Forgetting to RememberWritten by Rosalyn Bronstein
Many of us can look back on out formative years with great fondness. We were surrounded by people who looked after us, taught us, and provided values and socialization needed to succeed in modern world. Others met our most basic needs, and we were completely dependent.Remembrance of people and past events plays an important part in many religions and cultures. Some light candles and offers up prayers. Special days are set aside as memorials or celebrations of lives past. This occurs both in East and West, and some of ceremonies are quite similar in content, despite differences in language and culture. This is universally acknowledged as a way of paying homage. More than simply marking calendar, however, we mark our hearts when we think back to fond memories of people we’ve loved and events that were important to us. This provides a sense of stability in a rapidly fluctuating world in which people frequently move, change jobs, change partners, change friends, and change interests. Sometimes it feels hard to keep up with movement. Yet by being centered with our memories, we can return again and again to our zone of comfort and serenity.
| | How to Buy Used Baby Clothes OnlineWritten by Sharlene Rollins
There are multitudes of ways to purchase used clothing for your baby. In this article I will cover only online options available in hopes that it will help you to maximize your spending money with least amount of hassle, stress or risk. I hope to cover some of key issues of buying used clothes online such as private sales versus online stores, use of PayPal and other forms of payment, purchasing through ebay and non-ebay auctions or non-auctions alike, online classifieds and more all in hopes that you will benefit from some of things I've learned and avoid mistakes that I as well as others have made. First of all let's talk a bit about where to find used baby clothes online from private sellers. There are some areas on web which allow you to post used clothing ads such as ebay and classified sites. Some classified or "for sale" sites are even specialized in either family or baby related items. Ebay, for those of us who are familiar but not necessarily all knowing about it, is a giant online auction with items being posted constantly in all possible fields and topics. Those selling can choose to list their items in an auction format in which sky's limit. Bids can start as low as one penny or they can choose to invite people to purchase items out right by using a buy now feature in which they set a price for their items. As a general rule buyer pays all shipping costs on top of selling price and most payments are made through PayPal, which I will cover later. Baby clothing on ebay tends to be mostly new with or without tags attached and is either sold in batches of items known as "lots" (grouped by gender and size) or individually as outfits. Since I am focusing on used baby items let's discuss those. Batches of baby clothing on ebay tend to get bid very high as there is a seemingly large number of people wanting to buy in this way and very few meeting demand. I have found that items and batches of clothing of any note on ebay tend to sky rocket in price above what is reasonable for used clothing -- particularly if they toss in a few name brands such as Gap, Osh Kosh, Gymboree etc... and more often than not a bidding war ensues and you are inevitably outbid or worse you get caught up and spend more than you'd originally expected for items you haven't even seen and have no quality guarantee! Auction and classified or selling sites other than ebay can be very chancy -- since ebay is established it has ability to set down rules which keep most dishonest people out while smaller sights haven't same pull with those posting. Quite often these sites (this doesn't really apply to local purchasing) are riddled with people who are no longer allowed to post on ebay for one reason or another. I have had experiences myself in which items promised ended up being fewer than what I'd paid for and set a price based entirely on quantity! I can't tell you how upset that made me, and what was worse -- I was informed that three of items had small stains when in truth about 50 fell into stained category. So what had originally been a good deal turned out to be very disappointing! There are of course no guarantees with a private seller, no return policy or customer service after sale is closed and once sale is complete you must find a new seller down road when you need clothing again and you run risks of stumbling across a swindle or a sour deal every time.
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