Para aguardar o Julho passar - que há poucos anos atrás era época de brincar, férias de inverno - defini esse fundo da Smashing Magazine.

Uma lista de papéis de parede temáticos de inverno que nosso amigo Allucci passou. Fofinho, né? Criado por Nicole Bauer (Deviantart).

After completing the questionaire on www.strengthsfinder.com, I discovered that my “top 5 themes” are:

Maximizer:  focuses on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence, seeks to transform something strong into something superb.

Connectedness:  has faith in the links between all things, believes there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.

Relator:  enjoys close relationships with others, finds deep satisfaction in working hard with friends to achieve a  goal.

Intellection:  characterized by their intellectual activity, are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.

Input:  has a craving to know more, often likes to collect and archive all kinds of information.

**All of these definitions come directly from the “Strengths Discovery & Action-Planning Guide” I was able to print off after taking the test.  This document also describes how I, as a Maximizer, am different than other Maximizers based on my answers overall.  It offers quotes from people in my themes, which tell me what these themes sound like.  And it also provides some suggested action-plan items to consider in order to focus on these themes. 

I really enjoyed the entire process.  In reading the information listed for each theme I was not necessarily surprised with what it told me about myself however it was useful to see it all in one place for me.  It made me feel as though my work in living a more mindful life has really been paying off in being more in tune with who I am, actually.  It will be a really useful tool to reference back to if I am feeling some imbalance in life.  It will allow me to reflect on whether or not one of my themes has been ignored lately.

Now I will be able to knowingly suggest this tool to my clients who need some guidance in reflecting on their own strengths.  I guess that is just either my Intellection or Input theme showing up again!

As you all know most of our planet is covered with water. In addition to the vast oceans the land itself contain countless numbers of lakes and rivers. With all this water, freshwater only accounts for 2.15 percent of all the Earth’s water and 99.5 percent of all surface freshwater is locked away in continental ice.

Lakes provide water for domestic, agricultural and industrial uses for much of the world’s population, which makes it one of the planet’s most important freshwater resources. As most of us are aware of, eutrophication of lakes and reservoirs is becoming more serious. This is due to the continuous loading of organic matter, phosphorous and nitrogen into these water bodies. The nutrients are originated mainly from agricultural run-off as well as from industrial and urban discharges. Apart form the agriculture as well as domestic and industrial sewage which are constantly entering these water bodies, it is estimated that more than 90 percent of sewage is discharged directly into rivers, lakes, and coastal waters without treatment of any kind.

The bulk of the bodies of all living things is water. Water is essential for life. Without water it seems, life is impossible. About 70% of the human body is water. So if we are to live life on earth, we need clean water. For a better future we need to stop water pollution.