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Our family home in Palatka, Florida was a grand Victorian dream that we salvaged from spiders and neglect. Our Victorian Lady featured a fabulous dining room, complete with twelve-foot high ceilings, ornate carved fireplace, and a ten-by-eight foot antique mirror. Furnishings included a pump organ, an English side table, a huge triple-tiered wrought iron chandelier, and an antique banquet table with twelve chairs.

We wallpapered the dining room ceiling with a faux-tin pattern, and then painted it a glossy forest green to reflect shimmers of candlelight. An Anaglypta border (thick, embossed wall covering), painted rouge red, framed frescoed plaster walls that were layered in transparent ambers, creams, and a hint of pink.

The dining chairs and antique overstuffed reading chairs matched the fabric window dressings that framed the huge water-color-effect leaded windows. The undulating fabric pattern tied together all the colors we'd chosen to enhance our dining delight. The gentle swags, imitating nature's motifs, had been selected to make us feel relaxed and connected to Mother Earth.

Embellishments to the chandelier included huge red and amber crystals that we'd uncovered in an antique-junk shop and mini shades. I had spray-painted the shades black with gold-gilded interiors. The elegant room, dressed in its finery on a budget, was the setting for our nightly family dining, because it offered the only place to sit and eat together in the house.

One evening, as I prepared for guests, I got out my string, to make sure that the table, now beautifully set with turkey and all the trimmings, was aligned perfectly with the center of the chandelier. My children laughed at my obsession, but helped hold the string while I measured to make sure the table was correctly centered.

We met our friends on the front porch as they arrived, and then migrated to our perfectly-arranged dining room, where our magnificently-staged table was waiting. But as we walked into the dining room, we found our beloved golden retriever, standing at attention in the middle of the table, after having devoured our feast.

No one noticed that the table was sitting in the exact center of the room.

Creating a fabulous dining room for your family and guests deserves careful planning. Design your eating space using colors that enhance taste, small patterns mimicking nature, and soft textures to counter hard surfaces. Remember, the most important ingredient, the people, deserve a fine backdrop. And, feed your pets first!

There you are, flipping through the radio stations yet again, looking for SOMETHING, ANYTHING, worth listening to. Maybe youll find a song here or there that you like, or a talk show on a subject you are interested in. Then its time to flip the stations again. What I need, you think to yourself, is my own personal radio station.

Enter the world of podcasting! Podcasting is just like having your own radio station, programmed with your favorite items and ready for you to listen anywhere, anytime. With podcasting, you can listen to:

[o] WHAT you want

[o] WHEN you want

[o] WHERE you want

No more searching and hoping to find a radio station that plays your favorite music. No more missing a talk show broadcast because you are sitting in class or in a meeting at the wrong time. With podcasting, you get just the content you want, from the sources you want, when you want. And there are no ads or commercials! What Tivo has done for your TV viewing, podcasting can do for your radio listening, and there is no FCC regulations either!

So what exactly is podcasting? A podcast is an audio file stored on the Internet that you can download to your computer or MP3 player and listen to whenever you want. It might be music, or it could be a talk show, a lecture, a recorded tele-seminar, a sermon, a football game, etc. Podcasting gives you the ultimate in choice and convenience.

o Podcasting is all about CHOICE

Podcasting offers you unlimited choices in listening. Even though podcasting is a relatively new technology, there are already thousands of podcasts to which you can subscribe. No radio station in your city that plays the indy music you love? Check out East Detroit Radio.

Want to improve the koi pond in your backyard? Subscribe to Koi Club of the Air.

Parenting questions? Try the Front Porch Parenting podcast.

You can find a podcast on literally any subject you are interested in! In fact, www.podcastalley.com currently lists 2,380 podcasts in 15 different categories, while www.ipodder.org lists 4,493.

Another advantage of podcasting is that, because podcasts can appeal to niche audiences, they can cover their topics in much greater depth and be far more informative than regular radio broadcasts, which must appeal to a wide audience. Also, with a podcast, you can back up and listen to a segment again if you missed something the first time. If you come to a segment that is boring, you can fast-forward. You can listen as many times as you want to all or part of the podcast. And you can stop listening all together for a few minutes, hours, or even days if something else comes up.

o Podcasting is all about CONVENIENCE

MP3 files have been available for download from the internet for years. But what makes podcasting different and truly useful is that you can subscribe to programs you are interested in. This means you dont have to check your favorite podcast web sites every day for new episodes and manually download them.

Instead, free podcasting software automatically downloads new episodes to your computer as soon as they are available. This makes it easy and convenient for you to stay up-to-date with your favorite podcasts.

Once your podcasts are downloaded to your computer, you can synch them to your MP3 player, burn them to a CD for playback on your CD player, or simply listen to them through your computers speakers. This gives you the ultimate convenience of listening to your programs at your leisure. You can listen to the podcasts whenever you want as you are driving, walking, exercising, knitting, etc. With a podcast, you can be mobile, live your life, and listen to your content ANYWHERE.

o Podcasting is FREE & EASY

Not only are podcasts themselves generally free, but so is the podcasting software you need! Both podcasts and podcasting software are easy to find on the internet and are easy to use.

Podcasting is waiting for you!

If you havent been exposed to podcasts yet, you soon will be! Podcasts are literally everywhere now, and more podcasts are being created every day.