GCDSpa Stuff

Wordless Wednesday is Holiday Lip Balm

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:55:00 +0000

Word of the Week: Hot

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:24:00 +0000

My husband was given a bottle of this hot sauce a few years ago. It's from W.O. Hesperus Co., made right here in Portland, Maine. With a simple ingredient list (Red Savina Habaneros, cider vinegar, Maine sea weed & sea salt) and a heat level of 13 out of 10, it's a flavorful sauce that packs a ~~punch~~ wallop.

That gift marked the beginning of a beautiful relationship. It started off appropriately enough: on nachos, with guacamole, in dips. Then one night the bottle appeared, uninvited, next to the soup bowl. Within a short time it was popping up by the pasta salad and heating up the roasted veggies. Even the omelets weren't safe from its scorching. "It really enhances the flavor of lots of foods," my husband says, as he sets the fourth new bottle in its place of honor next to his plate.

He's also tried the Cocoloco sauce, which wasn't as hot but had "great tropical coconut-y flavor," and the Kick in the Nuts pistachios which were "tasty but would have been hotter if they'd removed the shells before seasoning them."

The interesting thing about this culinary obsession is that in two years' time, my husband has had one cold. While the rest of our household passes around viruses, he passes the Jolly Roger bottle: stirred in soups, tucked in tacos, muddled in macaroni. And never a sniffle. In fact, that solitary cold came within a week of running out of his beloved sauce.

I wondered if there was a good reason for his seeming immunity. While chili peppers are high in vitamin C—an antioxidant that may help the immune system—they also contain capsaicin, which may (according to WebMD) "help prevent bacterial infections" and "may also make mucus thinner and help move it out of the lungs." If you're exposed to a virus or bacteria, maybe that runny-nose-feeling from hot sauce is actually helping you throw it off. (And if you catch a cold, at the very least hot sauce will make you feel less congested.)

Of course, my husband's story is just an anecdote, and I'm not saying this will work for everyone. But with my kids' school flu clinics canceled and no rescheduled date, I think we all may start passing the bottle. Got hot?

Happy Halloween!

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:32:00 +0000

Happy Candy Corn Day

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:16:00 +0000

Yes, it is National Candy Corn Day. No, I usually don't celebrate. But when there's candy corn around (and honestly, what family doesn't have a big ol' bag or bowl of it this time of year?) why not indulge? After all, it's fat-free! Here are some other candy corn facts:

- Candy corn was first made in the 1880s.

- About 9 billion (yes that was a "b"--BILLION) kernels are made by candy companies in a year.

- Originally made by hand, candy corn is now manufactured by machines.

More candy corn information.
Gourmet candy corn.
Candy Corn lip balm

Pink Lady and Pink Cupcake Review

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:43:00 +0000

I had to share this with you! I was really excited to see this review of our Pink Lady and Pink Cupcake products today at Sarah's Surprises. Sarah had mentioned the Pink Lady products earlier this month because the sale of these items benefits breast cancer awareness year-round.

Please feel free to leave your comments here...or better yet, leave some comments for Sarah if you've tried any of our products and have feedback to share!

Wordless Wednesday is Red Currant

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Coming soon...

350.org Action in Brunswick, ME

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:01:00 +0000

Last week I wrote 350 words on 350.org, and mentioned that I was planning to attend a 350.org action in Brunswick on Saturday. Well, I watched it pour Saturday morning and sorta started wishing I hadn't blogged about it...much easier to chicken out and stay home if no one is waiting for the follow-up! But I was marching with the "diehards" so there was no turning back!

We did have a small discussion about the irony of allowing annoying weather to prevent our attendance at a climate change event. Without appropriate action, annoying weather will be replaced by devastating weather, and getting a little bit wet will be the least of our problems. That thought made it easier (for me) to take a walk in the rain. So here we go...

Here are some of the members of St. Paul's Earth Care Commission just before the bell ringing! (My parents are third and fourth from the left.) Here is the group's action report, which you can view with the other photos at the 350.org Flickr Photostream:
"St. Paul's Episcopal Church Earth Care Commission rang bells at 2:30 in front of the church. We marched to the Unitarian Universalist Church down the street where we joined with their prayer and ringing of their bell. As a joint group, we marched up Maine Street to the First Parish Church, joining with their group as they rang their bell 350 times. The entire group then marched to Bowdoin College where we joined their 350 climate action."

Here I am looking really dry! That didn't last. But you can see I had my umbrella with me, and fortunately the event at Bowdoin was moved indoors.

And here we are in Morrell Lounge, in Smith Union at Bowdoin College, making our 350. I know, it's hard to see the 350. I'm in there, though, and so are my parents and the rest of their group! This photo was taken by Margot Miller. http://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Here are more details about the 350.org event at Bowdoin.

I'm so glad I was invited to participate--I truly enjoyed meeting the members of the Earth Care Commission and spending an hour in the rain with them! The event at Bowdoin reminded us that climate change is also a national security issue. There is a lot at stake, so it's vital that we keep reminding our senators and representatives how important clean energy is to all of us.

Did you participate in a 350.org action? I'd love to share your photos and experiences, too! Please let us know where you were and what you did!

Word of the Week: Nerd

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:20:00 +0000

"My natural enthusiasm about bugs is stronger than any worries about how nerdy I appear..." -Thomas Shahan.

I ran across this quote last week in a tweet by The Today Show. Shahan was a guest on the show, talking about his passion for photographing bugs. Do yourself a favor and visit Shahan's Flickr Photostream. I am not a huge fan of bugs, but his photos are incredibly beautiful. It's like visiting another world. Imagine having the ability to do this--to show people other worlds right there under their noses all the time--and NOT DOING IT because you're worried about looking "nerdy".

So this is what I say to you: if you're a nerd--what Dictionary.com calls "an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit"--embrace it. Many of the truly incredible things that have been accomplished in this world were done by intelligent, single-minded, and yes, obsessed people! You owe it to yourself (and the world) to share it!

What do you think of his photos? Aren't they amazing? Have you ever been called a nerd? Are you cool with it or do you hide your enthusiasm because you're afraid of what people think?

Photo credit. CC BY 2.0

350 Words on 350.org

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:16:00 +0000

This Saturday I plan to join a small group at a local church, which will join other small groups marching up the hill to Bowdoin College. At Bowdoin we will join a larger group, including a congressman and a former Maine governor, who will join an immense group of activists from 170 nations. We join all of them to "take a stand for a safe climate future."

350.org was founded by Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and other works about global warming and the environment. The number 350 refers to the parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in our atmosphere that is now considered the safe upper limit for life on this planet. Current estimates put us closer to 400 ppm, and it's believed that if we stay at these levels or allow them to get higher, the resulting climate changes will lead to environmental catastrophes, and will ultimately be irreversible.

Here's a video that illustrates what 350.org is about:

It's truly amazing what international activists have planned for October 24. In the 170 participating countries, there are more than 4,000 actions planned! Take a look at this article Bill McKibben wrote for Yes! magazine. McKibben writes: "Some of these actions are so beautiful they make you weep: around the dwindling Dead Sea, Israeli activists will form a giant human 3 on their shore, and Palestinians a 5 on their beach, and in Jordan a huge 0. The message: even in places with deep divisions, people understand that the crisis that faces us now calls for real unity."

I'm looking forward to joining others at Bowdoin to pose for our 350 photo on Saturday. Join us where you are! Visit 350.org to find an action happening near you, and share your stories with us here on Saturday!

Photo directed and photographed by John Quigley/Spectral Q

Wordless Wednesday is October Colors

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:13:00 +0000

Gay Marriage and the Wedding Professional

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:08:00 +0000

Here in Maine we're preparing for a big vote on November 3, which is unusual in an off-year election. Last spring our state's legislature and governor passed a law legalizing same-sex marriage, and depending on our response to Question One in November's Referendum, Maine could be the first state to support our gay marriage law with a popular vote. At this point it is difficult to say which way the state will go, so everyone is watching, and waiting. And arguing. What a divisive issue!

I do a lot of reading about weddings, and some time ago I came across this story of a wedding photographer in New Mexico who was approached by a same-sex couple to photograph their commitment ceremony (New Mexico does not allow same-sex marriage). The photographer declined, telling the couple that she was a Christian and because of her beliefs, she didn't photograph same-sex ceremonies. The couple sued the photographer and won: the Human Rights Commission in NM found her guilty of discrimination and ordered her to pay nearly $7,000 for the couple's legal fees.

I've seen this story repeated many times in recent months, often by business owners concerned about being "forced" to offer services against their own beliefs. If we uphold this law in Maine--and if other states follow the six who already have same-sex marriage laws--there will be a lot of lawsuits like this one, and a lot of questions that will need answers. For example, what takes precedence in a business situation: my religious beliefs, or your right not to be discriminated against? If you "force" me to provide a product or service against my beliefs, is this also discrimination? Some states have added religious protections to their same-sex marriage laws to deal with the conflicts between rights. It's still a very complicated issue, with questions I'm not qualified to answer. The question I can answer, though, is how I address this issue within my own business.

Over the years, I've prepared thousands of favors and gifts for many weddings and wedding-related events, including same-sex commitment ceremonies and civil unions. When customers place orders at my site, they specify their personalization, including names, and I add them to the labels and tags as typed. The customer then has the opportunity to make corrections to a draft that I email before printing and assembling their favors. This process is the same for every customer, without exception. I decided a long time ago that my business was about making people feel special, but I've never liked the idea that some people have to be left out in order for others to feel special. This is why I've kept my prices and my minimums low: even the smallest events and the tightest budgets can afford my kind of special. That's also why I'm just as happy to get an order from "Tammy and Steve" as from "Tammy and Lisa". I love that Tammy and Steve AND Tammy and Lisa choose my products to share at their celebrations! I like making them feel special, too.

A question that I haven't seen discussed as often, but which I think should be considered by wedding couples, is this: does "forcing" a business to provide you with a product or service against their beliefs give you the best product or service? While it certainly may be discrimination for a photographer or other professional to refuse to work with you in certain circumstances, the reality is that if for some reason they cannot provide you with their best work, you will be much happier finding a vendor who can. Many same-sex couples are now turning to sites like Rainbow Wedding Network and Queerly Wed to find what the latter site calls "queer friendly" vendors. There are many professionals who will be excited to take part in your celebration, and these sites make it easier to find them. If you own a "queer-friendly" business, check out these sites to see how you can add your business to their lists.

I also think that it's important for business owners to be aware of anti-discrimination laws and how they can affect you. Business owners with certain religious beliefs are already afraid that same-sex marriage laws will put them in the position of having to choose between "your conscience or your livelihood." While businesses turn away jobs every day for a variety of reasons, there are some reasons that may offend potential customers or, at worst, are considered discriminatory. Know your rights, understand the law, and remember that being respectful toward everyone, regardless of whether you agree with them, just makes good sense--from a human and business perspective.

What do you think? Does your state have a same-sex marriage law? Does this issue affect you personally, or impact your job or business? Please share your thoughts!

Cake topper photo from istockphoto.com

Word of the Week: Nonsense

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:32:00 +0000

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities." Dr. Seuss

"Nonsense is an assertion of man's spiritual freedom in spite of all the oppressions of circumstance." Aldous Huxley

"Nonsense is to sense, as shade to light; it heightens effect." Frederick Saunders

Enjoy a little nonsense this Monday, and have a wonderful week!

Would a free honeymoon save YOUR marriage?

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:04:00 +0000

The government of a Malaysian state seems to think they can save faltering marriages and "create models of exemplary families" with a plan to offer free honeymoons to couples who are considering divorce. Two nights at an island or beach resort may do the trick, according to officials from Terengganu state. (And if not, the counseling required for the participating couples probably will help.)

In other wedding news, The Unification Church had its first mass wedding in years last week when Rev. Sun Myung Moon blessed a crowd of 20,000 at a campus in Asan, south of Seoul, Korea. An additional 20,000 watched from around the world over the Internet. Some of the couples being married had only met a few times before the ceremony--their marriages were arranged by Moon.

Imagine sharing a wedding day and ceremony with so many other people! Imagine the government taking such an interest in the success of your marriage and family! What do you think? Would a free honeymoon "fix" a broken marriage? How about letting someone else choose your spouse--is that likely to result in a happy or successful union?

Take 15% off on the 15th!

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:01:00 +0000

Just in case you can't read the coupon above...

Take 15% off on October 15th! Visit us at GCDSpa.com, place an order before 11:59 pm EST on October 15th and take 15% off!

Add your items to the shopping cart, then enter Promotional Code TAKE15 and click update to see your reduced prices. Please note that coupon does not apply to Pink Lady products or to items already discounted.

Wordless Wednesday is Autumn in Maine!

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Word of the Week: Change

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:48:00 +0000

For a while now I've been working on reformulating our sugar scrubs so they are paraben free, and I finally have them ready. It's ironic that this change is happening in October, during Breast Cancer Awareness month; an experiment conducted in the UK in 2004 found parabens in breast tumors, and led many to link paraben preservatives with breast cancer. In the years since, lots of beauty products companies have felt the pressure to find alternative preservatives for their products. You can add us to the list: with the addition of a paraben-free bath gel last spring and sugar scrub this month, our entire line of products is now paraben-free.

I don't want to give the impression that our products were unsafe before because they contained parabens, or that other companies' products are unsafe if they still contain them. I've given this issue a lot of thought, and after reading research and opinions I still have mixed feelings about parabens. There are consumer advocate groups in the U.S. who are very vocal about potentially harmful ingredients in cosmetics. These folks hold the cosmetics industry in Europe as an example, since they have much stricter rules about cosmetics and beauty products than we do here. Interestingly enough, parabens are still considered safe in Europe; while they forbid the use of CMR substances (carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic for reproduction), parabens are not on that list. Colipa, The European Cosmetics Association, lists parabens on its "Ingredients Under Discussion" with the statement, "Scientific safety studies have shown that parabens pose no problem for human health when used in cosmetics. They are listed in the Cosmetics Directive as approved preservatives."

The American Cancer Society lists parabens under the category of "Factors with uncertain, controversial, or unproven effect on breast cancer risk" in their list of Risk Factors for Breast Cancer. The National Cancer Institute, as well as the FDA, also do not consider parabens to be health hazards. Kayla Fioravanti from Essential Wholesale has blogged about parabens in detail on several occasions: her initial discussion answers a lot of paraben questions, while a follow-up blog states the positions of major cancer and health organizations such as the FDA and National Cancer Institute. The bottom line for all of these organizations, in the U.S. and Europe, is that parabens are still considered safe in cosmetics and beauty products.

So why change? I wrote about change when we reformulated our lip balms to change our colorants. I've slowly been increasing the natural and organic flavorings used in our balms, too. These changes are meant to improve our products, to include more healthful and soothing ingredients and remove anything that could cause allergic reaction. We change to reflect new research and information about our ingredients, but we also change in response to our customers. Even if there isn't scientific proof that parabens cause cancer, some of our customers are nervous about it, and we can change that. I hope that changing to paraben-free products will help some of you feel more comfortable. Please let me know if you have any questions about this change, and feel free to leave your comments below.

Baking for Adopt-a-Dog Month

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:55:00 +0000

October is American Humane's Adopt-a-Dog Month. We have a couple of friends who have just recently brought home new pups, and since we're enjoying a long weekend, the kids and I decided that we'd bake some dog bones to give as gifts to these new friends!

Our other canine pals really enjoy peanut butter bones, so we did a search online and found this recipe for "Peanut Butter Puppy Poppers":

2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 cup peanut butter (chunky or smooth)
1 cup milk

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, mix milk and peanut butter in another and then add to the dry ingredients. Mix, then knead the dough. The dough is a little tough to stir and roll out, so kids may need your help with this part. But after the dough is rolled to about 1/4" on a lightly floured surface, give them the cutters and let them go to it! We used three sizes of bone-shaped cutters, but you can use any shapes you like. (My daughter did a few butterflies, too, so someone will be surprised!).

We baked the bones at 350° for 20 minutes, then let the batch sit out overnight to dry out completely. Then we packaged in cello bags and added a tag with the ingredients (just like people, some dogs have allergies, so it's important that you share the ingredients if you're giving the bones as a gift).

If you'd like to print out these tags that we made, click here for the PDF for a free sheet of printable tags. (These are just for your personal use, please! Not suitable for commercial products!) Then punch holes and use the ribbons of your choice.

For more information about adopting your own dog, read about the adoption process at American Humane's website.
They share all kinds of information about the care of your new pet, as well as behavior and training issues and tips.

Wordless Wednesday is Halloween Lip Balms

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:41:00 +0000

Halloween Lip balm set

Word of the Week: Reunited

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:06:00 +0000

Imagine working with someone for a few months and then discovering he's your brother. Imagine being in your 30s or 40s before you get to meet your siblings. This is an amazing story that has been unfolding here in Maine in recent months and concluded on the Today show last week.

I find it incredible that there are only a handful of states with open adoption records to allow reunions like this. What do you think about this? Do you think that adopted children should be able to access this information once they reach adulthood?

A Reader Reclaims the World Between the Covers

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:44:00 +0000

I used to be a reader. When I was a kid, I happily spent 40 minutes on the school bus every morning reading a book. I enjoyed that feeling of entering a different world, of following where the author led me. As I recently tried to encourage this same love of books in my kids, I realized with some shock that I wasn't reading books anymore.

Don't get me wrong: I read all the time. I spend all kinds of time on the internet. But surfing involves a different kind of reading--and maybe a different kind of thinking, too. Last summer, Nicholas Carr talked about this in The Atlantic when he asked, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Formerly "voracious" readers provided their experiences of being unable to finish books (at least I'm not alone!). This evidence is supported by research in the UK which suggests that people are using a "power browsing" technique for gathering information online rather than reading in detail. Carr's piece describes the ways that technology has changed not only the way we live, but the way we think about things and about ourselves. From the invention of the clock through the development of industrial and manufacturing efficiencies, these changes have shaped us: we place a high value on information and the immediacy and sheer volume of it has changed how we process it. The internet has become part of our intellectual "evolution".

It's interesting to think about who we're going to be five or ten years from now if we're having a hard time reading books now. Of course technology will accommodate this. It already has. I was just reading about hybrid books, which are books with video and web components. Judith Curr, the publisher of Atria Books, says, "You can't just be linear anymore with your text." A reviewer on Amazon.com named Fred L. Gronvall said of the videos, "It really makes a story more real if you know what the characters look like." I don't remember having a problem with that when I used to read books; in fact, I preferred to read a book before seeing the movie precisely because I could imagine the characters and settings myself. Seeing a movie first was like having the work done for you. It removed what Carr calls the "intellectual vibrations" in the brain caused by reading books. "In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book," Carr said, "...we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas." In other words, "deep" reading makes us think.

Those who create the images that accompany the words in "vooks" (or replace them entirely in movies or Youtube videos) are moved by the written word and its "intellectual vibrations". They read a book like Lord of the Rings, for example, and see a whole world that they're inspired to create on screen. What will happen if the next generation of directors and other storytellers no longer read books, and spend childhoods having their stories "spoon fed" to them? What new medium or process will replace these "intellectual vibrations" that have inspired us for centuries?

The staccato nature of our Twitter communications, cryptic length of status updates, and brief summaries of news items that we read on our daily "feeds" are accommodating our appetites for information, and lots of it, but have we sacrificed our ability to think deeply about issues? The sound bite in politics may not be popular just because it's palatable: perhaps it's the only size of information we are able to chew and digest. By filling us up with many tiny, constant meals, new media seems to have rendered us incapable of eating anything larger or meatier. Is this something to be excited about? Are we intrigued? Or alarmed? Will the problems we face as time goes on decrease in complexity to accommodate our thinking style? Will we perceive them as simpler? Or will our problem-solving necessarily change?

When I realized how few books I was reading, I made a book list and started to tackle it. Not on a Kindle or anything else with batteries or screens; not books on tape, not the movie version or Cliffsnotes. These all have their place, but to reclaim some of those "quiet spaces," I'm using my eyes and brain, a library card, and time. It's only been a few months and my thinking already feels more linear. My distractibility has decreased, my focus has improved. I still enjoy my feeds, tweets, and status updates, but I make sure to balance these with the simple pleasures of the world between two covers.

What do you think? Have you embraced new technology completely, or do you straddle the old and new as I do? Do you still read books? Are you conflicted about the role that new media plays in your life? Please share your thoughts!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:08:00 +0000

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and we have a new product to share! But first, let me tell you about the special products we already have that benefit breast cancer research.

Several years ago we introduced Pink Lady lip balm, with $1 from each balm going to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. A year later came the lotion, hand cream, and moisturizers gift set, and the Pink Lady lip balm favors. We donate $1 from the sale of each individual product--and a whopping $3 from the sale of each gift set--to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Most businesses will tell you that "x% of their sales" (or profits) are being donated, so let me break this down for you so you can compare. Giving $1 for each product means that we donate:

• 36% from the sale of each Pink Lady lip balm,
• 28.5% from the sale of each Pink Lady lip balm favor,
• 13% from the sale of each Pink Lady lotion,
• 14% from the sale of each Pink Lady cream, and
• 17.7% from the sale of each Pink Lady moisturizers gift set. This is NOT a percentage of our profits.

All of our Pink Lady products are available year-round, but we wanted to add something special this year, just for the month of October. Our NEW Pink Ribbon Pink Cupcake lip balm is available through October 31, and $1 from each tube of balm will go to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. (If you're keeping track, that's 33 1/3% from the $3 retail cost of each Pink Cupcake tube.)

We love these new balms--sweet pink balm, bright pink labels, cute pink caps--and we love donating to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Wanna help? Please check out our Pink Lady page and let us know if we can help you with personalized favors or special gift sets! Thank you!

Wordless Wednesday is Custom Scrubs

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:11:00 +0000

Word of the Week: Retro

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:46:00 +0000

Retro Part I: Poladroid Pictures

What's the first thing we do when our photo technology is vastly improved and we can take clearer, better photos? We become nostalgic for the crappy old photos we used to take!

Remember how much fun Polaroid cameras were? Click and the photo shoots out, then you wait for the image to develop. First it's dark, then you see details emerge from the shadows. Some of us would wave them around to speed it up (did that even help?). Then voila! (Almost) instant photos.

Poladroid is software that does it for you. Drag and drop your digital photo onto their cool camera icon, then wait as the photo is processed on your desktop. I highly recommend the sound effects for the full experience. The final photos include the hinky coloring and vignetting (loss of clarity and darkened corners and edges) we all know and love.

Download Poladroid for free (donations are recommended) and try it out. Once installed, launch the program and under the Poladroid menu, select Preferences. Select your Destination Folder (so you know where your files are going); under Image, make sure you've selected Sound Effects (cause they're fun); and in Post processing, choose your blur effects and vignetting (these examples here have the blur effect and strong vignetting).

This is the first in a series of Retro posts I'm working on, so stay tuned for more. If you have any suggestions for taking retro pictures, please share them!

Procrastinators Unite! 3 Steps to Get It Done

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:14:00 +0000

I am extremely fortunate to be self-employed and to love what I do. As a small business owner with no employees, I wear a lot of hats (just call me Bartholomew Cubbins...) and have to stay on top of lots of little jobs. Lots and lots. I find that I enjoy most of these job-ettes, but every so often some Dreaded Task rears its ugly head and the inevitable ensues: procrastination.

You know what I'm talking about. Somehow that item has taken up permanent residence on your to-do list—at the bottom. You pretend not to notice as it slowly becomes the albatross you carry around your neck. You find yourself perfecting avoidance techniques for countless hours on Twitter. Suddenly you have all the time in the world to chat with your neighbor, your mailman, your mother-in-law... You're cleaning the house, for crying out loud, just to avoid that Dreaded Task. I feel your pain, and I can help stop the madness.

When I know I have to finish something I'm hesitant to even start, I find it helpful to use these three steps:

1. Schedule. We make it so much harder for ourselves when we let something settle in without a plan for doing it. Look at your calendar and choose a time (preferably within the next day or two, definitely within the week) that you can devote to completing it. Make the commitment. Let other people know you've committed to it so they'll support your efforts.

2. Prepare. What do you need to complete this task? Special tools? A piece of information? An assistant? Line it all up so you have everything you need when you sit down to finish it. If you're like me, you will be looking for ANY excuse to put this off just another day, so don't give yourself an easy out.

3. Get psyched. Huh? I know, it sounds crazy, but this is the most important part of the whole thing. If I have something I hate to do (sales tax, anyone?) I pair it with something I like to do, like watching a movie. Or eating m&m's and popcorn. Or both. Then the Dreaded Task becomes an Event. And I sorta look forward to it. (Kind of.)

Okay, so maybe I'm easy to bribe and eating m&m's with popcorn wouldn't motivate you. The point here is to psych yourself up about the task rather than torturing yourself with it. It's a mind game, so be creative. I found a few weeks ago that I could clean the house without the same mind-numbing boredom if I listened to my iPod. In fact, getting excited about something may be as simple as changing the soundtrack you play—in your ears and BETWEEN your ears. Instead of saying, "Ugh, I can't believe I have to do that on Thursday," say, "I am so excited to have this finished on Thursday!" You may not believe yourself at first, but repeat it a few times and see if you don't change your mind. Listening to good tunes, renting a new flick, ordering takeout from your favorite restaurant— whatever you choose, making it a treat will help you get that task off your list for good.

Schedule. Prepare. Get psyched. This is what I do when faced with something I don't want to do. What techniques do you have for getting difficult things done? Do you need to play mind games with yourself like I do? Please share your tips!

(photo from istockphoto.com)

Wordless Wednesday is Zinnias

emily@gcdspa.com (Emily) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:58:00 +0000