my bio you will see that I have been a professional handwriting analyst for almost 20 years. Now I am also a life coach. Writing those analysis reports for clients was not exactly coaching although later conversations with them often resulted in some collaborative work on some issues of theirs. But coaching became the direction I wanted to go so after coach training (which is ongoing) it has been a natural transition and a compelling one for me.

I like the focus of coaching. It is not therapy; it is not counseling. It is giving clients my full attention, hearing them out and working together to clarify objectives and achieve their goals.

The handwriting analysis tool can be a great help so we can incorporate it if the client chooses to have it be part of our work together.

The idea of the new web log is to clear up misconceptions about what handwriting analysis is and is not, as well as tell, in part, about how and why it works. So, I invite you to have a look as things unfold.