A few years back when I was still an undergrad, a colleague said that the first year had been the hardest for her and her partner. Years later, I still remember her comment, as I used to wonder why that was until … Read the rest
The post Getting Over the Hump appeared first on Steadfast Counselling.
Click here to read On-The-Go Geoboard Using Food Pouch Caps on Hands On As We Grow
Are you going on a family trip, out to dinner, or to an important event? This DIY geoboard from Alisha is a great way to keep the kids entertained on-the-go.
Having some on-the-go activities is a great way to keep your kids occupied, while still being hands-on and advancing their learning.
This homemade geoboard is the perfect on-the-go activity that upcycles two common household items; a travel baby wipes container and food pouch caps, to create a fun and engaging hands-on activity for your kids. It’s a great tool to work on fine motor skills, shape recognition and formation, counting, and creativity (whew!).
You only need six supplies for this DIY geoboard:
The first step is to find that baby wipes container probably hiding in the bottom of a drawer (if not, there are some super cute kid-themed ones out there!)
Then collect and wash eight food pouch caps, I used the caps from my kids’ applesauce pouches.
Grab your glue gun and let it warm up while you’re positioning the caps evenly on the bottom of the baby wipes container (just move them around until you feel comfortable with the spacing).
Once your glue gun is ready (carefully) place some glue on the bottom of each cap and secure them onto the bottom of the baby wipes container (in the same spacing as practiced).
I’d love to say that the caps will stay glued forever, but they may pop off after awhile; so I would use a little extra glue and press firmly.
Now you need to make a pouch to hold the rubber bands.
I used a piece of felt that I cut the size of a small envelope (make sure the size will fit on the inner lid of your baby wipes container with a little wiggle room).
After you have cut your felt, get your hot glue gun and place some glue along the top of the felt.
Fold down the top to make a flap, like an envelope. This will make the top of the pouch more sturdy.
Then place some glue along the sides and bottom on the back of the felt.
Once the glue is on, carefully stick your felt pouch onto the underside of lid.
Hint: leave a little slack in the pouch so that little hands can easily get the rubber bands in and out.
Once everything is cooled and secure, grab a good amount of rubber bands in varying sizes and colors.
I recommend that you try out the geoboard first, to make sure that everything is secure.
Then, give your kids a chance to practice so that this activity is familiar to them when you are on-the-go.
My kids found it fun to put the rubber bands on and to also take them off and put them back in the pouch.
I recommend teaching your kids how to use the rubber bands and then put them back as well.
Also, if you have multiple kids, you may want to make more than one case (maybe in different colors?).
A great place to store your new DIY geoboard is in a travel bag, a seat pocket in the car, or even in your purse.
Just pull it out whenever needed and let the learning fun begin!
Here are some additional on-the-go and travel activities:
Here are some more ideas for Geoboards:
Making Art with Geoboards from Artful Parent
Muffin Tin Geoboard from And Next Comes L
Low-level red light therapy is a scientifically backed solution for problems like joint pain, slow wound healing, and even aging skin and acne. It helps collagen production in the body and may possibly increase speed of healing. In fact we’ve even been using it for my husband after surgery, and watching the results I just knew...
Continue Reading...94: Low Level Red Light Therapy for Cellular Health and Healing
If you play Game Improvement irons and don’t play Game Improvement wedges, Cleveland says you’re doing it wrong.
Wrong. Plain and simple.
Take a look at the bag drop the next time you play. What kind of irons do you see in those bags? Most likely it’s some variety of large, light, cavity backed, perimeter weighted Game Improvement iron – Cleveland says as many as 84% of you are bagging GIs.
Then check out the wedges. Vokeys? Cleveland RTX’s? A set-matching Gap wedge?
Cleveland says 84% of you are doing that, and 84% of you are doing it wrong.
And Cleveland thinks it has a solution.
“Blades wedges don’t make sense for the Game Improvement golfer,” says John Rae, Cleveland’s VP or Research and Development. “They’re significantly heavier, the shaping’s different, and it doesn’t have any of the Game Improvement features the iron set has.”
Set matching wedges, according to Cleveland, aren’t any better.
“Those wedges don’t have high-tech grooves or high-tech face roughness,” says Rae. “And to be totally honest, there’s very little thought put into their sole design by different manufacturers. In most cases, the Gap wedge is just slapped onto the end of the set. The Pitching wedge is basically your 10-iron, and the Gap is your 11-iron. They’re making a 4, 7 and pitching wedge and just extrapolating all the other lofts off those.”
So if you’re a GI player, you likely have either blade wedges that aren’t as forgiving as and don't match your irons, or you have set-matching wedges that don’t offer the requisite wedge-ness to do what you need to do from 100 yards and in.
Cleveland’s solution? The CBX Game Improvement wedge.
Now before you start crying nothing new here, yes, we know – and Cleveland knows - all about its previous cavity back wedges, including the RTX-3 CB option.
“If you go back in time, we did have cavity back wedges in our line – the CG 16, CG 14, CG 11. But the trap we fell in to was even though we were making cavity back wedges, they were still based on our better-player wedges. They were close in head size, the sole width was similar, and the total club weight was similar to a standard blade wedge.” – John Rae, Cleveland VP of R&D
Cleveland says the CBX has been designed from the ground up to be a true Game Improvement wedge. There are some tech stories you’ll want to consider, and we’ll get to those in a sec, but first, let’s review the visuals.
The first thing you’ll notice is the good sized cavity that allows for more perimeter weighting. You’ll also notice even though the head is noticeably larger than, say, your standard RTX, Vokey or Mack Daddy, and the wedge itself is lighter. Flip this puppy over, and you’ll see a sole that starts out wide at the heel and gets significantly wider as you move from heel to toe.
Oddly, it doesn’t scream “shovel.”
The CBX wedge shares several features with Cleveland’s RTX-3 offering: Feel Balancing Technology, the V-Sole and Cleveland’s Rotex face. As mentioned earlier, CBX gets its GI on by modifying the V-Sole and with perimeter weighting.
The sole gets significantly wider as you transition from heel to toe. Cleveland says the shape will sacrifice some shot-making flexibility compared to a blade-style wedge, but it will help the GI player get the club through the turf and help with forgiveness.
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Lower handicap golfers who want wedge flexibility, and have the skill to open up the face and pull off a variety of shots, probably won't like or need the CBX sole. Mid-handicappers, says Rae, don’t open the face up as much and may need more help on full, square face shots.
“The wider sole isn’t as much of a negative for the mid- to high-handicap golfer, but it’s a big positive in that it helps them with the shots they hit most often. As the V gets narrower towards the heel, it allows you to open the face a little, but the wider sole isn’t great for the massive open-faced flop shot kind of thing. In reality, high handicappers won’t be trying that shot anyway.” – John Rae, Cleveland Golf
The modified V-Sole also helps with weight distribution and Cleveland’s Feel Balancing Technology, which is a fancy term for moving the club’s center of gravity away from the heel and more toward the center of the face.
“A fundamental flaw in wedge design is that they have this big, long hosel,” says Rae. “As a result, you end up with a bunch of weight in the heel section, and the CG ends up being heel-biased.” Cleveland introduced Feel Balancing Technology in its RTX-3 wedges last year in an effort to move CG closer to face center (Vokey and Callaway were already heading in that direction). The CBX sole shape and cavity back allow Cleveland to get the CG almost dead center.
“When you get the center of gravity in the middle of the face, you’ll get only a little bit of performance drop off in terms of spin and distance if you hit it a little on the heel or on the toe,” says Rae. “If your CG is to the heel side, like a normal wedge, you’ll get more spin and distance if you hit it towards the heel, but as you move towards toe hits you’ll get a big decrease in performance.”
“A traditional wedge is much more inconsistent if you’re trying to hit the middle of the face. A little bit of a miss-heel or a miss-toe will have two radically different results. Better players tend to figure that out. What we’re doing with CBX is giving that average golfer – the mid-handicapper – the most consistent performance across the face of a wedge he’s probably ever seen.” – John Rae, Cleveland Golf
Cleveland’s internal testing shows more consistent ball speeds heel to toe with CBX compared to a traditional blade wedge – the very definition of forgiveness - as well as tighter dispersion, compared to blade wedges and set-matching wedges.
Spin-wise, you won’t see much – if any – difference between the CBX wedge and Cleveland’s RTX-3’s. The CBX features Cleveland’s Rotex face, with Zip Grooves, Micro Milling, and Laser Milling. The stock shaft is the Dynamic Golf 115, which has the same step pattern and flex and bend properties as the standard Dynamic Gold but is lighter to better fit in with Game Improvement irons. That means you won’t have such a dramatic jump from a 90 to 100-gram shaft in your GI irons to a 130-gram shaft in your wedges.
The CBX does have a taper-tip hosel, so in theory, nearly any shaft can be installed. Rae says you’ll be able to order custom option from Cleveland, but the target market probably isn’t thinking along those lines.
“Besides,” he says, “the heavier the shaft, the more you’re taking away from the purpose of the product.”
You’ll notice there aren’t a lot of bounce options with the CBX. Again, that’s intentional to make it easy for the target market.
“It’s a single finish and a single bounce option – basically mid-bounce,” says Rae. “We don’t want to confuse the average golfer by making the process so difficult that he just goes back and buys the set wedge or a blade wedge.”
CBX is meant to be a high-performance wedge designed to fit with Game Improvement iron sets. Is the golf world ready for that? Cleveland (and others) already has offerings for the high handicap golfers with its Smart Sole wedge offering, but will the middle of the bell curve want a CBX?
“It should be our biggest seller,” says Rae. “The only reason it wouldn’t be is the golfer. I think it’s going to take a few generations to really convince golfers they need to play a cavity back wedge.”
Rae says the target market is any golfer with a handicap ranging anywhere from 8 to 10 up through 20. How you integrate CBX into your set depends on what your handicap is what it is.
“A lower handicapper who’s playing GI or Super GI irons may be the guy who’d switch out his pitching wedge he’s been using for a lot of bump and runs for ours. It’ll give him more spin and control with a better sole. He might want to take out his Gap wedge and replace it with one of these, but keep his blade style sand and lob wedge if he has the skill set and wants the versatility those offer.” John Rae, Cleveland Golf
A practice session with the CBX shows a few things. On full shots, this thing is as forgiving as advertised and is silly easy to hit, and distance control is fairly consistent compared to a blade wedge. The wider sole makes it pretty easy to pick it clean and hit down on the ball, but on the downside is you have limited ability to open the face up if you need to. But then again, that’s not what the wedge is designed for.
If you’re a chronic chili-dipper around the green and simply want to get the ball in the general direction of the hole, you may find a friend in the CBX. If you have the skill and short-game creativity to play high spinners, low rollers or anything in between, you’ll find the CBX a little limiting.
The CBX wedge gives Cleveland the broadest short-game offering in the business – everything from the better-player suited RTX-3 all the way to the Smart Sole offering for the high handicapper. CBX sits right in the middle, where an awful lot of golfers – 84% of you – reside.
OEM’s are constantly trying to design equipment that packs in as much GI tech as possible while still looking like a golf club. The challenge facing Cleveland is the preconceived notion of what a wedge is supposed to look like. Visual familiarity equals comfort, and if golfers aren’t comfortable with the looks, they may never consider a club, even if it’s good for them.
Cleveland’s CBX wedges are available in men’s and women’s models. Men’s wedges are available in eight lofts in two-degree increments, ranging from 46 to 60 degrees. Stock shafts include the steel Dynamic Gold 115 wedge shaft and Cleveland’s 90 gram Rotex wedge shaft in graphite. Cleveland’s Lamkin BlueCap grip is standard.
Womens’ wedges are available in seven lofts (48 to 60 degrees), with Cleveland’s Women’s Action Ultralight 50 wedge flex shaft and Women’s CBX grip standard.
MSRP is $129.99 in steel, $139.99 in graphite. Pre-sale beings August 28th, and in store availability is September 15th.
I’m a big fan of the oil cleansing method, and I’ve even been known to rub raw honey on my face. For those who are looking for a more traditional soapy way to cleanse skin, I’ve been experimenting with this foaming face wash recipe. It has a rich lather, and there are options for every...
Continue Reading...DIY Foaming Face Wash with Hydrosol &Essential Oils
One thing I’ve always wondered is just what does the O in Odyssey’s O-Works putter line stand for. Is it O for Odyssey or is it O for “O wow, the putter face has hinges?”
In either case, Odyssey’s O-Works putters are just the latest in Odyssey’s long line of top-selling flat sticks. In fact, the #7 copped 4th place in MyGolfSpy’s 2017 Most Wanted Mallet testing.
And just last week, Odyssey announced the O-Works Red and Black series selected O-Works putters being released in, you guessed it, red and black.
Whether you like your O-Works in black and white or red all over, Odyssey is convinced they have a putter that’ll work for you. They’re also sure the unique Microhinge Insert Technology that’s co-molded into Odyssey’s Thermoplastic Elastomer Feel Layer will help you roll the biscuit into the basket, and make you feel good doing it.
Does this tech really work? Do color schemes help you put better? MyGolfSpy is looking for three avid golfers to test, review and keep an O-Works putter of your choice and let the golfing world know what you think.
As you know, MyGolfSpy takes its product testing very seriously. All of our reader reviews are published in our Community Forum (click here to check them out). We expect a lot from our reviewers – writing a thorough, detailed and honest review is a full two-month commitment, requiring extensive range and on-course work as well as participation in the Forum itself to answer questions and discuss product performance with other golfers.
That means to be a potential reviewer you must be a registered member of the MyGolfSpy Community Forum, where you’ll find thousands of like-minded golfers from all over the world anxious to talk about golf equipment.
To apply to test, review and keep an Odyssey O-Works putter, here's what you have to do:
- First, if you haven't already, please sign up for the MyGolfSpy Community Forum (click here to register).
- Second, apply ONLY in the Odyssey O-Works Putter Test/Review Application Thread in the MyGolfSpy Community Forum (click here).
We'll announce the testers in the Community Forum next week.
Dean Snell wants to answer your questions.
It's hard to believe 2 years have passed Snell Golf took all of us by surprise when the company's My Tour Ball dominated our Direct To Consumer golf ball test. Your tremendous response to that review has not only helped drive the growth of the Snell brand, I believe it has changed the ball market for the long haul, and for the better.
That test proved that you can get a tour-quality golf ball for less than $35 a dozen and a growing number of consumers have come to realize as much. It's having an impact on the OEMs as well. Callaway and Srixon launched their current flagship balls for less than $40 a dozen, and Titleist - in addition to offering a buy 3 get 1 free promotion shortly after the launch of the 2017 Pro V1 - is restocking store shelves with Prior Generation Pro V1s at discount prices ($39.99).
When prices can be cut so easily, it makes you wonder what you're actually paying for and how much difference there actually is between tour-quality balls.
We've gotten to know Dean Snell a little bit over the last couple of years. One thing I can tell you about Dean is that he's as much of a straight-shooter as anyone you'll find in the golf equipment industry. Dean also shares our commitment to doing right by the consumer. In the case of Snell Golf, that means offering a quality product at a consumer-friendly price. It also means doing his part to educate the consumer and helping to cut through some of the BS that permeates the golf ball market.
Wouldn't it be nice to know what's real and what's mythology?
If you have a question about Snell Golf, its golf balls, or golf balls in general, post them in the comment section below. In a couple of weeks, we'll post another video wherein Dean answer your questions.
As an athlete and a health coach, Meredith Vieceli sees women make all kinds of fitness mistakes. One of the most common? Not eating enough and training incorrectly or too hard! In this episode, she delves into these common problems, how to avoid them, and how to increase fitness safely and correctly. And Meredith is...
Continue Reading...93: How to Avoid the Most Common Fitness Mistakes Women Make
Content originally published and Shared from http://perfectbath.com
Despite using the bathroom every day since you were born, you probably still make mistakes that you weren’t aware of. Check out these examples:
Image Source: Flickr
Using toxic chemicals to clean
Let’s take a moment to think about the reason you’re actually cleaning anyway…to kill infection- and illness-causing bacteria, right? Then, you’ll be surprised to know many of the cleaning products you’re using could be harmful to your health. The Environmental Working Group has published a “Hall Of Shame” list of worst-offending cleaning products, many of which are banned in other countries and have ingredients known to cause cancer, blindness and more.
Instead, make your own green cleaner using fruit! A grapefruit cut in half with salt is an effective tub scrubber and a halved lemon will make the water stains on your faucets a distant memory. Not to mention, your bathroom will smell amazing. Source: HuffingtonPost
Flushing the toilet with the lid up
You pee, wipe, stand up, and just flush the toilet, right? It sounds basic enough. But flushing the toilet with the lid still up is a mistake, because there’s this thing called “toilet plume” you may not know about. “Toilet plume” is the mixture of small waste particles and water in your toilet that can shoot aerosolized feces as high as 15 feet into the air when you flush. Yuck, and no thank you.
A study conducted at the University of Oklahoma found that “toilet plume could play a contributory role in the transmission of infectious diseases.” Another study in 2012 at Leeds University discovered that a germ called C. difficile can be catapulted up to 10 inches above the toilet seat every time you flush with the lid open. By the way, C. difficile gives you nausea and makes you vomit. So, yeah, close the lid before you flush. Source: HelloGiggles
Ignoring the floor
Your bathroom floor is dirtier than your toilet seat, according to ABC News. If you walk around in your bare feet, you’re going to pick up all kinds of bacteria (as many as 2 million per square inch). In fact, most people worry about the toilet seat, but never pay attention to the even more dangerous floor. So make sure your feet are covered instead of the toilet seat if you’re a germaphobe. Source: Bustle
We can keep you updated with current bathroom trends. Feel free to contact us for more information!
Contact:
Perfect Bath
Phone: Toll Free 1-866-843-1641
Calgary, Alberta
Email: info@perfectbath.com
The post 3 Bathroom Mistakes to Avoid appeared first on Perfect Bath Canada.
The curtain came down on the Ben Hogan Company last winter, as the 2-year old venture collapsed under its bloated infrastructure and overly optimistic - some say delusional - business plan when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Forth Worth, Texas.
It certainly looked like the end of the line for Hogan. Founder Terry Koehler had been ousted/voluntarily retired months earlier, and the company had laid off nearly its entire staff. Market share and sales were virtually nonexistent, but accounts payable certainly were very existent.
Dead and gone. All that was left was the funeral and the slow singing and flower bringing.
No one figured there’d be Third Act in this play.
Sometime this week, or perhaps next, you can expect the curtain to come up on Act III of the Ben Hogan Company. Call it Hogan 3.0.
“The company has been sold and refinanced,” says Hogan CEO Scott White. “We have a new business model and business strategy. It’s not novel to commerce, but it’s fairly new to our industry. We’re going to sell premium Ben Hogan products at factory direct pricing.”
What that means is you’ll be able to buy Hogan equipment directly from the company via its new website, and only directly from the company via its new website.
“Consumers will be able to buy ultra-premium Ben Hogan products at dramatically lower prices than they’d ever see at retail. There will be no retail markup.” - Scott White, Hogan CEO
Hogan is cutting out the middle man. There's no MSRP, no retail partner pricing or margins to protect. White says the current lineup will be the same, forged FT Worth blades and PTx players cavity backs, TK 15 wedges, VKTR hybrids and FT Worth 15 hi utility irons.
“They’ll be offered at prices that will allow us to make a decent margin - not a greedy one by any stretch of the imagination - but again, there’s no retail markup.”
White says you’ll be able to buy TK wedges for $95.00 each or a set of FT Worth irons for $665.00. Consider that when it launched, Hogan’s wedges sold for upwards of $150.00 each, and iron sets for well over $1,000.00.
White says management did flirt with the idea of just closing the brand down and calling it a day.
“That was the worse possible scenario. We didn’t want to do that.”
During the bankruptcy proceedings, the Hogan brand was purchased - sort of - by ExWorks Capital of Chicago. ExWorks is, among other things, a capital investment firm and had been listed as a secured lender for Hogan in bankruptcy court. White says ExWorks did a credit bid on the assets and basically bought Hogan for what they were owed.
Recent court documents show significant changes in the Hogan bankruptcy case. Within the past few weeks the name of the debtor has been changed from the Ben Hogan Company to Eidelon Brands LLC. To get to the bare bones of the story, Eidelon was Terry Koehler’s company (SCOR wedges), which he rebranded into the Ben Hogan Company in 2013. ExWorks has essentially purchased the brand name out of bankruptcy, but none of the debt. Eidelon is now the company of record in the bankruptcy proceedings and has applied to transfer the case from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7. That's a procedural manuever and means any assets Eidelon has left will be liquidated, and the remaining creditors will get whatever they get.
Perry Ellis, the owner of the Hogan brand, was one of the largest creditors in the original Hogan bankruptcy case. White says Hogan is still a licensee of Perry Ellis, but the structure of the deal is vastly different. Perry Ellis now has an equity stake in the new organization.
White has been nothing if not consistent about Hogan’s prospects. Back in January, the day most of the staff was let go, White said it’s a reset opportunity. He said the same thing last spring when Hogan started liquidating product, and he’s saying the same thing now.
“We’ve spent a lot of time restructuring,” he says. “We’re in the old Callaway building in Fort Worth, and we’re going to maintain our headquarters here, but it’s going to be a very small structure.”
“One of the challenges we had was our overhead was so out of whack. We’ll have manufacturing, R&D, assembly and a few other functions at Fort Worth, but we’re going to outsource a lot of other functions, like marketing, finance and accounting.” - Scott White, Hogan CEO
We've written about how and where Hogan went wrong - and White is very frank about the fact the original Hogan concept was flawed from the get go.
“We’re not going to make the same mistakes we made in the past. Not again,” he says. “ We’re going to be very calculated, very nimble and will grow as needed. But we’re not going to build something and bet that if we build it, they will come. We’re going to do our best to minimize costs and pass the reduced overhead on to the consumer.”
There’s still a 2-person R&D team in place, and White says you can expect some new Hogan equipment perhaps by the end of this year or early next. The plan is to expand its hard goods offerings - drivers and fairway metals were in the works before the bankruptcy - and add accessories.
“We’re never going to have an enormously wide or deep product line,” says White. “But we are committed to bringing new product to market.”
Well that depends on what you mean by "work."
If you're thinking Hogan will try to rival TaylorMade, Callaway or PING right out of the gate, then no, that's not going to happen.
And I don't think anyone in Fort Worth is thinking anything of the sort. This game plan, unlike the original Hogan relaunch, seems a bit more - shall we say - realistic. Start small, keep overhead limited and build slowly, with no delusions of grandeur.
But will golfers buy premium product at a direct-to-consumer pricing? This past spring Hogan tried just that by selling off inventory at, comparatively speaking, bargain-basement prices. White says no one was expecting what ultimately happened.
“Consumers had the opportunity to buy directly from us with no real retail markup,” he explains. “The response was more than we could keep up with. We had to hire outside help to field all the calls and emails we were getting. It really took us by surprise.”
Hogan’s new model of online only with no retail does mean the If-I-can’t-try-it-I-won’t-buy-it crowd will be out of luck.
“The demo and trial thing is something we’re going to have to figure out. In the short term we’re counting on our primary audience of pretty serious golfers. They know us, they know what they like and they know their specs. There will be an issue with people absolutely committed to fitting and demo and trial, but it’s something we don’t have an exact answer for right now.” - Scott White
Consumers are funny beings. Price makes a statement and while it’s not always the case, a high price does carry with it the impression of high quality and premium performance. But with golf equipment high prices tend to heighten emotions. Every time MyGolfSpy runs a story on PXG, for example, we see Torch and Pitchfork Nation screaming with genuine anger in the Comments section about how ridiculous the pricing is. This new Hogan seems to be taking the opposite approach - offering what the company considers premium product at a lower price by cutting out standard retail markup.
We all might jump at the opportunity to buy a set of $1,200.00 clubs for $700.00. But will you jump at Hogan irons priced to move at $665.00 per set? Would that pricing devalue the clubs in your mind, or make you think of Hogan as a discounted brand?
“That’s something we’re going to have to get over,” says White. “How do you retrain people to understand that when they go into a retail store, they’re paying 40 to 50% markup off the top, for nothing? It’s not a discounted brand if it was never marked up in the first place. This isn’t discounted product. It’s factory-direct product.”
The new Hogan website should be up within the next few days. White says there are still a few I’s to dot and T’s to cross.
“I had hoped to get it going before The Open starts this week, but there are still some details to figure out. But we’re 90-plus% there.”
Ben Hogan famously said the most important shot in golf is the next one. After being all but dead and buried in January, Hogan’s namesake company is getting another shot, maybe its last shot.
The cynic in you may say Hogan is down its last strike. The optimist may say the curtain is rising on Act III, and we’ll see what happens next.
Which are you?
