The vanilla orchid only flowers for one 6-week period per year. Additionally, the flowers only last approximately 1 day! This means you’ll need to keep a close eye on the orchid, checking it daily for flowers. When it does flower, you will need to hand-pollinate the flowers in order to grow the vanilla beans. It’s best to pollinate the flowers in the morning, around 11 o’clock. Push the pollen mass out and hold it up with your right thumb and index finger. Use your middle finger to push the anther back and expose the cam underneath it, which serves as a shield. Place the pollen on the ridge. Push the ridge back into place with your left hand and pull the cap back down. Repeat with all the flowers.  Sap from orchid roots and flowers can irritate the skin. Wear gloves and be cautious when replanting or pollinating the plant.  Consider asking a local orchid grower to help you hand-pollinate the first few times as it is a very delicate process. Check the orchid the day after pollination. The flowers should not fall off, but they will wither and turn dark brown. If the stem begins to elongate instead of point up, it is pollinated. If you don’t see a change, you may need to re-pollinate the flower.
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One-sentence summary -- Pollinate the vanilla orchids when they develop clusters of flowers. Push the anther up and place the pollen on the ridge. Look for stems that face downward to indicate successful pollination.


Even if you’re not sewing together your costume, you should still gather the materials you’ve decided to use. Lay everything out and start to make a plan for how you’re going to put them together. Once you have your materials together, make sure you have the correct measurements for the clothes you're creating. Double checking these measurements before you create a template and begin cutting out fabric can save you a lot of wasted time and money.  For pants, you will need the following measurements: waist, hip, crotch depth and full leg length from waist to floor. For shirts, you will need the following measurements: neck, chest, shoulder width, arm length, armhole length and shirt length. For shorts, use the pant measurements you have, only shortening the pant length to the desired length. For skirts, you simply need waist and hip measurements. The length and fullness of the skirt will vary depending on what type of skirt you want to make. Make sure that the material you choose to use is not see-through or itchy if you are making clothing as part of your costume. Creating a template for your costume on paper first gives you a chance to double check measurements. This is a good technique regardless of whether you're gluing or sewing your costume Transfer the template to a piece of felt with a pen and use scissors to cut out the template before gluing it together. Using your template, make clothing for your costume out of fabric. This might require either sewing or gluing material together. It's best to take this step slowly as you double check measurements and try things on as you make them. Using a glue gun, paste on objects or embellishments to the clothing you've made or the existing clothing you're using for your costume. For example, you and a partner could cover a green outfit in real or fake leaves, wrap a toy snake around your neck, and hold an apple in your hand for a quick and easy Adam and Eve costume. Once you’ve got the base of your costume, add your accessories. This might mean gluing or sewing additional material, or simply draping a cape over your shoulders or adding a tiara. You’ll want to check out how everything looks together at least once before you wear your costume on Halloween. Once you have everything put together, try it on with all of the accessories and make sure you're happy with the result. You should do this a few days before Halloween so you have time for changes if they're necessary.
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One-sentence summary -- Gather your materials. Double check your measurements. Create a template. Make the clothes of your costume. Add embellishments. Add accessories. Try it on.


Abusive manipulation can cause serious harm, and may end the relationship before you get what you want. Instead, think of "control" as convincing other people to agree with your perspective. With the right methods, you can shift people's attitudes without losing their respect. Make sure that the person you're influencing can actually achieve your aims. Setting yourself an impossible task can create a high-pressure situation, hurting everyone involved. Instead, aim to start a friendship, improve your work or chore routine, or solve an interpersonal problem. Never attempt to force another person to love you, to snap out of an addiction or mental illness, or to make significant life changes against their will. The "success" of serious emotional manipulation is tense, fragile, and extremely damaging to yourself and the other people involved. If these are your goals, find a healthier approach instead. Right now, you're dissatisfied with how certain other people behave. But before you can begin to persuade them towards something different, you have to understand what’s motivating them to choose their current course of action. What makes them think that what they’re doing is a good idea? Once you know their current set of motivations, you can influence these motivations to persuade them towards something different.  Usually, the easiest way to find out their motivations is to simply ask: “Why do you think this is a good idea?” You can also try and figure it out by listening to what they say and watching what they do. For example, your project partner is not contributing as much work as you'd like. He might be motivated by a sense of fairness (he already thinks he's doing enough), laziness (he wants to avoid the work), or low self-esteem (he doesn't think he can do the work as well as you). Now that you know what their current set of motivations are, try to understand the motivator that’s most important to them. Influencing this motivator will be the easiest way to get the most impact. Think about what they value most in making a decision, by thinking about decisions that you’ve seen them make in the past or arguments that you’ve had with them. If you know what’s most important to them, then you can introduce that motivator to get the result you want. For example, you want your mom to vote a certain way in an election. She’s voting for the incumbent candidate because she knows her political stance better, and agrees with her social values. You know she values educational spending more than the social values platform, since she used to be a teacher. You can use facts about your candidate’s relationship with children, families, and education policy to motivate her to change her mind. Now that you understand what kind of things make an argument look good to them, you’ll want to take a look at the factors that hold them back from your argument. What about what you’re trying to do makes them think it’s a bad idea? When you know what they perceive as the risks with what you’re asking, you can figure out how to make those risks seem smaller. There’s no reason to be coy about finding out why someone doesn’t like an idea. Frequently, once someone says why they don’t like an idea out-loud, they’ll think that it sounds stupid or realize that they can’t explain themselves well, which can give you the perfect opening to talk them over to your side.
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One-sentence summary --
Understand how to achieve your goals. Choose an appropriate goal. Find their motivations. Identify the most powerful motivation. Understand what’s holding them back.