watchforsale122

Tanya, who didn't want her last name used, is a woman in her early 40s with six children, all between the ages of 6 and 14. For years her husband, who was a drug abuser, subjected her to domestic Graham Chronofighter Diver GR-8.

Her children began showing the telltale signs of being affected by what was going on around them by getting into trouble at school, showing lack of respect for authority, and even worse, withdrawing into themselves. Once before she had left her abusive husband for her and the children's sake. Yet for one reason or another or maybe because she believed he would Graham Chronofighter Diver GR-9, she returned to him, only to experience the same situation.

With no one to help her out of the madness that had overwhelmed her again and constantly seeing her children's behavior degenerate on a daily basis, she decided to leave once more -- this time for good. Now she is among the large and growing population of homeless people in Indianapolis. Where can she go for help?

This nightmare was once a reality for Tanya, who gave birth to her youngest son while a resident at a center for the homeless the first time and has returned with all her children to fight for control of her life and keep it this time. "I care about my children too much to go back any Graham Chronofighter GR-17," said Tanya, who is now divorced.

With the help of Dayspring Center, located near 16th Street and Central Avenue just south of All Saints Episcopal Church, Tanya and others like her who are going through similar circumstances are provided services and a residence.

However, residents at this center enjoy options that many other shelters don't offer. One major difference is Dayspring's Wellspring Center which provides transitional housing for those who meet the qualifications for Graham Chronofighter Oversize Black GR-14. These residents have a two-year maximum stay with the center to get their lives on the right track. Only a small amount of rent is required for payment on their part.

Dayspring is one of two emergency facilities that provide shelter and services for single parent families. These services include, but are not limited to, helping individuals continue their education, whether it is on the high school or college level.

Tonya Gartin, Dayspring's manager of shift Graham Chronofighter Oversize Diver GR-1, said, "We encourage education for all residents. Knowing how to survive independently depends upon having a skill that can provide income to support families."

With education being a stepping stone for success, Dayspring recognizes that education is not the only thing that ensures residents won't end up in a homeless shelter again.

Dee Bailey, director for Dayspring, said, "Mental health is a key issue in the fight against homelessness. People going through displacement from their homes usually experienced some tragic situation that caused them to be homeless. Those issues must be addressed and resolved to ensure success."

To Dayspring, addressing these issues means support groups for victims of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and participation in community programs sponsored by the many organizations that team up to fight on the front lines and in the trenches in the battle against homelessness.

But nothing Neiman Marcus sells is off-limits to Web shoppers. About 20 customer-service assistants provide online help from the company's catalog center, sometimes by finding a product in the massive warehouse next door and packing it themselves. Meanwhile, six "eService" Glashutte Senator Sport Collection GSH-34 are perched to help cybershoppers from a tiny office, including a studio for taking electronic pictures of merchandise in elaborate settings, at its store in Dallas's North Park mall.

One of them, Meredith Hawn, looks like any other Neiman Marcus sales rep as she walks around the store checking prices -- but she carries a digital camera to make computer images of merchandise for customers. "Sometimes we get a note that says `I'm looking for a white dress,'" Ms. Hawn explains as she walks into the store's Calvin Klein department with an e-mail printout. "This one made it very easy by telling me exactly what she wanted."

Her shopper had seen a white Glashutte Senator Tourbillon GSH-38 Klein dress in Vogue and wanted it for her wedding. But the store was out of stock. Ms. Hawn zapped back a note offering to check other stores but also included a computer image of an Escada dress that was on hand. The shopper took the Escada instead.

the most affected individuals are forgotten -- the children. "With murder rates rising among our youth and no solution in sight, somebody has to remember the children and lead them the right way," Graham Chronofighter Diver GR-10 [Tonya Gartin] about the volunteer-based child care program housed in the Dayspring Center. It is ironic that among the families that would be labeled "dysfunctional" by all conventional standards that volunteer grandmothers keep a watchful eye and protective hand over the children who call Dayspring home. Agencies such as the YMCA sponsor after-school programs that help with leadership development and also sponsor group activities and summer camps.

"Safeguards for success" is the phrase Gartin has coined for the practices Dayspring uses to ensure residents Graham Chronofighter Diver GR-11 good habits. Yet even more essential in this fight are residents "establishing and completing goals -- those are two essential keys to success in this program," says Gartin, who after five years of service is very passionate when she speaks on this topic and is quick to point out two major obstacles to ending homelessness-- "the transitional grace period between welfare and work; and Graham Chronofighter Diver GR-12."

Unlike some organizations, Dayspring accepts donations from the community to help the residents living there. One exceptional donation involved a fashion show early last month which was sponsored by Bon Temps hairstylist Robert James, titled "Big, Bold, and Beautiful, Slim, Trim, and Sassy." Despite this aid, "there is still a need for more help financially and in the area of community service" said .

Internet shopping for expensive goods also appeals to people nervous about going into a luxury store because they don't understand the merchandise or feel pressured to buy by a sales representative. Vincent Polisano, president of the Philadelphia-based jewelry designer Diana Vincent, says he decided to sell products through Ashford.com in part to reach "someone who Glashutte Second Scale GSH-16 uncomfortable walking into a store where they see all the beautiful people are running the business and everybody's got an attitude."

Houston-based Ashford.com got its start when Robert Shaw, who ran a local tech-consulting firm with friend James Whitcomb, decided to sell watches online after a jewelry-store clerk in an upscale mall came on too strong with a sales pitch. In a year, the pair raised $30 Glashutte Senator Calendar GSH-35 from venture capitalists and expanded the site to include jewelry and fashion items.

For Ashford, the biggest hurdle was winning the trust of suppliers, who are accustomed to the security expertise, marketing skills and brand reputation of retailers. For help, the company recruited to its board Colombe Nicholas, former chief executive of Anne Klein Co., and hired Jill Newman, a veteran fashion journalist, to write features. Ms. Newman Glashutte Senator Collection GSH-33 connected the firm to trendy designers.

Mr. Polisano was one of the first to sign up, partly because he knew he could easily check Ashford's site to make sure it didn't discount Diana Vincent products, which average around $3,500. Recently, he even asked Ashford to change the pictures of some products, which it promptly did. None of the select group of stores that carry Diana Vincent designs challenged the move, Mr. Polisano says, because "e-commerce distribution of fine jewelry is going Glashutte Senator Collection GSH-36 be a very, very limited percentage of the overall market."

Nonetheless, few purveyors of luxury goods are sticking to bricks and mortar alone. Saks Inc.'s Saks Fifth Avenue is preparing to launch its first e-commerce Web site this summer. Nordstrom Inc. added jewelry and high-fashion items to its abundant shoe selection online last year. "We are going to have more and more commonality between the site and the store," says Kathryn Olson, executive vice president of marketing for Nordstrom.com.

After running an information-only site for four years, Neiman Marcus began selling products online in February 1999. Glashutte Senator Karree GSH-37 company, most famous for its holiday catalogs with outrageous his-and-hers gifts, started with 500 items and expanded to 2,000 items by the holiday season. The inventory has grown since then, but it still doesn't include all the products the company offers through its catalogs and chain of 31 stores. Instead, the site offers popular "in season" items aimed particularly at younger, office-bound shoppers who are more likely to be using a computer.

Ashford.com Inc., Blue Nile Inc. and a handful of other companies made a splash last fall by selling jewelry, fashions and other expensive goods only on the Web, spending millions to lure customers away from stores. Can they last until the next holiday season?

After all, it's easy to sell Glashutte Classic Date GSH-17 , compact disks, computers and airline tickets online. They're commodity items that ship easily and don't require a lot of comparison shopping. But diamond necklaces and designer dresses take lots of consideration. Or do they?

Building an online luxury business is likely to be much harder for dot-com start-ups than for the nation's most prominent high-end retailers, such as Neiman Marcus Group and Tiffany & Co. Those established retailers look at the Internet as just another -- instead of the only -- avenue for selling goods, similar to their catalog businesses. Over the past year, they've embraced electronic commerce with Web sites that are considerably more Glashutte Classic Date GSH-18 than those selling books and computers.

But they're also accustomed to profit margins far bigger than those of cyberspace retailers. Ashford.com's 18% gross profit margin, while high for Web merchants, is well below the 30% range that's common for traditional luxury retailers.

Retailers are hoping e-commerce will eventually prove less costly and yield better margins. "In the traditional way we think today, it appears [e-commerce] should be a higher-margin business," says Sharon Jester Turney, chief executive of Neiman Marcus Direct, which operates the Dallas retailer's Web and catalog businesses.

To make online selling more profitable, retailers are experimenting with different kinds of business models. Web-only Glashutte Panomatic GSH-6 Blue Nile of Seattle, for instance, carries almost no inventory and does a lot of advertising. But rival Private Diamonds Inc. of Portland, Ore., carries inventory and does little advertising, attracting buyers mainly with auctions on eBay. Both are closely held companies. Blue Nile is backed by venture capitalists and hasn't reported financial results. Private Diamonds is fully owned by Tad Jones and earned $1.1 million on $3.46 million in sales during the last three months of 1999.

Right now, the sale of luxury goods online poses little threat to traditional stores. In jewelry, for instance, Web sales during the 1999 holiday season amounted to about $30 million; the annual U.S. retail market for jewelry is $43 billion. For many people, shopping for fine fashions and Glashutte Panomatic GSH-7 is as much a social and entertainment experience as a business transaction. And already a consolidation of Web-only luxury-goods retailers has started: Ashford.com bought cosmetics seller Jasmine.com Corp. in January, and Mondera.com Inc., another Web jeweler, bought rival Jewelry.com in February.

But as more people shop on the Web in general, more are likely to be comfortable spending larger sums. Already, the wealthy people who most often shop at expensive stores have proved very willing to shop online. In a January survey of 2,000 households with a net worth of more than $1 million, Forrester Research Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., market-research Glashutte Retro Style Watch GSH-9 , found that 68% have made a Web purchase and 12% have bought jewelry online. The percentage of online shoppers who are millionaires is greater than the percentage of the U.S. population who are millionaires, the study found.

Interesting today is the contemporary swing back to more ladylike fashions. Can fashion make the leap from tube tops and tight capris in a single season as designers suggest for this fall and winter?

If some of the creations in Mendes' Dressed in Black are a clue, anything is possible.

Living life in full

The name Michele Weston is familiar to many as the fashion style director of Mode, the young magazine that Glashutte Automatic Tourbillion GSH-32 it possible for women of size to come out of the fashion closet.

Now Weston, with the assistance of Michael Sheldon, has published Learning Curves: Living Your Life in Full & With Style (Crown, $24). The book is a prescriptive guide for full-figured women on feeling good about themselves, inside and out.

She moves women through eight life-changing steps with a series of motivating questions and exercises, plus action steps for breaking out of their fashion ruts.

Surprisingly, the title Glashutte Automatic Tourbillon GSH-20 Curves is not so much about discovering the beauty of her own curvaciousness, but the name for Weston's interactive steps for self-discovery and flowering.

Along the way, she cites not only her own experiences but also those of other women of size - Camryn Manheim, Delta Burke, Emme and more.

Don't expect pretty, glossy photographs in this book; it is rather about dealing with the inner woman who seeks to gain confidence and discover her own style. From food fits to flirting, from how to carry your handbag to how to fit a bra, Weston covers the bases.

Ashford.com Inc., Blue Nile Inc. Glashutte Automatic Tourbillon GSH-21 a handful of other companies made a splash last fall by selling jewelry, fashions and other expensive goods only on the Web, spending millions to lure customers away from stores. Can they last until the next holiday season?

Building an online luxury business is likely to be much harder for dot-com start-ups than for the nation's most prominent high-end retailers, such as Neiman Marcus Group and Tiffany & Co. Those Glashutte Automatic Tourbillon GSH-22 retailers look at the Internet as just another -- instead of the only -- avenue for selling goods, similar to their catalog businesses. Over the past year, they've embraced electronic commerce with Web sites that are considerably more attractive than those selling books and computers.

Right now, the sale of luxury goods online poses little threat to traditional stores. In jewelry, for instance, Web sales during the 1999 holiday season amounted to about $30 million; the annual U.S. retail market for jewelry is $43 billion. For many people, shopping for fine fashions and jewelry is as much a social and entertainment experience as a business Glashutte Automatic Tourbillon GSH-23 . And already a consolidation of Web-only luxury-goods retailers has started: Ashford.com bought cosmetics seller Jasmine.com Corp. in January, and Mondera.com Inc., another Web jeweler, bought rival Jewelry.