Blue Skies

It's Kansas full of surprises, and nothing but blue skies do I see. 

I am driving down the I-35  turnpike from Emporia to Wichita an hour before sunset and what do I see?

Blue skies, smiling at me.

Blue skies and Stressless recliners

Extraordinarily luxe cushioning and carefully sculpted proportions make the Stressless Magic our most comfortable recliner yet. Using the Stressless patented Glide, and Plus systems, Magic responds to your bodies slightest movement. 

Coupled with an adjustable headrest, the Stressless Magic delivers superior support and unprecedented comfort. Today, the first ergonomically designed recliner remains the best.

Into the Mystic

Fall under the spell of a Stressless recliner, the world's first ergonomically designed recliner remains the best. It is pure magic.

Stressless Magic recliner

Adjust the headrest and recline with the slightest touch of your body. Put on your favorite Van Morrison album and listen to your inner music, 

"Hark, now hear the sailors cry.
Smell the sea and feel the sky.
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic."

What do Vegas showgirls do when they aren't working?

Stressless Magic recliner

Q: What do Vegas showgirls do when not working?
A:  Relax, I'm sure.

Stressless Magic Recliner - the look is spellbinding and the feel magical.

Extraordinary cushioning makes the Stressless Magic recliner the most comfortable yet. Using a patented Glide and Plus® systems, Magic responds to your body's slightest movement. Coupled with an adjustable headrest, the Stressless Magic delivers superior support and complete comfort.

Today, the first ergonomically designed recliner remains the best.

An Affair to Remember

In 18th century Venice, twenty-four-year-old Andrea Memmo, heir to one the city’s oldest patrician families, falls for sixteen-year-old Giustiniana Wynne, the beautiful, but illegitimate daughter of a Venetian mother and British father. Prevented from marrying, they begin a torrid seven-year-affair. Intimates and servants shuttle love-letters back and forth to set up their secret meetings. Giustiana becomes pregnant and enlists the aid of the infamous Casanova to help. 

This impossibly true story is told, in part, by the secret letters written by the two star-crossed lovers discovered two and a half centuries later. 

Stressless Legend recliner

Looking for a good book to read about Venice? 

Then try A Venetian Affair: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in the 18th Century by Andrea Di Robilant, Italian journalist and author who wrote this love story based on an ancestor.

Winning in Vegas

We are off to the World Market Center in Las Vegas next week for the relentless pursuit of something new and exciting.

World Market Center, Las Vegas

To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, it is Las Vegas, where the lights never go out. At any time of day or night, there is madness in any direction. People wandering the streets, some looking for action and some just looking. And in the casinos, at the tables and slots, gamblers test their luck. 

There is a universal sense that you can’t lose. No matter what one is doing, tonight you are going home a winner. 

Stressless Vegas recliner

The Stressless Vegas recliner is designed for comfort. You don’t need to gamble here. With soft contours and plush cushioning, the Vegas recliner is a winner any way you sit. Using the Stressless patented Glide® and Plus® systems, the Vegas responds to the slightest movement of your back, neck or legs. With a full 360° swivel feature and adjustable headrest, the Vegas Stressless recliner delivers unparalleled comfort.

Stressless Vegas recliner

 

Magic Stressless recliners

Split personalities - which kind are you?


Though I wouldn't mind a pina colada on a balmy beach, winters needs to be nippy, with me in my sweats and a cup of hot chocolate, tucked away in a mountain cabin, just go easy on the snow.

Though the mountains are fine, there is nothing so stirring as a day on the beach with a Bloody Mary and nothing to do but to dream of a life as a pirate.  

Singing, Yo ho, all hands, hoist the colors high. Heave ho, its off we go.

How to Survive on a Desert Island

How to survive on a desert island.

Robinson Crusoe, by Danial Defoe, First Edition, 1719

What would you do: swim with the sharks or look for the nearest cliff to jump off?

Armed with a copy of Robinson Crusoe, plus DVDs of Tom Hanks in Castaway and John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, and James MacArthur in The Swiss Family Robinson, you know what you are into, a rip-roaring time and the most amazing experience that you’ve ever faced. It is a chance to pit your wits against all comers.

Are you ready? 

Rule one: Don't Panic. It is the phrase on the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, classic science fiction and another good book to bring along.

Rule two: Relax in the Stressless recliner that just happens to be on the beach. Its neck and lumbar support give out-of-the-world comfort. Stressless has been building recliners since 1971 and no one does it better.

Rule three: Whip up a drink. Make El Yunque, preferably with Don Q Rum. Mix the following ingredients in a container - 3 oz. Don Q Añejo, 1/2 oz. Grand Marnier liqueur, 1 oz. fresh lime juice, 1 oz. simple syrup, 10-12 fresh raspberries,1 orange peel twist. Mush the raspberries gently until puréed. Add rum, liqueur, lime juice, simple syrup and ice, then shake and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with an orange-peel twist.

This recipe yields two servings.You will be need the second drink.

Rule four:  Take a sip of El Yunque and gently recline. Feel the breeze on your skin as you relax. |

You don't need any more rules.

Sea-Fever

You are stranded on a desert isle with only a Stressless recliner and a well-read copy of John Masefield's Salt-Water Ballads. The poem is Sea-Fever.

Stressless recliner, a cure for sea-fever

John Masefield’s life did not begin easily. 

John Masefield, 1916

He was born in 1878 in the West Midlands in Herfordshire. when he was six, his mother died giving birth to a sister. He then went to live with an aunt. His father died soon afterwards of a broken heart. At ten he was sent to a boys’ public school. At thirteen he left for a naval training school aboard the HMS Conway. At sixteen he made his first sea-going voyage on the Gilcruix bound for Chile around Cape Horn. His daily journal recorded his delight in nature’s beauty. 


The experiences of sea-sickness and sunstroke caused him to return to England. A year later he was back at sea, now aboard a windjammer bound for New York. He jumped ship. Odd jobs and a vagrant life. All the while and he was reading and writing. In 1897 he returned to England, published his first poem two years later, and in 1902 Salt-Water Ballads was published containing the poem Sea-Fever. 

He married the love of his life, Constantine, had two children, a daughter Judith and son Lewis. In 1914, Masefield volunteered for military service as a British orderly in a French hospital and later as an ambulance driver during the Galipolli Campaign. Afterwards he enjoyed a long and happy life, becoming poet-laureate of England in 1930. Tragedy struck again in 1942 when his son Lewis died fighting German troops in North Africa. John Masefield died in 1967. 

Learn more about John Masefield.



Sea Fever by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking, ...

The call of the sea

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying...

Stressless Voyager recliner

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Grey clouds

The sea beckons all of us who have a hankering to travel, to see new lands to meet new people. What better way to imagine than in a Voyager recliner by Stressless.

Stressless Voyager

Life is a journey.

Life is a journey, but sometimes it takes us to a place we'd rather not be. So we make the best of it and hope that by traveling a difficult path, we make it easier for someone else.

Stressless Voyager Recliner

She could have been a mother, a sister, a wife, a good friend. We are all touched by women who have had breast cancer. Susan Goodman Komen was just one of many. Diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 33, she died three years later, in 1980, at the age of 36. Susan's younger sister Nancy made a promise to her older sister to help educate others.

Since 1982, the organization Susan G. Komen for the Cure has invested 2 billion dollars for breast cancer research, education, and health services. Its iconic symbol, the pink ribbon, symbolizes breast cancer awareness, something that touches us all.

Think pink and contact Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Think pink, it matters a lot

Stranded on a Desert Island

Castaway

Desert Isle

The first adult book I recall reading as a child was Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Published in 1719, it is a time when English pirates like Blue Beard sail the Caribbean preying on Spanish galleons filled with gold. European audiences are curious about the discovery of the New World. Robinson Crusoe is the story of a castaway who spends years on a remote tropical island in the Caribbean, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued.



A modern spin on Defoe's castaway is the 2000 movie drama, Cast Away starring Tom Hanks as a time-obsessed systems analyst for FedEx who plane crashes in the South Pacific leaving him as a lonely castaway. Hank's character confronts a world without time and must survive on the island using remnants of his plane's cargo.

If you were castaway, what would you want or need most?

It has been a hard day at the beach building a raft with sails using an ice skate as an axe. It is time to to relax in the Wave recliner by Ekornes.

Stressless Wave Recliner

 

Wave Recliners by Stressless

The elegant curves of the design gives the Stressless Wave its name. The Wave is a softer version of modern home cinema seating.

The Wave Home Theater collection is available in a 3-seater, 2-seater and chair. Combine any grouping using an armrest to connect seats. The Wave comes in a low and high-back option, and you may combine both in a seating arrangement. All seats recline to accommodate your comfort and imagination.

Perfect for getting-away from the hustle of modern civilization and watching Tom Hanks in Castaway.

Wave Home Theater by Stressless