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Cats do not generally need bathing because their mothers teach them how to wash themselves while they are kittens. Moreover, cats have a justifiable reputation for not liking water too much. However, there might be occasions when you feel the necessity for bathing your cat.

For instance, your cat might be old or sick, have been in a bad scrap or be infested with fleas. If these times crop up, you will be glad of some tips for bathing your cat, as they can get fairly nasty about it, inflicting serious scratches that could get septic.

This first thing to do is gather everything you need in advance, because you will probably need to hold your cat down. So, you will want the shampoo, a flannel and a towel close at hand.

If you know that your cat is going to become difficult, bathe it in a bowl either in the garden shed or in the bathroom, where flying water will not cause much of a difficulty.

Otherwise, you could bathe your cat in a bowl on the lawn, but an enclosed space may make your cat feel less at risk and it will be easier to catch it in an enclosed space if it escapes your grasp.

If your cat really, really detests bathing and you have trouble holding it, place it in a pillow case with only its head sticking out. You can use a cat collar to keep the pillow case in place.

If you use a pillow case, wash your cat through the pillow case as you would a delicate, costly woollen pullover. Use an old collar, because otherwise you may wash out the pesticide that is impregnated in it.

If your cat's fur is matted or clotted with blood, you had better remove the clots and cut away the hair with the cat on your lap before you begin bathing it.

While preparing the bowl, put a non-slip mat or towel in the bottom and just half fill it with luke warm water. The shampoo ought to be mild. In fact, you should bathe your cat as you would a baby who does not like getting soap in its eyes.

Lower your cat smoothly but quite swiftly into the water and talk to it reassuringly all the time. It will probably hate what you are doing to it, although some breeds are fairly happy to be in water. Yours almost certainly will hot be though and it will become more than a little afraid, so keep talking to it.

Wash quickly and do what you can. It is better to get most of the work done the first time round and have to come for a second go later than to actually stress your cat out with a long session and who knows, it may get used to it after recurring sessions, if they do not last very long.

When you are through, wrap the cat in a towel and be nice to it. If it is in a pillow case, wrap the towel about the pillow case and take it off under the towel. When your cat is pretty dry, you can let it go if it wants, because it will dry itself off anyway.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is now concerned with feline distemper vaccination. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Distemper Vaccines

Are you thinking of holding a party? It may be a birthday party or an anniversary for yourself or a friend or it could just be because you want to have a party. Pool parties are fantastic in the summer, but then, not everyone has a pool and it is not always summer, is it? Did you know that lots of spas will allow you to hold a party on their premises?

That would be great too, would it not? Having access to the heated pool, the hot spas and Jacuzzis, the steam room or saunas or Turkish bath. I am not sure that I would be keen on working out at the gym at a party though! A stomach full of cake and lemonade would not work well whilst working on your abs.

If you are keen on holding a party at a local spa, the first thing to do is find a local spa that allows the holding of private parties. This is simple enough. Most spas will have a web site which has all the facilities listed on it. So either do a search on the Internet for 'spas in xxxxx', where xxxxx is the name of your town or look under spas in Yellow Pages and then use the names to look for the web sites.

There are a few items that you have to check next, but first make a list of what facilities you would like to enjoy at your party. Do you want it to be private or open to all? Do you want to allow children in? Does everyone have to dress the part or can individuals (older individuals perhaps) wear street clothes? Is alcohol accessible and can you take drinks into the jacuzzi?

Once you have your list of needs and suitable dates, you are in a position to look for fitting locations. Once you find the nearest fit to your requirements, phone them up and see if they will permit all your needs. It may not be a problem for them.

How many people are going to be at your spa party and who is going to pay? Well, it depends on the party actually. Say a bride-to-be wants to go to the spa with her bride's maids before the wedding; the bride should pay.

What if five friends start a night on the town at the spa? Everybody pays their own way.You can discuss a discount at a lot of spas if more than five or six people attend as a group, but that discount might not be large.

A spa party is a fantastic day out whatever the reason for the party, and they are very adaptable. You could hire the whole spa for two or three hours for mum's fiftieth and meet up in the bar afterwards or you could use the spa party as a precursor to going on somewhere else. One thing is for certain, you will feel at your best and up for anything when you walk out of the spa party.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of subjects, but is now concerned with portable hot tubs spas. If you would like to know more, please visit our site at Hot Springs Spa Parts

The majority of people really love their pets, to the point where they become part of the family. Some pet owners cannot stand to be parted from their pets for more than a day or so and for these people, going on vacation can be a problem, because they do not want to leave their friends behind. Obviously the answer is to take your cat or dog with you. Dogs are easier to take away than cats, because they are more well-trained

If you are only going for a few days, say on business, finding a hotel near to the location of your meeting should not be too much of a problem, unless you want to stay at one of the big names in the city centre. It is often the smaller, family-run hotels or guest houses that consent to pets, although some want you to keep your dog in a kennel on the premises overnight. larger hotels tend not to be very pet-friendly.

If you propose taking your pet with you, it is better if you make this clear when you make your booking as more hotels do not permit pets than do allow them. Normally there is no extra charge for a pet, but you are liable for any extra cleaning costs, should your pet get caught short.

If you are going away on holiday or for a longer period of time, it is usually a lot easier to find a holiday rental that will allow you to take your cat or dog with you. Again, it is wisest to make it obvious at booking that you want to take your dog with you. Luckily, there are about fifty percent of rentals or more that will permit this, although once again, you will be held responsible for any damage or mess caused by your dog.

A tip: if on arrival, you see that previous pets have caused some damage or stains, take photographs on your first day and have them dated. Modern cameras frequently have the facility to date stamp photos or you can use a newspaper. Otherwise, point out the damage to your host.

When you travel with your dog, it is best to put the animal in some sort of a cage particularly when driving. A loving dog can be a distraction in a car. If it wants attention just when you are trying to perform a complicated manouevre, it can result in an accident. Some dogs get very frightened in cars and want to sit on their owner's lap, this is also not a good idea and could lead to a charge of dangerous driving. Additionally, if your dog is not caged and you have an accident, it could be thrown through the windscreen. If you are travelling by air, then the airline will insist on a cage, but they normally have their own.

Once you arrive at your pet-friendly rental, give your dog some of his normal food to eat, lay out his blanket from home, and put out one of his favourite toys, just to help make him feel at home. After all, everything will be alien to him and he might be able to smell the previous furry tenant. If cleaning staff will be entering your rental during your holiday, make sure that you are there at least for the first few times they visit.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently concerned with Poconos rentals. If you are interested in a rental in the Poconos Mountains, please go to our website at Poconos Vacations

French dip sandwich recipes are very well-liked. The French dip sandwich was invented by accident by a Frenchman, but he was not living in France. He had emigrated to the United States and was living in Los Angeles. Philippe Mathieu had opened his sandwich bar and delicatessen known as 'Philippe The Original' on North Alameda Street in 1908, but the Eureka moment came ten years later when a policeman came in to buy a beef sandwich.

Philippe unintentionally dropped it in the tray in which the beef had been cooked, but served it up anyway. The policeman came back with a few friends the next day to try the 'dipped' sandwich and the French dip sandwich was born. The sandwich bar is still there and still making French dip sandwich recipes nearly 90 years later.

Being French, Philippe would have described his sandwiches 'au jus', which means 'with juice', but lots of Americans do not realize this so ask for their French dip sandwiches 'with au jus'. Nowadays, the sauce is frequently specially made or concocted separately so that it is far more elaborate than just the meat juices from the pan, but you can make it as complex or as simple as you wish. There is also no reason why you can not make up vegetarian or fish French dip sandwich recipes

Recipe 1

French Dip Sandwich Serves 4

1 can Franco-American Au Jus Gravy 4 servings thinly sliced cooked beef 4 servings French bread or long hard rolls, cut in half along the length

In a 10 inch skillet, combine gravy with beef. Over a gentle heat, warm through, stirring occasionally.

To prepare the sandwiches, place the beef on the bread. Serve each sandwich with small bowl of gravy for dipping.

Recipe 2

French Dip Sandwich Au Jus Serves 8

3 pounds beef, chuck, trimmed 2 cups water 1/2 cup soy sauce 1 teaspoon dried rosemary 1 teaspoon dried thyme 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 bay leaf 3 peppercorns (3 to 4) 8 French rolls, cut lengthways

Place beef in a slow cooker. Add water, soy sauce, and seasonings. Cover then cook on HIGH for 5-6 hours or until beef is tender.

Remove meat from juices; pull apart with forks and keep warm. Strain juices; skim off fat. Pour broth into small cups for dipping. Serve beef on toasted rolls.

Recipe 3

French Dip Sandwiches Serves 4

1 long loaf French bread 1/2 pound cooked roast beef (from deli or leftovers) 1 package roast beef au jus gravy 4 tablespoons butter 1 teaspoon garlic powder

Cut French bread in half lengthwise. Spread with butter and sprinkle with garlic. Wrap in foil and heat in oven until warm. Mix gravy as directed on package and warm beef in juice. Drain beef from gravy and put on bottom half of warm bread. Put top on sandwich and slice. Put gravy into small bowls (one for every person). Dip sandwich in gravy to eat.

Serve with French fries and a salad.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several subjects, but is at present concerned with French dip sandwich recipes. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Vegetarian Sandwich Recipes.

If you are going to take your garden seriously, there are a couple items that you have to do. This first thing to do is work out a plan of how you want your garden to look like. This is easily done using graph paper or the more artistic might select to draw it. Then you need to landscape your garden according to your plan, although you can adjust your plan as you go. After all, you are the boss. Put in any electric cables and water pipes that you might need. Erect your shed and greenhouse, if required then you can begin planting and start to choose your garden furniture.

The point of this article is to help you select your garden furniture. There is so much diversity of garden furniture that it can be quite difficult to make up your mind. Do you go for hardwood, softwood, metal or plastic?

Which colour and which style? Some of your choice will be restricted, if you are on a budget, but in reality, over the long term of twenty or thirty years, hardwood is the cheapest alternative and plastic the most expensive. Over the short term, two to five years, the opposite is true.

Whether you want armchairs or recliners is really up to you and so outside the remit of this article, so is the style that you prefer, although I will say that the most successful choice of garden furniture should blend in with the garden rather than stick out like a sore thumb. Plastic tends to look OK on a patio or deck, but rarely goes well with a garden full of pretty plants and bushes, whereas hardwood garden furniture tends to fit in well anywhere. You have to be a bit careful with softwood and metal.

In a way, it is a good idea to tackle choosing your garden furniture in the your same way that you would select the furniture for inside your home. It has to blend in with your overall style.

Therefore, you might want to put off buying your garden furniture until you get your first crop of flowers up, unless you can imagine it in your mind. The only problem with waiting for Spring is that that is when garden furniture is at its most expensive.

Ask yourself what you intend doing in the area where you are planning having your furniture. Are you and the family just going to flop there after work and on weekends or are you going to hold more formal garden parties there? If you are going to have guests, it should be large enough for the number you expect and the furniture should be robust enough so that it will not collapse under some of the heavier guests. If it is just for the family at least you are dealing with known information: how big they are and how many of them there are.

Another aspect to keep in mind is maintenance. Plastic does not have to be taken care of, but it will perish - become brittle - after a few hot summers and cold winters. You can lengthen the life of your plastic garden furniture by storing it in a shed when not in use. Metal garden furniture might need anti-rust treatment from time to time and if the seat is made of fabric, you should also check for signs of rot, which could lead to someone falling through the chair.

Softwood has to be treated with preservative, paint, varnish or oil fairly often and you should check for signs of rot or splitting, which can still come about no matter how much you take care of it. Hardwood garden furniture has to be treated once a year too, but it is by far the most robust material used for constructing garden furniture.

Plastic and metal furniture are available in many colours; softwood can be painted or stained any colour you like and hardwood comes in all shades of brown from light oak to rich dark mahogany, but it should never be painted only oiled and stained, if you want to.

If you select hardwood, it can be a bit hard on the backside after a couple hours, so buy a couple of cushions that match the colour and style of your garden furniture too. These can be stored inside when not in use or they will become unbelievably grimy and if they get wet it can take days for them to dry, during which time they might start to rot and smell. Removable cushion covers are a good idea.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, but is now involved with large dining tables. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Solid Oak Dining Tables.

Baby showers are well-liked events, particularly in America. A baby shower is usually given or hosted by a friend of the expectant mother, mostly before the birth but occasionally after it as well. The point of the baby shower is to collect presents for the child and its parents, which is why family of the mother find it awkward to organize the baby shower themselves - it seems too much like begging.

If you can get a friend to organize a baby shower for you or if someone offers to do it, the invitations ought to be sent out a month or two before the birth day, so that the mother is not in too much discomfort and is not likely to have the baby during the party.

It is nice to have handmade baby shower invitations. There are two ways that you can do this: either design the invitation card yourself and have it printed out or select a template at the printers. Both ideas give satisfactory results.

If you have the invitations printed to a standard size, you can buy cheap envelopes at a budget stationery office, but if you go for some weird size, ask the printer to provide the envelopes too.

Standard details like the date, the time, the venue, your name and the baby's name can all be printed but you will have to write or type the recipient's name in personally. Add your phone number too so that people can ask questions if they have any. If you would like the party (and the presents) to have a theme, you ought to state that on the invitation. Perhaps the card could be in the same theme too.

In fact, if you would like to go down that path, you could download a suitable image off the Net, say, a scene from Peter Rabbit, and give that to the printer so that they can print that onto your card.

People are very busy nowadays, so make sure you give your friends at least a month to book you in and get a fitting present for the shower. If you would like to be pretty certain how many people are coming, enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard in with the invitation, so that they can let you know easily.

If you are looking for things to do during the party, you could get the guests to suggest names for your baby and guess the sex or weight of it too. You could use a cross on a chain as a pendant to see if it the movement predicts a boy or girl and how many people get the same movement. You could also discuss themes for the child's bedroom when it is born, one for if it is a boy and one for if it is a boy.

Owen Jones, the author of that article, writes on a variety of subjects, but is now concerned with the satin baby blankets. If you want to know more, please visit our website at Woollen Blankets.

What do people give for Christmas and are those presents any different from thirty or forty years ago? Of course, there are games about now that did not even exist thirty or forty years ago. In this article, I would like to take a look at some of the most popular Christmas presents of all time. They are not in any particular order, only as they occur to me

Number 1: the number one desirable Christmas present for sons and fathers for almost a hundred years is the train set. There have been toy train sets for over a hundred years, but they were rather too expensive for working class households until about the 1950's. There are still more boys and fathers wanting train sets than mothers and daughters. A good train set will last decades and rise in value.

Number 2: a rocking horse. All children like rocking horses. Boys and girls; girls seem to maintain their fascination with horses longer than boys do, in Europe anyway. This gift has staying power lasting for a number of years even if it is used by many siblings. A decent rocking horse can be passed down generations.

Number 3: doll's houses and toy forts. All children like to play with either a dolls' house and dolls or a fort and soldiers. A Wendy House and a tree house are in this bracket as well. You can see children all around the world building make-believe houses and imitating their parents' life.

Number 4: dolls; both sexes like to play with dolls of one kind or another: teddy bears, rag dolls, action men, Barbie and Ken and toy soldiers are all dolls

Number 5: a doll's pram is still a big favourite with young girls - imitating mum transporting her baby about. Similarly toy pedal cars, which are well-liked with young boys and young girls alike.

Number 6: bicycles and tricycles are also well-liked with boys and girls of all ages. We appear to all have an early desire to travel at a speed faster than walking pace.

Number 7: board games have been popular for thousands of years. Roman soldiers used to play a game similar to ludo and chess has been around for roughly as long as that too. These days, there are hundreds of other board games too, some of which have become classics already. Some of the board games that have been popular since they were developed are: Monopoly, Scrabble, Cluedo and Risk and there are many more besides that as well.

Number 8: cards. The original games of cards were nearly all gambling games or could be gambled on, but for decades there have been children's decks of cards meant to create some children's card games like Snap and Happy Families more simple and more fun.

Number 9: shoot-'em-ups. Boys have always liked shooting. First cork guns or toy bows and arrows or toy crossbows; then air guns, then paint ball and then genuine guns.

Number 10: costumes; Children like to dress up, whether girls dress in mum's clothing and boys dress as Batman; girls dress as nurses or boys dress as Superman, all kids dress up at some time or other in their lives.

To this list of more conventional toys, you can add the modern number ones like computers and gaming machines, but then they have been about for thirty or forty years already as well.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety topics, but is now concerned with Silver Cross Rocking Horses. If you want to know more, please visit our website at Rocking Horses for sale.

Have you ever heard of a memory foam mattress? Memory foam has in fact been around since 1966 when it was developed by a team of NASA scientists, who were looking for ways to make aircraft cushions safer. Therefore a memory foam mattress is a mattress manufactured from this space age foam, although modern memory foam has been hugely improved since those early days. The difficulty with the early foam was that it was too brittle, so it crumbled within a couple of years.

Nowadays, memory foam will conform to a body's shape by reacting to a combination of body weight and body heat depending on the density of the foam. One of the first uses of memory foam was in hospitals where it was found that memory foam could ease pressure on the parts of the body coming into contact with the foam, which reduced the occurrence of bed sores and gangrene in long-term bed-ridden patients.

The first memory foam mattresses were very costly and only institutions such as hospitals could afford them. However, over the last twenty years, the price of memory foam has fallen radically and so these super mattresses are now within the grasp of almost everyone who needs or wants them. There are options to the traditional memory foam mattress as well, there are memory foam pads and cushions and pillows too.

The use of this special foam has flooded into other areas of our lives as the price of it has dropped. Memory foam is now used in car seats, wheelchair seats, kids' high seats, earplugs, gloves and office furniture. In fact, this new foam is now used to produce many items that have to be worn or used for long periods of time - golf gloves too for instance.

Although the cost of these memory foam mattresses has dropped significantly they might still be too costly for everyone in large families to have one each. In this case you could go for mattress toppers which are otherwise called mattress pads. These are meant to be laid on top of the mattress but under the bottom sheet. They are less expensive because they are normally between two and four inches thick.

However, be cautious of cheap toppers because any foam memory foam topper that is thinner than two inches thick is prone to be useless. Likewise, bigger is not always better, because some individuals find memory mattresses that are over six inches thick are too hard to sleep on.

Check the warranty as well. Some high-density mattress pads of two inches thickness will crumble within a couple of years, so a two year guarantee means that you will get at least this length of time out of your memory foam mattress or mattress pad.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with the Visco Elastic Mattress. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Egg Crate Mattress Pad For Sale.

The real order that the numbers involved in a blood pressure reading are given is systolic over diastolic. The systolic pressure is higher, because it is the reading taken when the heart actually pumps or beats and the diastolic pressure is lower because it is taken whilst the heart sucks in a fresh quantity of blood to pump around.

There are approximate figures that people quote as 'standard', yet there is no clear, authoritative consensus what these numbers are. In the west, most authorities will say that any reading under 120/80 is good. However, there are numerous medical professionals who will say that 140/80 does not need treatment, other than to lose a couple of pounds, if you are over weight.

This makes it very difficult for the unqualified person to ascertain for him or herself, whether his or her blood pressure is satisfactory or not. Blood pressure monitors are very reassuring, very accurate yet not expensive these days, but how can you interpret the data they give you, if not every medical professional has the same opinion?

Perhaps the only way to get the most sense of this data is to go along to your general practitioner with your blood pressure monitor and talk about its findings with your doctor. Your doctor can use his or her sophisticated device and check it with yours then your doctor can give you a few figures that can be expected for someone like you.

I say this because there are a number of things that can affect blood pressure. In fact, actual blood pressure changes with every beat of the heart, so your blood pressure can be different every time you take it, which is why a BP monitor takes the average (or the maximum) over, say, a two minute period.

Factors that can (and often do) have an effect on blood pressure are:

The 'White Coat Effect': some individuals' BP soars by as much as 25-50 points if they go into a doctor's surgery. This could be anxiety or it could be fear of doctors, and it is a documented difficulty.

Mood: fear, anger, depression and anxiety can unsettle your blood pressure.

Age: your age has some sway on your BP.

Weather: the temperature and the humidity has an effect on BP

Stress: stress, restlessness, lack of sleep and tiredness can affect the levels of your blood pressure.

Diet: which foodstuffs and beverages you have recently consumed have an impact as do whether you are constipated or merely 'full'.

Smoking: smoking and drinking alcohol have an impact on blood pressure.

Exercise: your physical condition, your metabolism and the amount of exercise you take are also factors.

Time of the Day: for all the above reasons and more, the time of the day that you take the reading has an impact, which is why it is a good thing to have your own blood pressure monitor at home. Then you can measure your BP at definite times of the day and compare the results with the hoped for levels of diastolic and systolic blood pressure given you by your GP.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on a number of subjects, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our site at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

Ebay's recently published a report revealing that 79% of small bricks and mortar retailers are of the belief that having an online presence has saved their business. This report, called the Online Business Index, suggests that these retailers can match or even out perform other online businesses when they have an online presence. Their online store matches sales, profit margins and prices of these other online businesses.

The report's findings show that, far from being threatened by the rise of online shopping, bricks and mortar shops are able to compete on a level playing field if they branch out online. Far from undermining the high street, the online economy is increasingly propping up struggling bricks & mortar businesses.

As bricks and mortar store retailers start to see the importance of an online presence, they are quickly adding themselves to the ranks of other successful online businesses. This is a very important method to improve offline income as well. Studies show that around half of online businesses also have a physical store and 80% of those have experienced increased sales along with a much more sustainable offline business, due to their online presence.

So what are the opportunities for you? The opportunity online is for retail and service-based businesses alike. 1. Reach new customers, having a traditional bricks & mortar shop can limit your customer base to a particular geographic location. Going online escapes all the usual confines of location and allows retailers and service providers to attract customers in other towns, counties and even countries! 2. Reach & engage with your existing client base online

Your customers are likely already online. What this means is that if you have no website or online presence, they will be drawn to your competitors' websites.

Branding your business through the use of a website, social networking and email marketing is a way to engage your customers and put yourself at the forefront of your business field. These option are widely used by marketers who understand the importance of an online presence and engaging your customers in different ways.

Using alternative methods, such as an online presence and branding can allow you to become more recognizable. You can easily contact your existing customers through a mailing list, and it is also easier to attract new customers. The online business can only improve your physical business' presence.

Looking to find the best deal on printed t-shirts likeJohn Lennon baby hoodies , then visit www.infanttoddlerclothing.com to find the best example of an online store of a baby clothes for your children.