rendom pictures

i dont know the name of this plant : )

butterfly spotted outside our house : p

Coffee

Baby SNOW!

BABY XIAN! 2 weeks

D' ACE PLACE

Ohhh happy family!

Caitlyn's drawing...

cuttie erasers from Caitlyn!

that plant.. i dont know its name

http://tinyurl.com/3rpvwrw

Fungus-infected violins sound better than a real Stradivarius

Oh my...just found this news recently though it was published last October 3rd, 2009.

October 3rd, 2009 – Violins made by Antonio Stradivari and his family are considered the best in the world. Each example is worth millions of dollars and only the best musicians can afford to play them. A partnership between a Swiss violin luthier and a materials scientist, has created violins that have beaten the real Stradivarius violins in blind sound tests. And they did it by infecting the wood used to make the violins, with fungus.

180 music lovers, including experts, judged a real Stradivarius against a fungi-treated violin behind a curtain. 90 participants thought that the fungi violin sounded better, and 113 thought the fungi-treated violin was actually the Stradivarius. The fungus changes the chemical composition of the wood providing a warmer and fuller sound (so they say). The violin that won the blind test had been treated for 9 months. It is now believed that Stradivari were treated to achieve the same result.

I always wondered if vintage guitars sounded different because the wood had aged. How long until we all get to play Stradivari caliber instruments? Unfortunately they didn’t say how much the process costs (or if it was more cost prohibitive than buying an actual Stradivari), but I imagine it wouldn’t cost too much, especially given that many luthiers age their wood anyways. I’m waiting for the day when a fake Martin acoustic sounds better than an original. Is this a good thing?

via LiveScience

http://www.keyofgrey.com/2009/10/fungus-infected-violins-sound-better-than-a-real-stradivarius/

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Cutest Snacks Ever

Remove Your 10 Blocks To Creativity

Taken from: Abundance Tapestry

Mastering Self, Manifesting Abundance

http://www.abundancetapestry.com/remove-your-10-blocks-to-creativity/

Blocks to creativity exist when you find yourself not having a creative space that you can escape to. Your life feels dull and you do not feel inspired. You experience little joy in what you do. It is more like going 

through the motions!!

Blocks to creativity also exist if you find yourself falling short of your potential. Your inner knowing tells you that you are capable of much more; yet when you try, it seems hard to have a major breakthrough. It is possible that you are stifling the genius within, when you do not allow adequate self expression.

1. Fear of Criticism. Perhaps one of the biggest blocks to exploring creativity lay in the fears that your ideas will be criticized. You are afraid that you will not receive support. After all, if your ideas are new and have never been explored before, you put yourself at risk of being ridiculed for them. You perceive that the more your ideas deviate from current norms and trends, the greater the chance of receiving a poor response to them. In seeking to protect your fragile ego, you prefer not to voice your ideas. You would rather not even indulge in your creative daydreams to begin with!

2. Fear of Making Mistakes. Then, there is also the fear that you are setting yourself up for more failures by coming up with new ideas. While creativity gives you a chance for innovation, your ideas may turn out to be a success or a complete flop. “Wouldn’t it be safer to stick to conventions or to old and tested ways?” you reasoned. Fear of making mistakes can be a huge obstacle, preventing you from exploring creativity freely.

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” — Quote by Erich Fromm

2. Too Much Clutter. Too much clutter can block the flow of creativity. Clutter can be both mental or physical clutter. In terms of mental clutter, creative ideas cannot flow freely if you are limited by thoughts of negativity like fear, blame, worry or shame. It will be quite impossible for ideas to come round, if your mind is constantly busy with thoughts; such as making arrangements for your schedule, how to make ends meet or whether or not to join the MLM program that your friend is promoting.

In terms of physical clutter, too much paper and things lying around, as well as too many possessions, can be distracting. They are productive suckers, occupying your mind with little or no space left to explore creativity.

3. Low Self Confidence. If you suffer from low confidence, you may believe that you are not capable. Hence, you choose to believe that you are not able to come up with creative ideas. You think that creativity is the domain of only geniuses or those who are smarter than you. Limiting thoughts make great blocks to creativity!

4. Not Enough Time To Relax. A brain that is overworked, with no time set aside for relaxation, will find it hard to produce creative ideas. It is too busy with thoughts on activities and tasks. When you are relaxed, great ideas will flow like gushing water from a tap that is fully turned on.

5. Inadequate Sleep. Inadequate sleep can hinder you in coming up with creative ideas the next day. Your physical body needs to feel good first before you can develop and explore your mental creative faculties.

In fact, it is said that many successful people have received their greatest revelations while in a dream-like state and transformed their own lives or even the world around them. One good example was Thomas Edison, who was awarded 1368 distinct patents and invented, including the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, the film projector, and the first motion picture. Edison was known to have said, “Ideas come from space”. Edison purportedly took frequent naps in the afternoons and woke up with solutions to the most perplexing problems.

6. Lack of Priority. If you do not attach any importance to being creative, guess what? You are not going to enjoy the benefits of being creative either. You will be like how you are now – dull and listless. Consider setting aside time for developing creativity. It will be a good idea to also start keeping an idea journal, to facilitate this process.

7. Stubborness. A refusal to let go of your existing beliefs and thoughts can limit you in thinking of new possibilities. The more you identify yourself with specific values, meanings, beliefs and symbols, the more you will stifle creativity. On the other hand, the more you focus on how values, meanings, beliefs and symbols are formed and interrelated, the more you can explore creativity.

8. Seriousness. Not allowing yourself the sense of playfulness can be a huge block to creativity. You may associate playfulness as being childish. And hence, you do not give yourself the permission to explore things with a child-like wonder. Yet, it is being playful that allows avenues for relaxation and hence, fresh perspectives.

9. Poverty Thinking. You tend to associate those in the creative arts as poor and struggling. Hence, you may feel that it is not important to explore creativity since it cannot help you pay your bills. Why bother to waste time developing right brain thinking when you can rely adequately on your left brain to feed you?

10. Inappropriate Comparisons. If you think that only special, talented people are creative and that geniuses are born and not made, then you may have no wish to develop your creative abilities. You protest that you can barely draw, sing or dance. You are definite that you are tone-deaf or color-blind. You consider people like Shakespeare, Picasso and Mozart as “gifted”.

Here is an exciting piece of information for you: When researchers examined outstanding performances in the arts, mathematics and sports, to determine if “the widespread belief that to reach high levels of ability, a person must possess an innate potential called talent”, they discovered the opposite. It is also important to highlight, for instance, that Mozart trained for 16 years before he produced a masterpiece.

While it is true that it is best to develop your innate abilities, the strict definitions of creativity to areas in arts, should not apply. Creativity is also an essential part of innovation and invention and is important in almost every profession. It can be explored, developed and trained in many ways.

Goal Setting Is All About Timing

I recently browsed this article via 
which i regularly visit for pay per read articles..

Is there anything more maddening than working hard on a goal and running into constant obstacles that keep us from getting where we want to be? The past couple of weeks have been exactly like that for me. I have some big projects I'm working on, and every time I tried to progress to the next point, something would happen. My computer problems were the biggest part of it, but also other little obstacles kept me from getting from point A to point B.


I kept trying to find a way around the obstacles, or through them, but then another obstacle would pop up! I was ready to tear my hair out in frustration. Finally I started to get the feeling that the universe was trying to tell me something. Even though I wanted to move this project along, the universe was saying, "Wait, wait, not yet." I still don't know why, but I've lived long enough on this earth to know that situations have a way of working out in exactly the right way, at exactly the right time. Some things just can't be rushed.


Now, here is the important turning point. Does that mean we have to quit? Give up? Abandon something that means so much to us? No! Just because the timing isn't right in this moment doesn't mean it will never happen. We don't have to give up altogether. We just need to release our expectations of the outcome. We need to stop trying to force things to happen when we think they should happen. In the meantime, we can still keep working toward our goals, keep planning and preparing for that moment when the timing is right. And when that moment arrives, everything will flow so smoothly and effortlessly we will be amazed.<


I can almost hear you groaning, "But I want it right NOW! I don't want to wait." Why? Examine this desire within yourself. What are you expecting this situation to provide you with? Will you still be okay if it doesn't arrive quite yet? What if you had a guarantee that it would arrive within the next six months, would you be able to wait it out? I think you would. :-) Sometimes we have the tendency to attach ourselves to a particular outcome, and once we get attached to that idea, we have a hard time letting go of it.


Release your fear, worry and frustration. Embrace the present moment with joy and thanksgiving. Do what you can and let the rest go. In the meantime, know that the universe has something wonderful planned for you, and it will arrive at exactly the right time. 

The Eternal Principles for Creating Luxury Brands

FRom: http://www.readbud.com/Articles/Marketing/The-Eternal-Principles-for-Creating-Luxury-Brands

By definition, a luxury brand is an outstanding brand, justifiably priced highly and destined, at least primarily, to a select group of the social-economic elite. Luxury is not about unattainability though. After all, you cannot profit from consumers that cannot buy your brand. However, luxury is about the consumer outstretching herself a bit to buy something extraordinary but rather expensive for her financial ability. When you are used to driving a BMW 760 (price tag: over 85,000 Euros), it is no longer a luxury for you, although you might be pleasantly aware that it is for many. Alternatively, paying 115,000 Euros for a Maserati Quattroporte Executive GT Automatic, will probably be more of luxury to you. Before entering a deeper discussion of luxury I think it will be good to acknowledge two basic facts:

1. Luxury is relative. One man's luxury is often another's (usually richer) everyday lifestyle.

2. The standard of luxury is mutable. Today's luxury is often tomorrow's commonly expected standard. Luxury brands are under a constant pressure from non-luxury brands trying to offer a similar value for less, thus eroding the status of luxury.

Much has been said lately about the changing nature of luxury these days. While some of the proclaimed changes are no more than the result of historical myopia, certain developments are worth noting.

3.There are now more layers of luxury than ever before to match new levels of affluence. More billionaires, more multi-millionaires, more millionaires, more super affluents (annual income over $150K), affluents (annual income over $100K), and near affluents (annual income over $75K). A Toyota Camry (around $25K) is considered a luxury car at some level of affluence, at a higher level it's BMW 7 Series (around $115K), at yet a higher one it's Maybach 62 (around $375K).

4.Some of the luxury buyers are now somewhat less interested in purchasing uniform symbols of status / identity and they opt for developing an individual style and expressing themselves in original ways. The tension between the traditional (more safely genuine luxury) and the innovative has always burgeoned forth luxury. Currently, luxury leans more towards the innovative than the traditional.

 5.There are more "out of class" purchases now, both upwards and downwards. The wealthy feel no obligation to always buy expansive (actually, affluents typically look for the best deal on whatever they want to buy, no matter how extravagant). The no so wealthy have also developed an appetite for luxury when and where they can afford it.

6. There's a trend towards spending more on luxury experiences rather than goods, at least amongst wealthy Americans. This trend is stronger among seasoned affluents who already know that the attraction of objects wears out while cherished experiences just get better with time as they are remembered, told and re-told.

7.here are more luxury hits now and fewer classics. Luxury used to be defined in the tradition-driven past by classics. The novelty-driven present, that is evident in the non-luxury sectors as well, turns the success of luxury brands of the day into sweet but short-lived.

People buy luxury brands in order to:


1. Feel special and apart from the crowd.


2. Feel superior and privileged.


3. Feel of value and importance.


4. Exercise ability and freedom ("I can afford it", "I can do that"). <  

5. Reward themselves for efforts and achievements.


6. Console one and recuperate from a setback or misfortune.


7. Signal status and command acknowledgement and respect.


8. Demonstrate refinement, connoisseurship and /or perfectionism.


9. Delight the senses, experience pleasant sensations and feelings or create an infrastructure for future favorable experiences.


10. Participate in a certain group and lifestyle.


11. Signal affiliation and belonging.


12. Remind oneself of one's "real" (or aspired) identity.


13. Enflame hope and mobilize motivation and energy.


14. Indulge and pamper oneself, take care of oneself.


15. Feel loved, taken care of and even spoiled.


16. Show feelings of gratitude, admiration or great affection.


Luxury brands are specifically designated to serve as means for consumers to fulfill one ore more of these tasks. Here are the ten eternal principles for developing and managing a luxury brand:


1. A luxury brand is first and foremost a product and/or service of superior quality (a quality gap from competitors is recommended but not mandatory).


2. The products and services are not designed and planned according to consumer tastes and expectations, even though they appeal and cater to sometimes-hidden deep-routed desires. A luxury brand sets its own standards and does not adhere to fashions. There is an air of leadership to it; it is exceptional, unique, original, artistic-creative, surprising, and novel (but never peculiar in a ridiculous or potentially repelling manner).


3. A luxury brand's most important value lies beyond the core product function or practicality.


4. Luxury brands have something extravagant / excessive / redundant and overly generous about them. Something that is clearly not necessary: the use of unjustifiably expensive materials, performance that is far beyond all needs and requirements, an exaggerated level of service.


5. A luxury brand always expresses zealousness for quality, highly held values or even an ideology, a distinctive culture, together with sense of hedonism, passion for life, and a free spirit.


6. A luxury brand will always be linked with the circle of those who "run the world" at that certain period of time and with the success symbols of the time.


7. Behind a luxury brand there are often legends of eccentric genius creators, mysterious production processes, secret formulas, exceptional preparations etc'.


8. A luxury brand is never managed in a democratic way, but rather with authority or even with dictatorship, by a genius creator or by an inspired leader who demonstrates, inside and out, a strong passion for the product and pedantry for every small detail.


9. A luxury brand must be rare or difficult to reach in some way. The awareness to the brand and the desire for it sometimes wide-ranged (while the numbers of buyers has to be limited) and other times restricted to a few that are in-the-know. Even the buyers themselves, must not be inclined / capable to purchase the luxury brand too often.


10. Luxury brand consumers expect to be distinguished from all others, and to be protected from them (the No-Mix principle). At the same time, they expect a special intimacy between them and the company and its managers, as well as flexibility regarding rules that are afflicted on others.