The Daily Cup – Set The Stage

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Do you sometimes look around your house and feel like every room needs a makeover? You know how it goes: the moment the thought dares to surface, ever so slightly, it won’t budge until you do something about it. Let’s face it, not only will it not budge, but it grows. However, many of us embrace a frugal lifestyle and makeovers are not cheap. This is when a little bit of home staging, the technique used by realtors to make a home attractive to buyers, comes into play. Try it. Move a chair or the picture frames from one room to another. Accent a couch with an attractive, inexpensive throw. Create a reading corner by rearranging existing furniture. Change the placement of lamps. Sometimes, it’s not at all about having had enough with the same ol’ living room; it’s all about redefining the space to guide the eyes onto a new path.

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The Daily Cup – Good News

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Was it four days of persistent rain that we just had? The weather is doing funny things no matter where you live and it is sure to make the headlines. Add to the that numerous, unkind acts performed by some people, and it is easy to see that filling the front page of the newspaper or half the television news broadcast with scores of not exactly uplifting news is probably rather easy. The next time you get the paper or turn on the news, put all your attention on the small headlines that speak volumes of good. It could be as simple as a local high-school team winning a tournament. You might not necessarily pay attention to this if you do not have children, but next time find this bit of news about something great and explore it further. Really dive into it. For instance, using the example above, try to find who coaches the team, what are their values and background, what else they do in your community. When you think about it, bad news makes us feel small in a big scary world; news that connects us to others empowers us to face it all.

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The Daily Cup – Learn Something

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Is there something you’ve been wanting to learn? A musical instrument maybe, or how to write poetry? Or is it science that interests you, or photography? As soon as you are done reading this, write down three things you’d like to learn. Then, pick the one that is the most immediately doable and take one more step: Research workshops online or in your local newspaper. Call a friend who might be interested as well, so you encourage each other. Find a free class, a neighbor who can teach you, a group, even a book on the subject. By this time next week, you could finally be learning that topic, skill or instrument that piques your interest every time it comes to mind.

A note: The Community College of Vermont and Vermont Technical College offer fantastic, very inexpensive online classes and many free workshops.

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