Jude’s Eclectic Resources

Some people love fall and some dread it just thinking about the leaves falling and snow coming, but whether you like it or not people simply adore decorating for autumn and fall and there’s no denying that this time of season is ripe with decorating ideas.

Just look around your local craft stores and get inspiration. It’s never too early or too late in the year to begin thinking about what you are going to do for your home decorating plan in the seasons to come.

Autumn time you can literally smell the changes that are coming. The burning leaves and roasting peanuts and the chill in the air is invigorating to many. Along with the smells and aromas that are changing, you can also see the leaves start to take on brilliant hues and the colors are spectacular to watch. This is the time of year that thoughts begin to turn to hiking, football, and the upcoming holidays.

Halloween and Thanksgiving are the two primary holidays during Fall. Keep these holidays in mind when planning your primary fall home decorating scheme and make small adjustments in order to accommodate the holidays. Personally, I love the colors associated with autumn. The yellows, golds, orange, and brown are favorites for everyones decorating tastes.

Many people start decorating immediately after Thanksgiving for Christmas. I love Christmas and one year to give myself the spirit of goodness and kindness I put my tree up in August. It made me feel good for many months.

Many lack inspiration when it comes to home decorating for fall, but most keep the colors mentioned above in mind. One great theme to incorporate into the decorating process would be the theme of leaves.

Leaves falling from the trees are one of the most common associations with this time of year and it is a great look to incorporate into your home. You can even find leaf garlands in fall shades if you are inclined to look for them. Leaves can also be incorporated into lovely centerpieces and floral arrangements for the season.

Harvest is another common association with autumn. This is also rather easy to incorporate into most home decorating designs. Gourds make an excellent accent piece for this time of year and you can find real ones in almost any vegetable market along with many realistic imitation gourds.

These can be used, much like or along with leaves, as part of centerpieces, in floral arrangements, in tabletop decorations, and even to hold place cards for large gatherings. They are incredibly versatile as well as colorful and make a great addition to any autumn home decorating venture.

Pumpkins and gourds have a special place all their own in the fall home decorating scheme. Pumpkins have a special association with both Halloween and Thanksgiving and should not be overlooked as an important tool for decorating with.

In addition they are just bright, colorful, and cheerful to have around the house. To avoid the stench of rotting pumpkins simply avoid carving them if you intend to keep them around for a little while. Those that are carved should be placed outside and only carved within days of the ‘big day’.

A great centerpiece idea in general for fall would include a large bowl, in outstanding fall colors such as a burnt orange or a shade of gold. For the first part of autumn you can fill the centerpiece with candies that are wrapped in fall colors. This is ideal for family munchies as well as trick or treaters that may find their way to your door on Halloween.

Once this holiday has ended you can fill the bowl with colorful leaves and gourds to complete the look. This should carry you through Thanksgiving when it is time to begin thinking about Christmas decorations and wintertime rather than fall. At any rate happy decorating for our upcoming holidays everyone.

We all know that the easiest way for a blogger to get traffic is by trying to keep it interesting and updated often, but what interests one doesn’t always make interesting fodder for someone else. People try to find a niche and keep with it, but then they have other interests and start making more blogs and then you have to try and maintain them all and generate traffic.

If readers become interested in the posts on your blog they are more likely to keep coming back and also recommend certain posts to friends and then we are able to increase our traffic. Word of mouth is a great way to draw new readers for your blog, it starts a viral affect and spreads.

I basically say these things for new bloggers because everyone else already knows all of this. If your lucky enough to have a blog owner recommend your blog to their friends then the new blog visitors are also likely to recommend the blog to others if they find it to be interesting and useful.

It’s best to have some sort of schedule set up especially if you have multiple blogs. I try to update everyday, but sometimes I can’t so I at least try to drop in a short message. Some days you can write several post and then just drop them in when needed. I try not to write ahead because I always want to post them straight away and then I don’t have anything for the next day, but it’s important if your readers expect an update often.

Bloggers who set aside a certain amount of time each day for researching, writing and publishing blogs are more likely to have a blog which is up to date than bloggers who plan on accomplishing tasks when they find time to do so. Especially if you use your blog to make money with.

You have to treat it like a business then and there may still be days in which the blogger is unable to publish a new post on his blog, but those days will be less frequent than one who doesn’t have a scheduled time strictly dedicated to keeping their blog up to date.

Content is another issue and if you maintain multiple blogs you should try to keep the content for each blog original. Even if you have several blogs that are related it’s very important to make sure each blog has it’s own original blog postings.

I have a beauty blog also so I wouldn’t be able to post this stuff there. That way they may visit that one for different information and not feel like they are getting the same information from both blogs. It also helps prevent readers who frequently visit one or more of that persons blogs from feeling like it was a waste of time and only start visiting one.

I use to cook a lot when my son was young, but that was a long time ago and I have even cooked in restaurants, but now that Bill and I are together he does most of the cooking because he’s good and he likes doing it. Every once in awhile he lets me cook something, but not often. I guess he likes to unwind that way and besides that he likes all those compliments. Most of my appliances have always been from Hamilton Beach®.

I have always used a Hamilton Beach® Mixer because I have always thought of quality products with Hamilton Beach®. My first one was a hand held and I managed to drop it and break it. I haven’t used any other kind so I can’t tell you what the differences would be with other mixers. I’m sure many of you could tell me how yours holds up to mine, but I’m sure if I hadn’t dropped mine it would still be with me.

At any rate a long time ago I decided to get a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer instead of the hand held and we use it for everything. Well everything that requires using a mixer. We have even used it to make milkshakes, even though we have one of those milkshake makers. I really don’t have any family recipes to share with you because we were so poor we ate a lot of beans and potatoes and fish when my brothers caught it. As you can see mine is an older model so I think I need an upgrade.

I do have a simple dessert I make sometimes, but I eat so much of it I get sick. I never measure so this one is simple. Bill goes strictly by a recipe, I cannot. I buy 2 boxes of vanilla wafers, crushed pineapples and sliced for the top, shredded coconut, maraschino cherries, cool whip, crushed nuts, and now I use the instant vanilla pudding which mixes very quickly in my mixer.

Start with a layer of wafers, add pineapple after you squeeze the juice out, sprinkle coconut and I usually crush some of the cherries and sprinkle these between layers for color. Spoon some pudding over add a thin layer of whip cream, then start another layer. You could add nuts in if you want, but I use those for the top. I finish the top with pineapple slices, a cherry in the middle and sprinkle with nuts. It’s delicious and fattening so I seldom make it. Now I’m hungry for it so I guess this weekend I’ll try to make a small one.

I would love to have one of the new Eclectrics® Mixer’s especially the red one. They come in some delicious looking shades and they have a much longer warranty now, even though all their products have lasted forever for me unless I was careless. This new mixer looks awesome and I would love to try some of the home baked bread recipes. I love the attachments that come with the new one and I watched a clip of the way it beats and it made me want to take up cooking and baking again.

Wow seems like this year is going by so fast before I know it Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here. I think tonight is the night for our trick-or-treaters, but they change so much in so many areas that I’m never sure. I think the parents enjoy it more than the kids and hopefully it is safer now than it use to be. At least I haven’t heard about a lot of mischief like past years.

Sunday was nippy, but Bill and I rode the bike for a bit. We went through town before the parade started and the people were already lined up along the whole road so they could see everything. They always put their seats out the night before to reserve their spots. I felt like I was in the parade it was spooky.

I’m not a big parade person, but I go watch one every now and then just to show support. I do like to watch the parades on tv sometimes just to see the creative floats. Thanksgiving will be here soon and I feel like I have a lot to be thankful for, but I am grateful for my life and the people in it all year long.

I use to get very stressed during holidays, but they don’t bother me the older I get. Now that I’m older and even with menopause I find I let a lot of bothersome things go. This is the first year that I have ever been sent a form for jury selection duty though and that is worrisome. I don’t mind being responsible for my actions and fate, but I sure don’t want to determine someone else’s.

I had never thought of opening an e-commerce phone card business even though I know phone cards do a big booming business. I know lots of people are looking for a business they can run from home and this seems like a doable one. Bill and I always use the prepaid cards because it’s cheaper than paying $75. a month for a cell phone plan besides we only use it for emergencies.

I will have to check it out further to see if it might be another income stream that I can use. I did see that they have a setup charge of $74.99 which includes the domain name that you choose for your business and then the cost is 19.95 a month for maintenance and hosting fees. Plus if you sign someone else up you will receive a $25.00 referral fee.

I’m not sure if this would be compared with those earlier business in a box programs because you would be able to do whatever you want with this one. This sounds more plausible as a business other than some of the other things I am currently involved in, oh well it’s certainly something I will look closer at. It could prove to be a very profitable business.

This work at home business offers shared secure certificate license (SSL), merchant account services, wide range of product selections, wide range of product selection, unlimited product space, A management team that’s working for you, fraud free environment, web hosting, real time transaction processing, and 24/7 tech support.

People are so tired of dealing with the outside world, I know I was, but I sometimes think I should at least start volunteering a few hours of my time a week just to keep in touch and do something good. Many people that are forced to stay at home find many ways to make money on the Internet and this looks as good if not better than many I’ve seen.