Notepad Corner

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, we fantasise about being adorned with it. The next best thing to diamonds, are SHOES (sung in an opera voice). One of the greatest pleasures in life is the boost of confidence you feel and the compliments you receive, when you wear a new pair of shoes or trainers. As girls our love for shoes starts pretty young, the pretty sparkly and pink girl shoes only to be worn on special occasions, those little girl shoes for school with bows or trainers with flashing lights on them. That nostalgia feeling of reliability, feeling special and being one of the coolest kids because you are on trend, puts that little skip in your step. It can be suggested, that this is the rationale as to why we have grown into “Shoe-crazy” “happy feet” adults

It is essential to put order in your refrigerator to maintain not only the freshness of the food and other items you store in it but to keep your family’s health safe too.    When cooking for a family meal, it is a must to have the freshest ingredients as it contributes to the making of a fine and healthy dish. Thus proper storage should be observed to avoid food to spoil and to get rid of bad smells and contamination. Here are suggestions on how to keep food fresh in your refrigerator. Always wash eggs before storing it in its designed area. Salmonella is a bacteria we can get from raw unwashed eggs. Butter and other fats should be kept in covered containers or in their original containers once opened. 

Trying to juggle living expenses seems to be getting harder with each passing year. Many households are being hit with increasing bills that make daily life a real challenge. One of the easiest ways to alleviate this financial stress is to evaluate your shopping habits, and implement small changes to help you save. Here are some of the simplest and most effective ways to cut your weekly grocery bills. Stick to Your Budget Before you even set foot anywhere near the shops, you should take the time to work out a budget. Once you know exactly how much you have to spend, it will be a lot easier to shop to your budget. Sticking to the allocated amount may be a challenge at first, but watching your savings grow and getting the very best value for money is a rewarding experience. Create a List Now that you have your budget in place, you can create a list of exactly what you need for the week. Try and stick to the list as much as you can, as this will help to curb any impulse ...

Many homeowners put off any major makeovers on their home because of budget constraints. In most cases, renovations can be costly whether it’s indoor or outdoor upgrades. So any major remodeling is slowly considered, scheduled and taken up one by one. Homeowners work around minor renovations to boost the look of their home interior as basically this is a fun and simpler to achieve. Aside from changing the motif and color theme, you can also play around and decorate home with mirrors. They are easy and inexpensive, you can up them anywhere you want and decorate them with exquisite metal works as frames. 

Whether you are being interviewed for a new job, there can be quite a lot on the line. However, we have all watched interviews on television where the interviewee looks painfully awkward or flustered, and of course, that is something that you want to avoid when you are trying to get a job! Take a moment to consider these interview tips to make sure that you look natural and at your best.  Fold Your Hands One way that we can tell that people are nervous is by looking to see what they do with their hands. People who are very good with public speaking tend to gesture with their hands and to punctuate their sentences with hand gestures. If you are not feeling very confident, this can look a great deal more awkward if you try it! On the other hand, you do not want to make fists, either, which is something that many people do when they are nervous. Instead, fold your hands on your knee or on your lap. This prevents you from gesturing too much or tensing up. Slow Down When you a...

With more and more people deciding to quit the rat-race of the corporate world and opted to work home-based, the demand for versatile home office equipment have also changed its course. While office and corporate work place go for uniformed, basic and sometimes uncomfortable work chairs and desks, you being the one in charge of your home office can easily go for quality, ergonomically designed and comfortable chair. Your home office set up should be located in a well-lit part of the house and away from constant disruption. It would be much preferable to take up space near a window so that you can easily refresh your eyes with the view outside.

It’s not always easy to get your children to appreciate the value of money, however it is an essential skill that they must learn as they are growing up. Imparting good savings habits while your kids are young is a great way to prepare them for the financial challenges that they will face later on in life.  Here are 4 great ways to teach your children the value of a dollar, and how to appreciate and respect money. Introducing Pocket Money Giving your kids pocket money is a great way to introduce them to the world of money. To make the most of the experience, you should create a list of ways that your kids can ‘earn’ their weekly pocket money. Whether it’s completing homework on time, helping with the dishes or completing a list of jobs, your kids will appreciate their money a lot more when they know that they have worked for it. When you just give them a weekly allowance regardless of their behaviour or contributions to the household, you diminish the value of money ...

If you suspect you have a budding artist or a creative genius growing under your nose, then you’ll probably want to do everything you can to help your child achieve his or her full potential. Even if your expectations aren’t quite as high as “the next Da Vinci”, encouraging your kids’ creativity is an important part of a well balanced and nurturing childhood. If you’re new to the idea, here are five ways to help bring out the creative side in your little artist. Have a Dedicated Creative Space Your child will be far more likely to pursue his/her desires to engage in creative activities if it is easy to do so. Have a dedicated part of the house, whether it’s a whole room or simply a desk or play mat, which your child can access at any time. Here your child can easily access his/her art and craft supplies, and get creating without having to worry about parents clearing a space or making the area safe to work in, as it is always good to go. If your child is old enough, loft...

In the old days the flu season occurs during the cold days of the year, but nowadays the prevalence of its outbreaks is unpredictable due to climate change and extreme weather conditions. According to CDC (Centers for Disease Control) the available flu vaccine was 60% effective, so they further recommended that all people over age 6 months to get the vaccine as this year influenza according to case reports has been becoming severe in nature due to viral strain mutation. Because influenza is a virus, it is a contagious respiratory illness that can easily be transmitted from one person to another. Elders, children and persons with chronic health conditions are at risk. You can get the flu when a person infected with it coughs, sneezes infront of you or near you. The droplets containing their germs can be inhaled by anyone likewise through touching door knobs, elevator buttons and handrails which were touched by the infected person. It can be mild or severe; in some cases it can...

Job hunting is not only a difficult quest but a stressful task as well. Every job interview is just like sitting on a hot seat, one mistake and you’re out seeking for another evaluation appointment. Lucky are the job hunters nowadays that there are online job search and recruitment websites that can help you score the career you dream about unlike during the old days wherein you need to hop from one company to another to look for available job vacancies that fit your qualifications. However, though online job searching is available that can make your quest a whole lot easier, it will not ensure that you can be employed once you click on the apply button for the job opening. You need to prepare yourself before going to an interview. 

Planning a family portrait can be a challenging task. From finding the perfect photographer to deciding on what everyone should wear, there’s a range of important considerations to keep in mind when organising this very special event. Unfortunately, it can also raise the uncomfortable scenario of having to tell people that you can’t have them in the portrait. Whether it’s due to budget constraints, logistics, or other reasons, here are 3 ways to gently let people know that you don’t want them to participate in your family portrait. Explain Your Budget Some people simply underestimate the cost of hiring a professional photographer for your family portrait. Explain that you have budgeted just enough to cover your immediate family, and that any further inclusions would start to increase the cost of having the portrait done.

Recently there has been a movement towards green living. People have started to become more environmentally conscious along with realizing the savings to be had from an energy efficient home. However, making the necessary renovations and remodels can become costly and too expensive for some. Here are some ways to make your house more energy efficient and green without doing any remodeling.  Water Savings  There are multiple opportunities for energy savings in regards to water efficiency. The average house uses gallons upon gallons of water each year and this can certainly be improved. One very simple step you can take first is to install aerators onto all the faucets in the house. These aerators are rather inexpensive and can be easily found at almost any home supply store. Aerators work by splicing the water stream into many tiny streams rather than one big stream. The water flow is actually reduced while water pressure is maintained. This makes aerators not only...

One of the easiest ways to improve the look and feel of your home is to recreate or redesign your backyard or front garden and have comfortable patio. Patio sets and furniture usually became the feature of a newly renovated yard because of its aesthetic appeal and it becomes the topic of discussions during events. If you’re thinking of upgrading your patio now that springtime has come and summer is not so far away, there are many styles and trends that you can look into to get the perfect furniture set for your patio.  photo credits: patiofurnitureusa.com

If you are looking for an effective way to get your children out of the house and encourage them to use their imagination, consider building your kids their very own play houses that they can enjoy with their friends. If you have unused yard space, adding a play house that compliments your home's architectural design will make an attractive addition that suits a great purpose. If you want to build your child's play house from the ground up rather than buying a ready-made model, consider what type of amenities you would like to include and use your own creativity that may be buried deep within your mind. Here are just a few factors you will need to keep in mind before you start drawing up your plans or start the construction process. Choosing Where You Want to Build the Play House One of the first considerations you must keep in mind when you are building a play house is where you will build. This will become a permanent structure that needs to be stable. This is why it...

With a lot of fresh graduates, job hunters are doubled these days. You must have noticed that inspite of the numerous copies of your resume having been dispatched to different companies you applied for and after having gone through countless interviews, still you have not landed a job. Maybe one of the reasons why is that you miss to carry out the basic principle in job hunting. One of the highlights in a resume that an employer reads about is the career objective. The most common objective of an applicant is to find a company that can utilize his skills and education. I think there is something missing in this statement because in my opinion, being once an entrepreneur, reading as it is definitely turns me off. I think the applicant’s career objective should consist of the basic rule and principle that is what you can do for the employer utilizing your special skills and education and not what the employer can do for you.

Image courtesy of Maggie Smith/FreeDigitalPhotos.net Our furry friends are cute and a joy to have around the home; at least, until they ruin a new sofa, or the carpet. Most cats and canines are well-behaved animals, if you have trained them properly that is, but there is always a risk that they could damage your expensive piece of furniture. If you have a disobedient dog or a cheeky cat that is constantly ruining your furniture with their teeth and claws, you can take action. And we don’t mean by getting rid of them. How can you pet-proof your furniture? Here are 4 top tips: Do your curtains drag to the floor? This can be done by tying them up or by not leaving them dragging on the carpet. Cats love to lunge for dangling and swinging objects, so strings and objects like cords are easy targets. Tuck the cords away if you can. As long as the cat can leave the house at any time and gain access to a litter tray and water, there will be plenty of other activities f...

School year has ended, two months of school break has begun and as a reward to the Academic Distinction Award that Yahmir, my youngest son acquired at the end of the school year, I bought him a premium account on the game he’s playing online. Additionally, his dad enrolled him to a music learning center nearby to gain a unique experience in learning to play his guitar. Aside from being studious and a book worm, he is also interested in music. To develop his musical journey, we added guitar lessons in one of his activities this summer to keep him busy and at the same time enjoy his school break.

How did your last parent-teacher conference go? Did you walk away from your 20-minute slot feeling like you actually learned something about your child’s behavior in the classroom? Or, did you feel like you got the same stock answer as everyone else: Johnny seems to be doing ___-ly in the classroom. While he is excelling in ____, it seems that he could spend a little more time on ____. I’m hoping that by doing _____, he’ll be brought up to speed with everyone else in the classroom! If you’ve heard that routine time and time again, then maybe you should start learning the effective questions that experienced parents know to ask! Here are a few of our favorite questions, which you can certainly use in your next parent-teacher conference….

Kids are easygoing, they hang around and delay things we want them to do because time has no meaning to them especially when they are still younger than 6 years old. Dawdling, therefore is just but normal during this stage. However, we can teach them to understand the significance of meeting time goals by turning instructions into fun and not annoying orders.  We can disguise influencing our children to come on and hurry in different ways.  One good example is to play run races with them or play simple games like beat the clock. Let them feel they’re in control on how fast or slow they do things so they will exert effort more when they lose your game. Kids move slowly and waste time throwing tantrums when they woke up at the wrong side of the bed, if you’re in a hurry for his preschool schedule, better allow enough time to get ready, that is to wake him up 30 minutes early. We must remember that being a kid, he still don’t understand what hurrying means. 

One of the best marketing tools that small businesses can take advantage of is to come up with a catchy toll-free number that potential customers will always remember. It’s no wonder that big dealers and companies maintain business number with an 0800 for easier memory recall. No matter what scale of business you run, you can also get your very own unique and easy to remember business number from https://www.telecomsworldplc.co.uk/numbers/0800/ . This move will not only improve your business performance but will also allow you to adapt to the ever changing economic climate with valuable services and marketing campaigns applicable to any type of business.