10 Steps to a Stress-Free Home

Photo by Imagebuddy at Flickr.com

Do you want to declutter yourself, your home and your family of things that just make you, well, “stressed?” Here are ten simple things you can do to start living each day happy, smiling and content in life. Good tips especially for parents! Brought to you by Martha Stewart’s Whole Living.

1. Create a Happy Zone

Whether it’s a whole room, a nook, or just a chair, make one spot in the house your personal place for peace and joy, Blanke says. Everyone in the family should know that when you are there, you are not to be disturbed. On the flip side, save one area, like a desk or a corner, for the not-so-fun stuff — bills, papers to file, to-do lists — and the stress that comes with them.

2. Make Your Bed Every Day

“The state of your bed reflects the state of your head,” says Zen Buddhist priest and author Karen Maezen Miller. Forget hospital corners — just take a few minutes to smooth the covers out.

3. Let the Natural Light Be Your Morning Alarm Clock

Trade the blackout shades in the bedroom for more translucent ones; it’s a gentler wake-up call. “When your alarm goes off, your first feeling is resistance, which creates stress,” Miller says. “The rest of the world awakes with the sun — why don’t we?”

4. Declutter Using Emotion as Your Guiding Principle

Consider how each possession makes you feel. Don’t keep things with negative energy, like gifts from people you had a falling-out with, photos from unhappy times or failed relationships, unfinished projects, clothes that are too small, or medicines from an old ailment, Blanke says. Make room for things that have a positive association.

(Tip: If you have to mull over whether to toss a particular item, you probably don’t need it.)

5. End Each Evening by Performing a Completion Ritual

Make it something you know you should do but don’t always — like washing all the dishes in the sink or hanging up clothes. It will help your mind recognize that the day is finished.

Read more at Whole Living

6. Keep Houseplants or Flowers
7. Use a Kitchen Timer for Tasks That Make You Cringe
8. Set Up a Landing Strip
9. Unplug Electronics When Not in Use
10. Surround Yourself with Calming Colors

A $75 Tablet PC for Philippine School Children

The Philippine government is currently developing a low-cost tablet PC with the intention of replacing textbooks. The estimated cost of each tablet PC is $75 or about 3,000 Pesos.

The cheap tablet is intended as a replacement to several textbooks that Filipino school children have to tug along on big bags. However, this tablet PC will not feature many of the advanced functions currently seen in popular tablet PC devices like the iPad and Kindle.

Read more at International Business Times

Some thoughts to ponder:

  • Will this really be available to “all” school children in the Philippines, for both the public and private schools?
  • Is it going to be properly enforced?
  • Will this now increase the number of school children with corrective lenses or eyeglasses?
  • Will it benefit studying and learning?
  • There are always the pros and cons to upgrading our ways of life. In this case, our children’s education.

Photo by szprice at Flickr.com

Did We All Really Marry the Wrong Person?

In our younger days, we all went looking for the best partner in life because our parents and our friends always told us, “You deserve the best!” As we grew older and older and unmarried, some of us would have settled for good, not the best. For those who thought they found the best and lost the marriage, does the cycle start all over again?

I found this article (as Steve Jobs would quote it) “insanely great!” It started out with “We All Married the Wrong Person” but ended up telling me so otherwise. Here are some quips to the blog-post by Lori Lowe:

Couples in crisis often reach the point where they decide they are just two poorly matched people. This precedes the decision to leave the relationship and go in search of that “right person.

If we think we know a person well when we marry them, we are temporarily blinded by our love, which tends to minimize or ignore attributes that would make the relationship complicated or downright difficult. No one gets a guarantee of marrying the right person so you should assume you married the wrong person.

People are happier with the choices they make when there are relatively few choices from which to choose. With too many choices, we can become overburdened and regretful and constantly question our decision.

We need to say, ‘This is the person I chose, and I need to find a way to develop a sense of closeness with this person for who he or she really is and not how I fantasize them to be.’”

Read entire article at Marriage Gems

Photo by adwriter at Flickr.com