“There is more to fathers than meets the eye”- Margaret Atwood

Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of the month of June, and this year it will be on June 15^th. Fathers are equally important as mothers, although we seem to put some more weight and fanfare on Mother’s Day. I found a couple of quotes about fathers, two of which I wrote above, that sums up, in a very simple and succinct way, what fathers represent in our lives. We will only start agreeing with our father and giving him credit (and actually paying attention to his long sermons) after we get older ourselves and start living what he lived before. There’s a reason for the saying “voice of experience”. There is also way more to our fathers than meets the eye. Fathers usually play the secondary role in the movie of our lives, but nevertheless, they actively participate and are highly involved in our lives, but in their way. They protect, support and love us all the way!It’s time for us to show a bit of gratitude in return. Not that a gift once a year will do the trick, but remembering your dad on Father’s Day is very symbolic of what he means to you. Since I found a couple of interesting sites about Father’s Day, I will post a slightly different list of sites this time, without focusing on gifts only. I will group them in categories, so it’s easier for you to find what you want.

Gifts

<!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–> We don’t usually send dad flowers, but this one arrangement is very cool and “manly”, if you will. It’s the Golfball Dish Garden from 1-800-Flowers.com. For the dads who love golf, this will be a hit to decorate his desk. For the fun and creative dads, some funky t-shirts will be ideal. CafeExpress.com has many funky t-shirts for all the funky dads.<!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–> Oh yes!!! They will like a fine SPA treatment as well. We all lead stressful lives and being a dad only compounds it. Here a few resources to help on your search:About.com - Buying a Spa Gift Certificate & Spas for MenSpaFinder.com – Everything you need to find a Spa

Father’s Day History, Quotes & Curiosities

If you’d like to know about the history of Father’s Day, read a few famous and interesting quotes about fathers and learn about other interesting factors about the occasion, you can visit these sites:

Wilstar.com - Happy Father’s Day
Loveyoufather.com – Father’s Day
Fathersdaycelebration.com – Father’s Day

Fathering

Fathers.com is the site of the National Center for Fathering. Great resource to brush up our dads’ fathering skills! Even though we think they are heroes, fathers also need some help once in a while.

Happy Father’s Day!

It’s that time again! Time for Prom and time for graduation!!!

It’s a nice time to reflect on your high school years, or your college years, and think back on how much you’ve learned so far, how much more you want to do with your life, what kind of job you’ll be searching for… Nahhh… let’s leave that for after the party and celebrations, right?!

I’m sure that all of you who are graduating this May and/or also going to the Prom or a graduation party are very excited about the big night and need to find what to wear, how to get there, what to do, graduation gifts to give… OMG! Where can one find all that?

I’ve done a little research and will help you out here.

Prom Dresses & More

• If you’re still looking for THAT prom dress, beauty tips (including make-up, hair dos, etc.) and more good stuff about Prom, you’ve got to check YourProm.com. Fantabulous site!
• PromGirl.com is also a GREAT site with tons of dresses, shoes, accessories, in all sizes and colors, for you to choose from and/or inspire your own look.

Your Prom Ride… Sweet!

• Proms are not proms without the limo, right? If you’re looking for where to go to rent a limo and what kind of limo you should rent, check LimoFinder.net and LimoPros.com. These sites will help you choose the right limo and tell you where to go to get it.

Corsage & Boutonniere

• To compliment your beautiful prom dress and your beautiful date, you’ll need a beautiful corsage and boutonniere. You can find them at 1800Flowers.com and get them delivered to you.

And for all the other Prom tips and do’s and don’ts, visit PromSpot.com, the Prom encyclopedia.

Graduation Party

• If you’re planning a graduation party, check ShinDigz.com. Besides a funny name, this site has some great party solutions for your graduation party.

Saluting the Graduate

• For the mom and paps and the best friends out there, if you’d like to congratulate your graduate with a poem, go here PoemsForFree.com. You’ll find some very inspiring and touching poems.

Graduation Quotes

• If you’re maybe looking for a nice or funny quote about graduation, QuoteGarden.com have tons of them. Enjoy!

Graduation Gifts

Finally, the gifts! Graduation is a perfect “excuse” to send someone a gift. Like we need an excuse…

• You’ll find a nice range of cool graduation (and Prom) gifts at 1800Flowers.com. From graduation flowers to graduation gifts, gift baskets, beautiful champagne flower arrangement, and more.
• Gifts.com is always a good resource for gifts, and their graduation gifts selection is full of cool gadgets and useful gifts.

But, there are so many others gift to give… and I’ll list just some.

• Money - Sure thing to help the poor student
• Laptop - Great for college work and college grad’s new job
• Dorm room furniture - Boy! Don’t we all need furniture to sleep in a nice bed and have a workstation to study?
• College supplies -We all know how expensive it is to buy books and supplies
• Briefcase - For the new passionate and energetic employee

Hope this has been helpful!

Congratulations to all of May 2008 graduates!

Mother’s Day, as we know it today, is not even 100 years old, but it is one of the biggest special occasions (or days) in our society, and I believe in other countries too, such as in England, where they celebrate Mothering Sunday on the fourth  Sunday of Lent. In fact, early history of mother’s day can be traced back to 1600 England, where children and away-from-home servants and apprentices were encourage to bring flowers and gifts to pay tribute to their mothers on that day.

But, it wasn’t until Ann Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe that mother’s day gain popularity and a permanent place in our calendar. Ann Jarvis was a homemaker in the 1850’s actively fighting to improve women’s sanitation condition in the workplace, which came to be title Mothers Work Days.  She organized women through out the Civil war to fight for their cause. Ann went to great lengths and even worked to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors.

Julia Ward Howe, a poet and social activist, is credited with actually bringing the idea of celebrating Mothering Sunday to the US after the American Civil War in the 1870s. She wrote the famous Mother’s Day Proclamation to call for peace, but failed to get it recognized as an official peace day. Both collaborated enormously to the creation of this day.

Anna Jarvis, Ann Jarvis’ daughter, is the culprit of this historical day, however. When her mother died in 1907, Anna began working on founding a memorial day for women. The firt official mother’s day was celebrated on May 10, 1908 in Grafton, Virginia, and soon after, the custom was spread to the remaining states.

Mother’s Day is an internationally celebrated occasion and one of the most commercialized days in our calendar. How can we just let it pass by? Moms are too important and we have to make them feel the most special person in the world. So, here’s my list for the last-minute shopper or the not-so-in-the-mood-to-make-a-gift shopper:

1.  What Type of Mom is Your Mom? Even if you’re short on time, you can get your mom mother’s day gift or mother’s day flowers that’s just perfect for her!
2. You’re assured to find almost any gift for your mom here. Gifts.com usually have some pretty good stuff to give you endless ideas!
3. If you still need some inspiration on what to get, Annie’s gift ideas for Mother’s Day is sure to help! Annie lists quite a few gift ideas for moms.

Happy shopping! And to all moms out there, HAPPY MOTHER”S DAY!

So, I went online and did a search on “administrative professionals day” and found a couple of interesting things/sites I’d like to share with you. The International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP) offers an array of resources for admin professionals from valuable educational and research opportunity to office supplies to their OfficePro Magazine. Right on the website there was also a brief history of the administrative professionals day, of which I’m pasting a little excerpt below.

“This annual event was originally organized in 1952 as “National Secretaries Week” by the National Secretaries Association (now known as the International Association of Administrative Professionals) in conjunction with public relations executive Harry Klemfuss and a consortium of office product manufacturers. It was established as an effort to recognize secretaries for their contributions in the workplace, and to attract people to secretarial/administrative careers. In the year 2000, IAAP announced a name change for Professional Secretaries Week and Professional Secretaries Day. The names were changed to Administrative Professionals Week and Administrative Professionals Day to keep pace with changing job titles and expanding responsibilities of today’s administrative workforce.

Over the years, Administrative Professionals Week has become one of the largest workplace observances. The event is celebrated worldwide, bringing together millions of people for community events, educational seminars, and individual corporate activities recognizing support staff with gifts of appreciation.”

After reading this I decided to search for gifts for these professionals, just out of curiosity to see what was popular out there. I found gifts for almost every taste, I would say, from office supplies, office decor to gift and fruit basket to flowers. I also found this cool article titled “The Top 5 Gifts to Give on Administrative Professionals Day” from Monster Career Advice listing the top 5 gifts to give, which are:

1. A day off with pay
2. A gift certificate to a restaurant, hotel or play
3. A bonus or raise
4. Career development seminars or training
5. A SPA massage

As we can see, none of the gifts I found online are listed here, BUT it doesn’t mean they won’t be appreciated. Except for gifts # 2 and 5, all the others listed above are a matter of internal policies. I happened to find that office décor is a great gift. Who wouldn’t want a little cute paper weight, or maybe a nice silver set of pen, stapler and clip holder? I would. In fact, office décor is what I asked for on my last secret Santa. So, here are few ideas:Office décor gifts, such as tabletop dish gardens, “Pimp My Cubicle” toys, frames and more.Office/desk flowers, where you will find beautiful arrangements to add color to your or your colleagues’ desk.THE MOST EXCITING result I found was on a sweepstakes for Admin Professionals Day. This is good for you to show your bosses (or managers) so they can enter you to win 1 flower arrangement for 12 months from 1-800-FLOWERS.COM! I thought that this is such a cute idea! So, go ahead and check this out and show it to our boss!Good luck and Happy Administrative Professionals Day!

I’m posting here, because I want to test the contest first and see how it goes, and then, once I know how it works, I’ll give you all the scoop on how to enter it!

We can receive gifts too, right?!

This sounds exciting! Stay tuned for the details.

St. Patrick is Ireland’s patron saint, and March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, marks his Roman Catholic feast day. One very interesting detail is that St. Patrick was born in Britain, not in Ireland, so technically he is not Irish. In the 5th century, St. Patrick was taken to Ireland when he was only 16 years old as a slave (yes, as a slave) by Irish brigands. He lived as a slave for 6 years before he escaped to Gaul, which is present-day France. A few years later, he returned to Britain, to his parents’ home, where he had a vision that he would preach to the Irish; and after many years of study, he returned to Ireland to build churches and preach the Christian faith.

Fast forwarding to modern days, here in the US, it’s customary to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, but in Ireland, the color green has long been considered unlucky. But unlike in the US, St. Patrick’s day is a national holiday in Ireland, and pubs are closed on that day.

For those of use who will have a party to attend or a special function to go to and need some quick ideas for what to bring, here is our list:

1. Same-Day Delivery - If you need the gift to get there fast, send this beautiful green flower arrangement any where in the country.

2 . Cut-out cookies - This is a collector’s edition ceramic plate with delicious green cookies

3. Green fortune cookies - Try your fortune or send someone the luck!

4. Irish Shop - if you are a die-hard Irish or Irish fan, you will probably like to visit this site.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!

Here are some relaxation products that I know I would love to get at the moment to help me unwind.

1.Spa gift certificate

Check Spa & Salon Wish out for spas near you where you can buy a gift certificate for a pampering day!

2.	Bath Gift Set Gift Basket For Her $54.99Lock the bathroom door and relax in a tub for a quick relaxing break.
3.	Lavender Lavender Gift Chest $56.99A lavender lovers dream. You have everything to enjoy several relaxing baths and a big trunk to keep it for only your use.
4.	Spa and Wine Gift Basket Relaxation Sensations $99.99Relaxing with a warm bath, a great glass of wine with some cookies and chocolate. Perfect combination to wash the stress away.
5.	Spa Products Crabtree & Evelyn® La Source Tote $72.99This was the perfect gift for my mother, she retreated into her bathroom for a nice long soak.
6.	Floral Spa Gift Sunflower & Hydrangea Spa $54.99Perfect spa set for the person that loves flowers and comes in great decorative containers. Best part is that it is under $60 - so no need to stress about the price either.

-John V.

Saying “Thank You” is always in order and demonstrates your thoughtfulness and consideration towards the other person. Sometimes, we can never say “Thank You” enough.

A simple “Thank You” email, written note or phone call usually does the trick. But if you are extra inspired and filled with gratitude to show, why not go a step further? Here is a list of “Thank You” gifts you can send when you feel in the mood:

1. Fields of Europe Arrangement
Fields of Europe™ - Thank You
$39.99-$49.99

This European-style vase arrangement includes a wonderful assortment of flowers, including lilies, gerbera daisies, alstroemeria and more. It’s the perfect touch, to include a “thank-you” balloon for that special person. Your thanks will literally blossom!

2. Gourmet Gift Basket
Thank You Gourmet Gift Crate
$59.99

This basket is a great way to extend a message of thanks. A selection of summer sausage, sharp cheese, garlic stuffed olives, crispy pretzels, butter pecan almond popcorn, caramel chews, salt water taffy and more. It’s a terrific snack lover’s gift that won’t soon be forgotten!

3. Desirable Wines
Master Series Wine Club
$55.00

Here is a thoughtful thank you idea for lovers of top-rated, highly desirable wines. Knowledgeable wine specialists hand-select these wines to deliver a tasteful gift choice for any wine enthusiast. Choose from reds, whites or a little of both.

4. Cream Filled Chocolates
Assorted Creams
$16.95-$33.90

These chocolates are the perfect thank you item. The recipient can indulge in flavors such as vanilla, chocolate, raspberry and strawberry buttercreams and trinidads. Each chocolate is covered in dark, semi-dark or milk chocolate and promises a smile!

5. A Strawberry Thank You
Strawberry Floral Margarita™
$69.99

Celebrate your appreciation for that special someone with this stylish bouquet. It’s a trendy, beautiful display delivering a satisfactory experience to any recipient.

So, go ahead and say “Thank You” to the people who have been kind to you!