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Shoe Repairs And Several Other Things When I Was 7

Shoe Repairs And Several Other Things When I Was 7
My Dad repaired most of our shoes believe it or not, I can hardly believe it myself now. With 7 pairs of shoes always needing repairs I think he was quite clever to learn how to “Keep us in shoe Leather” to coin a phrase!

He bought several different sizes of cast iron cobbler’s “lasts”. Last, the old English “Laest” meaning footprint. Lasts were holding devices shaped like a human foot. I have no idea where he would have bought the shoe leather. Only that it was a beautiful creamy, shiny colour and the smell was lovely.

But I do remember our shoes turned upside down on and fitted into these lasts, my Dad cutting the leather around the shape of the shoe, and then hammering nails, into the leather shape. Sometimes we’d feel one or 2 of those nails poking through the insides of our shoes, but our dad always fixed it.

Hiking and Swimming Galas
Dad was a very outdoorsy type, unlike my mother, who was probably too busy indoors. She also enjoyed the peace and quiet when he took us off for the day!

Anyway, he often took us hiking in the mountains where we’d have a picnic of sandwiches and flasks of tea. And more often than not we went by steam train.

We loved poking our heads out of the window until our eyes hurt like mad from a blast of soot blowing back from the engine. But sore, bloodshot eyes never dampened our enthusiasm.

Dad was an avid swimmer and water polo player, and he used to take us to swimming galas, as they were called back then. He often took part in these galas. And again we always travelled by steam train.

Rowing Over To Ireland’s Eye
That’s what we did back then, we had to go by rowboat, the only way to get to Ireland’s eye, which is 15 minutes from mainland Howth. From there we could see Malahide, Lambay Island and Howth Head of course. These days you can take a Round Trip Cruise on a small cruise ship!

But we thoroughly enjoyed rowing and once there we couldn’t wait to climb the rocks, and have a swim. We picnicked and watched the friendly seals doing their thing and showing off.

Not to mention all kinds of birdlife including the Puffin.The Martello Tower was also interesting but a bit dangerous to attempt entering. I’m getting lost in the past as I write, and have to drag myself back to the present.

Fun Outings with The camera Club
Dad was also a very keen amateur photographer, and was a member of a camera Club. There were many Sunday photography outings and along with us came other kids of the members of the club.

And we always had great fun while the adults busied themselves taking photos of everything and anything, it seemed to us. Dad was so serious about his photography that he set up a dark room where he developed and printed his photographs.

All black and white at the time. He and his camera club entered many of their favourites in exhibitions throughout Europe. I’m quite proud to say that many cups and medals were won by Dad. They have been shared amongst all his grandchildren which I find quite special.

He liked taking portraits of us kids too, mostly when we were in a state of untidiness, usually during play. Dad always preferred the natural look of messy hair and clothes in the photos of his children.

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Business Loans In Canada: Financing Solutions Via Alternative Finance & Traditional Funding

Business loans and finance for a business just may have gotten good again? The pursuit of credit and funding of cash flow solutions for your business often seems like an eternal challenge, even in the best of times, let alone any industry or economic crisis. Let’s dig in.

Since the 2008 financial crisis there’s been a lot of change in finance options from lenders for corporate loans. Canadian business owners and financial managers have excess from everything from peer-to-peer company loans, varied alternative finance solutions, as well of course as the traditional financing offered by Canadian chartered banks.

Those online business loans referenced above are popular and arose out of the merchant cash advance programs in the United States. Loans are based on a percentage of your annual sales, typically in the 15-20% range. The loans are certainly expensive but are viewed as easy to obtain by many small businesses, including retailers who sell on a cash or credit card basis.

Depending on your firm’s circumstances and your ability to truly understand the different choices available to firms searching for SME COMMERCIAL FINANCE options. Those small to medium sized companies ( the definition of ‘ small business ‘ certainly varies as to what is small – often defined as businesses with less than 500 employees! )

How then do we create our road map for external financing techniques and solutions? A simpler way to look at it is to categorize these different financing options under:

Debt / Loans

Asset Based Financing

Alternative Hybrid type solutions

Many top experts maintain that the alternative financing solutions currently available to your firm, in fact are on par with Canadian chartered bank financing when it comes to a full spectrum of funding. The alternative lender is typically a private commercial finance company with a niche in one of the various asset finance areas

If there is one significant trend that’s ‘ sticking ‘it’s Asset Based Finance. The ability of firms to obtain funding via assets such as accounts receivable, inventory and fixed assets with no major emphasis on balance sheet structure and profits and cash flow ( those three elements drive bank financing approval in no small measure ) is the key to success in ABL ( Asset Based Lending ).

Factoring, aka ‘ Receivable Finance ‘ is the other huge driver in trade finance in Canada. In some cases, it’s the only way for firms to be able to sell and finance clients in other geographies/countries.

The rise of ‘ online finance ‘ also can’t be diminished. Whether it’s accessing ‘ crowdfunding’ or sourcing working capital term loans, the technological pace continues at what seems a feverish pace. One only has to read a business daily such as the Globe & Mail or Financial Post to understand the challenge of small business accessing business capital.

Business owners/financial mgrs often find their company at a ‘ turning point ‘ in their history – that time when financing is needed or opportunities and risks can’t be taken. While putting or getting new equity in the business is often impossible, the reality is that the majority of businesses with SME commercial finance needs aren’t, shall we say, ‘ suited’ to this type of funding and capital raising. Business loan interest rates vary with non-traditional financing but offer more flexibility and ease of access to capital.

We’re also the first to remind clients that they should not forget govt solutions in business capital. Two of the best programs are the GovernmentSmall Business Loan Canada (maximum availability = $ 1,000,000.00) as well as the SR&ED program which allows business owners to recapture R&D capital costs. Sred credits can also be financed once they are filed.

Those latter two finance alternatives are often very well suited to business start up loans. We should not forget that asset finance, often called ‘ ABL ‘ by those Bay Street guys, can even be used as a loan to buy a business.

If you’re looking to get the right balance of liquidity and risk coupled with the flexibility to grow your business seek out and speak to a trusted, credible and experienced Canadian business financing advisor with a track record of business finance success who can assist you with your funding needs.

Making a Home Business in Nutritional Counselling

Nutrition is described as the materials necessary (in the form of food) to support life. There is a belief, we as humans need more counselling on nutrition. This belief comes from the rising statistics of obesity, diabetes and our aging population. But informing these groups of the nutritional benefits of certain food types is not going to change the way nutrition is viewed. We must look past counselling and explorer different avenues of why and how we can all benefit from nutrition basics.According to Dr. Lynn McIntyre, Professor at the Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, low income, single women, sacrifice their own nutritional needs for the benefit of their children. Other studies also show that low income families in general, sacrifice their nutritional needs because of the cost of foods at grocery stores. Somehow, low income families are slowly associating fast food as an affordable way to feed their families. To correct this, we must change the view that nutritional food is expensive food. By showing families what types of inexpensive foods can offer the most nutrition will begin to change that view point. But how do we communicate this critical information?Interesting enough, there are a few ways that we can communicate our message that nutritional health is important. The first is through using “Duplication”. Duplication is the act of seeing and replicating what we have seen. Creating a “community” vegetable garden and selecting affordable, easy growing vegetables and providing basic recipes that use these vegetables would begin encouraging basic nutritional counselling without saying a word. By participating in these community gardens, people will begin duplicating this behaviour in their own family gardens. Providing recipes with seeds and instructions on how to grow these vegetables would certainly be one way to communicate this important message. It can also serve as an advertising tool to other sources of information such as websites and blogs.We know that parents will sacrifice their own nutritional needs for the sake of their children, but why? A high percentage is due to their limited income. Publishing blogs and twittering about the deals at grocery stores and markets to get the most affordable and nutritional food would certainly be a benefit. Providing families a list of places to go where nutritional foods are inexpensive would also help send the message. Even daily blogs on local market specials would help. Publishing these blogs in community forums setup by the YMCA or health forums or even health focused social medias like P90X on Facebook would help communicate this message.Recently, friends came over who seemed to be lost when it came to cooking. Providing some basics information on meats, fruits and vegetables can be a bit dry, but when mixed into a cooking lesson, nutritional counselling turned into a fun filled, memorable event. Whether the cooking course is provided in your house or in the house of others, the message can still be the same. Creating and showing the elderly in their own homes how to cook healthy and what nutritional foods to pick up would be a great benefit. Perhaps providing oversized, large text recipes would also be a great idea to promote nutritional eating without getting into why. The only reason is because it tastes good.With easy to read recipes, recipes and seeds delivered to communities to help market your blogs, blogs that provide tips and local deals at grocery stores and markets and marketing these blogs to all types of community forums and social media, the important message of nutrition and its benefits can be successfully communicate to all.