Shopping Gifts For You Or Your Love Ones

Many people find it a challenge to shop for gifts for the holidays not because there is nothing available out there but because there are so much to choose out there and its hard to pinpoint which one you or your love ones would really want to have this christmas.

We always look around to buy gifts for our love ones. We should also condsider buying a gift for ourselves and give ourselves a nice treat for the holiday. I personally would like a new handbag that is both stylish and functional with plenty of compartments to segregate things inside. A new pair of shoes to wear on gatherings and holiday dinners would be great too. One really good thing about buying a pair of shoes or handbags is that I can use it for the rest of the year.

Its not everyday that we give special gifts to our love ones. The spirit of giving is not really about the monetary value of the item but its truly the thoughts that counts. At the same time, giving useful gifts like mens shoes or classic belt for your husband and that other people can really use and enjoy is not only during the holidays but also for the rest of the year. Your wife probably dont need another pondue set especially if there are already two sets hidden in the closet somewhere the house collecting dust.

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The Spirit Of Christmas Is All Around

Last November 30 I hardly see any christmas lights put up yet, maybe little here little there. And then at the evening of December 1 that is when the overnight transformation in houses really visible. Its like clock work, at the strike of the month of December, many people make it a tradition to lit up their homes and joyfully annouce with striking blinking lights that Christmas time is here once again. Driving at night on December 1 really puts you in the spirit of the season. Although, we are a little behind in our decorating this year due to winter storms which unabled us to accesss of christmas decorations yet. But having the decorations put up earlier the better because we have more time to enjoy the decors especially that it only happens once a year.

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Stylish Medical Uniforms

In the past, when you go to medical clinics and hospitals most of the people working there including doctors and nurses wear white uniforms. Nowadays, you notice all the different colorful and printed scrubs that most of the medical personnels wear while working shifts at clinics and hospitals.

If you are working in the medical field and wonder where you can purchase nursing uniforms, you can actually buy them on your own. Blue Sky Scrubs is an online store that sells all kinds of scrubs uniforms for both women and men. They have great selections of medical attires to choose which give you plenty of flexibilities and options to be stylish at work. They also have nice sophisticated and tailored look lab coats that are readily available for purchase in different sizes.

The online store have colorful selections of scrub hats both for men and women. For men, they have executive, urban, and sports collections so you can totally express yourself on a daily basis at work instead of just wearing the same color or style every single day. The scrub hats for women have three different styles: pixie, pony and poppy collections, and there are different colorful prints and patterns to choose from.

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First Snow Storm Of The Season In Northern CA

Its only November and the weather NEWS here in northern California have been talking about snow storms in both high and low elevations. I think this is the first snow storm of the season (fall season) and they are already talking snow storm as low as 1500-2000 feet elevation, thats in the foothills of the sierra. In other states like Washington, there is snow all the way to the ocean because the cold Alaskan air is heading towards the south including California. I lived in the snow for several years, and dealing with 2-3 feet of snow in one storm and have to deal with it for the rest of the week can be challenging. With the first snow storm of the season being this intense already, i hope its not a sign of more bigger snow storms in the near winter to come.

If you are in a snow storm, be safe. Drive safely and stay warm.

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Tee Times

I used to live in an area near a golf course, where it only takes us around 10 minutes drive to get there. I love golf courses because majority of their vicinities are well-landscaped and well-kept. I like the vast expanse of wide open green grass in golf courses because its relaxing and takes you away from the buzzing city streets.

If you are anywhere near or is vacationing at Myrtle Beach area then www.48hourteetimes.com is your best online tool to find nearby golf courses that you can easily book within 48 hours to make tee times happen! Most of us dont have the luxury of planning our activities for months because its hard to plan  things in advance without having to deal with weather or unexpected things come up, and you have no choice but to re-schedule or cancel your plans. Thats why 48 hour tee times is very convenient for those whole have spontaneous urge to play golf in Myrtle Beach area.

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Way Too Hot For Fall

Where I live, yesterday was record breaking 100 plus degrees fahrenheit and its fall season. Its already fall season and we are still dealing with hot summer days temperature here in California. To my dismay, I had to go out yesterday and had to deal with the high temperature being in the car. Even with the car air conditionining running full-blast, I can still feel the baking hot temperature in the air especially coming in and out of the vehicle after it sat there for hours in the sun.

I like bringing our dog with us when we travel but during extremely hot days like yesterday, we always leave them home because we dont want them to have a heat stroke especially when we need to go to a store, where dogs are not allowed, so the dogs will be stuck waiting inside the car. When the weather is hot, it only takes few minutes for the car to get really toasty inside even when you leave windows crack open. So for dogs safely, its best for them to just chill at home rather than bake outside.

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My Ideal Kitchen

When it comes to cooking, its mostly the women or the wives that play huge part in the kitchen operation. In my household, I do most of the cooking. My husband does cook occassionally but he still wants me to do most of the preparations of ingredients like dicing, slicing, etc. Having too many hours spent in the kitchen, I know what I like to be more functional in my kitchen like a huge stainless steel kitchen sink where I can easily wash small items as well as big items like pots and pans with less water spillage in the floor. I have many years of experience using small sink so I know how hard it is to wash bigger items on it.

Having a lot of cabinets for storage is necessary and plenty of countertops is ideal inorder for me to have plenty of work space to have a place to put all my ingredients and countertop appliances. I always wanted to have a butcher block countertop which will also serve as a movable kitchen island where I can easily prepare most of the ingredients for my cooking.

I like having a deck or a patio next to the kitchen so that I can cook in the kitchen and carry the foods outside for a nice outdoor meal and then later relax in the an adirondack chair and enjoy the weather.

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Our Huge Shade Tree

We have this huge shade tree in the backyard that i like because it gives us a lot of shades especially during summer time when it gets really hot. We live in an area that we frequently get more than 100 degrees fahrenheit temperature during the summer, so having a shade tree like it is very benefecial especially for our electricity bills because this tree is situated near the house blocking some direct sunlight in one side of house in the afternoon, where the sun hit most during that time of day.

The problem with this tree is that during fall season it has all these leaves that fall in our patio that we need to clean up almost daily through out the season. This tree is full of leaves, and all of them are gonna fall by the end of the season, every year. Not only that, this same tree have sticky saps that stick to the falling leaves and I mean sticky. So when we step/walk into the falling leaves, some leaves stick to our shoes and slippers and can easily get carried inside the house. Our dogs can even carry leaves inside the house with their paws.

Fall is near and the leaves of this tree started to fall and the saps too, so its going to be another busy autumn season for us cleaning up the mess that our tree produce. But its hard to take it down and replace because its a full grown mature tree already and it helps us a lot during the summer and gives us plenty of shade and be able to enjoy our backyard without baking in the sun.

To read more about gardening and tree, check out Gardeners Land blog.

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Meet Our Cockateil Bird

Meet out cockateil bird. He been with us for several years already. As im writing this blog post right now, he is standing in my shoulder next to my ear doing his little loud whistles, next to my ear? (yup, common birdie bird...) We are powerwashing his cage and giving it some thorough cleaning today. While the cage is drying outside, I decided to let him hang-out in my hand, but he walked all the way to my shoulder and he been in my shoulder for almost an hour now, staying busy making his loud little noises. We normally dont let him out of his cage because we have dogs and we dont know how the dogs will react to the bird being outside the cage, his comfort zone and his safe haven. All we know is that when our dogs are outside, they chase wild birds all the time and try to catch them. Thats why we dont want to take chances and let the dogs hurt our bird.

Here is a video of our Cockateil bird:

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Hot And Strange Weather

The other day, we starting noticing dead leaves falling off the trees already and scattered all over our back patio. Few hours after the leaves were swept, there were new leaves that fell. Made me think, is it fall already? I thought its still summer basing on how hot its been for weeks.
When I watched tv this morning, we heard the weather guy announced that its going to be super hot in our area today, they were talking 100+ degrees fahrenheit, and its bad news for me because I needed to go out today. Unfortunately, car airconditioning in my car still needs fixing, its not blowing cool air very well anymore, so going out in an extremely hot day (like today) is something that I am not looking forward to. 

The weather people was right with there prediction, its was extremely hot outside. Thats why when I went to stop by at the supermarket, there were tons of people, maybe trying to stay away from the sun and just chill in the airconditioning room. Might be a great idea though, save their home airconditioning bill and simply cool off in a controlled temperature mall or supermarket for free :-)

Thank you for visiting Honestly Fresh today. If you have time, feel free to visit Dogs Circle or Planting Diary blogs.

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Water The Lawn

With the peak of the summer season, its becoming hotter and hotter everyday outside. And one of the most noticeable effects of this hot weather is the color of our lawn. Even if we frequently water our lawn, its definitely taking the beating from the sun really quite harshly and its started to turn brownish and if left unwatered it could die. We try to water our lawn after the sunset inorder to give it some really good soaking and and let the water soak into the ground and not just let it evaporate in the middle of the afternoon sun. Sometimes, our built-in sprinkler system is not enough to do the job, we have to drag a hose and a rotating sprinkler system attached to the hose to add more water to the ground. Its no surprise that during summer time, our water bill goes up to almost double because both the lawn and the garden needs more water during this season and its necessary for the lawn and plants to survive the heat.

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Living In A Secure And Safe Home

When one of the people that I know asked me for an advice about moving to a new city and finding a home there, I told him that its not just about the physical features and ammenities of the house that he needs to consider but most importantly the neighborhood as well. Moving to a new area can be exciting and full of promise to be able to start a whole new life surrounded with almost new people and new surrounding but the pitfall is that you are starting from the ground up, you dont know anybody and you dont know how safe and secure the neighborhood is.

Safety and security must be a top-most priority when it comes to living in our homes. There are several areas nowadays where neighbors come together and organize a neighborhood watch by trying to get to know who are the people living in the neighborhood inorder for anyone in the area to recognize when there are some uncommon activity that will take place. But aside from neighborhood watch, its good when homeowners have a home surveillance system inorder to monitor anything suspicious that may occur. Nowadays with the rapid growth and advancement of new technology, its easy to get a really good security video camera that is a high resolution for clearer and better viewing of video inputs. When you install these security devices, its important that you have a backup battery and equipment guide inorder to know how things operate, and during power failures, your equipments still do the job for you and you can still rely on it.

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Whats Up With Avocado

I was just reading this blog post about avocado at Whats So Random blog saying that she cannot figure out exactly what avocado is, if its a fruit or vegetable. I personally think that an avocado is a fruit but it can be used either way, both as a fruit or a vegetable.

I grow up with avocados. We had avocado plant in our backyard, so we had tons of it growing up. We always had some uses for it as a fruit. I personally dont eat avocado on its own, but i can eat with sprinkled sugar on it. When we were young we also made homemade icecream bar out of an ripe avocadoes, we simply mashed the riped avocados, add sugar and evaporated milk, or condensed milk and freeze it, they frozen bar came out surprisingly great snack bars! We also sliced chucks of avocadoes and add it in our fruit salad with either milk and sugar, or condensed milk, or whipped cream. Avocadoes definitely have some really great flavor when you add sweetness into it!

Avocados are also great for burritos and taco mexican foods. Especially seasoned avocados with some spices added into it, they just make burritos and tacos taste even better. Ive tried eating burritos and tacos both with and without avocadoes on it, and i definitely prefer having avocado in it because it just add more twist into the flavor.

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Emergency Alert Test

I heared the emergency alert siren being tested in our neighborhood again today. They seem to test the emergency equipment every now and then, probably once a month or something. During the testing process, the voice in the speaker says that this is only a test. I live in a busy area and a busy freeway is not very far. So when we go outside, we hear a bunch of car noises in the air. And there are some good winds in the area too. So everytime the emergency alert system goes off for a test run, its always been hard to really understand what is being said in the speaker. People can probably pick up few words when they are outside, but I can hardly hear the siren when Im indoor with the tv or music on. I think, inorder for it to be very effective and let everyone in the area hear the siren and hear what is being said in the speaker, it would be better if they add more speakers in so much square block, just to make it more effective and reach all people, not just some people. With the cars and winds blowing, the sounds that travels thru the air seem to be distored and other times just blown elsewhere and remain unheardable.

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Tropical Theme Yard Decor

When we moved here in northern California valley, we know the weather is going to be tropical-like with lots and lots of good sunny wheather most days of the year. To compliment the weather we have, we decided to have a tropical theme in our home decorations both inside the house and in the yard. We planted several palm trees in the yard both front and back. And add some comfy outdoor furniture for relax setting outdoors as well.

One day, when we were seating and enjoying our yard, we talked about adding tiki torches in our decors to add more tropical theme into the space.  So when we went to a local store and check out few of their tiki torches, we didnt like it because they only have very few selections available. We wanted safe and stylish tiki torches than not only do its functions but will work as a decorative element as well even when its not lit.

During our visit to Hawaii one time, it definitely re-affirmed our desire to add tiki torches into our yard decor because it was so cool to be greeted by a bunch of lighted tiki torches at the entrance gate of the hotel that we stayed in. It definitely fits the tropical theme that we been working to achieve.

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The Appearance Of A Rainbow

We were watching the Finale of The Bachelorette (Ali) tv show last night (August 2, 2010) and it was definitely a surprised twist that Ali sent home Chris a day earlier than what the show normally have it in the past, during the rose ceremony. After all that he been thru recently in his life, Ali did it more as a concern for Chris so he doesnt have to hope for Ali's decision to choose him when she already made up her mind at that point. And thats when a rainbow appeared in the Bora-Bora in Tahiti Island which reminded him of his mother. When they showed the rainbow on air, it was such a stunning rainbow specially in a beautiful island setting of Bora Bora.

As per my photograph above, i took this picture outside of our place, right after we had rain one time. With all the trees and houses nearby, it was hard to see the whole rainbow but it stand out pretty good in an amber cloudy day. There is something about rainbow that is so magical, it carries a message of hope, a peace and beauty after a storm.

Written and Photography by Jazevox. All rights reserved.

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Our Garbage Disposal Gave Up

We bought a garbage disposal over a year ago and installed it in our kitchen sink. Recently while my husband was running some food scrap in the garbage disposal, one of the metal blade inside the machine broke and came flying off the hole and almost hit him in the face! Its was a freak accident, luckily he was not hit nor hurt. Its only been a year since we purchased the garbage disposal and its unexplainable how the blade gave up that quickly when its supposed to last for years. We were able to get hold of the manufacturer and was able to have it replaced since our purchase was still under warranty. Good thing, i wrote all the necessary information like date of purchase and serial numbers, etc in the manual book for easy reference, and I was able to locate the original receipt of the garbage disposal.

Thank you for your visit at http://www.honestlyfresh.com today.

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