Today for the first time since 9-11, you can go to the top of the Statue of Liberty. "On that fateful day in 2001, she held her head high as she witnessed with her own eyes the horrors that took place just across from her watery home. Symbolism and sentimentality can be infinitely applid to her place in it all." I have never been up in the Statue but hope to at some point. There are lots of others who want to enjoy the "view from the crown" and tickets are sold out until November. Carefully planned down to the smallest detail- the statue looks out on the ocean and on to France.
Located on a 12 acre island, the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, designated as a National Monument in 1924 and restored for her centennial on July 4,1996.
The seven sharp spikes on her crown represent the seven continents and seas. Her torch is a symbol of enlightenment.
Security improvements include additional rangers stationed throughout the statue itself, new handrails and a trained medical technician on site.
Already a symbol of hope and strength, many visitors see the re-opening of the crown as a symbol of America's resiliency.
"I think it had to happen. [September 11] was a terrible tragedy, but getting this reopened shows our experience and rejuvenation," said tourist Steve Sardinia, Jr., who was visiting from Long Island. "I think it shows the ability of America to come back."
The statue was designed by Fredéric Auguste Bartholdi of Alsace as a gift to the United States from the people of France to memorialize the alliance of the two countries in the American Revolution and their abiding friendship. The French people contributed the $250,000 cost.
The Statue of Liberty, the most famous symbolic statue of a woman, was modeled after Marie Bartholdi, the sculptor's mother. The Statue of Liberty is tremendous! Her nose is four and a half feet long, and her mouth is three feet wide. Her waist measures 35 feet around.
The 150-foot pedestal was designed byRichard M. Hunt and built by Gen. Charles P. Stone, both Americans. It contains steel underpinnings designed by Alexander Eiffel of France to support the statue. The $270,000 cost was borne by popular subscription in this country. President Grover Cleveland accepted the statue for the United States on Oct. 28, 1886.
The Statue of Liberty was designated a National Monument in 1924 and a World Heritage Site in 1984.
Have a great 4th of July enjoying the liberty that so many sacrificed for and others are continuing that sacrifice.
I will be saluting the flag and cheering on the military marching in my hometown.
The 4th of July is the most popular outdoor cooking holiday of the year. It is also an very busy time for emergency rooms and burn units.
Make sure that you are ready to safely celebrate and cook up your summer feast.
Using a Gas Grill?
Make Sure Your Tank is Ready:
- A damaged tank - consumers should not try to repair damaged tanks. - Obsolete tanks - tanks with round- or star-shaped handwheels do not contain Overfill Prevention Devices (OPD) and can no longer be filled. - Empty tanks - You can get a fresh, ready to grill tank that includes an OPD.
Transport Your Tank Safely - After you buy your tank, secure it upright in a well-ventilated area of your vehicle. This means no rolling it around in the back of your pickup, until you need it for something. Take it directly to the place you will use it and leave it there.
Check for Leaks - When attaching your tank to the grill, use soapy water to check the tank and valve for leaks. Open the valve but leave the appliance off while testing. Don’t use a match or open flame to check for leaks.
Lighting Your Grill - Before lighting, always refer to the grill manufacturer’s safety and operating instructions. This is actually the most dangerous step and many a severe burn has occured in using materials that should not be used to light a fire. Charcoal especially will take time - plan ahead and skip the gasoline.
Tank Storage - When you store a tank, be sure to keep it in an upright, vertical position. Never store tanks in a garage, building, or enclosed area. Never store an extra tank under your grill.
Despite the economy, the 4th of July Celebration and the jaw dropping fireworks display will continue, at least for this year. This is mainly due to the efforts of some dedicated volunteers and Nancy Cross , Drector of Brainerd Community Action. There will be 100 parade units down only 20 from last year. The weather is predicted to be sunny with temperatures around 77 degrees and a small chance of rain.
The festivites on the Fourth will start with the Annual Brainerd Jaycees Corn Feed on the Adamson Ball Field at noon. If you like sweet corn roasted in the husks and dipped in butter, you will love this. A little sprinkle of salt and pepper and plenty of napkins will do. The American Celebration parade will start at 4 PM and the musical entertainmetn brgins at 6 PM. Be to see Elvis live on stage with the Blues Brothers Revue. The year's Battle of the Bands winner will perform and the night has only just begun. A fly over is traditionally held at 8 PM and music contiues until the fireworks at 10:15. If you have not witnessed the musically choreographed presentation of oooohs and aahhhhs- you are really depriving yourself and your family of a specatular event.
Kathleen Lordbock
Keller Williams Brainerd Lakes REALTOR/Staging Specialist
licensed in MN
Complimentary staging consultations for all my signed listings
Complimentary virtual tours with wide angle lens and edited phtotos
~ Not your ordinary REALTOR, producing extra ordianary results~
Homes are selling but they are not selling for as high a price nor are they selling as quickly. Does that sound familiar in your area?
As a REALTOR/Staging Specialist home stager with Keller Williams Realty Brainerd Lakes, I know at least a partial solution to the problem. In order for your home to sell better and faster than those of the competitions', it needs to be properly presented and be priced competitively, from the start. A home that shows well both outside and inside is going to get offers. When prospective buyers make an emotional connection with the home - they want it!
I keep hearing from Realtors "home staging - we do that". Then I look at their MLS photos. Home staging is more than cleaning and decluttering (although a lot of the photos were also missing that element). Color, traffic flow, highlighting focal elements, curb appeal, up grades that pay back - are those being addressed? Do you understand what they are and how they come into play for the appeal of a home? If this is not your thing - then have your homeowners hire a stager. Even a consultation and subsequent following the plan - will make a major difference for a small investment.
Price is crucial but is not the only element. Marketing - yes by all means - and that is so much more than sticking a sign in the yard and listing with a multiple listing service.
The above listing was on the market for 4 days. It is only a 2 bedroom. 2 3/4 bath home. Not your typical 3 bedroom. 2 bath. They walked in and fell in love. It is ready to move into, clean, freshly painted, all repairs done - no problems. Every room staged and looking good!
Emily will be performing her talent and showing off her Miss Minnesota pageant wardrobe tonight June 11th. 2009. This will be held in the cafeteria on the South Campus of the Brainerd, Minnesota High School at 6 PM.. Also performing their Talent pieces will be two of our area's Minnesota's Outstanding Teen Contestants. They are Bailey Wachholtz and Emma Hilgart. Everyone is invited to come and ask these young women some tough questions about life, about their platforms, about anything. They will all soon be standing before a panel of judges doing the same thing and the more experience they get - the better.
We wish them well in their endeavors and want to give them a great send off into this adventure. It will be stressful, it will be fun, it will be challenging.
RISMEDIA, June 11, 2009-(MCT)-“A California dream researcher has proven something that wouldn’t surprise Mozart or Keith Richards. It’s that dreaming is a great way to solve creative problems.
Dr. Sara Mednick, a sleep psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, found that subjects who, between morning and afternoon word-game sessions, took a nap that included a period of lively dreaming called REM sleep, improved their later scores by 40%.
Scores for those who merely rested or whose naps included no REM sleep didn’t budge, Mednick reports in Monday’s online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. REM sleep is the most conked-out stage of slumber, named after the rapid eye movement that characterizes it.
The idea that dreams have creative utility isn’t new. Richards, for one, has said that he dreamed the riff that underlies the Rolling Stones song “Satisfaction,” and Mozart claimed some of his music came to him in dreams.”
For those of us who have hit our extremely busy summer season – there are many opportunities – not to sleep. We need to pace ourselves better and get the rest our bodies so desperately need. In order to be really effective with creative scripting on the spot and inventive ideas to make some difficult contracts fly like the wind – we need to rest. True rest, where we dream. Dreaming of fishing, Para- sailing, the hogger of a life time – the dream doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you are dreaming. Real estate agents need to be creative. As a REALTOR/Staging Specialist, I am constantly tapping into my artistic side. I started to just get so worn out that I spent all day tired. This morning I slept in a half an hour longer. I am not an early morning person and I had attempted to make myself into one out of necessity. The problem was, I was still keeping my midnight hours as well. All work, no play – no good. My husband is doing better after his nightmare of a back surgery so that frees up a bit more of my time and definitely takes down the stress level. Ahhhh California Dreaming is – a good thing.
The Women's Health Speaker Class was on breast cancer, a topic that has probably affected most families. Dr Troy Duininck, who gave an overview of cancer, stated that one in eight women get breast cancer and in 2007 there were 178,480 new breast cancer cases that were diagnosed. He said that in Minnesota there were about 3000 new cases and that Brainerd St Joseph's hospital had 72. Duininck also said that 85-90% of breast cancer cases are not hereditary.
In my family my Grandmother, aunt and sister all had breast cancer. Doctors recommend that women have a mammogram every year starting at age 40 and I do. The Brainerd hospital now has available a breast specific gamma imaging machine that will give doctors a better look at the cancerous cells to better assist their patients. I got the opportunity to be screened by the machine this year as a tumor that was on watch mode after a core biopsy last year persisted and was joined by several others.
I was injected with radioactive dye by IV and then the rest of the procedure was much like a very slow mammogram - very slow - hours! My tumors are not cancerous right now and it was worth it to know that much, rather than keep "watch" and wonder. My friends teased me that I would now glow in the dark - maybe I did just a bit!
A few short weeks ago my husband went in for back surgery. It was to be rather intense as he was having fusion, had a tumor on his spine and a disc that was protruding. They were to take bone from his hip to use in the back and that was to give him some pain during the proposed 5 months of recovery. We are both self employed and his part of that is roofing. So it is no small matter to take off another 5 months(he hasn't been able to work with the pain for 5 months). The doctors have varying opinions as to whether he will even be able to roof again.
There was really no choice as to having surgery so off we went to Minneapolis. He was overdosed with narcotics during surgery and that shut his systems down. They could not wake him up and his bodily systems then stopped. He has had people from all over the world praying and after 3 days he woke up, kind of. When he would fall asleep then he would stop breathing again. It has been a long hard battle but he is making progress. There is a nasty tube running through his nose to pump out his stomach as that is where everything that they pump in by IVs seems to be staying. He has some problems with chemical balances and all that stuff but as they tell me the actual surgery went well.
You just do not know what will happen at any point in time but God is a big God and a good God. God's people responded and two Master's programs of young people went to their knees. Missionaries in Lebanon roused their underground churches and they prayed. Russians were praying in their Christian school. The women and young girls who have been rescued from slavery & prostitution who live in the home that Art helped build prayed. Teens from Art's Evergreen group and Sundy School classes prayed for their mentor's survival and then recovery. Our local Teen Challenge group started talking to the God that they just recently committed the bablance of thieir lives to. He has been involved with many groups and many lives through the years
If things progress, I may be bringing him back home in the near future - first he has to be able to eat by mouth. He can walk a short distance and it is not far to get him in to our home.
UPDATE
ART IS HOME!
HE HAS VERY LITTLE RECOLLECTION OF WHAT TOOK PLACE IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS AND HIS MEMORY IS STILL NOT THE BEST FROM DAY TO DAY. HE EATS BUT SAYS THAT HOW FOOD TASTES HAS CHANGED. MOST FOOD HOLDS LITTLE APPEAL TO HIM AT THIS TIME. HE HAS ALSO DEVELOPED A BETTER SENSE OF SMELL ODDLY ENOUGH AND NOW LIKES THE SMELL OF ORIENTAL LILIES. HE HAS A NICE WALKER WITH A SEAT BUT IS DOING WELL WALKING A SHORT SPAN. HE TIRES EASILY AND SLEEPS OFTEN. HE IS VERY HAPPY TO BE HOME AND SAYS HE KNOWS THAT GOD STILL HAS WORK FOR HIM TO DO HERE.
President Obama has swiftly moved the United States of America from our traditional American model of entrepreneurship and private initiative to something that quite closely resembles a European model of regulation and government control. He has the uncanny ability to get Congressional Democrats to give him things that will undermine their own power – they have 94% of the time in the House and 91% of the time in the Senate. His Economic Stimulus bill that was in fact a pay back for the liberal interest base and future vote buying cost those people who actually pay taxes $787 billion dollars and more hands are coming out from under the covers to get treats. Do you realize that this moved along at a pace that no member of Congress even read the bill in its entirety before they voted on it? Just hand them a rubber stamp and an inkpad. One of his big campaign pledges was to end earmarks, but the appropriations bill he signed had 8000 earmarks in it. That showed great progress in keeping promises. The EPA has now ruled that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health, opening the door to strict regulation of American life, not to mention that of cows, by the government. President Obama has felt an obligation to apologize for America and her people by labeling our country as “arrogant, dismissive and derisive” in front of foreign audiences – that should make them like us better and respect us more, don’t you think? Here is what he thinks about those in small towns: "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
As columnist Jackie Cushman puts it “if we’re not careful, instead of change we can believe in, we’re going to have change in what we believe.
PICTURE PERFECT ... LOOK NO FURTHER! Meander up the forested drive to your elegant home nestled on a quiet cul-de-sac in a woodsy setting. Immediately you'll feel welcome. Light-filled and spacious living -Hardwood flooring and custom colors abound. FABULOUS great room features gas fireplace . French doors open to a large oversized Solarium PERFECT for entertaining. Oak cabinetry graces the wonderful gourmet kitchen with Stainless Steel appliances, a large arched window and soaring ceilings fill the open floor plan with natural light. Your choice for dining: the casual granite breakfast bar or the more formal dining area, this room features the perfect workspace with upscale gourmet Stainless Steel appliances. Watch your flat screen television or read a book by the fire in the cozy living room. Privately located in the rear of the home, a Master Bedroom retreat features spa bath, separate shower and a huge walk-in closet. Just outside is a covered deck ~just for two. You'll even find ample extra storage space in the 5-foot tall dry crawlspace/basement. A guest bedroom upstairs and an additional full bath open out onto a large loft balcony. Did I mention the abundant storage? Wonderfully maintained in pristine condition ~ move-in and call this gem home! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to own this custom one owner home and 2.6 acre lot! Must see to appreciate – such love and detail went into this immaculate property.
Home staging & selling information for REALTORS, Homeowners, and Home Stagers. Informational pieces on the beautiful
Brainerd Lakes area of Minnesota and the surrounding communities.
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Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
Emily will be performing her talent and showing off her Miss Minnesota pageant wardrobe tonight June 11th. 2009. This will be held in the cafeteria on the South Campus of the Brainerd, Minnesota High School at 6 PM.. Also performing their Talent pieces will be two of our area's Minnesota's Outstanding Teen Contestants. They are Bailey Wachholtz and Emma Hilgart. Everyone is invited to come and ask these young women some tough questions about life, about their platforms, about anything. They will all soon be standing before a panel of judges doing the same thing and the more experience they get - the better.
, don’t you think?
Kathleen Lordbock REALTOR/Staging Specialist licensed in Minnesota
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