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Renee Writes Now!

Monthly Archives: May 2012

A place of refuge

30 Wednesday May 2012

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contentment, Dreams, Family, Home, Shelter, spirituality

  Home is where you must maintain your center, in the most important relationships with family. You don’t feel happiness based on how majestic something looks from the outside or how much it costs, but on how it touches us inside. Our dwellings shelter our dreams, while providing a place of refuge, a place of contentment.

  At the end of our worst days, we return home to a sense of wholeness and the people who can see through us when we don’t want to be transparent.

 Who you are at home is who you are. So remember, your biggest home improvement project always will be yourself.

“Inside the Gate” photograph by Jamieson Thomas.

Mundane tasks

29 Tuesday May 2012

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business, Homes, Houses, mundane task, real-estate

The next time you find yourself resenting some mundane task around the home, just proclaim that you are managing your family estate.

“Home: Celebrating the Spaces of Your Heart” is available at Apple’s iBookstore.

Memorial Day chairs

27 Sunday May 2012

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Chairs, Conversation, Family, furniture, Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a great time to remember that chairs are great places.  They hold us.  Indeed, they can hold great conversation too.

 

 Furniture is one step beyond clothing:  It fits our bodies as it does our moods and our homes.

 

 Consider this: When it comes to chairs, owning a variety of sizes will allow everyone a choice of the best fit.

 And don’t leave this planet without having owned a wooden rocking chair!

 

Moving

25 Friday May 2012

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Home, Houses, Memories, Moving

It’s incredible how adaptive we are as humans. The “moving” experience is sometimes by choice and sometimes by forces outside our control. Either way, the only constant possession we all take from place to place is our memories.

  • Take good care of your memories.

Excerpted from “Home: Celebrating the Spaces of Your Heart,” available at Apple’s iBookstore.

Heaven for beginners

24 Thursday May 2012

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  • “Home interprets heaven….Home is heaven for beginners.”

 

           Charles H. Parkhurst

 

Swim tips

22 Tuesday May 2012

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bathing suit, clothing, fashion, Humor, sausage casing, style, swimsuit, vacation

Most women would rather have a tooth extracted than try on a bathing suit.

But after years of humbling hours spent in badly-lit dressing rooms (standing in front of mirrors undoubtedly purchased from circus fun houses) I have a few tips for obtaining the best result.

1. Be sure to apply makeup and comb your hair before leaving the house. If nothing below your collarbone looks particularly good, it will be less damaging, psychologically .

2. Bring a range of sizes into the dressing room – some larger than you think you’ll need. You can always cut the size tag out of the suit once you own it, but pieces of Spandex run small and “sausage casing” is never a good look.

3. Once you have a swimsuit on, turn your purse upside down and empty the contents on the floor. With your back to the mirror, bend over and pick up everything you lost, replacing it inside the purse. Finally, stand up and face the mirror. Are your breasts still inside the suit? Is your gluteus maximus still encased in the bottom?

Though suntan models recline in perfect splendor, the average woman chases children, picks up shells and even swims in her suit. Who knew? She doesn’t want to continually adjust it or continually fall out of it. (The sight frightens children and innocent beachgoers.)

4. Considerable engineering goes into the manufacture of today’s swimsuits: Tummy control panels, under-wire cups, strategic color placement and draping are ingenious ways to camouflage figure flaws and draw attention to assets . These suits may cost a bit more but are worth it, since you are wearing a bit less and have fewer ways to cover or conceal problem areas.  Burkas are an option, of course…

5. Ignore all swimsuit models (including the Michael Kors version pictured above) and realize magazine photographs are airbrushed, even teenagers have cellulite and no one will be as critical of your appearance as you are.

Photo by Peter Gould/Viewmedia

Patriotic thoughts

21 Monday May 2012

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Homes, Memorial Day, Residence

  • Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson designed, built, and loved their own homes.  If you currently feel overwhelmed by yours, remember: The Founding Fathers also ran the country at the same time…
  • The personal residences of every U.S. President are still standing, except one belonging to William McKinley.

Try dancing

20 Sunday May 2012

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dancing, Home, Humor, living room

   Put the living back into your living room.  Try dancing.

Occasionally, escort your more orderly side out of your living room and leave that spontaneous person in you, behind. How about an overnight campout?  Avoid creating a living room where only strangers sit.

Sometime this week spend 10 minutes just sitting in your living room. No cheating — set the timer on the stove.

Excerpted from Home: Celebrating the Spaces of Your Heart, available soon at Apple’s iBookstore.

Hardware

19 Saturday May 2012

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Architecture, Disney World, door knobs, hardware, Robert A.M. Stern

Your hand touches hardware, so buy hardware you enjoy touching!

My personal favorites:  These door knobs at the Walt Disney World Casting Center – the official building for employment and recruiting at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando – designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern.

Wildlife

12 Saturday May 2012

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Commitment, wildlife, windchimes

A whole beaver family, and sometimes beavers from other families, may join in building a dam.

Beavers enlarge and repair their lodge as long as they live in it. Commitment is a way of life. Who taught the beavers?Think of all creatures in the natural world. Can you come up with any animal that simply lives alone? Marvel at this social structure of the animal kingdom. How much more can we learn from nature?

  •  Our pets live for love, a gentle stroke, and a kind word. They sometimes remind us of how little we return this warmth to our own species…
  • Support some form of wildlife in your yard.  Locate a bird feeder outside the kitchen window. 
    • The songs of the birds are wonderful. Accompany them with wind chimes.

     

  • Excerpted from Home: “Celebrating the Spaces of Your Heart,” available soon at Apple’s iBookstore.     
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