Eco BagsI fully support the notion of reusing the same shopping bags for groceries. Week in and week out people fill up their supermarket trolleys and then proceed to pack the items they have bought into plastic bags at the checkout, once they have been paid for. The majority of these plastic bags only make two trips in their lifetime. One is to the supermarket from the suppliers and the other is to the customer`s home where they tend to end their life prematurely in the bin. If
Eco Bags were used instead they could make hundreds of trips in their lifetime. The bags could be left ion the boot of the car after they have been unpacked ready to be used at the next grocery shop. All it takes is a little thought and a slight change of routine and the
Eco Bags could become regular features down at the supermarket. Concerns about the effect that plastic bags have on the planet should be enough to prick the conscious of people`s minds. If more and more people started to use the
Eco Bags when they went shopping, at least this would be one way that the planet could be looked after.
Let?s face it, not many of us have the kind of skills or experience to write truly poetic wedding vows. Or do we? Here?s the truth: Even if you don?t know Dylan Thomas from Bob Dylan, and you?re pretty sure T.S. Elliot was that guy who wrote the words to Andrew Lloyd Weber?s ?Cats,? all is not lost! In fact, there are ways to learn to write the words you want. With four simple steps, you can take what you feel in your heart and make it come out as sweetly as any Shakespearian sonnet.
Step 1: Decide on a theme
Finding a theme should arguably be the easiest part of writing poetry for your wedding vows. But you don?t want to be stuck with something trite or cliché, even though the theme of romantic love is probably the oldest known for poetry. There are lots of ways to avoid writing the same old ?roses are red, violets are blue? type of poem. One trick the pros use is to envision what a newspaper article about your relationship would say. Would it discuss how and where you met? How your relationship has stayed strong, even during the hard times? What your love has meant to one another? Since newspaper articles get right to the point, this exercise can help you pick out an overriding theme for your vows.
Step 2: Allow time for reverie
No, not ?revelry? (hopefully that will be what your wedding day is all about), but reverie ? a quiet time devoted to a kind of dreamy meditation. Try some tricks for allowing yourself time to truly think about your poem -- and not just those things that allow you to ?act like a poet.? Go for a walk alone, listen to instrumental music, or simply shut the door to a room in your house and ask not to be disturbed. The most important thing to remember with any of these methods is that you don?t let other people interrupt your time.
Step 3: Choose your topic
Theme, as discussed above, is the driving idea behind your poem. The topic, however, is the specific vehicle you use to express the theme. While finding the theme should be the easiest part of writing a poem for your wedding, finding a topic that isn?t hackneyed and trite can be a challenge. For instance, love is your theme, but the beauty of your betrothed?s eyes may be the topic. You are using the example of her eyes as the symbol for your love. The key is to find something new. There?s something that makes your chosen one special, be it appearance, wit, or style. That?s the topic you want to choose. Poets use tools like automatic writing, journals, or ?dream work? to come up with topics for their prose. (These tools are all discussed in detail in the home-study course I put together for couples personalizing their wedding vows ? visit http://www.WeddingVowToolkit.com for more info.) But anything that allows you to spark your creativity can suffice if you?re short on time.
Step 4: Pick Your Style
As many different poems as there are, there are almost an equal number of styles in which they are written. There are traditional forms, modern, post modern, and many more. You can work on fitting your rough draft poem into one of these many forms, or you can go with no form at all. The benefit of working on an art form is that there are no hard and fast rules on what the end product must look like. Perhaps you?d like to try your hand at penning your vows in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet. Or, to go a completely different route, maybe ?experimental? is right up your alley. No matter what you choose, just make sure it fits your style. After all, personalizing your wedding vows means just that ? they should be personal, not forced to fit into a style that just isn?t ?you.?
