Competent in Communication

I wouldn't want anyone to call me a competent communicator. I think I'm better than that. But there are many professionals, in Denmark at least, who seem content to describe themeselves as competent.

Problem is, 'competent' in its everyday usage means 'sufficient' or 'adequate'. Describing yourself as competent is like saying you're OK, but not great. Not the sort of thing you want to put on your cv.

It also means, of course, 'qualified', but only in specific contexts, such as in court. Ask for competent candidates for a job vacancy and you risk getting just that, while the excptional ones go elsewhere.

Read more about competent communication.

Traditional Bridal Jewelry

The Symbolism of the Bride's Jewelry

The jewelry chosen by the bride and groom to be worn on their wedding day, and perhaps forever after (or at least as long as the marriage lasts) will symbolize different values and hopes for the marriage.

The central piece of bridal jewelry is the wedding ring. For example, a simple silver band would emphasize the spiritual bonds between bride and groom, whereas a ring studded with diamonds would reveal hopes for a prosperous union.

To find out more about the symbolism in traditional bridal jewelry, you are welcome to visit http://www.jewel-in-the-crown.com/

Angel Christmas Decorations

The Annual Search for My Angel

Every Christmas I go on a concerted search for a new angel. Let me explain. I like to place an angel at the heart of my Christmas Decoration Scheme each year. I often choose a new theme each year, so the new angel has a few criteria it must fulfill.

It hasn't taken me long to figure out that the best way I can supply my needs is to browse for my Christmas angels online.

To find out more about Angel Christmas Decorations, you are welcome to visit http://www.juletide.com/

The Bling Bling jewelry Style

The Bling Bling Accompaniment

Every wonder where bling bling jewelry got its name? Picture a Hip Hop or R&B artist going through their routine, rocking from knee to knee and doing their pointy-finger thing. If you add a few kilos of gold jewelry to the arms and neck, kill the music, you'll hear a cacophony of clanging and, you guessed it, a higher pitched 'bling'.

To find out more about the 'bling' in bling bling jewerly, you are welcome to visit http://www.jewel-in-the-crown.com/

Shopping for Baby's First Christmas Stocking

The First Steps

Sorting out your Christmas shopping can be an arduous task. Even so, shopping for your baby's first Christmas presents should be fun and exciting. You are celebrating the first great public festival of your baby's life. For many, Christmas is the time where the whole family comes together. What better time to take advantage of the situation and welcome your baby into the family fold?

To read more about Christmas tips, drop in at http://www.juletide.com/ and feel free to leave a comment.

American Indian Beads and Jewelry

Subtle and Intricate in Design

The best examples of American Indian beadwork can be found in jewelry such as earrings and necklaces. The designs are often surprisingly subtle and detailed in nature.

The tight construction of some necklaces gives them a solid appearance from a distance. However, once you are close the individual beads emerge in all their glory and the necklace appears diaphonous.

To find out more about a American Indian beads and jewelry, you are welcome to visit http://www.jewel-in-the-crown.com/

A Guide to Home Improvement

The Principle Ways to Improve Your Home

Our accountants advise us to spend between 2% and 3% of our salaries on home improvement. In a buoyant property market this can provide you with a significant return on your investment. It also keeps your home fresh and modern so if you should need to sell in a hurry you should be able to secure a quick sale.

That's all very well, but a true home improvement guide should also reflect something of the personality and whims of its owner. Just as we develop through life, so too should our humble abode.

For more information on the principles of improving your home, drop in at http://www.where-we-live.com/

A Bachelor Degree in the Culinary Arts

Gourmet cooking is a very competitive business. The standards are high. Modern chefs have to have a large amount of information and skill at the their fingertips.

It's not surprising, then, that courses leading to bachelor degrees in culinary arts are difficult to get into and demanding to the successful candidates. However, the rewards are high. If you have a passion for food, a good memory and nimble fingers, a career in the culinary arts could be for you. And otaining a degree could be the best way to go about starting it.

For more information on the Culinary Arts, drop in at http://www.gourmet-cooking-class.com/Bachelor_Degree_in_Culinary_Arts.html

Prelit Christmas Tree

I know Christmas is coming when I start wondering where I left the ladders. I use them to get up to the attic. That's where all the Christmas decorations are. However, Christmas really begins when I set down in the kitchen with a cup of steaming coffee and hit the switch on my prelit Christmas tree.

Yes, it's the prelit Christmas tree that does it for me. We go back a long way, that Xmas tree and I. Some people feel sentimental writing Christmas cards, others when they bite into their first slice of Xmas cake. I may have a more prosaic start to Christmas, but the moment I light that tree still sends a shiver of pleasure down my spine.

Fibre Optic Christmas Tree

Yes, a fibre optic lamp is about as kitsch as you can get. At least I thought so until I unwittingly met my fantasy Christmas decoration in a department store last year - a fibre optic Christmas Tree.

I missed the 70s. At least I missed them in any meaningful way. I had just got of diapers by the end of the decade, with a little help from others, and I've stayed away from them ever since. However, my parent's house didn't make the transition into the next decade, nor the decade that followed, by casting off its old clothes and donning the new. Orange rugs, lava lamps and bean bag chairs all made it into the 80s and formed much of the landscape of my teenage years. However, the pride of place went to a fibre optic lamp. Half spaceship, half alien grassy moll, it was rarely turned on after it zapped my mother once while she was doing the vacuuming.

Well, now it's back with vengeance in the form of a Christmas tree. My dreams, once again, have come true.

Most recent strange wedding experience

Actually, it wasn't all that strange as far as weddings go, but this particular day was one of those that resonated with half-forgotten memories and fantasies of what could have been. I don't know how many of you have attended the wedding of your first ever boy/girlfriend, but if you have I hope it wasn't such a big deal. Big deals tend to steal your sleep and turn your waking hours into a hazy miasma where past merges with present, fantasy merges with reality, and everything sounds like it's taking place in a traffic jam. But big deals do have an early warning systme built into them. The first true warning comes in heavy traffic, when you nudge the car in front of you, then bang your fist on the horn convinced that the guy in front has rolled backward into your front fender. If you're lucky, the traffic rolls forward again so the big hariy guy who owns the car in front doesn't get the chance to get out and express his disappointment...

Back to the wedding. The girl in question had been my first intense love at the tender age of 15. We lasted a year, in which time we managed to wind up each other's limbic systems tightly enough to catapult an adult rhino into orbit. It was not a year of release. The steady unwinding took place over the subsequent 15 years. There were times when, if circumstances had been different, we could have built a more mature catapult together and sent each other flying to great heights, but it just never quite came about, not least because I'm a wandering soul and haven't really been in one place long enough for anyone to get a leash around so much as a stray ankle.

Anyway, I showed up at the church, and did a reading, you know, the classic one about clashing cymbals and banging drums, and went through the whole thing in a daze. Why? The bride. She was gorgeous. Talk about getting everything right. According to one of her close friends and colleagues she'd been eating nothing but lettuce for 6 months and had shrunk down to the size of a 10-year-old. Her dress was classy, simple, revealing - my jaw is dropping just thinking about it.

At the reception I sat at a table next to a charming New Zealander who used the duration of the meal to try and get me to publish her poems. Afterwards there was live jazz, dancing and mayhem. After the meal, I changed out of my dress-shirt in favour of gettng down and dirty in a long-armed (and rather sexy) T-shirt. I put my my dress-shirt in a plastic bag and deposited it in a room that the reception's receptionist assured me was secure as it was full of the happy couple's wedding gifts. I plonked my bag between an enormous candlestick and a toaster and rejoined the party. Somewhere in the middle of it all, the happy couple sneaked away - with my shirt! Somehow they thought my sweat-stained, minging rag was a wedding present of profound sensibility. At any rate, I haven't seen it since.

Life goes on, and the drama of one day, a day that evokes whole other alternative existences, becomes swallowed and digested, and other big deals muscle in on the every-day-dose to steal sleep and put dents in the fenders of fellow motorists.

Since I've been learning how to build web sites I thought it would be a good idea to dip into this whole blogging malarky. I can work up a head of steam aover almost anything (I think the pulp term is 'passionate'), and that's what you're going to get exposed to here.

I thought I'd start by posting a few articles here, or at least their beginnings , then leave you with a few links to latch onto if you're interested.

Since I'm still reeling (it can be a very exciting dance) from a recent divorce, I thought it would be a good idea to start with a something about weddings. I've had the privilege of being the bridegroom at two great weddings; one civil, one in church. The civilities in the first wedding unfortunately didn't extend to the marriage, and the second marriage was an exercise in willful amnesia - maybe the church should make the vows shorter so we can have them tattooed on our foreheads or something. A good marriage, after all, is a type of branding - his n hers anoraks etc. - and the pain would be appropriate.

But, as I said, I'm a big fan of the starting point, the gathering of loved ones, the big day itself. A wedding is the beginning of a journey: you embark with a tank full of fuel, fresh, unblemished and full of hope - this is the moment you feel you become your true self. After that, you gradually turn into your parents and the reeling begins...

Here's a snippet from one of the articles on the site I've just built:

'11 Things To Remember When Planning Your Wedding' (or the first 4 or 5... )
by Christine

Every woman dreams of her own wedding. May it be a small gathering in a picturesque orchard, a grand ball in a gigantic castle or a funky wedding along the coastline, she wants it planned and tailored to her wishes. Planning your wedding would take time, effort and energy but it's worth it. For brides out there, here are some things you can't forget to look into.

1. Payments
Of course, planning your wedding will need sufficient amount of cash. Establish who pays for what. This is usually worked out between the couple and their families.

2. Marriage License Requirements
There are different requirements for each state, so be sure to look into yours. Remember that you can't even start planning your wedding without a license so make it high priority.

3. Booking the ceremony and the reception.
Choose a place to hold your wedding. It'd be great if both parties talk about it. Also, planning your wedding means planning the reception well so that there won't be wrinkles in your wonderful day.

4. Reception Ideas
Planning your wedding by yourself might become tiring, so set up a brainstorming session with your friends and relatives to work out the details. List the ideas in a piece of paper and deliberate on them carefully. Properly laid out plans are wonderful to work with.

5. Invitations
The invitation should be simple yet elegant. An overly decorated invitation just turns people off. Remember to include all the people involved in the wedding itself and address them properly. Be sure to indicate if you're inviting the children of the family too because most parents don't take them to weddings if their presence is not specifically requested.
...

You can read more of this here