Lip-Sticking

Facebook for Places from Mari Smith

Professional Facebook expert, Mari Smith, shares insight into the way businesses can use Facebook Places. Do you use this tool? How is it working for you?

 

Meditation Benefits More Than Our Spiritual Well-Being

by Yvonne DiVita, Lip-sticking founder 

One of my New Year's resolutions is to learn how to meditate. Seems like a silly idea, doesn't it? How hard is it to meditate, after all?

Well, it is hard. To find a secluded place to meditate in complete and relaxed silence, is a challenge. Plus, I'm not able to just turn my brain off. I am surrounded by activity, all day long. 

I hear, though, that this activity is not only good for relaxation and spiritual healing, it's also good for the brain.

The Harvard Business Review reports that meditation can lead to better brain health: "Eight weeks to a better brain," written by Sue McGreevey reports on this with detailed information on how meditation can influence our brain matter to "make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms..."

How Much Are You Worth?

by Yvonne DiVita  Like us on Facebook and share your thoughts, issues and insights: http://www.facebook.com/Lipsticking

Or, more appropriately, how much is your blog worth to an advertiser?

Monetization is a huge topic of interest these days. One of the most often asked questions in my email box is, "How much do I charge for ads on my blog?"

The answer isn't a simple one. First of all, you must look at your blog with an honest eye. That's not easy to do, I know. You spend a lot of time adding good content - two, three, five times a week, or more. You cite your sources and add your opinion without getting mouthy. Unless you're a gossip columnist, I guess. Plus, you've created a design that makes it easy to get around your blog - easy for the reader to access archives and topics of interest and comments. One assumes you occasionally or often share videos, correct? In the end, what you've created is a cross between a magazine and a TV show.

Teaching - Learning - Sharing - It's Not the Wave of the Future, It's Now

For many women, the opportunity to share their knowledge and expertise is a prime reason they build a blog, write a book, attend a networking event. While all of that also works to help them market their skills and products, the underlying sense of accomplishment at having been an influence for a new business person or having helped a start-up actually get started is as important as the monetary benefit they might get from promoting their own work.

I know that the women I talk with and meet at conferences are eager to showcase their successes in order to provide a foundation for others to grow on. It's definitely a collaborative mindset.

That's why I was intrigued by this article over on Business on Main - "Skillshare: A Marketplace for Education." Skillshare is "a community marketplace that allows anyone to learn just about anything from local experts." Note that word: local. It's huge. After all, though we operate in a global economy and a global climate, most of us do our business on a local basis, don't we?

Is Your Daughter Suffering From An Eating Disorder?

Guest post by Chloe Spencer 

Many young girls, teenagers and young women suffer from eating disorders. The most common are Anorexia and Bulimia--which have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness (American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 152). And over 24 million people are suffering from an eating disorder in the U.S. (The Renfrew Center Foundation for Eating Disorders, “Eating Disorders 101 Guide: A Summary of Issues, Statistics and Resources”).

In a list of case studies on a Harvard webpage for students, I found a case study about a twenty-year-old woman called Brenda, who was Anorexic, becoming Bulimic in later years.

Volunteering takes a village

By Amanda Ponzar

Working hard is good. Volunteering hard is good too –- plus it does good.

This week, an estimated 1,000 volunteers gathered on the National Mall in DC to stuff 50,000 back packs with 150,000 books for kids so they have something to read during the summer. That’s more than 200 backpacks per minute!

Did you know low-income kids fall behind during summer break (it’s called “summer reading loss”)? Many kids aren't reading on grade level and that contributes to dropouts -- how can you learn if you can't read? Check out the report "America speaks out on Education" for all kinds of great info. So, there I was, scissors in hand, opening boxes of books to keep the volunteers stocked and moving. I have scissor stabs, broken nails and bandages to prove it. 

Don’t miss out on your $1 million

By Amanda Ponzar

Did you know the median annual earnings of a high school dropout (over 25 years old) is only $19,500 but those completing high school earn over $27k, college graduates earn $48k and those with grad degrees almost $63k? That’s ONE MILLION DOLLARS (yes, Dr. Evil!) difference over a lifetime that college grads earn over high school grads.

(Plus, nearly 75% of state prison inmates did not complete high school. Make that one million and one reasons to study harder.)

So, just as our parents and teachers told us, education matters. (I posted on this after seeing Waiting for Superman.)  

Want to see more cool stats like this $1M? Want to know how YOUR community is doing on income levels, murder rates, unemployment and incarceration? Wonder and worry no longer! Just check out the Common Good Forecaster. 

Fairfax County, VA is looking pretty good! Washington, DC and Baltimore, not so good.

What about YOUR community?

This national forecaster tool allows you to see where your community is but also where it could be with improved educational performance –- more people graduating high school, etc. Education affects everything from low baby birth weight to voting. Check it out for yourself. And if this motivates you to action, why not volunteer to be a reader/tutor/mentor and help more young people graduate?

(Photos: $1M dollar bills, sort of)

Be the Change - for a Cause You Believe In

Over in the BlogPaws' Pet Community, which officially launched on Thursday this week (if you're a pet person or know a pet person, we welcome you with open paws), the pet bloggers celebrated Be the Change for Animals day by Blogging the Change.

Change is good. Change is important. Every minute we live, something changes and it can be good or bad depending on your approach. My approach is to try and understand what I'm supposed to learn - good or bad.

When it comes to learning, don't kids teach us a lot? I'm proud of my granddaughter, Miah, for adopting pets as her cause. She is determined and passionate about helping dogs, especially. She wants to shut down puppy mills all over the U.S. Her video, shared here below, talks about Patrick, a Pit Bull puppy that was dumped in a dumpster, after being almost starved to death. He's recovering, with the help of many, many people...and Miah wants to support Pit Bull rescue because she knows - pit bulls are just dogs. Some have been trained to be vicious, but most are just dogs looking for love. Like other dogs and kids and even adults.

Sharing

BlogPaws had a great post this week that is good reading for everyone at Lip-sticking, also. One of the things we do at  BlogPaws is talk about how to be a better blogger.

During my research last week (I'm the primary blogger on BlogPaws), I came across Christopher S. Penn's blog and it has a very comprehensive "Disclosures" page which tells anyone interested exactly what he does with products, reviews, information, anything the good FTC might want to be advised of.

And more.

Take Care of Your Shoulders

by guest blogger, Dr. Stephanie Siegrist , author of Know Your Bones [Know Your Bones is a WME publication; Dr. Seigrist was asked to contribute to this blog to add her professional voice in the world of healthcare, something many of us neglect; plus she took care of me when I had a dislocated shoulder! YD]

Women carry the weight of the world on their…shoulders, so take care of yours! 

It’s hard to do anything if your shoulder hurts.  Each is an intricate piece of machinery with a lot of moving parts:

• Muscles: for support and movement.  Strong muscles are stabilizers and shock absorbers.
• Tendons attach muscles to bones.   The rotator cuff is made of 4 muscles that merge into 1 tendon to stabilize the ball and socket joint.
• Each has 3 bones: the clavicle (collarbone), scapula (shoulder blade) and humerus (upper arm bone).  Joints are formed wherever bones come together; the ends of the bones are covered with cartilage.
• Joints are held together with strong bands called ligaments, and lined with a membrane that lubricates moving parts.  Near the rotator cuff, this membrane is called a bursa that helps that tendon glide between bones.