Marriage Anniversary Gifts

Wedding anniversary gifts started with the idea of putting a value on each year of marriage completed. So if it is a challenge for you to come up with a wedding anniversary gift every year, the work is already cut out for you by tradition! What's really interesting is that there is a specific gift associated with each marriage anniversary.

While each of us know the traditional anniversaries, silver, golden, diamond, etc, each of these commodity is actually the gift that the man bestows on his wife. A silver garland for 25 years, a gold ornament for 50 years is the idea. At the lower end of the wedding spectrum, one year of marriage deserves a gift of paper and five years qualifies for wood. Its older the better, like wine!

Traditional wedding anniversaries gifting started in Central Europe anound mid 19th century. There was a specific gift associated upto fifth anniversary and then every five years. The American National Retail Jeweller Association in all its smartness issued a list in 1937 in what can be termed as contemporary wedding anniversary gift list. This list includes a spefic gift upto 15th year and then every fifth year. Trust them to have added ten more years of compulsory gifting!



Learn more about wedding gifts, anniversaries, history of wedding anniversary gifts both modern and contemporary here.


http://marriage.about.com/od/anniversariescelebrations/a/annivhistory.htm

http://www.anniversaryideas.co.uk/traditional_history.asp

Socially Responsible Mutual Funds

Socially Responsible, "Green" Mutual Funds or simply "Do Good" Mutual Funds seem to have caught the popular imagination. With everyone from Al Gore to top companies "doing good" to save the World, Md. Yunus winning the nobel prize for his work in micro-credit, being ""socially reponsible" while catering to investment needs has gone mainstream. While previously preferred only by a few, they have entered the social consciousness of an average investor.

So what is a "socially responsible" fund? In a nutshell, its a scheme of a mutual fund that invests only in companies based on their social ethics, the environment policies followed by them, their corporate governance and business ethics. These schemes are researched and rated on the above basis and then their balance sheet and market performance is taken into account. Maybe the investor will get 5% or so lower return than the best diversified fund but the satisfaction will be there that the investor's return is not adulterated by greed!

Check out this article for more on these funds.

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/104001/The-New-Do-Gooders?mod=retirement-IRA

What Is A Gormagon?

A Gormagon according to Francis Grose is a six eyed monster with three mouths, four arms, eight legs, five on one side and three on the other. Does it remind you of any one? ...just remove the word monster...then with six eyes, four arms, eight legs....what does Indian mythology have?

Indian mythology is full of such Gormagons...Only one of them has been likened to a monster (Ravana)...but he too was a "bidwan" (highly educated) and a Super King. Most Gormagons in Hindu mythology have been Gods.

Ravana had 10 heads and twenty arms (5 parasitic twins???) No wonder he could think ten times better and was revered and feared in equal measure. And who conquered him?

Rama, the lord with ten avataars... who originally is the four armed Vishnu! The for arms holding the "sankha" (conch), chakra (a revolving wheel made to measure), gada (mace), padma (lotus).


Then there is the three headed Brahma too (with six eyes)...and Durga with ten hands and three eyes. Shiva as Natraj has four arms and he also has three eyes. The third eye is all-seeing.

Indian mythology is replete with "gormagons" and none of them are monstrous like Gorse's creature.