Anniversary Celebrations

An anniversary is commonly associated with weddings. Married persons who regard the date of their marriage as important may mark the yearly date of their wedding in some special way.

Broader groups in society, especially the families, and even more especially the children of such a couple, may help to celebrate such occasions; this is particularly common on the 40th, 50th, and 60th annivs.

Retailers (especially jewellers), sensing a profit opportunity, have encouraged gift-giving on such special days, and may often suggest a hierarchy of types of gifts to reflect the importance of longer years of marriage (and perhaps of greater ability to purchase more expensive gifts).

The Warmth of a Homemade Anniversary Card

Anniversary Cards are great to give and to receive. Wives and husbands feel a great warmth when an anniversary card is received for an anniversary occasion or just for fun. Running down to the corner market or local gift shop to find that anniversary card, you scan the racks for the perfectly worded card. You check your watch - time is running out, because you've waited till the last minute. You pick one up and the saying is too syrupy or the anniversary card has an inappropriate picture but an otherwise perfect saying. You scratch your head, thinking this isn't working, and then you notice the perfect card. You anticipate the verse inside, knowing it is going to be just what you wanted. You eagerly pick up the anniversary card. You just know it is the right one. Once opened, your anticipation is dealt a heavy blow. There isn't anything in the anniversary card. It's a blank! Now you've got to work over time trying to think of the appropriate words. Usually you'll want something light and romantic.

With a computer and computer crafting programs you can eliminate the rush, anticipation and the disappointment. There are plenty of ready-made anniversary card templates to choose from with graphics and verses. You can even change them around if you like. Also, you can search the Internet for sayings and clip-art images from clip-art sites. You can personalize your own anniversary card in the privacy of your own home, without the waste of gas, long lines and overpaying for a card that "just isn't right."

With you and your spouse's anniversary day coming up, it is an ideal time to start thinking of cards for your lifemate. You can choose your paper, embellishments and delivery style. You can have the luxury of leaving the computer to think about what you want to say, come back and write it, delete it and start over. This becomes a creation from your heart.

A homemade anniversary card that will be cherished. You can make booklets with sayings about love and marriage, put together an anniversary card with images of famous couples or mythological lovers on them. You can make matching bookmarks and magnets to make the card a little more special and unique. It is a personalized anniversary gift from the heart and the hands of a loved one. Anniversary Cards say more than just the verse put inside them; they are a symbol of care, hope, love, happiness and sometimes just a good laugh through the years husbands and wives have spent together.

With the opportunity to do it in your home you don't have to be pressured, unless you wait until the last minute, like some do. Oh well, some people do their best work under pressure. But that doesn't mean that the love and work that goes into making a homemade anniversary card is any less.

The homemade anniversary cards given to me by my children and my husband are the keepers, because I can feel the love and work that went into the creation of that card. Cherish those homemade anniversary cards with your heart; they are made from the heart.

Recreated from an article by Anna Morvee at http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/computer_crafting/18239/1

Maine has a long tradition of personal self-reliance, and Yankee ingenuity. It is probably named after the French province of Maine. Another possibility for the name "Maine" is that the people living on islands along the coast of Maine used to speak of going to the mainland as "going over to the main."

Four U.S. Navy ships have been named USS Maine in honor of the state.

The noted American ecologist Rachel Carson did much of her research at one of the Maine seacoast's most characteristic features, a tide pool for her classic "The Edge of the Sea." The spot where she conducted observations is now preserved as the Rachel Carson Salt Pond Reserve at Pemaquid Point.

Estcourt Station is Maine's northernmost point and also the northernmost point in the continental United States.

Maine is the number one exporter of blueberries and toothpicks. Maine is the only state that borders only one other U.S. state (New Hampshire). Cadillac Mountain sees the first sunlight in the United States on winter mornings. Maine has 62 lighthouses.

Economy
The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Maine's total gross state product for 2003 was US$41 billion. Its per capita personal income for 2003 was US$29,164, 29th in the nation.

Maine's agricultural outputs are seafood (notably lobsters), poultry and eggs, dairy products, cattle, blueberries, apples, and maple sugar. Aroostook County is known for its potato crops. Western Maine aquifers and springs are a major source of bottled water. Its industrial outputs consist of mainly paper, lumber and wood products, electronic equipment, leather products, food products, textiles, and bio-technology. Naval shipbuilding and construction remain key as well, with Bath Iron Works in Bath and Portsmouth Naval Yard in Kittery. Brunswick Naval Air Station is also in Maine, and serves as a large support base for the U.S. Navy. However, the BRAC campaign recommended Brunswick's closing, despite significant recent investment by the government to upgrade its facilities.

Maine ports play a key role in national transportation. Beginning around 1880, Portland's rail link and ice-free port made it Canada's principal winter port, until the aggressive development of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the mid-1900s. In 2001, Maine's largest city of Portland surpassed Boston as New England's busiest port (by tonnage), due to its ability to handle large tankers. Maine's Portland International Jetport was recently expanded, providing the state with increased air traffic from carriers such as jetBlue.

Maine has a small trapping industry which, with 3,157 resident trappers, is larger than that of most Eastern states (Source: Portland Press Herald, January 23, 2005. Note: Many trappers are part-time). The principal pelt taken by value is beaver. Historically, however, beaver trapping was much more significant in the North Woods and Canadian Maritimes than the small industry of today and was the cause of much early wealth and many trading settlements.

Maine has very few large companies that maintain headquarters in the state, and fewer than before due to consolidations and mergers, particularly in the pulp and paper industry. Structurally, this could be a weakness in an economy that depends on extracting forest and sea resources, because decisions that affect the long-range stability of the resource base are being made in distant locations which do not have to live with the day-to-day consequences of their policies. Some of the very few large companies that do maintain headquarters in Maine include Fairchild Semiconductor (South Portland) , IDEXX Laboratories (a large veterinary biotech company in Westbrook), insurance giant Unum Provident (Portland) , the famous outdoor supply retailer L. L. Bean (Freeport), and MBNA (Brunswick). Maine is also the home of The Jackson Laboratory, a non-profit institution and the world's largest mammalian genetic research facility.

Maine has an income tax structure containing 4 brackets, which range from 2% to 8.5% of personal income. Maine's general sales tax rate is 5%. The state also levies charges of 7% on lodging and prepared food and 10% on short-term auto rentals. Commercial sellers of blueberries, a Maine staple, must keep records of their transactions and pay the state 1.5 cents per pound ($1.50 per 100 pounds) of the fruit sold each season. All real and tangible personal property located in the state of Maine is taxable unless specifically exempted by statute. While property taxes in Maine are assessed at the local level, municipal assessors are governed by state statutes that are administered by the Property Tax Division of Maine Revenue Services. The division consists of two sections: Municipal Services and Unorganized Territory. The administration of property taxes is handled by the local assessor in incorporated cities and towns. Property tax bills are issued by the municipality where the property is located on either an annual, semi-annual or quarterly basis. Property taxes in unorganized territory are handled by the State Tax Assessor.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/