Senior Women Web

Author: SeniorWomenWeb

  • Shopping Online in Vancouver: Orling and Wu

    We were looking for Eleanor Pritchard’s blankets and pillows when we found Örling and Wu, a store in Vancouver, British Columbia. We did find the blankets and throws (both Pritchard’s as well as Klippan) and a lot more. So far as the Klippan blankets, I’m enamored of the moose and polar bears as well as the rose blanket in either pink, purple or gray. There are baby blankets, too.

    Tableware handmade  in Portugal, Holland and Israel is quite beautiful and useful; the large ‘oyster’ bowls were a shape apart, reasonable and made by Mateus in Portugal. Other tableware is made by Royal Tichelaar Makkum which is the Netherlands’ oldest company  Klässbol’s Herr Ask Black Table Runner is a product from the firm we visited in Sweden almost 20 years ago. The material lasts forever, easy to wash and iron: “Napkins and tablecloths from the little village in Värmland have for several years been used at the prestigious Nobel feast. Swedish as well as Norwegian embassies worldwide choose products from Klässbols. They are purveyors to HM the King of Sweden, they have been given the honourable task of hand-weaving the very special royal tablecloth.”

    Fabrics and wallpapers display classic stripes, checks, embroidered linens and florals by the meter. Cecil Beaton Fabrics and Wallpaper from the UK  are largely inspired by Beaton’s fashion sketches from his 1954 book, The Glass of Fashion, made available through the National Portrait Gallery, London.

    Miscellaneous include a brush rack for those brushes that have become simple and practical gifts for everyone. And let’s face it, how many mushroom brushes have you seen? And the wonderful Iris Handverk whom we’ve highlighted before on seniorwomen.com has a sleek looking dustpan and brush set in recycled plastic in grey, red, black, white, green and blue. Cabbages and Roses (from England) have a Blue Paris Rose Colin Bolster that looks  comfortable as well as in a nostalgic pattern but there are many other cushions to view, too. Seasonal ornaments can be picked up at the store in historic Gastown area of Vancouver.

    Shipping information is quite detailed for inside Canada and international orders and obviously, Canadian dollar are used in the costs. A currency converter is available. This shop could be a marvelous destination for a city already known for beautiful locations, crafts and artisans.

  • Black&Decker’s DIY Photo Guides to Home Improvement and Repair

    We consulted a longtime ‘putterer’, family repair-person and now serious handyman with a roster of regular clients for opinion and review of two additional Black&Decker Photo Guides: Home Improvement and Home Repair.

    We’re not particularly interested in the more esoteric of home repair projects (replacing wall sheathing, troubleshooting blade wobble in a ceiling fan, servicing an electronic ignition furnace), but most of the projects in the Image from Amazon
    Black & Decker The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair: with 350 Projects and 2000 Photos (Black & Decker Complete Photo Guide) by Editors of Creative Publishing do represent tasks I’d be willing to tackle on my own. I come from a background where my father was willing to take on almost any task (having lived through the Depression he wasn’t alone in that philosophy).  Once, when my parents were on a cruise and I was home from college, the inevitable failure of a toilet to perform occurred. I called a local plumber and he laughed when he saw my father’s handiwork: a splicing of copper parts to repair lift chains or wires, comparing them to a Rube Goldberg apparatus.

    Fortunately, I’m married to a man who negates the need to call a repairman/woman in the majority of breakdowns.  That doesn’t mean that one day I might not have to face the inevitable — installing a new disposal, fixing a broken windowpane or renewing damaged wood in a deck.  The Home Repair book has a number of entries on maintenance, a key precaution that many homeowners would be well to engage in, in order to save the repair fees: maintaining your dishwasher or water softener, maintaining storm windows and doors, and maintaining wall tile.

    The Home Repair Guide tackles those projects that are less ambitious than the Home Improvement Guide and is more practical as a gift for the novice who needs to replace a damaged floorboard, parquet, ceramic floor tile or re-stretch loose carpeting. Our professional handyman points out that even if you decide not to tackle a problem yourself, an understanding and appreciation of what has to be done by an experienced handyman/woman or contractor could be informative to the point that you’ll be able to estimate what needs to be done to complete the job successfully. This, in itself, could provide a starting point in deciding whether to hire a professional or begin an adventure in home repair.Image from Amazon

    Black & Decker The Complete Photo Guide to Home Improvement: More Than 200 Value-adding Remodeling Projects (Black & Decker Complete Photo Guide) by  the Editors of Creative Publishing begins with an ‘anatomy of a house’ which familiarizes the reader with basic elements of home construction and remodeling.

    For instance, “if your project includes modifying exterior load-bearing walls, you must determine if your house was built using platform- or balloon-style framing.” Floor, ceiling, roof, permits needed, building codes, natural light, and universal design, for example, are sections of the anatomy, as well as working with drawings and construction plans. Safe practices are touched upon as well as the contents of a first-aid kit that should be prepared.

  • Black&Decker’s DIY BooksTackle Home Decorating and Outdoor Building Projects

    Editor’s Note: When I saw my husband paging through his older copies of Black&Decker’s Guides to Plumbing and Wiring, we decided to ask the publisher for copies of some of the newer volumes to review.  Below are two of the reviews, with more to follow; the reviewer is experienced in home decorating projects for her two homes, but not a professional:

    Image from Amazon

    Because the Black&Decker Complete Photo Guide to Home Decorating Projects covers so many different types of projects — 130 do-it-yourself (or “DIY”) decorating solutions, as the subtitle informs us, that it can seem a bit of a miscellany, but this hardback tome with its 448 glossy color pages intersperses solid background information (such as tips about color theory, an introduction to home décor tools, and a quiz to help you discover your style — if you haven’t figured it out by now) with quite clear instructions on how to complete household projects such as installing molding, replacing a towel bar, tiling a backsplash, hanging bifold doors, creating faux finishes, or reupholstering a chair.

    Some of the projects do seem a bit off the mark  — the short section on Ceiling Décor includes instructions on how to gild your ceiling with aluminum leaf — but there are many more that are  useful, such as how to heat-strip paint, hang a picture without creating unnecessary holes in your walls, or calculate yardage for curtains. The book’s most extensive sections are on window treatments and on slipcovers and upholstery.

    The choice to mainly use men as models in the photos for projects that require power tools is disappointing, as is the fact that the models are not ethnically diverse, but the photo sequences are clear and capture the most relevant information. Any book that covers so many projects in a relatively small space can’t offer extensive details on each, but this book would make a good gift for anyone who is just starting to take on DIY projects.

    For an even more ambitious DIYer, consider Image from Amazon
    Black & Decker The Complete Outdoor Builder: From Arbors to Walkways: 150 DIY Projects . Unlike The Complete Photo Guide to Home Decorating Projects, the emphasis here is really on building, not décor, so you won’t find gardening tips. Projects include making patios, walkways, and decks; fences and walls; arbors, sheds, outbuildings, and porches; and — perfect for grandkids — treehouses and play structures. As a consequence of the projects’ scope, many require using power tools but, once again, Black&Decker offers lots of clear color photos (featuring a slightly more diverse group of models) to guide a careful reader through the process.

    Speaking of reading, one power tool that might be needed when using this book is a pair of reading glasses; the trade-off for having all the large color photographs is that the type size  in these books could be larger.  But because projects in the book like building a foundation or framing a shed or outbuilding require a greater emphasis on safety than, say, sewing a seat cushion, reading all the details before beginning is an important first step.

    Sometimes DIY books take you no farther than some armchair daydreaming, and these solid books will offer a reader that enjoyment. But for those on your gift list this year who might want to get out there and really make things, these two books should definitely equip them with the ability to make some of their daydreams reality.

    Tomorrow we’ll cover  two additional books in the Home Series: Image from Amazon
    Black & Decker The Complete Photo Guide to Home Improvement: More Than 200 Value-adding Remodeling Projects (Black & Decker Complete Photo Guide) and Image from Amazon
    Black & Decker The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair: with 350 Projects and 2000 Photos (Black & Decker Complete Photo Guide) both by the Editors of Creative Publishing.

  • Intelligently Designed Wine Packaging Evolves: New Containers for Restaurants, Supermarkets and Home Use

    by Sharon Kapnick

    New ways to package wine continue to proliferate. In an effort to improve quality, lower costs and/or preserve the environment — and, perhaps, to boost sales — wine continues to turn up in different containers, from barrels and kegs at restaurants, to vending machines and huge tanks at supermarkets, to tiny 25-ml (1.7-oz.) bottles in mailboxes.

    Cutting-edge restaurants have been dispensing wine from elegant, reusable wood barrels since July 2009, when DeLoach Vineyards, owned by the always innovative Boisset Family Estates, introduced its highly regarded Pinot Noirs in 10-liter barrels. To date, hundreds of upscale restaurants have signed on to the program for their wine-by-the-glass service.

    Each barrel contains a 10-liter biodegradable eco-bag — 1 liter more than a standard case — cradled inside a cardboard box, turducken-like. This system offers important advantages: It ensures the wine’s freshness for eight weeks, dramatically reduces storage, waste and labor costs, and helps preserve the environment.

    The bag holds 67 5-ounce glasses of wine, the equivalent of 13 1/3 (750-ml) glass bottles. According to DeLoach, while 13 empty glass bottles weigh 16.4 lbs., the empty bag weighs an astoundingly light 2.4 oz. DeLoach also claims that packaging is lowered by 99% compared to glass, thus ensuring a dramatically reduced carbon footprint. (Last month DeLoach began selling and renting 10-liter barrels directly to consumers for home use; it also sells 3-liter mini-barrels [see www.barreltobarrel.com]).

    Other forward-looking restaurants and wine bars have recently been adding, or retrofitting, tap lines so wine can be served from kegs like beer. Why? Because kegged wine offers the same advantages that DeLoach’s barrels do. One especially notable plus in these difficult financial times: Keg systems are estimated to save consumers 25%-30%.

    In a keg system, the wine is pushed along by inert argon or nitrogen. It stays fresh for months because oxygen, wine’s enemy, is eliminated. (Beer taps use carbon dioxide to do the pushing, but CO2 carbonizes, i.e. adds bubbles.)

    While kegged wine has had some success in Europe, it didn’t catch on in the US until this decade. The largest restaurant wine-keg system here, launched in 2004, is at Two Urban Licks in Atlanta, which has opted to serve only kegged wine and has 42 choices on tap. The keg systems are also popular in New York City and California.

    Because of the significant advantages of kegs, many are convinced that wine on tap is the way of the future. Bruce Schneider, co-founder of the Gotham Project along with partner Charles Bieler, started selling a kegged New York Finger Lakes Riesling in April. The reception has been enthusiastic, and they’ve added a New York North Fork Cabernet Franc, a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc and a German Riesling. “This technology, which has long been used at wineries, has three main things going for it,” says Schneider. “You can’t beat kegs for freshness and great taste, great value and low impact on the environment.” New York City restaurateur Paul Grieco, who features kegs at Terroir Tribeca, recently told New York magazine that he thinks “every new restaurant that opens will dedicate at least one beer line to wine.”

  • FactCheck.org Examines ‘Are Federal Workers Overpaid?’

    Both sides in great pay debate are misleading the public.

    Summary

    President Barack Obama’s recent announcement to freeze the pay of federal civilian workers did little to ice the debate over whether federal workers are overpaid or underpaid. Republican leaders and conservative think tanks claim federal workers are overpaid. They say the average federal worker is paid twice as much as those in the private sector. The federal Office of Personnel Management and unions that represent federal workers say on average they are paid 24 percent less than those in the private sector.

    Both sides are armed with official government statistics, but neither side is right.

    Senator-elect Rand Paul of Kentucky, for example, said recently: “The average federal employee makes $120,000 a year. The average private employee makes $60,000 a year.” This has become a GOP talking point and the basis for the House Republicans’ call for a hiring freeze in the “Pledge to America.” But it’s misleading.

    The analysis is based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and crudely done by dividing total compensation (salary and benefits) by the number of current federal civilian employees. Comparing such averages is quite misleading, for two reasons:

    * First, BEA says the figure is inflated by including compensation that is actually paid to benefit retirees, not just for current workers. The figure is at least several thousand dollars too high, by our calculations.
    * Second, the average federal civilian worker is better educated, more experienced and more likely to have management or professional responsibilities than the average private worker.

    Officially, the Office of Personnel Management says federal civilian workers on average are paid 24 percent less than private workers — a figure based on surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and often cited by unions and their Democratic allies. But this is misleading, too. The BLS surveys don’t include the cost of benefits — which both sides agree are more generous for federal workers. Experts also say there are other flaws in OPM’s methodology that prevent a true apples-to-apples comparison. 

    The last time the federal government undertook an in-depth analysis to compare federal and private-sector pay was in 1990. Howard Risher, the managing consultant on that 1990 report, says the data doesn’t exist today to support either side in the great pay debate. Risher recently wrote in Government Executive magazine that “we truly don’t know” which side is right because “neither has detailed job-to-job comparisons to support their arguments.”

    Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed at FactCheck.org.

  • Celebrating Free eBooks and Milton’s Birthday: The Open Library Launches an Improved Online E-Book Reader

    The Open Library (an Internet Archive initiative) has just launched a new version of their online ebook reader (aka BookReader) featuring a new user interface and other tools.

    BookReader allows users read/search more than two million digitized books (and other items) available from The Open Library and Internet Archive.

    When searching the Internet Archive eBook and eText Collection, look for the link to read the item online in the left column. Users will also notice that books and other items can also be downloaded in a number of formats.

    Using Open Library to search, find, and access books, either click the “read icon” on a search results page (online ebook reader will open) or click the cover thumbnail. Users will be taken to a page with several options (read online, download, send to Kindle, etc.).

    Once BookReader is open, here are a few of the things you can do:

    1. Clicking the “i” (top of reader) provides a list of formats you can download the item in; send to Kindle (very cool), link to provide feedback, and more.

    2. Clicking the three circles icon (next to the “i”) allows you to get the code to directly link to the book and/or embed (that’s right, embed the book*) on a web page or blog.

    The embedded BookReader – now includes “expando” button to view the book in a new browser window.

    3. Clicking the speaker icon, will provide text-to-speech allowing you to listen to the book. The Open Archive calls it “Read Aloud.”

    4. On the bottom of BookReader you’ll find the navigation bar. Sliding the finger icon will take you directly to a specific page, facing pages, or multiple pages (depending on the view you select).

    5. The remaining icons allow users select how pages are viewed (one page, facing pages, multiple pages); increase/decrease type size; and move back and forth throughout the book.

    What’s listed above is only the beginning. This blog post from the Open Library has information on more features the the ebook reader provides including:

    + Automatically Generated Tables of Contents for Most Books.
    Look for the chapter markers appear in the new navigation bar

    + Improved Full-Text Search of Each Item
    Wow! Search results are shown on the navigation bar and include a snippet of text near the matched search term. The search box is located on the top-right side of the reader.

    + Touch gesture support – swipe to flip pages in two-page mode, pinch to zoom on iOS.

    + Improved support for tablet devices like the iPad.

    As you’ve read, BookReader is full powered but it’s also very easy to use (and learn).

    Finally, BookReader and the more than 2 million items you can use it to access are free. And as for that birthday of Milton’s, celebrate it by a read of Paradise Lost.

  • Results from the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Mental Health Findings

    • In 2009, there were an estimated 45.1 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States with any mental illness in the past year. This represents 19.9 percent of all adults in this country. Among adults aged 18 or older in 2009, the percentage having serious mental illness (SMI) in the past year was 4.8 percent (11.0 million adults).

    • Women aged 18 or older were more likely than men aged 18 or older to have past year any mental illness (23.8 vs. 15.6 percent) and SMI (6.4 vs. 3.2 percent).

    • In 2009, an estimated 8.4 million adults (3.7 percent) aged 18 or older had serious thoughts of suicide in the past year. Among adults aged 18 or older, 2.2 million (1.0 percent) made suicide plans in the past year, and 1.0 million (0.5 percent) attempted suicide in the past year.

    • Among the 45.1 million adults aged 18 or older with any mental illness in the past year, 19.7 percent (8.9 million adults) met criteria for substance dependence or abuse in that period compared with 6.5 percent (11.9 million adults) among those who did not have mental illness in the past year. Among the 11.0 million adults aged 18 or older with SMI in the past year, 25.7 percent also had past year substance dependence or abuse compared with 6.5 percent of adults who did not have mental illness.

    • Among the 45.1 million adults aged 18 or older with any mental illness in 2009, 17.1 million (37.9 percent) received mental health services in the past year. Among the 11.0 million adults aged 18 or older with SMI in 2009, 6.6 million (60.2 percent) received mental health services in the past year.

    • In 2009, 30.2 million adults (13.3 percent of the population 18 years or older) received mental health services during the past 12 months.

    • Among the 2.8 million adults aged 18 or older in 2009 with both SMI and substance  dependence or abuse in the past year, 62.4 percent received substance use treatment at a specialty facility or mental health treatment in that period. Included in the 62.4 percent are 13.5 percent who received both mental health treatment and specialty substance use treatment, 47.3 percent who received mental health treatment only, and 1.6 percent who received specialty substance use treatment only.

    • In 2009, there were 2.0 million youths (8.1 percent of the population aged 12 to 17) who had major depressive episode (MDE) during the past year. Among youths aged 12 to 17 in 2009 who had past year MDE, 35.7 percent used illicit drugs in the past year compared with 18.0 percent among youths who did not have past year MDE.

    • In 2009, 2.9 million youths aged 12 to 17 (12.0 percent) received treatment or counseling for problems with emotions or behavior in a specialty mental health setting (inpatient or outpatient care). The most common reason for receiving services among youths was feeling depressed (46.0 percent).

    This National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) report was prepared by the Division of Population Surveys, Office of Applied Studies (OAS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and by RTI International (a trade name of Research Triangle Institute), Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

     

  • Chinamania, Whistler’s Love of Blue-and-White and Museum Shopping

    ChinamaniaChinamania: Whistler and the Victorian Craze for Blue and White, a small thematic exhibition on view at the Freer Gallery until Aug. 2011, explores the significance of Chinese export porcelain in Victorian England, where it began as an object of serious aesthetic inspiration but soon proliferated as a popular status symbol. Chinamania thumbnail

    The exhibition features 23 works of art: eight wash drawings of Kangxi porcelain produced by the American expatriate James McNeill Whistler (1834 – 1903) for a collector’s catalog; related examples of blue and white from the Freer Gallery’s The Peacock Room; and several paintings, pastels and etchings by Whistler that reflect his interest in Chinese porcelain.

    “Although Whistler disdained popular taste, it was his interest in blue and white — along with his knack for self-promotion — that helped catapult blue and white into the English mainstream,” said Lee Glazer, curator of American art and organizer of the exhibition. “He was so successful that soon he could no longer afford the very pots that he had helped to popularize.”

    The blue-and-white porcelain collected by the Victorians was primarily manufactured in China during the late 17th century for a European market. In 1863, Whistler purchased a number of pieces from shops in London, Amsterdam and Paris in an attempt to shed the influence of French realism and develop a more original style, one in which art, not life, was the inspiration. Dressing up in a Chinese robe, amassing a significant collection of blue and white and incorporating the sinuous forms and delicate patterns of Kangxi ware into his own paintings allowed Whistler to construct a public persona and an artistic style that was, as he said, ” … as far removed from the joys and trouble of mere humanity as so many pieces of Oriental porcelain.”

  • Book Review: Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory

    Image from Amazon
    Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben Macintyre
    By Ben Macintyre, ©2010
    Published by Harmony Books; Illustrated, 400 pages

    I was only ten years old when World War II ended, but I already had a keen and growing interest in the history and literature of war and espionage which has remained with me my entire life. Of the many non-fiction books on the subject which I have enjoyed reading over the past sixty-five years, I have seldom found one more interesting than Operation Mincemeat. It is a great gift idea for anyone on your list who shares such interests.

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  • A Convoluted Journey of Discovery – Book Review: The Hare With Amber Eyes

    Image from Amazon
    The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family’s Century of Art and Loss
    by Edmund De Waal, © 2010
    Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Hardbound: 351 pp

    Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines netsuke as the Japanese word for “a small and often intricately carved toggle (as of wood, ivory, or metal) used to fasten a small container to a kimono sash.” While many are simple folk carvings, the finest netsuke are an art unto themselves, expressive, tiny sculptures treasured by collectors around the world.

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