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If you’re thinking of moving visit the Ashville Homes site

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Everyone has a dream place to live, or perhaps even an area they’d like to retire to when they can finally quite working and enjoy life in their later years.

If you are thinking of moving or retiring you might want to consider the city of Asheville. The city is located in Western North Carolina in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s a thriving community with many things to offer – arts, entertainment, skiing and other outdoor activities and a lot more.

If Asheville sounds like an area worth checking out you might want to visit the Asheville homes website, where you can search MLS listings with an easy to use Google map.

Ashville has been rated as one of the 50 Most Alive Places to Be by AARP and I can see why. It looks like it would be a lovely place to live whether you are just starting out or reaching your retirement years. Visit the site and see what I’m talking about.






This site is now part of the Glam Network

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed but this site is now part of the Glam Network, as is my main blog Tricia’s Musings. This is the big deal I was referring to on Tricia’s Musings for the last couple of weeks.

This site and Tricia’s Musings are now listed in the Glam network, and I have signed a contract with Glam to show network ads in my sidebar. As you can see the ads in the top right sidebar are quite nice graphically, and they are for name brand products – Designer fashions, Revlon and other major cosmetic manufactures, shoe companies, jewelers and so on. I’m quite pleased with the ads and I hope that you enjoy them as well. I figured that if I’m going to advertise on some of my sites I might as well advertise quality products.

I believe the Glam network has listings for about 300 internal and external blogs that discuss topics that mainly would be of interest to women. There are a number of great celebrity, fashion, clothing, parenting and lifestyle blogs listed in the network. I’m pleased that two of my sites have been considered of high enough quality to have been included in this fairly exclusive network.

My main hope in joining this network is to increase traffic to my sites. I enjoy making new blogging friends and of course having my posts read by many. If you are here visiting from the Glam Network please stop for a moment and say hello.

Floral arrangement in Oil by Ashely Cecil

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of being contacted by a talented artist. Her website is located at AshleyCecil.com. She’d just finished a stunning floral arrangement oil painting and had posted a photo of it on her website and thought that I, and my readers, might be interested in viewing her work.

Here’s a copy of the floral painting:

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Isn’t that just gorgeous? If you’d like to take a better look at the painting and watch a time lapse video of it’s creation please feel free to visit her site “The Painting Journalist”.

She created this painting after attending a gala celebrating 20 years of “Service and Survival” for The Center for Women and Families. Approximately 1000 guests attended the gala and the ballroom was filled with lovely white floral arrangements. It was the floral arrangements which inspired her to create the lovely oil painting.

Ashley sells her paintings to raise money for non-profit organizations. The painting that I’ve shown you today is for sale, and a portion of the sale price will be donated to the Center for Women and Families.

The Center for Women and Families has been serving the Louisville area since 1912. Originally a YWCA, The Center is now a private non-profit agency serving fourteen counties in Kentucky and Indiana. Last year, The Center served over 30,000 people through three main programs: the Domestic Violence Program, the Rape Crisis Program, and the Family and Community Support Programs.

Purchasing this painting will support a great cause and assist in helping women in need of assistance get back on their feet again.

Ashley describes herself and her work:

Welcome to the marriage of painting and social activism. I’ve been creating art ever since discovering that my mom’s Chanel lipstick made a great oil pastel. Through formal art education and years of professional experience, the adult version of this vocation has evolved into my own job title, “painting journalist.” I’m addressing philanthropic issues utilizing painting as my medium of communication. Much like a photojournalist, I travel to locations/events of cultural interest and capture them, only with my brush.

Please do visit Ashley’s site. She’s a very talented artist and her paintings cover a wide range of “Life and Living” related genres.

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