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The word pain can have so many different meanings, so many different manifestations - physical pain, emotional pain, empathetic pain... yet its imagery is so strong, and just the word elicits such a sensory perception from you doesn't it? That alone proves to me the incredible power it can have over us. Why do we feel pain of any kind? I believe it is a signal. A warning. Our bodies are so much more intelligent than we often give them credit for and genuinely only want to do right by us. So if we knock back a couple of panadols or nurofens or continue to run through that twinge in our knee we are dulling our own intelligence. We are quieting that signal that there is something amiss. Pain happens when something needs to shift or change. When there is a blockage, be it emotional or physical (although personally I believe the two go hand in hand and our physical body has a direct correlation with our emotional body), and our energies are no longer flowing with ease.
And if we suppress that pain or dull it with painkillers it gets stuck, and the longer it stays stuck the longer it takes to release and the more resistance it puts up to let go! As we are taught in yoga, we hold onto trauma in our physical cells and our muscles and ligaments can often become tight and heavy with past hurts and negative experiences we have not fully released. Our cells remember EVERYTHING. Gosh we are smart! It blows my mind! And these physical responses show us that we are REAL, that we are ALIVE, and not just walking zombies!
This year I feel like I have had a higher than usual amount of physical injuries and alot of them have been to do with my lower body - hips, pelvis, knees, feet. It has been incredibly frustrating and I have often questioned whether what I am doing in my life at the moment is right as I once again hobble to the chiropractor. I am feeling quite stable and all areas of my life seem to be flowing with ease at the moment so it puzzled me for a while to continually be presented with this physical pain. Speaking to Mum last night she gave me some interesting food for thought - that most of the time, we hold onto our pain and trauma in our bodies until we feel safe and supported enough to release it, when we feel we are surrounded by people to help us, and when we feel confident that we are strong enough to confront and move through it.
Because for whatever reason at the time of physical or emotional injury we couldn't fully incorporate all that we were experiencing and so went into coping mechanisms and stored it away until we were calm once again. I know that you all know this- we witness it with our friends, family, and loved ones all the time but do we offer the same support and nurturing to ourselves?
If you feel a pain, it is your signal to be still for a while. To tune back into you and nourish yourself with kind loving thoughts and words. Remind your body and spirit how incredible it is and give it the time and gentleness it is asking for. We don't need to be up and go all the time, and we certainly can't put a time frame on healing - we are all such unique and diverse people each with our own story. And most definitely I need to heed my own advice - we all feel pressure to make the most out of every moment ;)
But what I am finding and being guided to over the last few days is that if I dive into this pain and make a commitment to confronting and releasing it, I will have released it for life and I can make room for lightness and clarity. We always emerge out the other side, sometimes it just takes a while =)
Saturday, 19 October 2013
Posted by Allyce Martins at 18:13:00
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About Me
Allyce Martins
- My name is Allyce and this is my lease on life! I live a plant based life full of music, yoga, laughter, sunshine, and chocolate!My job as a performer takes me to many wonderful places around the world and I'm on the journey to share my experiences and findings with all of you as I travel as a plant-based yummy yogi. Let's create the life we truly want to live - one full of awareness, acceptance, responsibility, love, and gratitude.
Blog Archive
- ▼ 2013 (8)
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BDG Events
The Speedo Sea of Galilee Swim
The 62th Speedo Sea of Galilee Swim
Welcome to the Speedo Sea of Galilee Swim site
The largest popular swimming event in Israel, which has become a long-standing majestic tradition, the responsibility for which has been assumed by the Jordan Valley regional Council, and which is produced by the Ben Dror Group and sponsored by the Speedo brand.
The event has taken place every year for 62 years, in collaboration with the Culture and Sports Ministry, Yedioth, The Israel Sport for all Association, the Hapoel Center and
"Mol Kinneret" -
the compound facing the sea of Galilee.
In the year 2014, about 12,000 swimmers participated. The event is intended for the entire family.
The Speedo Sea of Galilee Swim, now in its 62th year, is a well-established tradition. The largest amateur sports event in Israel, it is held in the Sea of Galilee (the Kinneret), in northern Israel.
This year, the Sea of Galilee Swim will be held on Saturday, September 19th, 2015.
To register >
Click here
Looking for a personal challenge and an enjoyable swim, with plenty of fun and smiles?
Choose one of the amateur hits:
Short amateur hit – From Maagan beach to Zemach beach – 1.5 km long.
Long amateur hit – From Ha'on beach to Zemach beach – 3.5 km long.
Meeting and Check-In Point for All Events
All participants in the Sea of Galilee Swim are requested to check in at Beit Bendel, near Zemach beach. or to Maagan for the starting point of the 1.5 km
Ample parking is available free of charge to all those arriving in vehicles. Attendants will direct you to the parking lot.
Registration and check-in points will be open from 05:00 AM to 08:30 AM. Our representatives will meet you there.
After a short identification process, each swimmer will receive a wristband. You must wear the band on your wrist throughout the event.
Transportation to the Starting Points
A special bus service will operate from 05:45 AM to 08:30 AM to take swimmers from the meeting point at Zemach beach to the starting points for the swim events at Ha'on.
Participants in the amateur hits may start any time they choose between 6:30 AM and 9 AM / for the 1.5 km you have to get straight to the starting point in maagam. you can start the hit from 06:30-9:00
Only swimmers wearing wristbands
will be allowed to board the buses and enter the beach at the starting point.
Checking Belongings During the Swim
There will be a designated area near each starting point where swimmers may leave their belongings. These will be kept for you on Zemach beach, at the finish point.
During the Swim
Boats and rafts will be stationed every a few hundred meters along the route. If you get tired, simply climb onto a boat or raft for a brief rest and continue when ready.
At the Finish Line
When you reach the finish line at Zemach beach, to the cheering of your friends awaiting you there:
Every swimmer
will receive, chocolate milk, a roll ' energy bar and a medal.
The closing ceremony will be held at about 11:00 AM.
We look forward to seeing you!
Registration is open www.bdg-events.co.il
The Sea of Galilee area offers many guesthouses and hotels, which will be available to you during your stay in the area.
BDG Events

subset: commoncrawl


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I am so blessed and fortunate to be able to have a short but meaningful vacation with my family in Bali, finally after almost 10 years I and my sister Chiqui was together to celebrate our birthday together.
We had visited a lot of places and my favorite will be Tanah Lot, I will be doing another post about our travel in Bali but for now let me share with you 30 Instagram Quotes that you could use, you can download the full collection HERE
If you have been to Bali, what is your favorite place to visit?
Till my next adventure! Please remember to be courageous, kind and a blessing to everyone you meet.


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Monday, February 18, 2013
Hook to Heal Project
Happy Monday !
You might have noticed a new widget on my right hand side board.
Well, this is something I want to share with you.
Have you ever thought that crochet (or other crafts for that matter) could improve your quality of life ?
I do believe in this and I have believed in it for a long time.
It keeps you busy and your mind too, it gives you a sense of achievement, networking (if you are blogging or following blogs), it makes you feel useful, alive and creative !
That is why as soon as I read about this project I knew I had to contribute.
Please check out Kathryn's Hook to Heal project and if you can contribute it would be great. She accepts contributions for as little as $1.00 !
If you also believe in this, please spread the word too,
Happy Crochet !
Feliz Lunes !!
Seguro que ya habréis visto la nueva imagen en la parte derecha de mi blog.
Bueno, esto es algo que quiero compartir con vosotr@s.
Alguna vez habéis pensado que crochet (u otras manualidades) os pueden ayudar a mejorar vuestra calidad de vida ?
Yo si lo creo y lo he creído durante mucho tiempo.
Nos mantiene ocupadas y la mente también, nos da un sentido de haber conseguido algo, de interactuar con otros (si tenéis un blog o seguis algún blog), os hace sentir vivas, útiles, creativas !
Por eso cuando leí sobre este proyecto supe que tenia que co-operar.
Por favor echar un vistazo al Proyecto de Kathryn y si podeis contribuir seria genial. Se aceptan contribuciones por tan poco como $1.00 !
Si creéis en este proyecto también, por favor hacer eco de ello
Feliz Crochet !
2 comments:
I can't imagine my life without crafting. I think that my life revolves around my family but crafting is connected to that whether I am making something for my home, my kids, or crafting with them. Even when we are at the beach we sculpt things out of sand and seaweed and when we go play outside in the snow we look for pinecones to make things out of. But it is also important just for me to have my own thing I do by myself and that is crafting too. And it connects me to others too both online and in real life. I don't have a big social life but when I spend time with friends without my family it usually revolves around crafts and could be making things together, going shopping for fabric or going to a quilt show. Well I guess I have a lot to say about this! I have seen that widget before but haven't gotten around to checking it out. I will soon.ReplyDelete
Thanks so much for spreading the word about my work in helping people use crafting to heal and improve their lives!!!ReplyDelete
Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment :-)
Your lovely comments make my day !
Thanks for taking the time and effort,
xox Eva


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Yesterday I posted Fascinated by Company B. Today is the follow-up single to that song. A late summer release, this saw similar response on the dance floor. It sound so much like their first chart single that it is no suprise this one did well too.
Although this release, "Full Circle," received extensive club play, along with the groups appearance on such programs as Showtime At The Apollo, the song received little attention at radio and never cracked the Top 100.
Company B - Full Circle (Vocal / Club Version) - 7:48
Song charted on August 8, 1987. Spent 11 weeks on the chart and reached #5


text: venkat 2 Report post Posted August 17, 2016 A $249 stereo vision camera could have an impact on the next generation of machine vision, autonomous cars, robots and even drones. It makes a mean large-scale scanner, too, that could prove useful in warehouses, shops and more.Tara stereo camera offers depth measurement, point clouds and disparity maps. Tara is a UVC-Complaint 3D Stereo camera based on MT9V024 stereo sensor from ON Semiconductor which supports WVGA((2*752)x480) at 60fps over USB 3.0 in uncompressed format. Here is a tutorial about Tara - 3D stereo camera SDK + Depth measurement using Tara in OpenCV library. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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Chase Bank has already begun communication around Regulation E, and the New York Times (and more than 50 additional media outlets) are reacting quickly with a review of their direct marketing testing in an article titled, "Banks Apply Pressure to Keep Fees Rolling In". The article made special note of the part of the Chase mailing that stated, "Your debit card may not work the same way anymore, even if you just made a deposit. Unless we hear from you." According to the NYT, the mailing continues to warn (in big red type), "If you don't contact us, your everyday debit card transactions that overdraw your account will not be authorized after August 15, 2010 — even in an emergency," with 'even in an emergency' underlined. Additional toned down versions of communication are also being tested by Chase, including a postcard that simply asks customers to be ready for future ways to say yes to debit card overdraft coverage.
As expected, the article positions the mail in a somewhat biased manner as the first in a series of heavy handed customer communications from banks across the country to maintain the high level of fee income currently generated. While the article references many industry marketing experts, most are quoted around how they are helping banks get customers to opt-in as opposed to referencing the experts who have done research around why consumers do not want OD coverage to cease.
From this initial outcry, it is apparent that banks will need to be careful as to the way they balance the communication of education around Regulation E with the desire for the most impacted households to continue to be covered. The New York Times article also illustrates the pressure our industry will feel in the coming months around the fees we charge for these services.


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I drew the runes Eihwaz, Uruz, Mannaz, Teiwaz, Dagaz in that order. I have tryed to translate the runes and have only managed to work out, "thru two opposites cooporating". I know there is more and have a strong suspision this is a prophacy. Any one have some advice?
Are you male or female?
Did you have a specific question or topic in mind when you drew them?
Were any of them reversed?
In general terms: (sorry I'm gonna have to use my names for them or I'll get confused)
Ehwaz (or Eihwaz) tends to refer to partnerships, relationship or marriage
Ur (or Uruz) refers to change or future obsticles
Mann (or Mannaz) refers to communication
Tyr (or Teiwaz can refer to legal matters or documentation, but can also refer to protection
and Dag (or Dagaz) refers to slow progress, delays or set backs.
Now assuming none of them were reversed and that the reading was regarding you or your future it suggests something to do with your employment, all the references to partnerships, relationships, communication and Tyr showing up that much seems clear. Without knowing more thats about as much as I can say.
The Runes Forum is supported by these Runemaker Group websites:


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It's not so much a secret as it is a current way of life that everything is going mobile. Such is the case of one of China's biggest microblogging services/Twitter substitute Sina Weibo as a majority of its daily active users are using it on their smartphones, tablets and phablets.
During a keynote speech for Mobile Asia Expo 2014 (via Wall Street Journal), Sina Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei stated that there's a huge radical difference between PC and mobile internet users concerning the company's site. Seventy per cent of the site's daily users access the service using a mobile device, most likely due to mobile devices being accessible every hour of the day.
"Mobile internet impacts everything," said Gaofei, "The PC change affects two hours of a person's daily life but mobile and the internet changes that to 24 hours." It makes sense, considering that in China, PCs are used mostly in home and study spaces, while phones and tablets are carried around everywhere.
Also Read: China's internet users spent 19M years on social media in 2012
Despite these numbers, the company is working to have its traditional PC users to change up their ways. Gaofei said that he wants those users to not get confused when switching from PCs to mobile. He also believes that more than half of China's total population is still not on mobile internet. "Third to fourth-tier cities are important for Weibo's future growth as they account for 60 per cent of the country's populace."
In related news, Sina Weibo plans to launch 10 new games on its site before 2014 ends. Yes, the company, via its Weibo phone app, is following the trend of housing games on a platform within a platform like LINE and KakaoTalk. Plus, it also launched an open platform for third party game developers.


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Whew! I've taken quite a long break from blogging, but I'm back. I hope to bring you guys some new recipes on here and maybe a few DIY projects I've been working on lately.
As you guys probably know by now, I'm obsessed with making French Macarons. I probably make a variation of these treats 4-5 times a week. **Insert joke about needing to go to Macaron Rehab**
In general, my baking focuses on different designs rather than flavors. I'm starting to be a little bolder with my recipes, but for now, I like to stick to the basic macaron recipe. I started using Martha Stewart's basic French Macaron method when I was first learning and haven't strayed too far from it. Of course I have tweaked it to fit my kitchen/style, but it's a fairly reliable recipe.
For these floral macarons, I decided to focus on pastel colors to create a peaceful vibe. I filled them with a strawberry buttercream to give them an added boost of summertime fun.
French Macaron Recipe
-2 egg whites (room temperature if possible)
-pinch of cream of tartar
-1/4 cup superfine sugar or regular sugar
-1 cup confectioners sugar
-3/4 cup almond flour
-pink and yellow food coloring (optional)
-silpat mat, cookie tray, sieve, piping tip #2A, piping bag
Preheat your oven to 330F if you have convection. If you do not, bake at 350F. Convection ovens are going to work better with macarons because the will evenly bake the shells and allow them to rise properly. Don't worry if you don't have a convection setting, your macarons will still turn out ok!
In mixer with your whisk attachment, beat egg whites for 3 minutes until the mixture begins to foam. Add a pinch of cream of tartar and mix for another 2 minutes. Add the superfine sugar (or regular sugar) and beat on high for 7-8 minutes. The mixture will be glossy and fluffy. For coloring the macarons, I added a little bit of yellow + pink food coloring to create a nice peach.
Sift together your almond flour and confectioners sugar in a large bowl and then combine with the egg white/sugar mixture. You will fold the ingredients about 50 times before the batter is ready to be piped.
With your piping bag and piping tip #2A begin filling it with your peach macaron batter. Once filled, start to pipe the shells onto your silpat mat (or parchment paper) on a cookie try. Pipe the shells in one solid motion and make them about an inch an a half wide. After you piped all of your shells, gently tap the cookie try on a hard surface to release the air bubbles and let the macarons get completely flat.
You will need to let the macarons sit for 15-20 minutes so they develop a matte finish. The shells will no longer shine.
Bake the macarons for 8-10 minutes. I've noticed my macarons bake best for 9 minutes on the convection setting. Let the macarons cool for 20 minutes and then peel them off the cookie trays. Now we are ready to fill these babies!
Strawberry Buttercream Filling for Macarons
-1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
-3 cups confectioners sugar
-1 cup fresh strawberries
-2 Tbsp of heavy cream
Beat the butter on medium speed until the mixture is fluffy. Slowly add the confectioners sugar in. Beat in heavy cream. Mix the ingredients until they are fully combined. Slowly add the strawberries to the mixture and beat until the buttercream is fluffy and smooth.
Now you can fill your macarons (with any desired piping tip or just use a spoon). I decided to place a small slice of strawberry inside each macaron to give it an extra punch of flavor.
Decorating Ingredients:
-3 cups confectioners sugar
-2 Tbsp meringue powder
-1 tsp vanilla
-5 Tbsp water of water
In your mixer with a whisk attachment, combine confectioner sugar, meringue powder, vanilla and water, and beat for 5 minutes on high. The royal icing should have a stiff peak (does not move from whisk attachment).
For these macarons, I made different color macarons and used different piping tips to create each flower. In 3 small bowls, mix together a yellow, green and purple royal icing and fill piping bags by the following (you can just scoop the white icing into the bag for the last one):
Purple flowers: piping tip #59S
Yellow flowers: piping tip #224
Green flowers: piping tip #32
White Dots: piping tip #4
Now for the fun part–decorate your macs! You can play around with your own designs here or stick to what I did. Either way these macs are delicious + beautiful!
Would love to see your creations! Tag me on Instagram @nutmegandhoneybee!
Meg x


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Warning messageThis content is filtered. APPPAH membership is required for full access to journal articles.
Angelfish (1993). CD Angelfish. New York: MCA.
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Collins, T. (1994). Free Speech rapper kicks it on latest Arrested Development. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 15.
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This is slightly different to our usual guides, as it covers 4 different cities, and only scratches the surface of Poland. We have one overall tip:
In Your Pocket: http://www.inyourpocket.com/
These travel guides are invaluable when travelling in Eastern Europe. They are written by English people and do exactly what we try to in our guides – tell you the real facts. Even better, they are free, and available as booklets, maps, websites and smartphone apps. We wouldn't have had such an easy time without them.
Other general tips:
Things are very cheap in Poland. Change your pounds to złoty before you go (it's about 5 zł to the £). All shops accept debit and credit cards and there are plenty of ATMs around. Tipping isn't compulsory but you would round up for taxis and add up to 10% for restaurants. Have plenty of room in your baggage for souvenirs.
From Heathrow, you can fly BA or LOT to Warsaw
LOT uses Warsaw as a hub to most other Polish airports, but unless you're pushed for time, train or bus are much nicer ways to see the country. LOT does not offer free drinks or meals.
From Stansted, Ryanair offer flights to 11 Polish cities
From Gatwick, Easyjet flies to Krakow
From Luton, Wizz Air flies to 7 Polish cities
Train travel:
As usual, the only site you need to visit is www.seat61.com
We booked all of our trains through http://www.intercity.pl/en/
First class is hardly more than standard class, and seat reservations are now included in your ticket price
You can print out tickets as PDFs before you go, and booking more than 7 days in advance gets you a discount. Don't worry if you haven't though, for most trains you can hop on board without a ticket and get one from the conductor for a small supplement.
People often seem quite down on Warsaw, and as capitals go, it's no Paris or Berlin. But it has plenty of different districts and easy travel by metro, bus or tram.
Airport: Head right out of the terminal to a set of escalators leading down to the rail platforms. Unhelpfully there are several companies and each has their own ticket machine (a bit like at Gatwick). Choose the cheapest single fare you can find, and you can use any train. Ticket machines do give English instructions, but aren't clear as to your options. You must ensure that you validate your ticket. On some trains you do this at the driver's door, on others there are lots of machines. To disembark, some trains stop at Warsaw Central, others at Warsaw Srodmiescie. They're next to each other, but all in all, it's an unhelpful start to your Polish holiday.
Alternatively you can take buses 148, 175, 188 or 331.
Hotel: the advantage of Polish prices is somewhere like the 5* Intercontinental is ridiculously affordable. £90 will get you a high-floor executive room with Club Lounge access. This means free breakfast, free drinks all day, and free dinner. You'll only need to buy your own lunch!
Intercontinental Warsaw, Emilii Plater Street 49
Phone: 00 48 22 3288888
Tourist Information:
Palace of Culture and Science, pl. Defilad 1
(entrance from Emilii Plater Street, between Kongresowa Hall and Museum of Technology)
Palace of Science and Culture, 9am to 8pm
Technical Museum, Cinema, view from 30th floor, 20 złoty
This monstrous edifice was built on Stalin's orders, so most Poles hate it, but it's impressive nonetheless. The view is said to be the best in Warsaw, as it's the only place where the Palace isn't on the skyline!
Łazienki Park
They have free Chopin concerts on Sundays at 12pm and 4pm
Old & New Towns: Since the 1940s and 1950s saw the destruction of many of Warsaw's old buildings, the Old Town is relatively new! Essentially it's all fake, except for the Rynek, numbers 34 and 36, which are genuine facades. It's still the most picturesque part of the city to visit, other than the palaces.
We suffered from Poland's occasional torrential rain, so rather than being stuck indoors all day, we used CitySightseeing Warsaw buses to get around. At 60 zł for 24 hours and 80 zł for 48 hours, it's not cheap, but they run all the way from Łazienki in the south to the Old Town in the north.
Be warned, there is no bus at 2pm so don't get stuck somewhere for 2 hours!
Also available: www.city-tour.com.pl/en
Tarasy Złote shopping mall near the station – 200 shops and restaurants
Nowy Swiat and Krakowskie Przedmiescie form a long shopping street running north-south
Cepelia, Hala Mirowska – for crafts and gifts
Bolesławiec pottery – we bought ours at the Ceramika gift shop, Freta 14 in the Old Town
If you're after DVDs or electronics (NOT much cheaper than elsewhere in Europe, sadly) try branches of Empik, Saturn, MediaMarkt
Once Poland's second-largest city, the fortunes of Łodz have been affected by the death of its textile industry. However a renaissance of development, with Manufaktura ("Central Europe's largest shopping mall") completed and the main street Piotrkowska pedestrianised and prettified, means it's a lovely place to spend a day just strolling. Less than 2 hours by car or train from Warsaw, it would be an easy daytrip.
Hotel: the Holiday Inn is brand new, with spacious rooms, a nice bar, and a good breakfast selection. It's only a short taxi ride from the station.
Holiday Inn, Piotrkowska 229
Phone: 00 48 42 2082000
Tourist Information: Piotrkowska 87
Just walking the 2 miles along Piotrkowska is all you need – with palaces, tenements, statues old and new, churches, memorials, and Hollywood-style stars in the pavement reflecting the Film School that is still here. Especially moving is the tiled part of the street where every family living in Łodz at the Millennium has been given a plaque. And just keep looking up at all of the buildings – every one has a story.
The White Factory, a textile museum showing the development of the city and its trade, and many examples of the factory's work over the past 200 years. It features Łodz's first textile machine imported from Manchester, and also wooden buildings from the 19th century.
Piotrkowska 282
Church of St Stanisław, a 103m-high steeple tops this brightly coloured church. Built on the site of the Factory Market Square, opposite the White Factory.
The warehouse district has been comprehensively redeveloped, with artists' studios, bars and cafes. We would recommend Społdzielnia for massive sandwiches and milkshakes that come in their own milkbottle.
"Off Piotrkowska" is at number 138 Piotrkowska just north of Piłsudskiego
Cepelia has branches at Piotrkowska 115, Stary Rynek 1, and Manufaktura
Central is a Soviet-era department store that still has a traditional layout (and what feels like 1980s goods) – Piotrkowska 165 at junction with Aleja Adama Mickiewicza
Manufaktura shopping mall – 300 stores, and a museum about the site, Muzeum Fabryki
Hotel: for a cheap but pleasant stay, right in the centre of town but only 3 tram stops from the station, the Mercure Panorama is ideal. Catch trams 9 or 11 north to Galeria Dominikanska. It's next to a shopping centre with supermarket, and a stone's throw from the Rynek.
pl. Dominikanski 1
Phone: 00 48 71 3232700
Tourist information: Wrocław has many shops that pretend to be Tourist Information centres, but are simply there to sell you souvenirs. The genuine ones are at the railway station, and on the Rynek south of the fountain.
Rynek: one of the largest market squares in Europe
Ratusz: free to visit, it tells the history of the running of the city, with ceremonial rooms, displays of silverware, and temporary art exhibitions.
Ostrow Tumski: one of the many islands to the north of the city centre, Cathedral Island has many historic buildings and the twin-spired cathedral of John the Baptist.
Panorama Racławicka: A circular painting 114m long around the inside of a purpose-built museum. Painted in 1894 it tells the story of a battle 100 years earlier in which Poland defeated Russia.
In the Rynek is the best pierogi restaurant in town, Pierogarnie Stary Młyn
Hala Targowa: a market hall the size of a cathedral, destroyed in WW2 and rebuilt, featuring a colourful array of fruit, flowers and other groceries. Prices are dirt cheap and it's a great place to stock up on goodies for a packed lunch.
Renoma, Swidnicka 40, while the outside of this mall reflects the long history of the building (completed 1930), inside has the usual chain fashion stores.
Galeria Dominikanska: the largest shopping mall in the city, with shops and restaurants.
With a compact old town centre, surrounded by a belt of green, Krakow would be the perfect historical place to explore, if it wasn't for the tourists! Be prepared for large groups, and long queues. Having said that, as soon as you head away from the Rynek, the quieter streets are well worth an explore.
Airport: this is currently being rebuilt, which means it is a dreadful mess. The terminals are hot and filled with insects, and there is minimal seating space or amenities.
To get from the city to the airport, the buses leave from the central bus station, a long walk from the railway station. You then have to go to the lower level, turn right, and find the stops for 208 and 292. Both take a ridiculously long time.
There is also a faster Airport bus that leaves from Pawia Street.
Hotel: the Holiday Inn is a hotel of two halves. The modern building looks like every other chain hotel, but if you are able to get a room in the original building, it will have much more character. Service is very good. Catch trams 10 or 52 from the south side of the plaza outside the shopping centre, not next to the west entrance.
Holiday Inn, Wielopole 4
Phone: 00 48 12 6190000
Tourist Information: there are kiosks and bureaux all over town, with a small but efficient one in the railway station.
Tours: you will be accosted on the street by people offering rides in their electric carts, trips to Auschwitz, the Salt Mines, or the Jewish Ghetto. Your hotel will also offer to book you on coach trips out of town. It is perfectly possible to see all of these things cheaply making your own arrangements. If you do go on an organised tour, you may get a pick-up from your hotel
Historical Museum, Rynek Głowny 35
Wawel Castle
Wieliczka Salt Mines
135 zł for an escorted coach from your hotel (about £54 for 2 people)
80 zł if you get your own transport there (about £32 for 2 people)
You can catch a train, take the bus, or a minivan runs from Krakow railway station
Kasimierz & Podgorze Jewish districts
Galicia Jewish Museum, Dajwor 18
Old Synagogue Museum, Szeroka 24
Oskar Schindler's Factory, Lipowa 4
Nowa Huta: a Stalinist New Town from the 1950s with brutalist architecture
Cepelix gift shop – look up at the ceiling! 10am to 1pm
Nowa Huta Museum
Stylowa restaurant
Zapiecek, 24-hour pierogi restaurant, friendly and cheap, Slawkowska 32
Antler, Burgers and Poutine, Golebia 10
Cloth Hall in Rynek – small Cepelia stall
Station – Wedel chocolate shop
Dekor Art, Sławkowska 11; Mila, Sławkowska 14
Galeria Krakowska, by railway station, 3 floors of shopping heaven
Plac Nowy, antique market and old market hall


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for my new niece. I wanted to make a brown mouse this time...but alas i can't find any brown fleece in my stash (well mouse brown feece anyway) so another little grey one it will have to be. I do hope she likes it, I am pretty sure her mother will :)
*I'm not sure which one she is...I don't think my sister knows either but seriously cute none the less..


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A video game called Government in Action combines the fun and educational elements to come up with a multiplayer game that will allow players to experience the difficulties in the life of a U.S. Congressman. The game, developed by Muzzy Lane Software and McGraw Hill Education, hopes to make students better understand how Congress works.
The game was specifically designed with the American Government course in mind. The course is being taken by more than 750,000 college freshmen every year. The game will begin with the players being elected to Congress. They will then have to maximize their political capital while balancing the need to pass legislations. The players would have to get elected every two years. They would be given their own political affiliations as well.
In this multiplayer game, other players can co-sponsor a bill that another player authored. A player also needs to make his constituents happy, as well as deal with the local media, non-government organizations and the leftists. Also, the player would have to hold fundraisers and appease lobbyists.
There are two sites that the players would need to be: the U.S. Congress in Washington and the players' home districts. The game hopes to show the students that getting legislations passed isn't always an easy thing. To make it a bit more friendly for instructors, the game is customizable too, which means that professors can tailor-fit the game to their class syllabus.
Rep. John Tierney (6th district) of Massachussetts said in a CNN report that he hopes the game can get students more interested in learning about how Congress works. Tierney worked with Muzzy Lane Software for the game.
The congressman admitted that the time has come for the academe to see that traditional textbooks no longer make their classes and topics interesting. By using technology, students and teachers will have an easier time communicating their ideas.
Tierney said that using technology and even an educational video game will increase the interest and understanding of the students. Professor Jason Seitz of the Georgia Perimeter College told CNN that the game helped his students understand the concept of US Congress and how the government works. He also said that the students became more engaged because of the game. It allows him to have some room to explain the implications of the US Congress instead of having to explain the basics.
The same report from CNN said that a March 2012 survey of teachers showed that 32 percent use games two to four times a week while 18 percent use them every day. The survey also said that about 70 percent of teachers agreed that technology and devices increase motivation and engagement while 62 percent of them said that games make teaching easier.
Government in Action is part of the McGraw-Hill Practice suit of hands-on and experiential learning games. It has been tested across U.S. States, particularly in the Georgia Perimeter College, the Collin Community College in Texas, the California State University, the San Diego State, the Richland College in Texas and the Clayton State in Georgia.
Sources: CNN and Muzzy Lane


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The winners of the Sydney Taylor Book Awards are:
For Younger Readers:
I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark
by Debbie Levy; illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley (Simon)
For Older Readers:
The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog
by Adam Gidwitz; with illustrations by Hatem Aly (Dutton)
Read Fall 2016 Publishers' Preview: Five Questions for Adam Gidwitz
For Teen Readers:
Anna and the Swallow Man
by Gavriel Savit (Knopf)
Read Spring 2016 Publishers' Preview: Five Questions for Gavriel Savit
Sydney Taylor Honor Books for Younger Readers
Fascinating: The Life of Leonard Nimoy by Richard Michelson, illus. by Edel Rodriguez (Knopf)
A Hat For Mrs. Goldman: A Story About Knitting and Love by Michelle Edwards, illus. by G. Brian Karas (Schwartz + Wade/Random)
Sydney Taylor Honor Books for Older Readers
Dreidels on the Brain by Joel Ben Izzy (Dial)
A Poem for Peter: The Story of Ezra Jack Keats and the Creation of the Snowy Day by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illus. by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher (Viking)
Read Five Questions for Andrea Davis Pinkney about A Poem for Peter
Notable Books for Younger Readers
- Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup by Pamela Mayer, illus. by Deborah Melmon (Kar-Ben)
- Gabriel's Horn by Eric Kimmel, illus. by Maria Surducan (Kar-Ben)
- Not This Turkey by Jessica Steinberg, illus. by Amanda Pike (Whitman)
- On One Foot by Linda Glaser, illustrations by Nuria Balaguer (Kar-Ben)
- The Sundown Kid: A Southwestern Shabbat by Barbara Bietz, illus. by John Kanzler (August House)
- The Tree in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank's Window by Jeff Gottesfeld, illus. by Peter McCarty (Knopf)
Notable Books for Older Readers
- The Bicycle Spy by Yona Zeldis McDonough (Scholastic)
- Irena's Children: Young Readers Edition: A True Story of Courage by Tilar J. Mazzeo, adapted by Mary Cronk Farrell (McElderry)
- The Ship to Nowhere by Rona Arato (Second Story)
- Skating with the Statue of Liberty by Susan Lynn Meyer (Delacorte)
No Honor or Notable Books were designated for Teen Readers in 2017.
Follow these links for more on the Sydney Taylor Book Awards and the Association of Jewish Libraries.


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World Immunization Week runs from April 26th through May 2nd and the Saint Louis County Department of Health is using the opportunity to strongly urge everyone to comply with the vaccination schedule recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro visited St. Louis today to announce the area has won the prestigious U.S. Promise Zone designation. The announcement was made at the MET (Metropolitan Training and Education) Center in Wellston, St. Louis County's main job training facility.
Effective Monday (April 27, 2015), a short section of Lansdowne Avenue will be closed to thru traffic from 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., during the regular work week (Monday through Friday).
Any county resident who encounters a bat in their home – alive or dead – is urged to call the health department immediately. Residents should not attempt to capture a live bat but should confine it to the room where it was discovered so that animal control officers can collect it for possible rabies testing.


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Today is Tax Return Day (actually postponed until the 17th because of the weekend)
To offset the rampant depression caused by this annual event, I've arranged for everyone to download a free kindle edition of my latest ebook. The title is 10 Great Fantasy Short Stories. Every story is told with humor or satire.
Get a copy and feel better about Tax Return Day. This freebie offer will be run from 4/15 thru 4/17


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DT Project for Sheepski Designs Challenge using Heart & Rose
This months challenge theme is Red/Hearts/Romance/Love
Come along and join in the fantastic Challenge.
You can enter the challenge HERE
You can find the amazing digi images over on Etsy HERE. Don't forget to use code SKIKELLY10
Come on over and join the Facebook group where you can share your creations using SheepSki Designs images and even enter the Facebook challenge. Facebook Group
For this piece I also created its very own gift box, So I thought I would share with you all some more pictures of my inspiration piece.
For this piece I used the following products:
Spectrum Noir Markers
Craft Sensations - English Blossoms Paper Pad
Ornate Frame Die Cut
Mixture Of Sequins


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New Metal Paint Zoom Ultimate Professional Paint Sprayer
- No Drip application for easy cleanup
- Simple one‐touch operational cuts your time
- Reach tight corners and angles with 3‐way direct dial sprayhead With your Paint Zoom paint sprayer all you need to do is just pull the trigger and paint.
- Motor Power 600W
Now you can paint, stain, or varnish, just like a pro. The Metal Paint Zoom paint sprayer does the hard work for you painting in just minutes instead of hours with a brush and roller with no drips or errors. Paint on any surface you want, Both Indoors and Outdoors! With the Paint Zoom paint sprayer, you can paint flat walls, stucco, brick, paneling, ceilings, concrete, wood, and so much more.


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The Food Network's Throwdown with Bobby Flay is either hit or miss as far as I'm concerned, all depending on what's being made (thrown down?). The other night, the throwdown was about coconut cake. I've been known to eat coconut right out of the bag, and never pass up an opportunity for a good cake (emphasis being on the word good), so I was glued to the TV.
Bobby's opponent makes an Ultimate Coconut Cake for the cafe he works at, and they mail order them for $100 each. Both cakes looked yummy, however Bobby's won, so I'm going with that cake…for now…
The recipe needed some tweaking, based on both my own experience and some of the comments from readers on the Food Network's web site, so this is different then what the Food Network has on their site. Yeah, there's a laundry list of ingredients, and it does take a while to make, but the time and effort is well worth it. I've gotten positive comments from people who said they didn't like coconut, or anything made with coconut, so most people should love this cake.
Comments I got from people, most whom are used to my high standards of cooking, after tasting this cake: "Wow" "Holy #*@!, that is f'ing good!" "That is really, really good" "Can you make one for my wife's birthday?" Personally, I think this is one of the best tasting cakes I have ever made. This might even come close to knocking off my Strawberry Cream Cake as my all-time best…
Bobby Flay's Ultimate Coconut Cake
Toasted Coconut
- 2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
Coconut Simple Syrup
- 1 cups water
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup sweetened flaked coconut
Coconut Custard:
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
- 4 egg yolks (reserve the egg whites for the cake)
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp coconut extract
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Coconut Filling:
- 3/4 cup coconut custard (recipe above), cold
- 3/4 cup very cold heavy cream
Coconut Buttercream:
- 24 tbsp (3 sticks) butter, softened
- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 3/4 cup coconut custard (recipe above) (cold)
- Pinch salt
- 2 1/4 cups cake flour, plus more for pans
- 1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
- 6 egg whites, at room temperature (reserved from the custard)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 3/4 cups sugar
- 1 tbsp plus 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 12 tbsp butter, cut into 12 pieces, slightly cold
Combine the milks in a medium nonreactive saucepan and bring to a simmer over low heat. Whisk together the yolks, sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl. Slowly whisk the warm milk into the egg mixture then return the mixture to the pot over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking constantly, until thickened. Scrape the mixture into a bowl and whisk in the vanilla and coconut extracts. Let cool to room temperature then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, at least 2 hours.
Simple syrup
Bring water and sugar to a boil. Stir in the coconut, remove from the heat and let sit for at least 30 minutes and up to 4 hours. Strain the liquid into a clean saucepan, bring to a boil and let cook until the mixture is slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Let cool.
Toasted coconut
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spread the coconut evenly onto a baking sheet and toast until lightly golden brown, stirring every 3 minutes, 8-15 minutes.
Buttercream frosting
Beat the butter and sugar in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the coconut custard and salt and beat until combined and smooth.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour 2-9″ round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper, then butter/flour the parchment.
Whisk together the milk, egg whites, vanilla in a medium bowl.
In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. With mixer running at low speed, add the butter, one piece at a time and continue beating until mixture resembles moist crumbs. Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed until the mixture is pale and fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes. With mixer on low speed, add remaining 1/2 cup of the milk mixture, increase speed to medium and beat 30 seconds more. Scrape sides of bowl and mix for 20 seconds longer. Divide the batter evenly between the cakes pan and smooth the tops using a rubber spatula.
Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs attached, 22 to 24 minutes. Cool in the pan on baking rack for 10 minutes. Run a small knife around the side of the pan and invert cakes onto the baking rack, removing parchment paper, and let cool completely, about 45 minutes.
Combine the custard and cream in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form.
Assemble Cake
Using a bread knife, slice each cake horizontally into 2 layers. Put the bottom half of one cake aside. Place the bottom of the other cake, cut side up, on a serving plate, or cake decorating stand (recommended). Brush the bottom cake layer with 1/3 of the simple syrup. Spoon 1/3 of the coconut filling onto the cake, and using a small offset metal spatula, spread it into an even layer, leaving a 1/2″ border around the cake. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the toasted coconut. (editor's note: the coconut between the layers prevents them "binding" together)
Repeat with 2 more layers, but don't apply the simple syrup to the 2nd to last layer. As the simple syrup application might be a bit confusing to some, every layer gets an application of simple syrup, except the 2nd layer from the top.
Brush the reserved bottom half of cake with remaining simple syrup (don't use too much, or the cake will be soggy), then place it cut side down on the cake.
Frost the sides and top of the cake with the buttercream. Pat the coconut onto the sides of the cake and sprinkle the remaining coconut on the top of the cake. Gently press the coconut on the top of the cake into the frosting.
Chill for 4 hours before serving to allow the custard filling to set.
Serves 12.
Notes and observations:
- This case can be served immediately, but will cut easier and cleaner after it chills. Of course, after all the work I put into this case, I wasn't about to wait a few hours for a texture thing, so I chowed down immediately after frosting. A little messier, but yummy!
- The time to toast the coconut will depend on the moisture content of the coconut you buy and can vary from brand to brand. Once the coconut starts to brown, keep a close eye on it, as it will go from slightly brown to burnt almost in the blink of an eye. I've had coconut toast in as little as 6 minutes, but usually around the 10-15 minute mark, which is why I stir it every 3 minutes. Here is a photo of what your toasted coconut should look like
- To help dispense the simple syrup, I bought a condiment squeeze bottle at Walmart for $.97.
- In order to get the layers correct, you can place 4 toothpicks in the cake prior to cutting; a toothpick at 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock, and 9 o'clock. This helps keep your cutting angle on track so your cake halves look better.
- Sprinkling the coconut on the sides/top of the cake is much easier if you put the cake on a cooling rack that is sitting in a sheet pan/roasting pan. You will have to sprinkle the sides 3-4 times in order to get enough coconut on them.
- You baking the cake, you want to error on the side of overbaking the cake, as you will increase the amount of moisture in the cake when you brush the cake with the coconut simple syrup (thanks Nicole!)
Original recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/throwdowns-toasted-coconut-cake-with-coconut-filling-and-coconut-buttercream-recipe/index.html


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Delta Dental of North Carolina
( Looking for a different state? )
Further, the sugar in SSBs feeds the bacteria that produces acid in your mouth, which attacks and dissolves tooth enamel. It's also important to know that despite having more nutrients and containing only natural (not added) sugar, 100 percent fruit juice typically contains as much sugar and calories as soda pop. So, when you or your children are thirsty, reach for a cold glass of water instead of a sugar-sweetened beverage!
Please note: Numbers are approximate. All of these numbers are guidelines and based on averages and not tailored to individual health needs. Please contact your physician for guidance about how consumption of added sugar may affect you, particularly if you or a family member have any pre-existing health conditions. Read label for the most current nutrition facts, as forumulations and sizes may change.
Help your kids get excited about taking care of their teeth with the fun games and activities in Marshall Molar's Kid Corner! Many topics also are available as downloadable flyers in our oral health flyers section.
1 Sohn W, Burt BA Sowers MR. Carbonated soft drinks and dental caries in the primary dentition. J Dent Res. March 2006;85[3]:262–266.
2 Added Sugar Fact Sheet, Yale Rudd Center,
3 Frequently Asked Questions About Sugar, American Heart Association
4 Ludwig DS, Peterson KE, Gortmaker SL. Relation between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: a prospective, observational analysis. Lancet. 2001;357:505–8.
5 Malik VS, Popkin BM, Gray GA, Despres JP, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sugar-sweetened beverages and risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis. Diabetes Care. 2010;33(11):2477–2483.
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|La Causserie
|Sunken Lane
|Nature Taking Over
|Autumn Colour
|Threatening Clouds
|Lenault Church
|St Jean-Le-Blanc Spire
|Almost Back
Eventually we reached the road that we had crossed further north in Lenault and almost double backed on ourselves to reach a small valley. From here it was back on to our original sunken track back up hill to La Causserie and a welcome cup of tea. This five mile walk was enough for the girls but by the time we got back the sun was shining quite strongly and I felt like I had only just got going so after a short break I headed out to explore some more. I think if we are to come back to this place again we may just focus on walking next time. The countryside is delightful and we were glad that we had some walks that we could take.


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The reason for her apprehension was rooted in another diver (her age) banging her face on the diving board while performing an inward dive. No one could possibly blame her for being skittish around the inward dive! (Personally, I hate watching her do them because it looks like she'll whack her head every time ... 'tis the nature of the dive, I guess.)
I didn't realize until yesterday that it wasn't only the inward dive that was in her head. It was flips, too. I think when that other little girl got hurt, it made Annika realize that diving includes some element of personal risk. She could get hurt, especially if the other girl (who is a very talented and driven diver) could get hurt.
Yesterday, Annika did her forward dives beautifully and without hesitation. When her coach instructed her to try the forward flip, she walked down the diving board and balked a number of times, and even lost her balance and plopped into the pool. On her next attempt, I could see her talking to herself as she walked down the board ... a self pep talk, was my guess. Eventually, she decided it was a good opportunity to give the flip another try and did it! The smile on her face after that initial flip was priceless and I couldn't help but clap for her, as did her coach.
From then on, she flipped without reservation or hesitation. So proud of her!!


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Andrew Graham
Andrew attended the Surrey Institute of Osteopathic medicine (SIOM) under the tutelage of Peter and graduated with a 2:1 honours degree. He has been working with the team at the King clinic since August 2010.
Whilst at SIOM, Andrew undertook a research proposal into the Form and Function of the Sacroiliac joint and the treatment of lower back pain with the use of Muscle Energy Techniques (active stretching of muscles). He uses a great deal of these stretches within his treatments and will offer advice to patients so that they may continue to improve after their treatment session. Andrew has also achieved good results with patients suffering from shoulder and neck pain, which he treats using manipulations, articulations and soft tissue techniques.
Before training as an osteopath, Andrew studied Sport and Exercise science to degree level, and has used that knowledge in his previous career as a circuit training and gym instructor. He is still involved in sport and regularly takes part in 10k running events and completed his first triathlon last year.
He holds:
- A Bachelor's Degree (Second degree Honours) in Osteopathy (Open University)
- A Bachelor's Degree (Second degree Honours) in Sport and Exercise Science BSc (Luton University)
He has completed postgraduate training:
- Cranial Osteopathy – The Sutherland Cranial Collage of Osteopathy, London 2014
- Osteopathic 'Still Technique' (BSO) 2014.
- Treatment of Tennis Elbow – Prof Eyal Lederman 2011.
- Advanced Spinal Manipulation (BSO) 2012.
- How to treat: Whiplash Injuries by Prof Eyal Lederman 2012.
- How to treat: Acute Disc/ lower back pain – by Prof Eyal Lederman, 2012.
- Acupuncture / Dry-Needling (modern acupuncture) by Dr A. Campbell, London 2012.
- Sports Massage Therapy – Surrey, 2011.
- Functional Active Release (BSO) – London, 2012.
- Assessment and Management of common shoulder injuries – Windsor, 2013.
- Sports Injuries Taping Course – 2011.
He is a Member of:
- British Osteopathic Association (BOA)
- The General Osteopathic Council (GOsC)
He was a delegate at the:
- The 3rd Annual Spinal symposium – London, February 2014.
- Controversies of the Core – by Paul Hodges, 2011.


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Marc Dibeh's work is centred on storytelling, with all of his products and interiors offering a narrative that is both timeless and simple. A graduate of the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Paris Val De Seine, Beirut-based Dibeh returned to the capital to study for a Masters in Product Design at the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts before opening his own studio in 2009.
His philosophy revolves around collaborations with both designers and non-designers on projects that sees his work exhibited worldwide in cities including Milan, Miami, Basel, Dubai, Lausanne, London, Paris. In 2016, House of Today launches The Shop, in partnership with WallpaperSTORE*, to coincide with its third biennale exhibition, 'Jungle Protocol, traditional & etiquette', to promote Lebanese designers.


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Do you need insurance for your car? Does your home need to be insured? First Florida Insurance Agency provides premier insurance solutions to customers throughout the state of Florida. With years of experience, you can be sure Justin Lariscy will get you the best coverage at the lowest possible price. We understand different people have different insurance needs, which is why we work closely with all of our customers to ensure they get the right policy for their situation.
Learn More About First Florida Insurance Agency:
We're always here to answer any of your insurance questions, so give us a call to see what we can do for you!
Contact First Florida Insurance Agency today at 813-704-4805, or browse the website for more information about our insurance services.
Business Hours:
Monday – Friday: 9:00am to 5:00PM
Saturdays By Appointment
Licensed and Insured
Member of Florida Association of Independent Agents
Brokers of America


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NACS Insight Convenience Summit Europe takes place from 11th – 16th June 2017
In June, convenience and fuel retailing industry professionals from around the world will gather in Zurich and London for new knowledge, new commercial connections and networking, and the opportunity to discover and discuss new ideas from retail store tours. And, the event will feature the popular International Convenience Retail Awards—now in their ninth year, which recognize and promote convenience retailing excellence.
As a guide, the Zurich segment of the programme (11-13 June) will feature high level European retail thought leadership, strategy, trends and economics. Supplier hosted dinners and store visits connect our attendees and show them what is new in the region's convenience retailing.
The main conference days take place in Central London at the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel (14-16 June). This is the main 'must attend event' for the European and international industry with retailer roundtables, international best practice presentations on key trends/developments in the global industry, retailer case studies and our famous awards night programme. Conference highlights in London include:
The Summit is a modular programme, which means that delegates can attend any number of days they wish. Choose to attend the parts of the event that are right for you and your business.
Find out more about NACS Insight Convenience Summit Europe
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Have you ever been to one of those houses for the Holidays and it seems like everything is perfect beyond perfect? The house looks clean, smells like pie, it's decorated beautifully, and to top it all off, when you sit down for dinner, the table is decorated with beautiful handmade decor.
Sometimes I get insecure when I go to homes like this because, I gotta tell ya, that's nothing like my house! For this reason, I rarely do any entertaining. Only for special occasions :) I actually like to be the one being entertained haha!
Once I start a family though, I'm going to have to learn to get better at entertaining. I think one of the things that will make a huge impact with minimal effort is making these beautiful table settings and lanterns from Craft and Creativity!
I love the leaves hanging from the chandelier. It is such a natural feel for autumn. And I like the chandelier itself too! I may have to go on the hunt for one like that :)
This table setting is also really natural and fairly easy to create! I love the wine bottle that is wrapped in leaves. It really dresses up the bottle!
Thanks to Helena from Craft & Creativity for sharing this great decor!


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TYME to emPower serves as an emotional and motivational support team for teenage parents and their families. By motivating and educating the teen parents to be the best parents and students they can be, we are building a strong foundation for the lives of the young parents and their generations that follow.
In addition TYME provides assistance to teenage parents with their babies basic needs. If further resources are needed (that we may not have) we will provide contact information of other organizations that might be able to help. In the past TYME has donated: baby clothes, formula. car seats, strollers and much more thanks to generous donation from the community...
TYME has been the proud recipient of the Make a Difference Award (awarded by Roy MAAS and Ruths Chris Steak House).
Monica Velasquez McIlwain was awarded the Pillar of Respect 2012-13 award (NISD's highest award).
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Bath Sale
Starting your day off right is important, and surrounding yourself with luxury in your bath always begins things on a good note. Whether you're heading off to a day at the office, are ready to spend the day playing with the kids or are setting out on an adventure, having bath towels and accessories that you really enjoy can put you in a great mood. From touches of decor to aromatherapeutic candles to soft and durable bath towels, you can personalize your bath and make it comfortable with essentials from Williams-Sonoma Home. It's always a good idea to check out the bath sale pages as well, so you're able to stock your bath with items you want and need while staying well within your budget.
Similarly to bedding, weight and thread count are important when selecting bath and hand towels. Material is, of course, an important consideration as well – most bath towels are constructed from a soft cotton, and many of our towels feature eco-friendly cottons and materials so that your environmental conscience is clear as you shop products. Absorbency is another important point when it comes to your bath towels. Bathrooms can often be tight spaces, with lingering humidity long after your shower or bath has ended. You want an absorbent towel that doesn't hold in humidity and dries quickly and easily. Look for medium to heavy weights for luxuriousness. An 800-gram weight is ideal for a bath towel; it is not too heavy, but strong enough for durability. Ease of maintenance and cleaning is also important. Of course you want a towel you can put in both the washer and dryer, making cleanup a breeze on laundry day. Whether your bath towels are for your bath or are a gift for someone else, you may want to consider monogrammed personalization. Add initials, a name or other meaningful phrase to completely personalize the look, or to give as a thoughtful gift.
In addition to having a soft, cotton feel against your skin for drying, it's also relaxing to feel something luxurious under your feet as you retire from the shower or bath. Choose a bath mat with a generous pile height that dries off your feet quickly and easily. Also made of cotton, many of our bath mats feature a 1200-gram weight for durability and absorbency. This weight also feels soft and relaxing underneath your feet. While sold separately, many of the available hand towels, bath towels and bath mats feature the same designs, so you're able to coordinate them together as a set in addition to complementing the existing decor already in your bath. Choose from subtle styles in a variety of different colors to match. Bath mats, similarly to towels, can be monogrammed for yourself or as a gift.
One of the focal points of your bathroom decor is most likely your shower curtain, as its design or subtlety has the ability to encase the room. To elongate their life, many of the available shower curtains are made of linen, so they're easily washable and are meant for use with a liner. This way, your curtain escapes mold and mildew and is easy to clean, allowing you to enjoy it for years. Many of the available curtains have styles that integrate well with our bedding, which allows you to polish off and complete the look of your master bath, should that be the bath you're outfitting. Shower curtain styles also stand alone well by themselves, easily matching and complementing your bath towels and decor. Look for simple, embroidered patterns that blend well with any decor, or plain white or neutral colors to add an air of freshness to the room.


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There's nothing new about accessorizing with religion. A quick stroll through most museums will make the point: people have worn faith-based necklaces, rings, and amulets for millennia.Continue reading
My life has been filled with books. My father, a U.C.C. pastor, always was reading 2 or 3 novels at a time and filled the shelves of our home with hundreds of volumes (including The Great Books series). My mother, a 10th grade English teacher, piled textbooks and classics on the kitchen table after dinner, consulting them over and over as she meticulously graded papers.
I am their daughter. Even as the world goes more digital, I read bound books. They fill my home study. Stacks loom beside the bed and couch. Strays find their way to the car, the kitchen, on the steps. Under a paperweight on my desk, a dozen slips of paper list books that I want to track down. In this time of economic crisis, I am grateful to be employed and to enjoy the luxury of having my own office at work, one with yards and yards of bookshelves, and easy access to a good library.
It's not surprising that I entered college as an English major or that when I turned to the academic study of religion it was not to the phenomenon of religion itself but rather to a religious book. Better said, I gravitated to the collection of diverse and complex and fascinating books that make up the Bible. And it's not surprising that I read these books in much the same way that I always read–paying attention to the writer's craft, how she transports me into another world, teaches me while entertaining, pleases and/or infuriates me.
As a modern person, I encounter the Bible as a book. It is a fixed collection of words that I can read and reread and talk about with other people. In church, we can all follow along as the lector reads from Isaiah 6, or in class I can expect that when we all turn to Genesis 3 the students and I are all reading about Adam and Eve.
And yet, as a scholar, I am very aware at how recent the fixed nature of the Bible is. It surprises many Christians to learn that the Bible as particular words bound between two covers is a relatively late phenomenon in religious history. Most folks have a general sense that Old Testament books were originally written on scrolls and have been told that religious stories circulated orally before being written. But few have encountered the concept that ancient Israel had no Bible and for much of its history no scripture. Much of the material was written very late and what was available probably didn't circulate widely. Although Protestant Reformers interpreted Isaiah 40's affirmation that "the word of the LORD remains forever" as referring to the Bible, that was not what the ancient author had in mind.
It shocks many of my students to learn that no original of any Old Testament (or New Testament) book survives. That what we have instead are copies of copies of copies, no two of which are identical. While the early buzz about the Dead Sea Scrolls was that these first-century manuscripts of the Bible are miraculously similar to the Hebrew text we have today, that judgment turned out only to be true for the large Isaiah scroll. Later manuscripts found at Qumran, such as that of 1-2 Samuel, differ significantly from the Masoretic Text, the Hebrew tradition on which most English translations were based before 1950.
Many Bible dictionaries and internet sites claim that all this textual diversity and all the debates about which books belonged in the Hebrew Bible were settled in one fell swoop, that at the rabbinic council at Jamnia in 90 C.E. the Hebrew Bible was "fixed." But more recent research makes the picture fuzzier. Jamnia didn't function like the authoritative councils of Christianity, and for hundreds of years Jewish writings about the Bible continued to list books in different orders. Some have even suggested that the Jewish Bible wasn't truly "fixed" until the invention of the printing press, when book technology forced things to be settled.
What all this means to me is that when I read the Bible as a book I am not reading it just like ancient people did. As much as I can try to understand their world and imagine how they might have heard these words, I have to remember that I read in my own cultural context. Unlike ancient people, I read the Bible as book that I can stack on a shelf alongside my other books, a book that my tradition says is authoritative, a book that people debate on the editorial pages of my local newspaper.
That awareness keeps me humble about claiming to know how ancient people thought or felt. Or at least I hope it does. It also leads me to think about how the packaging of the Bible, metaphorically and practically, affects its interpretation.
Continue reading
April 21, 2009, is Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Hebrew Yom haShoah. A time to remember the 6 million Jews who died in Nazi Germany, the day is a national memorial day in Israel and is observed around the world.
For Christians, the contrast between Yom haShoah and Easter (observed just a week and a half before) is stark. The beauty of Easter–the lily, the butterfly, the chorus of alleluias-is assaulted with images of emaciated children, piles of bodies, and smoke rising from the crematoria.
But the Christian Easter needs Holocaust Remembrance Day. It serves as a reminder that theology can kill as well as bring life. In the history of Jewish-Christian interaction, more pogroms and other anti-Jewish violence have taken place during Holy Week than during any other time of the year. Throughout history, the claim that Jews are Christkillers has fueled not only anti-Jewish sentiment but also anti-Jewish violence. Elie Wiesel's Gates of the Forest weaves a compelling story of how this happened in the past. A quick look at neo-Nazi websites confirms that it does the same in our own time.
Problematically, Christian anti-Judaism finds its roots in the Bible itself. In Matthew's passion narrative (ch 27), the Jews are reported to have willingly accepted the guilt for Jesus' death-for themselves and for their children. In Matthew, Pilate, the only one with the legal authority to sanction a crucifixion, tries but fails to talk any angry mob out of sending Jesus to his death. The same Pilate that Luke describes as "mingling the blood of Galileans with sacrifices" and who other sources describe as brutally squashing any rebellion, is described by Matthew as so afraid of the crowd that he relinquishes his power and washes his hands of responsibility.
Some scholars attempt to take away the scandal of Matthew's account by setting it in the context of 1st century Christian attempts to avoid the wrath of Rome. They see in Matthew the beginning of a trend toward shifting blame from the Romans to the Jews. They remind us that the gospel writers had political as well as religious motives, and that biblical language about the Jews (as well as about everything else) reflects as much the concerns of later Christian communities as those of the time of Jesus.
But understanding Matthew historically doesn't the power of its words away. Rather, it calls interpreters to take responsibility for the implications of the texts they read. For Christians, it calls for taking ownership of the power of our texts and for finding new energy and new energies for eradicating hate. Good beginning reading includes Rosemary Radford Ruether's Faith and Fratricide and Clark Williamson's Has God Rejected His People?
One complication of attention to the Holocaust is that it has made it difficult for many Jews and Christians to question the policies of the state of Israel or to acknowledge the claims of Palestinians. Marc Ellis' Unholy Alliance traces this problem within Judaism, and Palestinian authors talk about the problem as well, such as Mitri Raheb.
In my judgement, combating anti-Judaism doesn't demand uncritical support of the state of Israel or denying the claims of Palestinians. Rather, the goal is to counteract hate wherever it is found.Continue reading
Listening to the tales aloud is a very different experience than reading the print versions. When I read, I often go too fast, pushing ahead to the gist of the material and unconsciously skipping a lot of it. With an audiobook, I can't control the pace of the story. Unless I choose to fast-forward, I have to listen at the speed the narrator (director?) has chosen. And I have to listen carefully, since I can't flip back to re-read about characters. I hear more in the story than when I read silently, especially Smith's gift at capturing the nuances of different classes and regions within southern culture.Continue reading
Bangor Theological Seminary Convocation
January 26, 2009
Opening worship for a 3-day event devoted to the Old Testament, which will include the inauguration of Rev. Dr. Kent J. Ulery as the 10th President of Bangor Theological Seminary.
Julia M. O'Brien
Lancaster Theological Seminary
All rights reserved
"Between Wilderness and Promised Land"
Joshua 3:7-17
Change is in the air. Fresh starts, new faces, new possibilities for the future, new life breathed into our dreams.
That certainly was the mood that pervaded President Obama's inauguration last week. Folks shivering on the mall and folks glued to their screens all knew that they were witnesses to something unprecedented, something saturated with possibility. As inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander gave it words, in that day's sharp sparkle, that winter air, anything could be made, any sentence begun. On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp, she sang: praise song for walking forward in that light. On that day last week, it was easy to believe that things will change for the better, that, if we work together, all things might yet be possible.
Our mood is hopeful this week as well, as Bangor seminary prepares to inaugurate a new president of its own. President Ulery has stepped forward with vision, energy, and commitment, allowing us to dream new dreams for this institution, for the church, and for the world we serve.
Of course, the electrical jolt of a fresh start is nothing new to those who have entered seminary. Whether they have come most recently from college or from another life altogether, all have embarked on this new stage in their lives in buoyant hope for the church's future and an unquenchable thirst to be part of it. The earnestness and determination of new seminarians, their ideas and their insights, year by year, decade by decade, infuses the rest of us with hope.
In this day's sharp sparkle, this winter air, we are ready for change.
Appropriately, our text for today form Joshua paints for us a picture of transition. We see, through this narrator's eyes, the Israelites about to enter to enter the Promised Land. They are perched on the brink, on the brim, on the cusp of entering the land they believed was their legacy. In the past is the wilderness–its deprivations, its betrayals, and its complaints. In the past are Moses and his generation—those who murmured, those who suffered in the desert. The scene has shifted to that of a new leader and new generation ready to claim a land of milk and honey. Surely these folks are singing a praise song. After so much waiting, it is finally time to move forward.
But just as they begin to turn their faces from wilderness to promised land, to leave the past behind on their way to the future, this narrator grabs our chin and makes us see clearly that the two are not so radically different after all. Joshua's new leadership, we are told, is but a continuation of that of Moses. I will be with you, Joshua, says the divine one, no less and no more than I was with Moses. And this new thing about to be done by a new generation follows in the footsteps of an old, old story. The symbolism the story develops is crystal clear: this generation's crossing of the Jordan into Canaan is like the wilderness generation's crossing the Sea of Reeds. The stories are not exactly the same, of course. They differ in details and in the cast of characters. But our narrator goes to great lengths, in this chapter as well as in the following one, to make sure that we connect the future with the past.
We want to move forward, but our narrator slows us down. We are given incessant reminders of the past, and a plot that is slo-o-w. For a long time—two full chapters–we are left suspended between wilderness and promised land. And it is clear that's where the narrator wants us to stay for a while.
You shall stand still in the Jordan, the text says. Rest in the waters of the Jordan.
In some ways, I'm glad for the delay in the narrative. I'm glad it stops where it does. Where the story of the Israelites goes from here doesn't fit so well with my liberation tendencies. That land that the text claims is promised to Abraham's descendents just so happens to be inhabited by other people who call it home: the narrator's already told that it is God's intention to get rid of those Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzitres, Gergashites, Amorites and Jebusites. If you know what's ahead in the other stories of the book of Joshua, you know that all those "ites" aren't simply going to be given financial incentives to relocate to a better home. The Pentateuch's story of murmuring in the wilderness will become in Joshua the story of conquest and killing.
The promised land is a morally complicated one in the Bible.
On the brink is not a bad place to pause. That ability to sit still and pay attention to the complex realities of our past and our present, even as we are pulled forward into new beginnings, might serve us well, too, as we take up the theme of this Convocation—the Scriptures that the church calls the Old Testament.
Throughout its history, the church insisted that these texts provide valuable symbols for our faith and indispensible testimonies to the power and love of God. Myriads of the faithful have found hope and inspiration in these words.
But the church has also struggled to interpret these texts, as well as those that it calls New Testament. Each generation has found aspects of the Bible distasteful, even immoral. Some have chafed at animal sacrifice; some at the claim that God changes; some that the book repeats itself too much.
Our generation finds its own list of things to be bothered about: the Bible's treatment of women and children; its tendency to blame the victims of national catastrophe; its nationalism and marginalizing of the foreigner; the fact that the genealogies are just too boring. We might not be the first generation to struggle with the Bible, but our struggles are nonetheless real.
Many in the past and the present have attempted to fix these problems in some way—trying to exegete the problems away through word study or understanding the historical background of the text; by reading allegorically; by lifting up good texts over bad ones; or by creating their own canon of what in Scripture truly witnesses to God.
This convocation and the Joshua text this morning offer us a different path forward: an invitation to sit with Scripture and talk honestly together about it.
We saw at President Obama's inauguration just how empowering the past can be. How we need symbols from the past to energize our lofty goals and desire to see ourselves as part of the long arm of history. In placing his hand on Lincoln's Bible, President Obama lived out his desire to see his success as a culmination of courageous stances taken in the past. In their prayers and speeches, those at the microphone evoked the hopes of the founding fathers, of Martin Luther King, Jr., the history of America's veterans, and the writers of the Constitution. The past belonged in that pregnant moment—including biblical language. The old gave energy to the new.
But to do so, they had to ignore or minimize parts of those stories. To find inspiration in the Constitution, they had to go beyond the intention of the authors of the document and even sometimes beyond its plain sense. They had to minimize the on-going struggles of race and class in the United States.
Maybe the day for inaugurating our nation's first African American president, one who embodied as well as promised a break from the past, wasn't the day to talk about all the messy truths of our founders and our nation. Maybe it was a day when the sole role of the past was to renew conviction.
But there must be times for talking about all of the legacies of the past, and it is my hope that these 3 days at Bangor seminary might be a time of talking about the complex legacies of the Bible. In invite—I challenge—us to talk honestly with each other, as people of faith, about what Scripture is and isn't; how it wounds as well as heals.
But, as we do so we must be willing to face honestly our own stories. Ancient Israel is not the only one implicated when we protest against self-interest and nationalism and believing that the goal of having a safe place to live justifies mistreatment of others. The Bible is not alone in romanticizing violence in intimate relationships or in authorizing authoritarian parenting. These stories and their moral complications are our own, and in reading them with eyes wide open we might not only come to access the past honestly but ourselves as well. We can't talk about the Bible honestly if we're not willing to be just as honest with our individual and our corporate selves.
Perhaps it's a good time to pause in our efforts to reach our own lofty goals– of ordination, serving people, pushing ahead to what we believe God has promised us and the world—and to sit (rest, this audacious text says) in the middle, in the boundary, between past and ture.
Perhaps it is a good time to reflect on our past and how it has shaped and limited our imaginations. Just as the Moses story gets rewritten all over Joshua, so we too are shaped by what has come before—for good and for ill. Families, churches, institutions, governments, ideologies, imperfect people—they have all left their marks on us.
Perhaps it is a good time to reflect on where we see ourselves headed. Just as I wonder if Joshua understood correctly God's intentions about those other people, I also wonder how holy our own goals are. What are the limits of our imaginations? What are the moral complications of the way we've thought about God's plans for us?
Being left in the middle, between the past and the present, just might be a holy place to be.
Praise be to God that here, in the middle, is precisely where the table stands. At the table, we remember God's acts of faithfulness in the past and seek glimpses of where that story of faithfulness may yet lead. Here, we confess not only the failings of our past but also the limitations of our own visions and seek forgiveness and renewal. Here, we commit ourselves once again to each other and to the well-being of all people. Here, at this very human place, a place that remembers one who was human and gave us human food and drink, we come near to God's presence.
Sit and rest, here on the brink of a new venture. Talk and listen to your neighbors about the messy dynamics of these texts and of our lives.
Today, sing a praise song for truth-telling as well as for new beginnings.
Continue reading
It's almost a consensus among scholars (if such a thing is possible) that the concept of resurrection is absent from most of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible (OT/HB). The consensus goes something like this:Continue reading
Old Testament scholars get excited when anyone pays attention to "our" documents. So I was anxious to watch NBC's Kings, a contemporary story of David. I hoped that viewers would be so enthralled that they would run right out and (re)read the accounts in 1 and 2 Samuel and heated conversations would break out around the coffee pot. Maybe the series would be so successful that everyone would jump on the biblical-story-as-TV-series bandwagon, setting Esther in a racially-divided nation in which the heroine initially "passes" as an insider but ultimately stands up for "her" people in times of danger. I imagined Jacob's story as Dallas, siblings fighting over family money and Rebekah looking like Miss Ellie (or maybe Glenn Close).Continue reading
My goal in writing about the Bible is to generate discussion about important issues. Honest, real discussion that pays attention to the implications of what we're saying.Continue reading


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Our serviced office space in Rubery, South Birmingham B45 were refurbished just a few years ago. The office block contains 18 separate furnished offices of varying sizes. Internet access and phones lines can be provided. The offices offer a furnished reception area, data room, two kitchens, two sets of toilets and able parking. We have space available from a 1 person office (114 sq ft) from £200 a month, to a 400 sq ft office from £650 a month. Our meeting room comes complete with desks which can be arranged to suit the number of attendees on your meeting as well as your individual requirements. The meeting room also has comfy chairs, a white board, flip board, paper and pens. The office block has a reception area with tiled floor and modern decor. All offices come with desks, office chairs and storage. All offices have also been newly painted and have new flooring. This office block has a dedicated data room which handles all phone and internet data. All office have CAT5 points. The office block has two kitchens. There is space for over 40 vehicles directly behind the building. All entrance doors have security entry systems which can be operated by a pin code or fob. The office block has CCTV cameras both outside and inside the building which record 24 hours. All office windows have security bars fitted and entrances have security shutters. The building has a walk-in safe suitable to store any valuables. The office block has 2 male toilets and 2 female toilets.
Based in Rubery, South Birmingham. We're within a few minutes of Junction 4 of the M5 and the M42 M5 link. Plus, the A38 Bristol Road is only minutes away which will take you direct through South Birmingham, Birmingham City Centre (15 minutes) and on to the M6 motorway (20 minutes).
Longbridge (2.1 mi)
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Ok. Ok, ok, ok. OK.
Christmas is coming, and the Year Long Gift-A-Long has helped a lot. But between Christmas gifts and the Fiber Festival, I'm completely overwhelmed. So I'm throwing out the mold, and starting a new list from now until Christmas.
1. Chevron Scarf
2. Even More Boogie Time
3. I have a partially finished Reversible Cable Scarf.
Forgive the all the code names - the recipients read this blog.
1. Code Name: Turning Japanese
2. Code Name: I'm a Mac
3. Code Name: Pink
4. Code Name: Wally World
5. Code Name: Hollywood
6. Handwarmers 1
7. Handwarmers 2
8. Hat
9. Scarf
10. Calorimetry for Grandma. Kiri just ain't happening this year.


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The parents of a Marina boy who died last October are fighting extradition in Washington state but authorities expect them to face felony neglect charges in Monterey County in connection with the death, a police commander said today.
Brandon Kenney, 33, and Christina Kenney, 31, were arrested April 15 at their home in Tacoma, Wash., on suspicion of felony child neglect in the death of their 19-month-old son Brandon Kenney Jr., Marina police Cmdr. Bob Nolan said.
The toddler died in Marina on Oct. 8 after being treated at Stanford Hospital. The Kenneys moved to Tacoma afterward while police continued to investigate the child's demise with the county coroner's office, Nolan said.
Following a six-month investigation, police concluded that the Kenneys were negligent in permitting the boy to be exposed to a "substance," the nature of which Nolan declined to describe.
"This is not an accidental death, it was something that could have been prevented," Nolan said.
"The child is their responsibility to take care of and they didn't do that," he said.
While the couple is still in Washington fighting extradition, authorities in Monterey County do not believe the pair has much of a case to block their return, Nolan said.
"They don't want to come back here and face charges but we are very confident they will be back in 60 to 90 days," Nolan said.
The county plans to file charges against them of felony neglect for failure to take care of the child, Nolan said.
According to a fundraising page on the website GoFundMe.com, friends of Christina Kenney, described as a former member of the U.S. Marines, asked the public for donations to pay for her son's funeral costs on Oct. 11, 2013.
"(C)hristina's friends and fellow marines are uniting to raise money to help give (C)hristina's son a burial he deserves," the donation request reads.
Brandon Jr. died "unexpectedly after a tragic accident that caused swelling of the brain causing the body to stop functioning," according to the page.
Christina Kenney is a veteran Marine who was deployed to the war in Afghanistan and was also stationed in Japan and North Carolina, according to the site.
The page, which included color photos of Brandon Jr., had raised $997 toward a goal of $2,500 in the past six months.
Brandon and Christine Kenney are being held at the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma.
Brandon's bail is set at $500,000 on the warrant from Monterey County. He is also being held on $2,000 bail for a bench warrant for failing to appear on a charge of possessing less than 40 grams of marijuana, according to jail records.
Christine Kenney's bail on the warrant is $480,000 and she is also being held for failing to appear to address a DUI charge and driving while her license was suspended or revoked.
Copyright © 2014 by Bay City News, Inc. … Republication, re-transmission or reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.


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2014 has been yet another incredibly successful year for Abora. This mixcompilation captures the top highlights of the whole year, with sublime music by Abora favorites such as New World, SoundLift, Geert Huinink, Driftmoon, Kim, Afternova, Paul Rigel, Mhammed El Alami, Playme, Kelly Andrew, and other top artists.
It was a true breakout year for Abora's Deputy A&R Manager New World — with his Ushio, Giver of Life, & Indiana being true highlights of 2014 for the uplifting world as a whole, as with Ushio and Giver of Life ranking #1 and #7 out of all uplifting tracks in the Up Only Tune of the Year Vote.
The year also marked the launch of Abora's vocal orchestral uplifting sublabel Abora Ascend with Abora's 100th release, Worlds Which Break Us.
Each track in the compilation has its own story of the impact it made on people and its positive influence on listeners' lives. In fact, some of these are already instant classics that will stand the test of time into the future and continued to be listened to and appreciated.
And all these top tracks have been integrated into one single continuous mix by Ori Uplift, Abora's CEO & owner, that wraps up all the year's best into one truly uplifting listening experience. This mix is itself reason enough to pick up this mixcompilation.
Available From Stores
Worldwide – 31st Dec 2014
New World – Ushio (Emotional Intro Mix)
Paul Rigel – The Key of The Universe (Original Mix)
Mhammed El Alami & Illitheas & Johannes Fischer – Breath of Life (Original Mix)
New World – Giver of Life (Original Mix)
Playme – For Love (Energized Edit)
Driftmoon & Geert Huinink feat. Kim – Worlds Which Break Us (Orchestral Mix)
Kelly Andrew – Wonderland (Intro Orchestral Trance Mix)
Geert Huinink & Mike van Fabio – The Kingdom (Original Epic Mix)
Witness45 & Poonyk – Indiana (New World Remix)
Rambacy feat. Danny Claire – New Life (Cold Rush Remix)
SoundLift – Freedom (Afternova Remix)
SoundLift – Flying Higher (Duduk Mix)
Afternova – Together We Are Strong (Intro Mix Edit)
Laker – Breathing (Sunset & Puma Scorz Remix)
Ori Uplift – Abora Recordings – Best of 2014 (Continuous DJ Mix)