101 Changes: Change 20 – Healthy Eating Made Easy

If we try to make huge changes, it is often difficult sustaining it and we have sense of  failure but small changes made slowly becomes habits if done over and over for 21 days. I am writing a series of posts about small changes we can make it our life to make our daily living and health improve tenfold.

These are changes I have made or working on it. Would you like to join with me in this journey?

Check out previous 101 Changes Article: 101 Changes: 101 Changes: Change 19- Do More With Beauty Products

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Image source Happy Heart and Mind  Cooking at home

One thing I have learned as I am getting older is to take care of my health properly. As a mom of 2 kids, I want to make sure I am healthy enough to keep up with their energy when doing homework with them or taking them to music and sports classes, playing with them.

I am vegetarian so I eat mostly plant and grain based diet but I sure have my moments when I am not eating healthier. Being vegetarian one would think it is healthy, not so. As I have said before, one can be vegetarian eating pizza, potato chips and drink coke or sugar laden drinks; it is vegetarian but it is NOT healthy for sure.

As I am getting older (past 20s and in late 30’s) I am learning how to take care of my health by eating more plant based food and cooking at home. Since I love cooking, it comes easier but there are days, when I simply fall off the health band wagon but I am getting better by buying right groceries and snacks to keep myself motivated to eat healthier.

Here are my top choices for healthy eating:

Green Vegetables: I buy green bell peppers, Kale, Baby spinach, Collard greens, mustard green, Green beans, Thai/Indian long beans, Green squash (Asian groceries store), Dark leafy Salad greens, Broccoli, and use Green herbs such as cilantro for flavors.

Rainbow Veggies: Other than green vegetables, I am focusing on rainbow colors veggies such as carrots, red and yellow bell peppers, Tomatoes, Purple red cabbage, eggplants, radishes (red and large white from Asian store), cauliflower, red onions, sweet potatoes, Olives and so on.

Whole Grains: Being an Indian, I use lot of rice and wheat based grain and flour for cooking. I try to use whole grain as much as possible. Living close to whole foods and trader Joe’s, I have found many new grains (whole, split and flour) such as amarnth, kamut, millet, farro, barley, quinoa and spelt. One can make salad, bread, naan or rotis, savory biscuits from grain or flour. If you can not eat gluten, there are still other choices to eat healthier and still be gluten free.

Eat Fresh Fruits: Eating fresh and in-season fruits is best. In California, there are many farmer’s market that sells fresh fruits from local farmers that are organic. Bananas, Apples, Oranges, Pears, watermelon, Mango, Papaya, Peaches, Apricots make great snacks for kids and adults. I sometimes make dessert, cookies or bread with fresh fruits by looking at online recipes blogs.

Avoid fat free and sugar free: Earlier when I was younger, I thought sugar free and fat free is good and I ate that way. Now, I know better and try to eat good fat, real sugar in moderation. Regular coke always taste better compared to sugar free cola and we know why. Do not be afraid of fat, sugar but eat those food in small quantity, is that simple.

Drink Water: It is okay if you like Wine, juice, Smoothies, shakes or beer. Drinking in moderation is always best practice for any diet. However, drink more water whenever possible as nothing quenches thirst more then cold, fresh water.

Vegetarian Protein: As a vegetarian, I often gets asked about protein in my diet, there is plenty of choices for vegetarian to get required daily protein intake. One of the best vegetarian source for protein is lentils, dried nuts, beans and tofu. There are many soups, stir fries can be made with lentils and tofu. Many think tofu is bland but if you marinate it and cook it right it will be tasty for kids as well.

Take Vitamins: It is always best to take nutrients from fresh and cooked food but sometimes when it is not possible taking daily vitamins may help. Vitamin B12 is hard to find in many vegetables so I try to take vitamins with B12, iron and folic acid to make sure my body’s optimum health.

What To avoid or eat less of:

As I said above, being healthy is not difficult but requires little discipline and planning. Eating or avoiding a few things may improve our health and energy.

  • Avoid meat products, this is more true even if you are meat lover, if you reduce or give up meat products for health or ethical reasons, it may help with your health.
  • Avoid cheesy, fatty food at home or when eating out
  • Avoid fried food such as french fries, dumplings or eat in moderation
  • Avoid or reduce eating refined flour
  • Artificial flavoring, diet food staple from grocery store.
  • Do not eat old food sitting in fridge for more than a few days
  • Do not use plastic to heat up food, use glass container instead
  • Avoid trans fats
  • Do not deprive yourself of any food, just eat less of instead
  • avoid or reduce sugary drinks or alcohols
  • Reduce eating out or take outs
  • Do not read or watch Television when eating, this is one of my worst habit that I am working on fixing it

If you want more plant base food diet, check out these following books;

Product Details

 Forks Over Knives – The Cookbook: Over 300 Recipes for Plant-Based Eating All Through the Year

This is one of the best book with over 300 healthy plant based recipes. The secret is out: If you want to lose weight, lower your cholesterol, and prevent (or even reverse!) chronic conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, the right food is your best medicine. Thousands of people have cut out meat, dairy, and oils and seen amazing results. If you’re among them—or you’d like to be—you need this cookbook.

Product Details

 The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition

If you are vegetarian, vegan or thinking about eating more plant based diet but wondered what about nutrition?, Where to get nutrients that others get from meat and dairy?, How to spot hidden animal ingredients in packaged foods?, Howto avoid the vegan pitfall of overfed but undernourished?, How to order at restaurants? if you asked these questions, this is right book for you. I have it and I still refer to it when I am in doubt.

How To Slash Your Bills and Get Your Expenses Under Control

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In January, many people are looking to take care of their new year resolutions, be it losing weight, eating well and saving money. I have goals that I want to achieve in 2013, I have given up making resolutions as I have failed in a few months to keep those up. So I create mini goals that I break down from a one big goals so it makes it easier to me to achieve it and stay focused.

One of the thing I am passionate about or should I say, I am forced upon is to save money. When I decided to not go back to my six figure salary work and be home with kids, something had to give so I started reading and learning new ways to cut down on expenses. Some of my early favorite personal finance blogs were Simple Dollar, Get Rich Slowly and Zen Habits. Trent from Simple Dollars still writes his money tips with passion after so many years so do check out his blog. J D Roth has sold his “Get Rich Slowly” blog and I admit I do not read regularly anymore but there are some great articles out there still. Leo from Zen Habits has achieved his financial freedom so he does not write about money tips much but I still read his blog for changing habits and inspiration.

I have done No Spend Money experiment and written about saving money tips before, as 2013 is starting, I am looking back to find more ways to save money so that I can continue to follow my passion of being home, work at home part time and homeschooling mom to my kids.

One of the most expense that people now a days have is phone related that is to say, phone, cable, cell phones and internet bills that keeps growing. Ten years ago or so family needed only single land line phone and television was simple choice enough choosing whatever came in local handful channels that came mostly free. But now there are thousands of channels and programs for television are there. For phone there are multiple lines, data plan, test plans, apps, ringtones and what not. I am not even sure I am all updated with what is available technology wise currently.

If you add this for spouse and kids, bill can run higher and higher. Although, television program says “Must See TV”, there is no such a thing as I and many others have given up or reduced watching Television for good. If you still decide to watch it, you can let go of many overlapping services to save money on bills.

How To Slash Your Phone Bills:

There are a few ways to slash your phone bills and most of these tips will not cause to feel deprived either.

  1. Reconsider Land Line Phone: For long time, we kept up our land line phone just in case there was internet or cell phone outage, mostly in case for emergency. We have given up land line phone for using Vonage service (internet based) for 7 months and could not complain about it. Monthly savings can be $30-$75 depending on services you were using, not bad for saving $360 to $ 900 savings for year.
  2. Drop Extra Services: This tip seems so simple and obvious however, many of us are having so many overlapping services with cell phone and land line phone combine. This also works if you want to keep your land line phone service without costing you big in monthly spending. Example of these extra services can be, You can let go of voice mail and buy answering machine phone, you can let go of your long distance services and use cell phone for calling long distance instead.
  3. Talk Free Via Computer: I am not tech savvy, despite having an electrical engineering but Zenguy is master geek and tech guy so we save money through talking to relatives and friends far away via Skype, Google chat. These services are free and can be downloaded free to your computer. What I like about this plan is it is free, you can chat and also use video chat so grandparents or friends can kids and vice versa. Also, thing to note is that grandparent or any person you call does not need to have Skype or Google chat program, you can call cell phone, land lines on other side.
  4. Buy For Busy Talk Month: I learned this the hard way, as phone carriers have hefty fees and charge if you go over minutes. It might be better to pay some extra every month to cover your busiest talk month to not get these charges during high usage month. If you do not plan this, just be careful to stay within your allowed minutes to not get charge ridiculous amount of fees.
  5. Shop around: I like being loyal to my family, friends but I have learned hard way to remain loyal to a company. I used AT&T for 8 years as I really liked them and what they did for that loyalty? They charged me crazy amount, so reluctantly I left, only to be offered same deal that I was asking them while being a customer.  Since that incidents, I always shop around to see best deals and choose phone company that works for my budget and customer services.
  6. Ignore Texting: In US texting is not free, unlike a few Asian countries. A relative from India sent us text messages and only to read those it ended up costing us $35. So, if you have teenagers or relatives who get free texting, be careful and avoid these texting charges either by ignoring those or reading text messages through some free reading services.
  7. Be careful for Roaming Charges: If you travel out of town or country, be very very careful of using your cell phone. It is almost always a good idea to get local cell phone or have roaming service plan added (if you travel a lot). Otherwise you will be billed $1-$5 per minutes, I have once read a news regarding someone getting a roaming charges for $12,100. (I am unable to find that news link now, but I am sure you may see those once in awhile too) So don’t be one of those statistics and save money by using local phone services instead.

Slash Your Cable and Movies Bills:

I love watching movies and a few Television series such as from BBC, A&E and Master Piece Theater. So, one does not have to give up watching their favorite TV shows or movies just to cut down on expenses. There are many ways to save and cut the bill in half or even more.

  1. Let Go of Premium Channels: Having premium channels such as HBO, Showtime, AMC can cost about $10-$15 each monthly. In most cases you can watch these movies through Netflix, or DVD rental. Now netflix gets DVD released movie much faster so you will still get to see it early.
  2. Track Your Watching: If you really note down how you or family tend to watch, such as which channels, how often you may cut down on other unwatched and UN-necessary channels from your services. Sometimes you may even find that you’re not watching as much cable as you thought, and in that case you can let go of cable services.
  3. Ask For Discounts: If you like to keep some favorite channels or services, ask the provider for discount or better offer. In some cases the company want to keep you as a customer and will negotiate a better deals and other case some stone- hearted company may ask you to cancel and in such case you can choose other provider or wait for a few months to really see before you sign up for new plan.
  4. Day has only 24 hours: Remember, having so many channels and movies choices may be futile as even if we watched one movie a day (2-3 hours each), we will not finish all movies produced and released and same thing with television series. So pick what you truly like that is best for your time. Watching TV and Movie all day no matter how much you like would not be a good thing for anyone.
  5. Buy HDMI Cable: I learned this from Zenguy as I would not know what it was. Thing is this HDMI cable costs like $5 or so and you can connect your computer to television. That allows us to watch free shows from network downloaded. Do not ask me how it works yet but I know it is time and big money saver for little cost. (I will update it once I find out how it works here)
  6. Skip Subscription Plans: Netflix, itunes and Amazon video on demand subscription plan varies and can be useful if you watch lot of movies or occasional movies here and there. In some cases, skipping the subscription plans and getting movies from red box or local store may be a better deal. If you do not mind getting new movies later, and somewhat less choices local library is also a good place to get movies and television series rentals.
  7. Watch it Free on Internet: There are many places such as you tube, hulu and other video sites where you can watch movies and television series for free. Remember, you tube have free and cost movie rental both. You can just view free movies there. The one problem I see is sometimes movies can be removed by copyright violation so it might be gone. I have watched a few movies on you tube movie section and I buy only movies that I like to see it again and again from amazon when deals comes in.

How to Save Money On Internet:

It has been said that over 70% of household have an internet access. That means many of us can find ways to slash our internet bills so we can still save money and still read best blogs, deals and news online.

  1. Group Services Together: Sometimes going with same company and grouping services can reduce your bills significantly. Many company nowadays offer bundle on land line, cell phone and internet services. In some cases doing individual service and billing may work however in most cases grouping services together works the best.
  2. Use library or free Wifi Cafe: Unless you’re buying unlimited internet data usage, you can save money by occasionally using library or free WiFI-cafe for internet for supplementing using internet.
  3. Get a Tablet: Many tablet users who use tablet and watch movies together, so why just use tablet for everything. There are so many apps for iphone and android that can help as free channel guide can be helpful. According to CNN post, replacing your cable with tablet can pay off in 7 months or so and with tablet one can do many things
  4. Know Competing Offers: In many cases most great offers are for new customers and not current customers, so know your offers from your internet providers as well as from competition every 6 months or so. Then call your provider and ask to match the deal, if they do great if not, switch to another company.
  5. Check for Overlap In services: If  you are using smart phone data plan and broadband internet services both, you have overlap in service plans. If you only play occasional games at home, 3G wireless service is not needed. Checking this overlap and how you use smart phone, internet and cell phone can save you $30 per month or more. That is over $240 a year savings on things you do not use anyways.

Enjoy using phones, internet and watching movies, Television series without breaking your wallet this year!

What Is A Blog? How Can You Start One Today?

What is a Blog?

If you asked this question around 2005, not many people knew what blog was and what that word meant. Now many people are writing on blog today and blogging has became a huge phenomenon. There are many free ways to start a blog such as from blogger and wordpress sites. There are hosted sites you can get from website hosting companies.

While my blog is surely not about how to start blogging or making money, I do often get asked by new readers who may want to start a blog, either to express themselves, show off their recipes, poems and what not. I am certainly not blog expert, but I know a few things since blogging since mid 2009, it has been over 3.5 years so I have picked up things that I want to share.

One caution is, blogging is never get rich quick thing for most of us, I am blogging for a few years and making money takes time and true passion. If one want to make money, then keyword and seo is important. I recommend expert such as Pat Flynn at smart Passive Income blog and Darren at Problogger to find out more on how to blog for making money as they are far better and expert in the blogging to make money field.

I started out on free blogger site first. However, I personally prefer to have my own site hosted on web hosting account, as it give me more control over design and content of my blog sites. I use BlueHost for hosting and I am quite happy with them. However there are many web hosting choices to choose from.

If you are starting out check out how to get blog set up  and website tools needed to get you started off on right Path.

Various Types of Blogs and Sites

As long there is a internet alive, blogging will be too and it has future. It may change with time as internet changes.

Type of Blogs:

Personal Blogs: This is where people write about themselves as a journal, to keep in touch with long distance friends and families, to create a online journal to keep a goal such as losing weight or saving money etc.,

Information Blog: These type of blogs are great for sharing and learning about some particular topic such as gardening, cooking or fitness.

Some people do it for fun, some do it for making money. I like to do it for mostly fun, however it would be nice to make money to recover cost involving hosting, domain and time spent a little for most people.

Details about Type of Sites:

Static Websites: These type of website do not change, they are usually few pages long and have information about one subject and people can learn, click and go. Example includes many bank sites, picture images site, how to articles.

Blog: Blog is where content is often updated and posted. Some on daily basis or some on weekly basis. People can blog how often they like about one subject to multi subjects they like. Fresh content makes it easier for search engine to find and rank your site. That is one of the reason many site including corporates site now has a blog section.

Forum: Some site has a blog and forums and some sites are only forums on specific topic. Even many money and parenting sites has several forums which are quite popular among people. It could be addicting. Forums are best for asking questions and learning from it.

Knowledge/Wiki: Some sites are open for others to share their reviews or point such as IMDB or wikipedia, where people may learn and post knowledge they have.

Podcast Blog: These type of sites have audio based postings, such as interviews you can listen to, music you can listen to and so on. It seems to be popular with many people who can listen to podcast while driving or doing other things.

Video Site: You tube, Vimeo are popular example of these sites that are big. One can start his or her video blog by recording a topic or places to put on the blogs and share the knowledge on subject they are expert on.

I think it is best to use all or some combination of above types of site to get more exposure! What is your view on blog sites?

How To Stay Fit During Holiday Season

How to Stay fit during any Holidays

Holiday season usually means several parties to celebrate, Thanksgiving feast, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New year among other celebrations! One of the great thing about holidays are get together, eating yummy food and being with family and friends: loved ones. However, I dread January as I tend to gain a bit weight somehow From Diwali, to Thanksgiving, to Christmas and New year eve party and party food. Are you like me? If you are then know what I am talking about. If you do not gain weight, then write quickly and tell us your secret!

There are so many parties during last few months of the year:

  • Office Christmas Party
  • Family gathering
  • Friends parties (Some of us have more than one different gatherings)
  • New year Celebrations

When we had Thanksgiving gathering, where we had so much food, and 5 types of pies, plus more desserts dishes. We shared and ate leftover for days! It sure was fun, but not for my body. I have already plan to make sure my end of year gatherings are fun and healthy both.

That means we will be eating, drinking and be merry! So no wonder when it comes January 1st, we all have new year resolution to lose weight and be fit.

Download my free ebook : Meaningful Holidays (No need for email)

10 tips to staying fit during Holidays

Prevention is always better than a cure, if we are just bit careful on what we eat, we might be able to avoid weight gain that happens to most of good people. I admit it, it is hard for me as I love to cook, I am always cooking and sharing meals or eating out in those gourmet restaurant does not help.

However my biggest problem are my mom who think, that only way can show our love towards each other by finishing their food! And if you say” Mom, I am careful and eating healthy and I can not eat your fried dumpling”, oh the guilt trip she gives, oh my. No one can resist it, not me either, specially when my mom’s cooking is so yummy to me!.

Do you have mom or relative like that? Than you’ll know what I am talking about.

Here are my top ten ways, I am trying to keep my health, fitness and little sanity intact during this holidays. Hope this will help you celebrate meaningful holidays that are healthier.

  1. Eat a healthy snack before going to party. When I host a party, I try to keep some healthier but when I go to my relatives and friend’s party there may or may not be healthy or vegetarian choices so I usually eat a little before going to party and it helps me when I am not famished to choose better food.
  2. Eat more vegetables: Being vegetarian it is easier for me to choose vegetables and fruits but even if you are not vegan or vegetarian, you can choose various vegetable choices with your meat and potatoes to balance out the nutrition and fat.
  3. Skip gravy, cheesy and high fat choices: These gravys, cheese dips and friend snacks are high in fat and if we eat too much, it sure will add to our waist and other places on our bodies. If you can not resist and skip it like me, make sure you take little for taste only. Everything in moderation will be much better thing to do.
  4. Drink more water: Sometimes we are thirsty, no other liquid quenches our thirst like cold glass of water, so drink it through out the day. 8-10 glasses is generally recommended for most people. Added benefit of drinking water is also, that it will keep us hydrated and it is calorie free.
  5. Reduce Alcohol: For some people there can not be celebration without alcohol and that is fine. If you drink alcohol, do it in moderation and always munch some food with your wine or beer so to make sure you do not have hangover next morning.
  6. Please your relative other ways: If you have relatives like mine who insist that if you loved them, you will finish their cheesy and fried dish, you have to be careful to stay healthy and not get fat. You can take little to show you love them and ask them that you loved the food so much you will get take out for home so you can eat it next day as well. They may just be happy enough to pack it for you, and not force you finish it right there. It may just work for you as well.
  7. Less dessert: Not many can skip dessert and I am included in there. Our gathering have lot of sweet dishes such as pies, chocolates pudding, and more. Have little pieces of dessert instead of skipping it all together so you will not have deprived feeling of not having a sweet.
  8. Exercise: Winter time is bad for going out and with many parties with food can be tough on staying healthy. So make an extra effort to exercise, dance and just do lot of walking when you can to keep fit during winter time.
  9. Bring your healthy food to share: If you host a party, make sure you have plenty of healthy choices for you and others who might want to eat healthier along with traditional food choices. If you are going to friend’s party, offer to bring a potluck meal to share which is healthier so if there is nothing you can be sure to eat at least your own food you brought. This has helped me a lot, as a vegetarian I will always have a choice to vegetarian choices and host does not have to go out of her way to make a special meal for me.
  10. Do not worry and enjoy it: Holidays comes once a year so take precautions but if you can not, just enjoy it and do not worry about it much. It is not fun to be party popper who does not join in fun, so do not make it obvious and go with flow.

We all deserve break once in awhile, so have little fun and eat food your aunt made specially for you. Wear that ugly christmas sweater that your mom bought you. Have a laugh and silly fun once in a while!

101 Changes: Change 15: How To Get Beautiful With Nature Bounty

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I am writing a series of 101 small changes that we can make to make the quality of our life better and build and lead a more happier life that is in tune with our heart and mind. These are small changes that I have made and am working on right now, so I know they are possible for anyone to do.

If you have not read previous posts, check out a few posts on the changes from the past:

101 changes: Change 104: Try New Food; Pomegranate

101 changes series:

I am lazy occasionally to make special time for me to feel beautiful and relax. Another reason that I do not use many store bought beauty products is some of the products my skin is sensitive to it so I like natural way to get beauty as much as possible. I took a special course on how to use natural plant product for beauty treatment when I was in college. It has been awhile, so I forgot all about it until I found my hand written notebook recently and it had some good ideas that made me get started and pumped about using some of the tips.

How To Get Beautiful Natural Way: Tropical Fruits

 

I further did search on how to use natural raw fruits to make beauty regime that is easy to make, does not cost much and easy on my skin. Here are some of the ideas that may work for all women who want natural ways to make skin, nails or face better and beautiful.

1. Softer Skin With Papaya

Papaya has high skin regenerating antioxidant and Vitamin A which helps skin cell and making skin smooth and glowing.  To best use papaya for beauty treatment blend or mash 1/2 cup ripe papaya, 2 table spoon honey and mix it well. Place the puree over clean damp skin on face, hand or feet. Keep for 10 minutes and rinse it warm water and pat dry with soft towel. The mixture can stay in fridge for 1 week.

2. Use Coconut for Shiny and Long Hair

Creamy Coconut milk inside the green coconut has lot of  protein and fatty acid that helps the hair for growth and make it shine. It is instant conditioner of putting shine and life back in to your hair. Break open green coconut (hard part) and get creamy coconut milk from it. If you use canned coconut milk, make sure it is unsweetened before using it on hair. Warm the coconut milk for 30 seconds and massage it in hair and scalp with fingers. Leave it for 15 minutes and then shampoo as usual way. In Indian store you can buy coconut oil for hair and it is simply marvelous.

3. Banana for Double Duty on Skin and Hair

My kids love bananas so we always have some bananas on hand. Banana is rich on Potassium, protein and fatty acid like coconut so it is surely great for hair and as well as skin nourishment.  Mix mashed banana and 2 table spoon of honey and massage in to hair and scalp. Leave it for 10-12 minutes and rinse with shampoo as usual. For skin, use plain mashed banana for a facial peel and leave on for 5 minutes of so, before rinsing it with warm water.

4. Glow Your Skin With Kiwi

I love kiwi fruit but I admit, I do not buy it as often as I should. Now this tip gives me reason to buy these small fruit and eat some and use rest for beautifying my skin. Kiwi fruit are high on Vitamin C, it reduces skin discoloration and makes even tone on skin. Peel the brown skin from Kiwi fruit, add cut and peeled kiwi to blender, add 1 table spoon of extra virgin olive oil and blend it well. Massage the paste over the clean and dry skin. Leave on for 5 minutes and rinse it warm water. Doing twice a week for 1 month will make sure skin glow with radiance!

5. Get Rid Of Pores with Pineapple

Pineapple is great as skin softner as well cleaner. If your pores are visible like mine are, they are clogged with extra oil and dead skin. To reduce or get rid of pores is to mix 1/4 table spoon of fresh pineapple juice with your regular face wash. Use it on your pores daily to minimize the pores. For dry and hard patches of skin area such as elbow, knees and heel, use a thick slice of pineapple and use it as a sponge like to rub on your rough skin area to soften and refresh the skin.

6. Get Stronger nail with Mango

Mango is my favorite fruit and same goes for my whole family so finding any leftover mango for this treatment seems very tough however, I may just try that in season by hiding a mango for me. Take fresh ripe mango and 1 table spoon of extra virgin olive oil, add 3 tablespoon of white sugar until it becomes like a scrub consistency. Take a dab with small finer and rub it over each nail cuticle for minute or so. Rinse with warm water. Scrub will keep for 2 weeks in a fridge.

7. Strawberry for spa facial at home

Once I saw strawberry being used in spa facial and I thought why not to try it at home myself at much cheaper price and without having to drive anywhere. Did you know that some of the teenage acne products has strawberry as an ingredient? Strawberry has type of acid which helps troubled skin of teens with acne problem as well sun spots on adults too. Mash ripe strawberry with fork or blender, add 1 table spoon of sour cream to make a facial mask scrub. Gently massage on face or other troubled skin area, leave it for about 5-7 minutes. Rinse it with warm water.

Summary:

There are many fruits and vegetables can be used for beauty treatments such as peaches, potatoes, cucumber and more. I will have to write part 2 for more beauty from nature tips. You can get more ideas from Nature’s Beauty Secrets: Recipes for Beauty Treatments from the World’s Best Spas.

Image source: http://www.womenworld.org

How to Have a Safe Halloween

I admit, I celebrate Halloween much more as a parent then when I was in college. Sure, as single gal, we did costume party and gathering but now as a mom we do pretty much whole October month as a Halloween celebration that includes, visiting many pumpkin patches, petting zoo, jump houses, attending fall carnivals, costume party and family gathering sometimes. Most kids love Halloween, what is not to love? Dressing up as their favorite super heroes, princess or character is fun and getting free candies while playing dress up! It sure seems like logical fun holidays for most young kids, some teens and a few adults too.

Kids loves trick or treating and we attend a few safe school or neighborhood trick or treating. My kids also love when other kids come and trick and treat at our place. We have fun guessing what they are dressed up as. As a parent safety during trick or treating is important to all of us. Here are a few quick tips to make Halloween fun and safe for kids and parents both.

Halloween Safety Tips for Kids :

  1. Go with your kids to trick or treating, specially if they are younger. For older kids, still go together, some parent may choose to follow older kids with  bit distance. My kids being young I or Zenguy usually go with them.
  2. Do not go to strangers house or dark houses you do not know well. Try to visit your local street or people you know for trick or treating.
  3. Always watch out when crossing the road and hold hands, specially young kids.
  4. If older kids or teens want to go alone, make sure they carry cell phone and tell parents the path may they take and stick to it.
  5. Pick and choose a costume that is safe to walk in to. It can be store bought or home made.
  6. I am always shocked at sexed up costumes for young girls, avoid it and choose age appropriate costume that is well suited for kids and colder evenings during Oct 31st. You can make some easy costumes at home as well.
  7. Do not over plan and make a busy Halloween with trick or treating, parties and gathering. Keep it simple as younger kids tend to get tired and cranky easily.
  8. If you host a party for family, try simple decor as too much scary decor will scare some kids.
  9. Keep simple finger food, music for fun gathering for family and kids alike.
  10. Most of all, make sure do not finish all candies on same day! That goes for mom and dad too!

With simplicity and clean fun in mind, Halloween can be fun for all ages of kids, teens and adults.

Here are some fun Halloween read you may like;

How to Create great Halloween Bash!

How to Use up leftover Candies

Have a fun and Safe Halloween!

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How To Choose A Right Digital Camera For You

Like many people now, we have been using digital camera for taking pictures. After buying a few expensive ones and few cheap ones, I decided that there has to be a proper way to buy a right digital camera for us that works perfectly for what we need, is not too expensive and durable for family with kids.  I am not the expert photographer but love taking pictures, so I looked online and asked family and friends who have more knowledge compared to me and combined whole research that worked for us.

While I found what worked for us, I thought many people might in similar predicament so I am sharing my digital camera research in general way that will suit and fit most people looking to buy a right digital camera for you and your family.

First of all let me tell you why I like digital camera over 35mm film cameras;

Reasons Why I like To use Digital Camera:

  1. You can view images right away. Too many times we have asked someone to take our family picture, not knowing if it came out fine when we used 35mm film roll camera. That moment will be gone.
  2. Take as many shots without having to worry about wasting film roll.
  3. Delete photos as needed, saving disk space. Keep photos as you need.
  4. Sending pictures to family via email or website is quick as images are already digital and do not need to be scan unlike print photos.
  5. Now with large memory storage (tiny) one can take as many as 1000’s pictures while traveling. Download as needed.

Tips on How to Choose a Digital Camera:

Here are a few simple tips on how to choose a digital camera that is perfect for you, no matter if you are single or family with kids. Based on my research for getting right camera, budget, features and how you will use the camera will make difference. Buying the most expensive digital camera is NOT necessary. It is all about functionality and ease of use.

  1. Knowing how you will use camera will make difference. Unless you are professional photographer, who needs to take high speed or high resolution pictures, you do not need to buy $2000 digital or SLR camera. For most people wanting to take personal and traveling pictures digital camera with right features with right budget price will do.
  2. Many digital camera comes with plastic lens or glass lens. Not knowing and having used plastic lens which scratches easily and images comes distorted, I would strongly recommend to buy digital camera with glass lens.
  3. Many digital camera comes in high resolutions, for most people 3 to 4 mega pixel resolution is enough. Buying higher resolution means pictures will be much clear and focused, so buy highest resolution that you can afford.
  4. Many of us will be using zoom features to zoom in and zoom out features, so get digital camera with optical zoom and not digital zoom capabilities.
  5. If you choose flash modes, compare it will other digital camera features. I did not even know what it was for.
  6. Buy camera with auto focus and smart auto picture features for casual picture taking. Other features that are important to look for are, macro features, shutter release and its lag times.
  7. Another important thing for digital camera is to have optical viewfinder as well as LCD display finder. What it means is that one take picture through looking at LCD display or through the view finder both.
  8. Buy a Digital camera with high RAM (Random Accesses Memory), so you can store more images on camera without having to download in middle of event or vacation. Or buy extra memory chip for backup.
  9. Having large LCD panel will help during video taking mode.
  10. Compare and know more about charging the digital camera, type of batteries its uses and other savings features.
  11. See if your digital camera is compatible with downloading on your laptop or computer and if not what devices you may need to do that.
  12. For those who are not professional photographer but still want better images can look for interchangeable lenses, steady shot feature, auto white balance, variable shutter speed, self timer, manual and auto focus, burst mode features in digital camera to make pictures more professional and crisp.

Other Buyer Beware Tips:

  • There are many high resolution cameras are selling for low price however, these high resolution may only apply to software interpolation and not true optical resolution for pictures. So be aware of that.
  • Buy Digital camera with CCD which means Charge coupled device, otherwise you will be spending more money for extra stuff.
  • Always check return policy before buying camera. Once our friend who opened the camera and wanted to returned it next day were denied as they had opened the boxed package. Knowing what you can do will save you much hassle later.
  • For many digital camera owners, means pictures are always on computer, to print out right images make sure you have at least 720 dot per inch printer and somewhat high resolution digital camera else images will be blurry. There are many places will take and print your digital images as well.
  • If you are planning to use photos to send via email, webpage even inexpensive camera with 640 by 480 pixel resolution will do. Do not let anyone tell you that you need spend fortune to buy right digital camera.

Best Rated Digital Camera:

Nikon D5100 16.2MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S DX VR Nikkor Zoom Lens

Product features:

  • High resolution and Super-Density horizontal type Vari-Angle LCD Monitor
  • In-camera Special Effects Mode
  • In-camera HDR (High Dynamic Range)
  • Stunning Full High D efMovies with Full Time Auto focus

Best Value: Best features with budget Price Digital Camera:

Panasonic DMC-FH25K 16.1MP Digital Camera with 8x Wide Angle Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD (Black)

Product features:

  • The high-speed, high-performance and recording of beautiful images.
  • The Sonic Speed AF system includes numerous re-engineering enhancements.
  • Battery is included.
  • No need to know all modes and technical know how; Just choose the iA Mode, aim at your subject and shoot.
  • Optical Image Stabilizer compensates for the blurring caused by hand-shake, making clear picture.

Best High End Digital Camera:

Nikon D800 36.3 MP CMOS FX-Format Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)

Product feature:

  • High Resloution 36.3-megapixel (35.9 x 24.0mm)  and CMOS sensor
  • Full High Def. broadcast quality video and minimized rolling shutter
  • View simultaneous Live View output on external monitors and record uncompressed video via HDMI terminal
  • Multi-Area Full HD D-Movie Video Recording Mode
  • Comprehensive high fidelity audio recording and playback control