Hypericum perforatum or St. John’s wart is a flower (herb) used for many different medical treatments including depression. Its bright yellow flowers symbolize the power of the sun and it has been used for years in conventional medicine. Hypericum perforatum or St. John’s wart has been in use for hundreds of years for depression, anxiety, damaged nerve system. It is also highly used in a form of oil for treatment of any kind of burns, sun burns and insect bites. Hypericum perforatum can cure open wounds and cuts and makes skin scars almost invisible. This herb can be used in form of a tea, liquid extract, pills, and oil.

Hypericum perforatum grows close to forests and valleys reaching 30-100 cm in height. Their blooming period begins in July-August, which is also the best time for them to be harvested. This herb contains iron,  and bitter ingredients. If you decide to make the oil from this plant, pick the fresh flowers and its leaves, crush them between your fingers and soak them in olive oil. You can use this oil for any kind of skin burns, acne, cists, and wounds. In case you have any kind of stomach problems (especially colon worms/parasites) take two tea spoons of Hypericum perforatum oil daily for a week. Making a tea from the plant is able to help your liver, sinuses, bronchitis, urinary tract infections and any kind of bladder problems. Drink two cups a day by taking quick sips.

Hypericum perforatum seeds are also used in a tea form for diarrhea, and for uncontrolable limb tembling, and arthritis mix the seeds with alcohol and exposing the glass bottle on the sun for three weeks.

With the economy crashing down around us, so many people are actually trying to *gasp!* save money- but its not as easy as it looks.  Countless Americans are failing miserably at trying  to be thrifty, so I’m writing this article to tell all of you out there that no, you don’t have to sell your Grandmother’s antique silver just to keep a little cash in your pocket.

1) Pocket Change! It collects in your cup holders, in the washing mashing, in your shoe. The one place it never seems to collect? THE BANK! This little tip is one most would scoff at: but after a while, the dimes, nickels, quarters and pennies really start to add up. But how to keep it out of those pesky places I’ve already mentioned? Well, here’s what you’re going to do. Go out to the store and get two large containers in which to hold any coins you may collect throughout the day. Place one in your cubicle at work, and one by the front door of your house. When the two are filled up, DO NOT take them to a Coin-Star machine, or something similar. Know why? For every dollar you put in that machine, it receives nine cents of it!

I suggest rolling your own coins- it’s not that difficult and, if you want it to be, it can be a fun way to bond with your kids. Make it into a contest. Award prizes. Whatever. Or give the neighborhood kid five bucks and have them do it. Then when you have your many rolls of coins, mosey on down to your bank and trade those suckers in for a wad of cash. (Be warned: you will be treated like a neanderthal of sorts at the bank; some people are too snooty to roll there own coins nowadays. But hey, you’ll be a rich neanderthal, so don’t let it bother you.) 

Now, this money will not be used to pay your bills. This money is what I like to call “Holy Crap! money”,  because life, with its sick humor, likes to send us curve balls and speed bumps, such as, “Holy Crap! My car just broke down”, or “Holy Crap! I just broke my arm”, or the ever popular, “Holy Crap! It’s Christmas and I haven’t bought anything!”.

2) This next tip may make you feel slightly like a senior citizen- unless you are one, in which case, kudos to you for trying to save some cash. The tip is a good one, one many people already use: the circulars. Now, the dictionary.com definition of a circular is: A printed advertisement, directive, or notice intended for mass distribution.  The ones I’m referring to are the ones in the front of your supermarket, that tell you the sales on all sorts of food. Here is how to use these handy little things:

a) Make two shopping lists: one with all the essentials your family needs such as bread, milk, eggs, as well as large categories like fruits, and cereal. On the second list, write out frivolous things your family might want such as cookie dough and frozen waffles, as well as things that fit into the large categories on the first list, like apples and Cap’n Crunch.

b) Take these two lists to the store and pick up the circular for that week. Go through and circle all the re-occurring things on your lists and the circulars. If something on the first list is not in the circular, buy it regardless. If this is the case for the second list, you should not buy it for that week.

3) This last tip contains many separate tips: They are grouped together because they most come with a sacrifice: Time or Money? What i mean by this is that if you want to spend the time to make your lunch instead of buying it, you could save an unbelievable amount per year. But doing so will eat up your time in the morning. I believe the choice is easy, but then, I am the one writing the article. So think about this trade-off before you make a decision. (Note: I believe that even though they take up time, they can be fun and well-worth it if you involve your family and friends.)

a) Wash your car at home instead of getting it done professionally.

b) Buy one durable, fill-up plastic water bottle and a purifier: this will soon pay for itself and is better for the environment.

c) Be sure to use ALL of a cosmetic before switching to a new one. To create a new lip gloss, scoop out the lasts of your lip-stick and mix in some Vaseline.

d) Of course, shop thrift-stores and Good Will, but also learn to barter and hit some yard sales!

HAPPY BARGAIN HUNTING!

When you’re going through everyday life sometimes it seems like everything is against you having anytime for yourself or for the people you love.  Everything happens for a reason so when you’re super busy at work you will reap the rewards of being able to relax when you are able to spend some time alone or with your family and friends.  When you have a bunch of down time that usually means that you will be super busy later so enjoy it while you can.

The universe has a way of balancing everything out so when something bad happens you can rest assured that something good is around the corner.  For instance if you lose your job that means you can spend more time at home with the people you love and it is probably the universe telling you that you need to slow down and take it easy for a while.  You will get another job when you find the thing that you are supposed to do.  Sometimes we all get too busy to really live so the universe makes it so we have to.

We go about our lives working and sleeping and we don’t really ever get a chance to go out and do things that we liked to do when we were younger and had all our bills paid by our parents.  When all you have to do is discover and dream that’s all you want to do.  When you have to work to do things all you want to do is sleep.  It’s a vicious circle.  The way to over come this is by thinking about what you always planned to do when you were little and try to do it when you have the chance.  Time off doesn’t always have to be nap time.

Here are a few things to help you from getting into that slump.

* Write a list of things that you want to do that you have never done before.

* Write a list of things that you love to do but don’t get to do very often.

* Pick something off each list when you get time off and do it.

When you set goals you feel like you’re accomplishing something even when it’s just goofing off.  If it’s on the list you can cross it off and you have accomplished something.  You have gone out and done something to expand your horizons and you were not in front of the TV watching other people do it.

When you do things for yourself it makes you better at the things that you do for other people.  For instance your job.  When you are feeling like you’re in a rut and you don’t every get out and do anything you start to wear down and get cabin fever which makes you no good for anyone.

Managing time is very important in our lives!  We often have the habit of doing things later, later, and later until you forgot to do the task on the time you should work on it making you unable to do other tasks on the line.

1.  ALWAYS BRING WITH YOU A SMALL PEN AND A PAPER.

This is for you to write everything that comes into your mind and be able to include it on the future list of DO’s and DON’Ts!

2.  EVERY TIME YOU THINK OF SOMETHING, DO IT RIGHT AWAY.

We often have the body clock and body alarm that warns and reminds us to do the things we must do.  These are the things that we often forget and won’t be able to make it up if make no actions.

3.  WRITE DOWN, THE NIGHT BEFORE, EVERY TASK YOU HAVE TO COMPLY FOR THE NEXT DAY!

Write down itinerary before every routine to save time.  New ideas must be written down to a small piece of paper to be done after your daily planned activities or better yet include it to the future to DO list.

4.  ALWAYS PLAN YOUR WORK, AND WORK ACCORDING TO YOUR PLAN.

This is very important!  Always plan your work for a systematic result.  Systematic results will give you peace of mind and will make you free from stress!  To work according to your plan will make your life more easy than the habitual complicated life!  Let us manage our time wisely and live a better life!

Have you ever thought that the US ever had so many days we celebrate? I have written about 38, but going over and over again to learn about history, I’m learning there are many new holidays and days coming to our calendar soon. Here are a few of the calendar days as well as federal days.

a. Thanksgiving                                                              
b. Christmas                                                                      
c. Independence day                                      
d. Memorial day                                                          
e. Labor day                                                             
f. mothers day                                                
g. fathers day                                                       
h. Valentines day                                                     
i. Hanukkah
j. Kwanzaa
k. Uniform holidays bill
l. Veterans day
m. New years day
n. Martin Luther king Jr.
o. Inauguration Day
p. Columbus Day
q. Columbus Day
r. Washington’s Birthday
s. Constitution Day and Citizenship Day
t. Flag Day
u. National Grandparents’ Day
v. Wright Brothers Day
w. Patriot Day
x. Thomas Jefferson’s birthday
y. Peace Officers Memorial Day
z. Parents’ Day

1a. Law Day, U.S.A. (May 1)
2b. Leif Erikson Day                                                                        
3c. Constitution Day and Citizenship Day (September 17)
4d. Child Health Day
5e. Ash Wednesday
6f. Groundhog day
7g. ST. Patrick’s day
8h. April fools day
9i. Good Friday
10j. Easter
11k. Boss’s day
12l. Earth day

With the way the economy is, it’s harder then ever to plan a wedding within a budget. Never mind one that’s themed. Don’t stress though, I have a few tips for you that will hopefully get you in the right direction.

Tip # 1 : Is your wedding going to be during a certain season? Look at the colors that are complimentary of the season and ask yourself if you could incorporate that into your chosen theme.  If your having a western themed wedding like my fiance and I, then leaves and the various colors are a great little decor. Our wedding happens to be in September, and luckily for us his mom is going to let us borrow her decorations for the season.

Tip # 2  : If your not going to be wearing a dress, or if your wedding party isn’t, then see if they already have jeans that will fit them and the wedding! My fiance and I are having all the girls wear their own jeans, at least that’s what we’re hoping. We’ll provide the shirts, and for the guys, we’ll provide the jeans (already have) and the shirts (already have). If you don’t, here’s a tip I’m sure you’ve seen all over the internet : Salvation Army! See if there’s a dress that you could spruce up, or even fabric material, are you a seamstress? Can you sew? Use that for your own advantages

Tip # 3 : Can your mama bake? What about his mama? Get them to do the cake, sure you want it to be special, but what’s more special then a cake your mother or future mother in law has made? What about granny?

Tip # 4 : Cook your own food. It saves a lot in the long run, and you can even have a pot luck, have your guests bring their favorite dish!

Tip # 5 : Invitations, Invitations, Invitations. Make your own, you can always go to WalMart and get kits, even look for templates online!

Well that’s all the tips I have for you right now. I hope that it works for you! Congratulations!

Is it really that great?

It makes you feel like crap, a banging head, gives you cotton mouth, it makes you stink and the room you wake up in smell like a brewery.

So why do we do it, its OK if you know how to drink sensibly, but does any one actually do that. I have recently been to a funeral of a friend who drunk himself to death. It was such a waist of his life, he was only 35 years old.

He just started off as a teenager drinking every weekend, getting off his face. All his friends use to think wow he is soo funny what a great guy, always up for a laugh him, really knows how to party. What they where not seeing was a person with a problem, the more he drunk the more his body was getting use to it, he then needed to drink more and more to get himself in that drunken state.

It slowly took over his life, he was told he was diabetic, type 1 in his late 20s. I could not believe he was still going, the doctors had given him so many warnings. He was in and out of hospital, really poorly, but he just felt he could not go out with his mates and have a laugh unless he was steaming drunk.

All of the friends he hang out with didn’t really help in any way, they where not going to stop or cut down on their drinking to try and help him. People would buy him a drink, thinking it was the polite thing to do. If i was there it would make me soo angry, that to me was just helping him die.

I think teenagers should be learning in school about the effects of drinking too much alcohol. More to the point how to drink sensibly. Also at home their parents should be setting a good example, not coming in after a night out steaming drunk and waking up the kids. Or the kids having to see their parents throwing there gut up in the loo, that’s if they get to the loo. Some people think its great, funny something to boast about.

For example, radio DJ’s, they like to big up how rough they are feeling, what a great night they had though, what they got up to. Then there are the TV presenters and programs like eastenders, they are always in the pubs, every day, you can’t get away from it.

Now I like a drink, but there is no need for people to get absolutely of their heads, just take your time and relax with it, its not a competition, its not a game, who will be the last one standing. It is not nice to be woken by your other half choking on their own vomit in the night, or because they have peed in the bed. So lets be grown ups and act respo

Some people can see it coming. There is not going to be enough money in the bank to cover what needs to go out for whatever reason. These people are prepared and contact their creditors to explain the situation or maybe organize a personal loan to ensure they stay on top of things. But what about the rest of us?

I ordered some things out of a catalog, barely twenty pounds worth of goods. The items were for my kids’ room for when it was finished being re-decorated. I put the items out of the way, and because I knew what the items were I failed to take the invoice out of the box. A couple of weeks later, a reminder drops through my door, re non-payment of delivered items. OK, so I pay the amount that I should have paid. Not even two days later another letter through the door. Thank you for payment but you missed paying the twenty pound late payment fee, please pay immediately. Not having the spare money I think I may have to wait till payday to pay it. By then another twenty pound added on. What started off as an order of less than twenty pound has now totaled £94.00.

An example of how finances can quickly spiral out of hand, but how do you fix the damage?

A good start is to make a list of every creditor you have, prioritizing the list so that the most important ones are at the top. Highlight any that you know you are in difficulty with (or about to become in difficulty with) and ignore the rest (for now).

Contact the creditors that you know you will not be able to pay (or not be able to make a minimum payment). Creditors would rather you contact them than ignore them hoping they will go away, because they won’t and the late charges and admin charges will add up.

If you have managed sufficiently before you need to sit down and work out why you are facing a short fall. Try to be relaxed and calm when doing it, getting stressed will make you worry and you lose sight of the bigger picture. If you have a constant short fall you need to work out what you can cut back on (for example, do you really need to drive to work wasting petrol when it is in walking distance?). If you don’t want to cut things out then it is a good idea to start looking for a second income to put you back in the black.

Cut up credit cards and store cards. The last thing you need is an incentive or the means to spend more money. It is a known fact when people get miserable or slightly depressed about something the easiest thing to do is to spend a bit of money and for some reason that lifts the mood. Completely cancel the accounts with the providers to ensure further cards are not issued when the current ones have expired.

Stay positive and focused. Give yourself goals for when you are back on steady ground. You will find that after a long period of time shelling out large amounts of money you don’t seem to miss it, so when you are not obliged to pay out those large sums anymore, what are you going to do with the money? (I’m going to Florida next year with mine!).

People talk about networking more and more. This term indicates how to meet people who later will be of use in your professional life. So this is how the network of useful contacts is growing. We could believe that this concept is of advantage only to business people. But how should we use networking in our own career?

The idea of this article came while I was reading a book about personal development and leadership. This metaphor gave me the idea: “Before you plant the seed, you must prepare the soil. This means building relationships. Seeding means developing for the future”… and building relationships means networking!

The need for networking

Why do we need to focus on building professional relationships? Because we are not professional enough in our jobs. Maybe this was true in the past, but now things are changing at amazing speed.

Now we are our own employees, we don’t need the safety of tomorrow anymore, as our parents did. We live in such a populated world with corporations of every kind and surprisingly, the number of those who decide to start their own business is still growing. That`s why networking has become a necessity and an ability. We have to develop in order to succeed in a world that is in continuous changing. If you are looking for a better job,  networking is twelve times better than any advertise posted in the newspapers or on different websites.  It is reasonable to find a job indirectly landing it through a person who knows you and can recommend you, rather than using a direct way.

How to improve your networking?

Here are some essential techniques needed for building an excellent reputation through networking:

• Built a network of partners (friends, ex-colleagues, acquaintances, etc) that can identify new career opportunities for you. It’s obviously easier to find out about a job from several people than trying it all by yourself. This way you will save time and money.
• Identify the best feature of your personality and this will help you draw the line of your career.
• In order to find a good job, your need to identify those companies or the people you want to work with. It is possible that one of your network partners has a friend who works for the company you want. All you have to do is act fast and look for important information. Anyway, you are the only one who knows were you want to get.

Promote yourself!

You know that in order to launch a product of any kind you have to constitute a company. In case of networking, the product is yourself! So, you have to prepare your own company! How can you do this? Here is a model for planning your own company’s networking:

- define your purpose clearly;

- make a selection of techniques to secure one`s object;

- understand and be aware of a network`s necessity of a big number of acquaintances;

- identify your goal;

- establish your position (your abilities, what makes you different from the others);

- think of what you can offer to your partners;

- keep in mind the “win-win” strategy, especially in the area of networking;

Dare to use the power of networking, in order to have the professional succes you always wanted.

His name was Hank, a black man who had previously been a policeman.  Now, he was a security guard who worked for a corporation.  Hank had two cars, one of which was an old, rusty, faded blue Buick, not worth much on the market, and the other a brand new, shiny,  plum red Chrysler. Hank loved to ride in both car.  The blue Buick was good on gas, and the shiny Chrysler he drove mainly when he went out of town, and some days to work.   

It became apparent, however, that Hank was being watched.  As he drove home at night, he would be pulled over by the police.  He and his wife lived in an area of town where there were not many Blacks.  When he was pulled over, they would ask for his ID and asked where he was going.  Hank began to notice that his old blue Buick seemed to attract the police to him.  When he drove his Chrysler, there was no problem.  After nine times of being pulled over, Hank felt he had had enough of the profiling.  Going down to the sheriff’s office, he showed his credentials, and explained that he was a retired policeman from another city.  Finally, after a few of these chats with the police chief and sheriff department, the profiling ceased. 

About 15 miles from where Hank lived, racial profiling was profuse.  Young black men who would be walking home or to their friends’ homes, were often stopped on the street, asked to show their ID, and spoken to harshly without due cause.  Once one was slammed, face down, on the hood of a police car in embarrassment and insulted.  This went on for several years until an attorney was hired to stop it.  The situation somewhat mitigated after that, however, even today, in that small city, there have been incidences of racial injustice and profiling.   

In the 21st Century, racial profiling still exists.  Why does it exist and what can be done to alleviate the problem?  These and other questions are being asked.  Are there any real true answers except to say racial profiling is not new to any age?  Wherever there is prejudice and stereotyping there will be racial profiling.  

Stereotyping puts people in categories.  Black young men are often looked upon as criminals, or thugs, ready to do harm to others.  This is not indigenous to the Black populous, however, many Hispanic and Asian groups incur the same treatment.  So preconceived ideas of what and who people groups are, help fester beds of reasons for racial profiling. 

How people dress, how they walk, how they talk, what they say and do, and how they live, are often misinterpreted.  These actions give reasons for suspicion, and under gird the reactions of racial profiling.  If you see a man with a long pony tail dressed rather shabbily coming directly towards you, immediately put up your guard.  You wonder if he is a vagrant, robber, or criminal.  Before you know it, you are thinking about what you’d do if he would assault you.  You see, profiling comes naturally to all of us. On the other hand, if you saw that same man, clean shaven, wearing  a well tailored business suit, carrying a leather briefcase coming directly towards you, you’d probably not even give him a thought.   

What can be done to alleviate the problem of racial profiling?  Learning about people groups, becoming exposed to other cultures, interacting with others of different cultures, are ways to begin.  As we begin to see our commonalities versus our differences, we can acquire an appreciation of others and how they live.  We will no longer see them as thugs, criminals, and people who are bent on destroying humankind.  Instead, we will see them as individuals who have like problems and complexities as we all have.  Instead we will view them as our chance to be a friend and to lend a hand.  Instead, we will put off our goggles of racial profiling and put on our glasses of understanding.  And we will be willing to ask the question, “How do they see us?”