home decor

A sugarolic is just as addicted as an alcoholic. You need the stimulation, your drug is the sugar instead of alcohol or cocaine. When you eat sugar you give your brain extra Serotonin, a hormone in your brain which makes you feel good. When the effect of the sugar is gone you feel worse and you eat more sugar. It`s like a roller coaster, you get high on sugar, down without.

Here are some of the symptoms:

* Sleep deprive
* Mood swings
* Lack of energy
* Pain
* Temperature swings in your body
* Weight gain
* Exhaustion
* Migraine
* Depression
* Trembling

The sugar level in a can of coke or similar is equivalent to 10-12 teaspoons sugar, in just one can! We need approximately 3-4 teaspoons sugar every day.

To make changes and take back your healthy life, you should eat meat, fish, cheese, eggs, beans, vegetables. You should be careful with fruit, since fruit contains sugar. If you are careful with sugar, you can eat a couple of fruits daily. Beware the sugar added in ready made food. Take time to read the ingredient in the food you buy, you will be amazed how much sugar added.

If you`re a sugarolic you need 2-3 weeks to detox your body from sugar. If you stay away from sugar completely in this period, you will experience to get your energy back, your headaches will disappear (may increase the first weeks)and you will lose weight.

Also beware sugar free products, artificial sugar has the same effect as sugar, sometimes even more addictive.

Drink a lot of water while you detox.

Edna Solem is an article writer on a large variety. She also runs House of Edna, a web store with great gifts and home decor. Please visit http://www.houseofedna.no

[tags]Shopping, home decor, dieting, health, interior, inter

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We recommend that windows which exceed 3′ by 4′ in size be reinforced to prevent breakage. If a window is 3′ by 3′, it might not need to be reinforced, that’s usually a judgment call based on where it is to be installed.

Go to http://www.betterstainedglass.com/Newsletter/Archives/2006Aug-reinforcinglargepanel/aug2006reinforce.htm to see the photos that go with this article.

In the old days, when a panel was large and needed to be reinforced, artists actually installed big pieces of rebar, no kidding rebar, in window frames and wired the stained glass to the rebar. This was an effective method of reinforcement, but it was far from attractive.

Now, I’m not complaining, but doesn’t the art of stained glass have enough restrictions already? Are you telling me that I’m going to have to work my beautiful design around chunks of concrete reinforcement? Fortunately there’s something fairly new on the scene to help in that area.

The secret? A thin strip of copper which is thin enough to fit between existing lead lines. You solder them in place and you’ve got a substantially stronger panel.

How can that be? It’s so thin and floppy? See how easily it bends.
That’s part of what’s so cool about this strip of copper, it bends easily in one direction, allowing us to follow the most meandering lead lines, but it’s fairly rigid in the other direction, adding strength to the glass.

Before this new copper strip was available, we used to go to a sheet metal shop and have them cut 1/4″ wide strips of thin gauge copper on the shear. Then we had to bend it to follow our lead lines using needle nosed pliers. It was fairly complex and when done, you still had a piece of copper that stood 1/4″ above the surface of the window. It sometimes cast a shadow on the panel and soldering the back was a challenge as well.

When reinforcing a window (using this or any other method) it is important to remember that the reinforcement must run from one side of the window to the other to do any good. If a piece of copper is run to the middle and then it just stops, you will actually be creating a place where more stress will be applied to that spot and the window could break there.

The copper strip comes in a roll and will cover a lot of glass. The idea is to run the copper back and forth along lead lines so the glass will have more strength than it did before, and will transfer the stresses on it to it’s outer edge where it is stronger since it’s installed in some sort of rugged framework. This will prevent the glass from getting cracks either from being pushed on, or from the weight of the glass being pulled down by gravity over time and sagging.

This panel is so large that we need to reinforce it a great deal. I begin by running strips up and down the length of the window. I used some spray cans which were handy to weight the strip down in between the glass. Make sure if you use this method to remove cans before soldering because heat and pressurized cans can be hazardous.

At places where the copper strip intersects another piece of copper, I have to cut the new piece so I can continue on across the panel.

I bend a little “L” on the end so the copper won’t slide as I install it. Then I gently press it in between the glass, the foil and the other copper strips. I use something to weight it down, or it will pop out from between the glass.

I then string the copper out to the edge of the panel. When doing this, I keep the roll of copper in the bag it came in and gently pull it out as I need it. I use care not to let it tangle or slip out of the bag so that I don’t have to relive the disaster with my “Slinky” when I was a kid.

I use tin snips to cut the copper, about 1/4″ from the edge of the glass.

With all the reinforcement strips in place, I begin to tack the glass together. I make sure that the glass is pushed into the right place (on pattern), the copper has a tendency to push things around. Arrows point to all the places where copper has been installed to properly reinforce this panel.

After soldering the panel, I need to clean up the areas where copper extends beyond the edges.

Using the tip of my soldering iron, I push the copper strip over the edge, which bends it.

Holding the strip in place with needle nosed pliers, I solder the copper against the edge of the foil. When it’s done, you can’t even tell that the window has been reinforced.

Since this panel is being installed in a door, once it’s soldered, it gets sent out to be encased in tempered glass and insulated. The tempered glass adds an additional amount of strength to the panel.

David Gomm started building stained glass windows professionally back in 1983 and has become an expert at many aspects of stained glass building, design and repair. He writes a monthly newsletter at his http://www.betterstainedglass.com website. A gallery of his stained glass work can be viewed at http://www.gommstudios.com

[tags]stained glass,stained glass repair,home d

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This area of home life is different from others in that it involves all the senses and to that degree it is successful, engendering varying emotions. Decorating isn’t really a hobby, nor is it merely an activity; it’s a driving force of many people to live in comfortable and pleasing surroundings while they regenerate from a stressful world.

Yet, decorating by itself is not nearly as completely satisfying as having an organized home that is rich in beautiful detail. Decorating and organizing go hand-in-hand, like a one-two punch of home completion.

In an effort to motivate you to action, use these suggestions to help you on your way to an organized home this spring and summer.

Paper Clutter

1. If you’re like my dear Mother and you still have newspapers from 1978 because you haven’t read them all: Don’t walk, RUN to the sanitation department and rent an industrial sized dumpster to leave in your driveway for a week.

2. I’m giving you permission to touch your incoming mail and papers more than once - only if the second “touching” is on the way to the dumpster.

3. You know that pile of “things to file” that keeps growing? Guess what - dump that too. You can always print off another copy or send away for the info. over the Internet. (This, coming from the daughter of a paper monster)

Clothing

Twice a year, my mom would make me try on clothes for the upcoming season. She would invariably choose cold mornings to try on summer things and the hottest day on record to slip into woolens and flannels (If your kids give you flack for trying on clothes in the comfort of air conditioning, you may use this as your own example.) If you haven’t worn something in the time it took you to have your second child, it’s probably not worth hanging on to (unless, of course, the dumpster is full).

Use a great tip I just discovered: Pick three nights a week to try on 5 items in your closet, then go to your dressers and do the same thing. At this rate, the average American woman should be able to go through all her clothes in about 3 years, 9 months and 14 days. No need to worry, it’ll be a different season then!

Kids’ Toys

1. You could try to “limit” the number of toys they play with each month and cycle them to and from the garage so your little ones get variety.

2. That takes too much effort. I just threatened my boys if they left toys out on their floor at bedtime, they would be in the dumpster the next day (the toys, silly!). Do this twice, and you’ll have this hot spot under control.

I hope these points have given you some new ways to look at the problem of clutter and refreshing methods to deal with them. Given the fun you’ll have with that dumpster, you might want to consider renting a second one for the hubby’s stuff.

I’ll tell you what. If you really do rent a dumpster (okay, it can be the smaller version) I’ll have a reward for your diligence. Ladies - Email me that you filled your dumpster to the very tippy top and something funny that happened during the process. I’ll send you a coupon for a discount on a Fragrance Lamp that will fill your home with lovely aromas. Gentlemen - Email me the same (that is, that you actually rented the thing and filled it, and an amusing related story) and I will send you a Gift Certificate for your wife. Such a deal!

Publishing Guidelines:
You may publish this article with the article and resource box
intact and unchanged provided any links are hyperlinked.
A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.
(The challenge paragraph may be omitted for space.)

Lisa DeClue is a WAHM and really does love her Mother. She owns Decorating with HGPgal, a website incorporating interior and garden/patio decorating resources, articles, tips and a monthly newsletter in addition to a unique business opportunity. Subscribe to the newsletter at http://HGPgal.com/newsletter.html and be entered into the monthly prize drawing.

[tags]home decor color ideas,home d

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