Host Your Party Like A Celebrity (On the Cheap)

We’re well and truly bound for the holiday season. Many people host their own parties and little get-togethers for their friends and family around this time of year. This year may be harder than most, because not many people have a large amount of disposable cash. Here are some quick tips and tricks to help you host a fabulous party while spending less than you did last year.


Ask everyone to bring their favourite finger food

A large chunk of party spending comes from buying the finger foods that are laid out before the main course comes along. Your invitees don’t have to cook or prepare anything. All they have to do is purchase a pack of their favourite snack. Use your best dishes and lay these out as they arrive. A fancy pack of toothpicks will pimp any snack, making them look inviting and expensive. Handing over this responsibility to your guests (this is a tiny request to make, assuming your invitees are your friends and relatives) leaves you free to concentrate on one meal – your main course. This of course is great for your stress levels and your pocket.

Shop on the Internet for wine

Wine is much cheaper on the Internet, especially if bought in bulk. Plan to order your cases way in advance so you’re not left waiting on the night of the party. The wine is only to be drunk during the meal. For general drinks, make a large bowl of punch. This could be dirt cheap if you play your cards right. A few bottles of squash with limited alcohol of your choice will be perfect for a home party. Dress it up with small chunks of pineapple and cherries, and you have yourself a posh-looking drink on the cheap.


Decorations


Talk to your parents, friends etc, while planning the party, and source decorations from them instead of buying your own. You may already have your own Christmas lights, why not use them. They can be suitable for parties held any time of year (providing they’re don’t specifically look like Christmas decorations). Light a few candles around the room and create your party mood with music and fine company. Relocate precious breakables to a safe room.


Invitations


Use Windows, Clip Art and your printer to produce first rate party invitations.


Workers

If you know any teenager looking to make some extra cash, enjoy a great meal and fantastic company (not to mention experience and future recommendations) ask them to pop over wearing formal gear. You’ll have a cheap waiter/waitress to help you serve and clean up. This will take a load of stress off your shoulders, allowing you to enjoy your party too.

The Emotions That Heal And The Emotions That Don’t

Having a healthy relationship with your inner-self is based largely on the ‘feelings’ you allow yourself to dwell on. Sure, as humans we invariably experience several different kinds of emotions every day. The important question is, which ones do you place most emphasis on and how do they impact on your well-being.

Below are some emotions that heal and motivate, and some that chip away at your mental and physical well-being. Which ones have you chosen to dwell on today?

Anger

You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t get angry. However, anger is one of the most destructive emotions there is. It interferes with the way you function, thus the way other people relate to you. Prolonged anger is definitely a sign that something turbulent has been going on inside. It interferes with the way you view life because you’re seeing everything through lenses constricted by this forceful, negative emotion. An angry person sees the fault of the cash register at the check-out as a direct threat designed to ruin their day. They laboriously drag around the anger of having had to wait five extra minutes to pay for their shopping, and allow this tiny bump to ruin their entire day.


This to us is a senseless thing to do, but this is the quality of anger. It destroys the inner person and changes them into someone unrecognisable.

Have you become this person?

Tearfulness

The tears you cry when you’re sad release toxic substances from your body. Stress can build up into a solid brick wall, making you feel very weak, frustrated and hopelessly banging on at life after a while. Allowing yourself to cry is a good way of scrubbing off the build-up of several negative emotions like anger, anxiety, guilt etc. People who maintain a balanced relationship with their inner self tend to see crying as healthy and sane. Others with an unhealthy, negative view of their mental state, or those with mental illnesses are inclined to see tears as a sign of weakness when it’s really the opposite.

When was the last time you shed a tear?

Love

Falling in love is said to boost brain cells and increase your IQ. Sitting with the person you love, rubbing their back, holding their hand, or cuddling with them release a host of negative emotions and help you let go of stressful situations and thoughts. These activities also lower your blood pressure. Spending just five minutes each night after work, doing any or all of the above can help keep the mind sane and the balance of positivity in the right place. For single people, the hug of a friend, sibling or parent can produce the same effects.

Are you making use of these readily available de-stressers? When was the last time you hugged someone?

Hope

Scientists have linked hope and optimism (continued and heightened activity in the left hemisphere of the brain) to youthfulness. Positive thinking and bright hope for good things in the future keep you young and help you to heal better when you become ill. Experiments have shown that people with the lowest levels of cancer-causing proteins are those who have a positive outlook in life. Hope equals health and lasting youth.

How young is your heart?

Anxiety

Anxiety tears your body apart. Humans are made to build up adrenaline when we’re anxious. Blood rushes away from the stomach and to the heart, lungs and muscles so we can take the action of ‘flight’ away from danger. Allowing anxiety or worry in your life constantly is a sure way of inviting stomach and other digestive related illnesses. In addition, anxiety will make your heart beat faster and your blood pressure raise to dangerous levels for no reason at all (there is no flight, no running away from danger). Take time to breathe out fully, often.

Indentify what causes your anxiety and fix it.

Resentment

There is probably no other emotion as toxic as resentment. The danger of resentment is that it doesn’t lessen after time like anger and anxiety can. Resentment only builds up unless something drastic is done about it. Situations or persons at whom the resentment is directed get progressively worse and every little thing is another dirty pile of rubbish dumped on the growing landfill of mental compression. Toxins build up in the blood, causing dangerous blood pressure levels. This can lead to heart disease and even permanent damage to the heart.

Let go, forgive, move on.

Laughter

Laughter is a great healer and a fantastic workout. It keeps the body healthy and fit and staves away heart troubles because arteries widen when you laugh. Pain can also feel less intense when you laugh. If you’re feeling low or have been ill for a while, instead of watching reality shows, maybe the comedy channel is better for you.

Surround yourself with happy people and watch a comedy show when you feel stressed.


Live life holding onto the emotions that heal. They’re worth it!

Enjoyable Things to do With Your Kids in Winter

Birds washing themselves in the bird washer, hot chocolate steaming from oversized mugs, the crackling sound of the logs in the fireplace, and cosy quilts thrown on the sofa in front of the TV, are all signs that winter is on our heels.

There is nothing we could do but wait it out and hope for a few light, bright, sun-lit days. So why not determine to enjoy it the best way we know how. Throw on the knitted sweater and soft, fluffy scarves and get stuck in with both woolly-socked clad feet.

 Walks


Wrap up warmly and go for walks in the woods or visit public, free gardens, and feed the ducks. The hardest part is motivating the little ones to get dressed, but once this is done, winter walks are quite enjoyable. Take a bag to store gloves and scarves when their little bodies start warming up and they don’t need them anymore. Let them run around, climb trees, look under stones, take photographs and enjoy nature at a time of year when we don’t usually notice the wonderful things happening around us.

Create


Create something wonderful when they get back home. After they’ve warmed up again, it’s time to draw pictures of the things they’ve discovered or make murals of leaves they collected.


Hibernate


Make a den somewhere in the house. If you have room in the bedroom or in the dining room, make a temporary den out of sheets and a two chairs, or a more sturdy one out of cardboard. You could just spread a large sheet over your entire dining table and make an instant den under there. Get the kids involved in the building (and painting if required). Spread your cosiest blankets and gather some stuffed toys to put inside. The kids or/and you can use this space to cosy-up together on cold evenings to talk about fun, warmer times.

Throw a sleep-over party


Get them involved in planning a stuffed-toys or hot-chocolate party (according to age). Make beds on the floor and have a cosy get-together with loved ones. Play games and include a chocolate fountain for earlier in the evening. Drink warm drinks, fill up their hot-water bottles and hunker down for a nice, cosy night.


Duvet day


Choose a day in the holidays, a bank holiday, or a week-end and dedicate it ‘duvet day.’ Rent films, eat sweets, and lie around the fire (or the central heating) watching films and eating take-out food. Tuck yourselves in with hot-water bottles and loads of cosy quilts and blankets. There is no duvet day like one had in the dead of winter.

Love winter, even if you don't!

What Does ‘Blogger’ NavBar Do?

If your blog is hosted by Blogger (your URL ends in blogspot.com or {domain name}.com you should have a NavBar.

What’s a NavBar?

It’s the very useful panel on the very top of your blog which helps you navigate not only around your own blog, but around all the other blogs on Blogger. One of the things this bar will show you is your own e-mail address, but when others are visiting your page, if they’re logged in, they’ll see their own and not yours.

On one hand (the right one, to be exact) you can use your Blogger NavBar as a shortcut to make a new post, to customise your blog, or to sign out if you wish to do so.

On the other hand, your NavBar enables you to follow any blog you’re currently viewing. You can also easily share the page on Twitter, Face Book and Google Reader. The good news, and the reason behind this entire post is that there is now a new NavBar update, according to Blogger Buzz.

There has always been a feature on the NavBar called ‘Next Blog.’ Clicking on this element used to allow you to surf random blogs in various different languages. Now Blogger’s new and very useful update means that ‘Next Blog’ enables you to view blogs with similar content and in the language you understand.
For example if you’ve just come from a blog about writing and publishing tips, clicking ‘Next Blog’ on your Blogger NavBar will take you other blogs of similar topics, in the same language you’ve just viewed. Nice, right?

So if you’re one of those (me included) bloggers who don’t really use your NavBar or know what it’s for, get engaged to this new feature. You’ll be happy you did.

Thanks Blogger. This is a feature this blogger will use to the fullest!

image source for above picture

Projects To Lift Your Cold, Winter Spirit

Do you sometimes need your spirit lifted? During this grey, cold, dark time of year many people with no history of depression suffer occasional bouts of the ‘blues.’

If this is you, I may have some projects that will help. They are for you to do, without being about you (you’ll see what I mean).


In the summer, even when it’s raining and cold (which it mostly is in England) the blue skies give me the impression of a broad, open space, with the freedom to extend my arms wide. The winter brings low, grey clouds which compress that space, and imprison me in a smaller and tighter world. I need constant lifts to my spirit to give my freedom wings to explore and soar.


Winter is certainly not the only time I aim to live a good life. However, it’s the time I feel I have to do more inner work to keep my happiness and contentment topped up. This is where my projects (here) come in. If you’re not a Christian (or any kind of believer), they are also designed for you. Try them for a lift during these grey, winter months.

How to Get Your Man To Behave This Christmas

Do you have a hard time getting your guy to participate fully in the Christmas preparations? Many of my girlfriends complain about their husbands not knowing what to do, not helping out, or simply not getting the right presents when it comes to Christmas shopping.
This is exactly why I’ve written this article, 'How To Get Your Man To Behave This Christmas.' It covers the touchy situations of how to get the present you want from him, getting him to help around the house with the general preparations, visiting friends and family, getting the Christmas cards sent, and the big one: cooking on Christmas day.

This article will provide you with some tricks and tips, but will also help you to work out some of your own solutions by giving you just the right spark you need.

If, like my husband, the man in your life goes nuts on Christmas Eve trying to pack what should be weeks' worth of carefully planned shopping into one afternoon, this article was written about him.

image source for above picture

Relationship With Your Inner Domestic Goddess

At the Relationship Supermarket, we also care about the domestic aspects of our lives and the good stuff that make living easier. Because of career training and work experience, I feel more comfortable and qualified to write about relationships and life-coaching type articles. Nevertheless, some of my most successful articles published on Triond are not those which discuss tools for an easier life, but equipment for making living easier in the home.

These first five (below) hit a high spot on the Internet. I think that the popularity of the series is not owed to just the title, but the fact that they describe hilarious scenarios. They outline cheap, useful and unknown uses for various household items, but as a change from the norm where advice and tips are generally painstakingly listed, this amusing but handy series show someone walking around the home with a jar of Vaseline, salt, a bottle of baby oil, a bottle of Vodka, or a pack of toothpicks, taking care of the many tasks around the house that particular item could be used for - all in one go. The domestic goddess’s appetite for easy living was obviously whetted and satiated with these pieces.


Top 10(Legal) Things To Do If You Find Yourself Holding a Jar of Vaseline  

A list of useful things anyone could do in one afternoon with a simple jar of Vaseline.
Vaseline is the branded name for Petroleum Jelly. The raw material for this versatile product was first discovered on an oil rig in Pennsylvania, USA. Through the years we have found some amazing uses and have discovered numerous cosmetic advantages for this remarkable every-day product. It would be a gigantic challenge to find a simpler product with more varied uses than Vaseline.

Yet, if you find yourself holding a jar of Vaseline, what could you do that would give a quick fix to your life and home, with long term effects?



Top 10 (Legal) Things To Do If You Find Yourself Holding A Jar Of Salt

Useful things just about anyone could do with a jar of salt, in just one afternoon. You don’t even need a pair of gloves.
Okay, so you’ve got a day off work and decide to do a bit of work around the house. The only drawback is that all you have is jar of salt. These are some of the chores you could still get on with, as salt has many (legal) uses in and around the house.
 


Top 10 (Legal) Things to do if You Find Yourself Left Holding a Bottle of Baby-Oil

A helpful list of things you can do, if you suddenly find yourself left holding a bottle of Baby Oil with no one to smear it on.

If Olive oil is made from olives, coconut oil – from coconuts, crude oil – from crude (you’ve got to know I’m kidding right?), and corn oil is made from corn, what is Baby Oil made from?



 Top 10(Legal) Things to do if You Find Yourself Holding a Pack of Toothpicks

Allowable things to do if you’re holding a pack of toothpicks. You would be surprised at how useful they are.
You’re not quite sure how you got here, all you can vaguely remember is that you’ve been extremely busy and your activities involved some salt , a bottle of Baby Oil and a jar of Vaseline . However, you’re suddenly now aware that you’re standing in the kitchen, wearing latex gloves and holding a pack of wooden toothpicks. How do you make yourself useful while you try to figure out what went on before you arrived in the kitchen?



Top 10 (Legal)Things to do if You Find Yourself Holding a Bottle Of Vodka

A very useful list of things to do if you’re suddenly holding a bottle of Vodka and have an afternoon to spare.
We’ve now come to the last of the five article in this series. We’re in a good position though because this time we’re happily holding a bottle of Vodka. If all else fails and none of these tips work (they will, really), we could just give up and drink the whole lot – which as you know, is horrible advice.
So what can we endulge in with a bottle of Vodka that won’t involve the long, overweight, icing sugar-encrusted arm of the law?

 
On a lesser note, I published How To Clean Pet Faeces, Yucky Spills and Other MuckyThings. This has always performed well, but the views came in constant dribbles rather than a mighty force of a Caribbean wave. I suppose this shows that domestic goddesses surfing the Internet are looking for more concise pieces rather than just general household-tips ones.

It was then I realised that How Duct Tape Became The Love Of My Life had to be written.
I’ve always had a good selection of duct tape at home because I think out of everything else, this item has been most useful to me through the years.





Host Your Party Like A Celebrity On The Cheap

We’re well and truly bound for the holiday season. Many people host their own parties and little get-togethers for their friends and family around this time of year. This year may be harder than most, because not many people have a large amount of disposable cash. Here are some quick tips and tricks to help you host a fabulous party while spending less than you did last year.




Another few domestic goddess popular articles were:

Your Guide To Creating The Perfect Eyebrows 

Give yourself a free face-lift, in the time it takes to cook the roast.


For those of us who can’t or won’t have a surgical face lift, this is the next best thing. In the following article I will suggest tried and tested ways to take years off your face. I’ve discovered that these ways work instantly with lasting impact.





A Flea, A Flea. My Kingdom For A Flea 


My family and I came back from holiday with flea bites all over our bodies, caught no doubt, from the beds in which we slept. This encouraged casual research into fleas which resulted in some very shocking and worrying discoveries indeed.

8 Brilliant Uses For Urine

So flushing it down is not the way to go.

Automysophobia

A large part of what we deal with here at the Relationship Supermarket.com is about keeping that sound relationship with have with our inner selves intact. More and more it seems the temporary balance we grab onto by the tips of our fingers, is teetering in the opposite direction from where we stand ready to unfold.

Is it our modern lifestyle which unhinges the mind at weird angles? As a young girl growing up, I was not aware that quite so many phobias existed. Then again, I lived in a poor country where worrying about paying the rent and having enough to feed your family were highest on people’s lists of fears.


Is the lack of life’s worries the very thing that has induced these abundant fears? Or have phobias always been present but misdiagnosed?


I’ve just heard of Automysophobia. It’s the fear of being dirty. All the usual signs of increased heart-rate, panic attacks, dry mouths, excessive sweating, and the feeling of losing control, accompany what is a genuine terror of getting dirty. The most worrying symptom is that people who suffer with authomysophobia tend to take extreme measures to stay clean. Walking in the path of oncoming traffic to avoid stepping on a muddy patch on the ground is not uncommon behaviour for this type of illness. Washing with bleach if one feels that they’ve become dirty is also not unheard of.


Automysophobia isn’t just the dislike of dirt on one’s skin, or being careful not to appear dirty to one’s peers. It’s totally irrational, like most phobias, and digs itself into the psyche a whole lot deeper than simply being ‘careful.’ The good news is that it can be managed with behaviour therapy and treatment.


Be on the look-out for this developing in your children. With the onset of swine flu, people are understandably taking precautions to be extra clean. Talk to your children reasonably and don’t forbid them to get dirt on themselves. Dirt is part of growing up, and it shows that our children had some fun outdoors. This, in an age of obesity in kids, can only be a good thing. No one has found any relationship between ‘too tidy’ parents and the onset of automysophobia in kids, but don’t take any chances. Phobias make for a very miserable lifestyle for anyone, let alone young people blossoming into our very difficult world.