Can you imagine?

    “In 1013 Mars One will conduct a global search to find the best candidates for the first human mission to Mars in 2023.”

    Anybody can apply and become an Astronaut!

     The thing that can make you think harder is the following: if you decide to go  there, you will never be back. It’s only a one-way ticket.

     I’m sure to some people it sounds like a dream, but think twice before making a decision.There is no way back, and the only people who you will be with are your team.

     This news sounded like some fiction story from a book came true.If I wanted to make my name remain  in history for a while, I would have considered this chance ☺.

    It’s a great opportunity, isn’t it?

     I also think about types of people who might apply. They have to be strong, smart and mentally healthy. They have to be ready to live far away from the environment they are used to, and they have to be ready for the uncertainty that the future holds. It’s really tough, I’m afraid to even think about it. I guess  it must be easy to write a great book about this experience, but unfortunately,this book may never reach the Earth.

Is it Better to Walk or Run in the Rain?

   Have you ever asked yourself this question? I'm sure you have... Especially when you leave an umbrella at home on the door handle, you want to know what to do. I found an answer to this question in this great video on Minutephysics. 
Besides this one, they have a lot of simple explanation to some tough questions :) As they say, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough".
  Hope you will enjoy:)

Before the holiday feasts.

          Do you usually notice how much you eat? Can you stop when you feel that you've had enough? Sometimes I eat too fast or get destructed by something like a movie, Internet or a conversation that I do not pay attention to the amount of food on my plate. This is the problem I am trying to solve for myself. I have found some information on the topic and want to share it with you. Hopefully it can be helpful. 

         The concept of “right amount” comes from the Buddhist teaching of the Eightfold Path to enlightment. Each part of the path is described with the adjective “right”: right view, right mindfulness, right effort, and so on. In the Buddhist teaching “right” means appropriate, beneficial, leading to happiness and freedom.

     What then is “right amount”?     

     We need to eat just enough to remain healthy, just enough to feel satisfied, just enough to meditate without becoming sleepy, just enough to not be swayed by greediness.    

     “Just enough” is not fixed amount. It changes according to circumstances. We have to be aware of changing conditions, how hungry we are, how much we’ve been exercising, and how cold it is. But a young active man who is still growing needs portions twice as large as a middle-aged person.     

     The beloved Buddhist monk Ajahn Chah gave these guidelines about right amount: “When you think that after another five mouthfuls you’ll be full, then stop and drink some water and you will have eaten just the right amount. If you sit or walk afterward you won’t feel heavy… But that’s not the way we usually do it.   When we feel full we take another five mouthfuls. That’s what the mind tells us. It doesn’t know how to teach itself… Someone who lacks a genuine wish to train their mind will be unable to do it. Keep watching your mind.”    

     “Normal” portion sizes have grown dramatically over just one generation. This increase has occurred wherever food is found, in the portions sold in grocery stores, served in restaurants, estimated in cookbooks, and dished onto plates at home.     When we use bigger plates, bowls, and serving utensils, we serve ourselves more and eat more.   

      Asian and European visitors tell us the huge portions in American restaurants shock them. Rather than eat too much food, or waste too much food, they may split a meal with second person.    

      Research shows that up to the age of five, children have a wellfunctioning “appestat.” Even if they are served extra large portions of macaroni and cheese, they eat until they are no longer hungry and then stop. After the age of five children begin to rely on the amount on the plate to tell them how much to eat. But by the time they enter kindergarten the greed of eye, nose, and mouth hunger begin to override the wisdom of stomach and cellular hunger.     

     Many adults have ignored the signals from their appestat for so long they have no sense of when to stop eating. They rely on social and visual clues and generally stop eating only when other people at the table have finished eating and the food is gone. Or they rely on painful signals from on overstretched stomach.    

     Zen masters recommend eating until you are two-thirds full. The Okinawans, the longest-lived people in the world, call this practice “hara no hachi bu”, which means “stomach eight parts full.” It means never to eat to capacity, to leave a little room in your stomach. A Japanese proverb says that eight parts of a full stomach sustain the man; the other two parts sustain the doctor.    

    Taking in the right amount:

1.     Before we eat, stop to look at the food you will be eating and assess how much you would need to take to be just two-thirds full. As you take a smaller portion and eat it mindfully, reflect, “I am eating this portion for the good health of my body and mind.”

2.     Take at least twenty minutes to eat. When you feel two-thirds full, drink some liquid.

3.     Now think are you satisfied or not? If one part of you wants more to eat, why does it want it?

4.     If you take second helpings, reflect, “I am talking this second portion to benefit… something.” See if and how the mind fills in the blank. 

(based on "Mindful eating" by Joan Chozen Bays, MD)

How to prepare presents...

   Every holiday season we need to prepare some gifts for our family and friends. It is a tradition and a way to show our appreciation and love. Sometimes it’s easy but sometimes it is not. If we think about it more deeply, we will understand why it is so.

   When we know a person very well, it’s easier for us to make a present. We know what he or she likes, what they do and how they spend their time. When we are really interested in people, we can find a way to ask about their preferences and favorite things without making it obvious that we are trying to get some ideas for gifts. We may receive hints from any conversations when people talk about things they love. We just need to be more attentive during the talk, which might as well become a habit of a person who is interested in others.

   It’s easy when folks have hobbies, we can prepare gifts according to them. But sometimes it is too obvious and a person with a certain hobby might receive similar presents from many different people.

   I had a good teacher when I was younger. My friend Luсy moved to the US and sent me gifts on every holiday. These presents always were exactly what I needed. I loved all of them and one day I just asked her how she does it. Her answer was pretty simple. She said that she didn’t buy gifts for me right before the holiday. Lucy thought about me for the whole year and if she saw something that reminded her of me, she bought it. Sometimes it took her a whole year  to collect gifts for me which she sent later at the right time.

   So, I learned this lesson from Luсy and it makes me think about my family and friends every single day. I am learning what they like and how they live and I just collect some stuff throughout a year. It makes gifts more meaningful. Through my gifts I want to show people that I think about them and want to make their life more colorful.

   Of course it’s not perfect all the time, my assumptions may be wrong sometimes, but at least one thing might be perfect for a person J.

   I suggest that you just try to do the same next year and I am sure you and the one who gets the present will feel the difference. 

Something about fruits

Simple solution for sore throat.

 Winter is coming:) You can tell me: "Winter? When last time you've checked the weather?" I know, I know... In New York right now it seems like winter got lost somewhere on the way... But it doesn't mean that the rest of the world have the same picture:) And soon or later winter will be by us as well with its all side effects like snow, cold, fly and of course a soar throat..  That's the topic of my post for today:) 
  If you are the person who like everything natural (vs. pills and mixtures from pharmacy) you may like this simple recipe which will relieve you from soar throat and you can make it as simple as one-two-three:)

  We need:
Lemon - 2 
Honey 
Fresh Grated Ginger - 1 tablespoon
A cup with the top

Direction:

 Slice lemons, cover them with honey (I suggest to buy RAW honey since it isn't filtered, strained or heated above natural temperature (115 Fahrenheit) 
Add grated ginger. Mix. Close the cup and place into cooler. 

 It's ready when you'll see that the mixture have jelly consistency.
Take 1 spoon of it at the first sign of a cold with a warm water. It will soften the sore throat and boost you with vitamin C. 
Repeat 3 times a day. 

Online stores

I'm a big fan of online shopping.
I love any shopping but online especially. It's just great to have a chance to make it from home. 
I spend a lot of time on it (it's the only thing I don't like).
I like online shopping because I have as much time as I need for take a look, think and decide what I want and why. I always read reviews too, because they are really helpful.  
Here I would like to share with you my lovely online-stores. 

If you like dresses this store is for you, they have many-many-many of them!!! Almost all of my dresses I got from there. 
ModCloth

Stitched and Adorned

A little bit more about dresses in different stile there.
Calico

The two below about clothes too, but more expensive, that’s why I always wait for sale there. 
Sundancecatalog

Bodenusa

I love to buy some gifts in advance, so, I always think about a person, for whom I want to buy something and go to these sites. There are so many things and some of them really unique. 
Fab.

UncommonGoods

Etsy

Free Learning resources.

    I started to miss my profession and study right after I came in US, but at that time I knew nothing here, included language. With time I started to collect some information about different learning resources and now, when I can understand biggest part of any speech\text, I can enjoy the studying process again. It takes just couple hours of day and makes me much happier and reacher ;). 

    If you want to become smarter or just want to know something new, or have some topic which have been bother you for a while, but you didn’t have a chance to find out about this properly, you always can open for yourselves some options here. We would like to share with you some information about studying resources. It doesn’t take much time but allows you to get some information for free from really good sources.

    United Academics is a social academic publisher, providing a platform where one can easily connect with academics, share and find academic content. Anyone interested in academic knowledge can request free membership to the ua platform. Members can publish, discuss and comment on academic works, collaborate on developing new knowledge, and stay informed on their field of interest. We aim to make academic content easily accessible for anyone interested, and integrate various forms of social media to stimulate cross platform sharing".

    Open Yale Courses (OYC) provides lectures and other materials from selected yale college courses to the public free of charge via the internet. The courses span the full range of liberal arts disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and physical and biological sciences".

    About Coursera.

We are a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Our technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students.

Through this, we hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in".

   TED
TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its score has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences - the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Spring each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer - TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize. 

    For now I'm learning "How to reason and argue" with Coursera and "Introduction to Psychology" with Yale and both of them are great! 

How to clean silver jewelry at home?

  I think that this happen to almost everyone. One day you discover that your silver jewelry, which you have not wear, or wear, for a some period of time, got this kind of dark layer on top of them. It is nothing much you can do to stop it, it's just nature of this metal. Silver react on a lot of things, like: latex gloves, wool, oils from hands, chlorinated water (don't be surprise when you are coming after the pool), perfumes, hair spray etc..

 As you can see the one on the right is very dark compare to light silver color.

 The solution to this problem is very simple, you need to clean it by using a special silver polish or soft polishing cloth (made for silver). You can also take them to jewelry store and have them polished for you. Any of this solution is good and trustworthy:) But sometimes you just got no special polishes and cloth, no time to go to jewelry store and you want to wear your jewelry piece in a few hours.. 

  I have a quick and simple solution for you! You can clean it at home by spending just 15 min of total time.. I did it today and was very sceptic in the beginning, but the result overwhelm me:) It's work!!!

 We need:

 Salt - 1 table spoon

 Baking Soda - 1 table spoon

 Liquid Soap (for washing dishes) - 1 table spoon

 Boiled water - 1 cup

 Foil - a piece to cover the bottom of a bowl

 Direction:

Boil the water. Take a bowl and place a piece of foil in the bottom. Put the rest of ingredients as well (on top of the foil) Add water.

 You should see this reaction.

Place your silver jewelry on top of the foil and leave them for 10 minutes. (make sure it's really a silver, because my necklace from left side turn gray-green, since it was not a silver)

 After 10 minutes take them out and wash with sponge in warm water. Dry with dry cloth. 

  You can see that it's really work. My silver color is back and necklaces look like new=))