Search Results for: blog a touch of asia

A Touch of Asia

I recently heard from a reader who wanted me to know that she and her family related to a post I wrote about scrapping untraditional holiday traditions. Apparently, they spend every Christmas Eve dining at their favorite Chinese restaurant before going home to open gifts. The reader’s comment made me think about expanding on the idea of scrapping Chinese dining experiences. Asian design is very popular in scrapbooking. In fact, you can actually purchase scrapbook kits that feature an Asian theme. DigitalScrapbookPages.com offers a Good Fortune kit that features a gorgeous Asian layout with traditional red, gold and black designs. … Continue reading →

Man vs. Animal Double Standards: Euthanasia

On “And I Thought Declawing Was Bad?”, Samual left the following comment: “I hate it when owners or the police punish the animal for aggression, every animal is aggressive in some way but if it’s to the point where it goes around biting people it’s because the animal has not been taught not to bite. The police need to stop just putting the animals down and punish the owner instead.” Unwittingly, Samual touched on something that’s long bothered me and more than once aggravated me to the point of tears: the double standards that exist for man and beast. I’m … Continue reading →

Adoption Blog Month in Review, April 2007: Part Two

Please see Part One of this blog for updates on adoption blog writers and highlights from late March and early April. In Feeling Different from Family? I muse on finding the right balance between acknowledging our daughters’ different ethnicity and heritage and overemphasizing them. My daughter puts my fears at least temporarily at rest with this zinger—check it out. In How Do You Introduce Yourself to Your Own Child? -Part One: Prepare Them I talk about things adoptive parents can do, even from a distance, to prepare their child for the transition, such as sending photos, tapes, and even a … Continue reading →

Attractions at the Animal Kingdom

Today, in acknowledgement of the fact that I talk so much about it, I’m going to start a new feature on the Animal Kingdom. I’ll profile its various aspects: the attractions, entertainment, food, and lodging. The most obvious place to start within the Animal Kingdom is, of course, with its animals. Given that there are a ton of such attractions at the Animal Kingdom I won’t have time to dwell on any for very long. Also, because I’ve already covered the Wild Africa Trek, I’m not going to go over it again. The attractions at the Animal Kingdom can be … Continue reading →

Chinese New Year Layouts

Xin Nian Kuai Le! Happy Chinese New Year. The Year of the Dragon, the most powerful sign in the Chinese zodiac, kicks off on January 23rd. For 15 days you will be able to commemorate the popular holiday at massive public festivals complete with parades and firework displays. Whether you are planning to take part in city-wide celebrations or you’re keeping it simple by hosting your own Chinese New Year party, you’ll want to document the festivities and add them to your scrapbook. Fortunately, there are many amazing Asian-themed digital scrapbooking elements that can help embellish your Chinese New Year … Continue reading →

Green Plants in Your Home

I grew up in a house that was crawling with green plants. Okay, they weren’t really crawling – they were still in their pots, and behaving themselves – but they were everywhere. Boston ferns, philodendrons, silver pothos – we had them all. It was our own private jungle. We lived this way because my mother loves plants, but there were other benefits as well. First is air quality. A green plant breathes in carbon dioxide, and we breathe in oxygen. So when you have a plant, it takes in both the carbon dioxide and the oxygen, filters out the oxygen, … Continue reading →

Cultural Layouts

My mother’s side of the family hails from Okinawa, Japan. Whereas I’ve incorporated a few Asian touches into generic scrapbook pages, I have yet to design multiple layouts or a mini album dedicated solely to my Japanese heritage. However, after recently viewing a vacation scrapbook made by a friend, who just completed a tour of Japan, I’m in the planning stages of creating a book dedicated to the “Land of the Rising Sun.” Fortunately, Japan is a popular country, so finding the materials needed to create stunning scenes has not been hard. I’ve collected a litany of Japanese-inspired embellishments and … Continue reading →

Are You Going to the Winter Olympics?

T-minus 14 days until the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Vancouver, British Columbia, is getting ready to shine in the international spotlight, but I won’t be there. Will you? As a broadcast journalist, I had the incredible opportunity to cover the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. However, I’ve never attended the Winter Games. It’s a travel dream of mine that I don’t know when will come true. Still, the dream is alive for more than 500 athletes and coaches, almost 11,000 members of the media and nearly 350,000 visitors, who are expected to descend upon the stunning city on the … Continue reading →

Laser Therapy for “The Mask of Pregnancy”

It’s fairly common for pregnant women, especially those with darker skin, such as Asian and Latina women, to develop the “mask of pregnancy,” or melasma. Melasma is a hormonal skin disorder that causes darker patches of skin to form on the face, which can be quite embarrassing for women. About six million women are affected each year. Up to seventy percent of pregnant women develop it. In addition to pregnancy, melasma has been tied to hormonal contraceptive use and hormone replacement therapy. Usually pregnant women can cover the condition with makeup and try different methods of lightening the dark spots … Continue reading →

Positive Steps to Confront Stereotypes

In recent blogs I talked about anti-immigrant feeling in America today and whether it will have an unintended impact on our adopted children. I was thinking primarily of our Asian and Latino children, but a third-grader from Ethiopia was recently taunted in my neighborhood and told to go back to her country. In some parts of the U.S. the immigrant African population may be larger than the African-American population, so possibly more and more people will assume that African-heritage children are immigrants as well. And some of them are—Haiti and Liberia have been native countries of significant numbers of adopted … Continue reading →