Six Tips to Make Yourself Feel Ten Years Younger
While we can’t actually turn back the clock, and youth is not everything, sometimes a little boost that helps you feel younger is very helpful. Aging is inevitable, but feeling “old” is not!
Here are six tips to make yourself feel ten years younger.
1. Exercise
If you haven’t exercised in a while, when you first begin, you may actually feel older! This happens when you are out of shape. But if you stick with a regular exercise routine, it pays off in higher energy levels and yes, a more youthful feeling. It doesn’t have to be complicated – a brisk daily walk or an aerobics video is fine. But if you want to join a gym and work with a personal trainer, that’s fine, too. The point is to energize yourself and feel younger.
2. Get Seven to Eight Hours of Sleep a Night
When you were younger, you might have done fine on five or six hours of sleep a night. But as you age, you’ll need that full seven to eight hours to feel refreshed and energized. It’s amazing how much younger you may feel after just one good night’s sleep.
3. Toning
When you exercise, work toning into your routine. This helps firm up specific muscle groups that can be problem areas as we age. For example, the triceps area of your arms, the back of your thighs, and your rear may benefit from a little targeted toning. It helps you feel younger when your muscles are firmer.
4. Lose the Stress
Frazzled nerves can make you feel overworked and over-aged. Practice deep breathing, prayer, meditation, yoga, or something similar each day. These activities help release stress and induce a sense of centered calm. In addition, getting an edge on stress helps alleviate stress-related problems like high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and a suppressed immune system.
5. Eat Well
Go for high-nutrient foods that pack a lot of vitamins, minerals, and other healthy nutrients. Those nutrients are what your body needs to feel energetic and healthy, just like when you were younger. Antioxidants are also important in managing the aging process, so go for bright-colored foods like berries and bell peppers.
6. Whiten the Pearly Whites
Give yourself a tooth-whitening treatment, even if it’s something quick and easy. Whitening toothpastes work gradually and not as well as a true treatment. Whitening your smile can give you a youthful kick.
While we sometimes wish we could turn back the clock ten years, it can still give you quite a boost to do a few simple things.
How to Make Family Meal Time Happen
Studies have repeatedly shown that family mealtime is important to the health and wellbeing of a family. Not only does it help family members bond, it also helps children connect with their parents and siblings. Family meal time has also been shown to impact the health of a child as well as their growth and development.
Yet in a busy world where kids have lessons, homework, friends, and hobbies and both parents work, it can feel nearly impossible to get everyone together around the dinner table. Here are a few tips, tactics, and ideas to make family meal time happen.
#1 Plan Ahead
Sit down once a week and plan the meals for the upcoming week. Saturday is a great day to do this because it leaves time for shopping and meal preparation during the remainder of the weekend. Look for meals that are easy to prepare and ask for input from your children. You may also want to create a family calendar so you can see at a glance what time dinner needs to be on the table each night.
#2 Preparation
Preparation is often just as challenging as actually getting everyone around the table at the same time. There are two types of meals that can make meal preparation easier. The first type of meal is cooked ahead of time. Casseroles, stews, roasts and whole chickens are all good options. You can cook a chicken, or two, on Sunday and enjoy it on Monday and Tuesday and maybe even into Wednesday.
The other type of easy meal is a crock pot meal, and you’d be surprised what you can prepare in a crock pot. From chili to a pork roast, you can make just about anything in a crock pot. You can even make dessert.
Finally, look for quick meals and preparation shortcuts. For example, you can buy a bag salad instead of taking time to chop all the vegetables yourself. You can also chop, dice, and slice on the weekends so meal prep during the week is as simple as pour, stir, cook and serve.
#3 Get Everyone Involved
There’s no reason why you can’t ask everyone to chip in with meal planning, meal preparation, and clean-up afterwards. When it’s a family affair, everyone feels more connected to the process and appreciates the family meal a bit more. And it’s certainly easier to get a meal on the table each night when you have help.
Family meal time is important. With a little planning and preparation you can make it happen. Stick with it; what is now a challenge will soon become routine.
Chocolate Bread Pudding
2 tablespoons butter or oil for greasing the dishes
1 cup cream
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
12 ounces of chocolate chips
5 cups of cubed day old French bread or similar type of bread, cut into about
How Girls Learn and How to Encourage Them
We have come a long way since the days when girls were led to believe that they could only be a nurse, teacher, or secretary and that college was really just a place for them to meet a husband. In fact, “Take Your Daughters to Work Day,
How Boys Learn and How to Encourage Them
The mother of a three-year-old boy watches enviously as a group of little girls sits at a table in the library and colors pretty pictures. One politely asks another to pass the pink crayon. “Here you go. Your flower is really pretty,
Fast Family Meal Ideas
Dinner time is family time. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get everyone together and it’s often even more difficult to find time to prepare meals. Home prepared meals are generally healthier than take out options. With a little meal planning and some advanced preparation you can get a meal on the table in mere minutes. Here are some fast family meal ideas to help you get started.
Southern Style Crock Pot Chicken
If you have five minutes in the morning, you have time to pull this meal together. Layer the following items into your crock pot:
* 4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
* 8 oz. can green chilies
* 15 oz. can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes, not drained
* 15 oz. can of corn, drained
* 15 oz. can of black beans, rinsed and drained
* 15 oz. can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained
* 15 oz. can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
Sprinkle a packet of taco seasoning or chili powder on the mixture. Cook for 6-8 hours on low. When you get home at night, shred chicken with a fork. It should be nice and tender. Serve with tortillas and your choice of sides/toppings. Consider shredded cheese, avocado, salsa, and shredded lettuce.
The crock pot is an ideal kitchen tool for busy families. You can make soups, stews, roasts, and casseroles in your crock pot and it only takes a few minutes of your time.
Pasta Primavera
Choose your favorite pasta shape and cook according to package directions. Slice your favorite vegetables; consider zucchini slices, broccoli, carrots, and cherry tomatoes. Toss all the vegetables with a bit of olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and place in the oven for twenty minutes at 350 degrees F.
Toss the pasta with the vegetables and serve with parmesan cheese. It’s a healthy meal with grains and vegetables. Use whole grain pasta for added nutrition.
Sausage, Kale, and White Bean Soup
In a large stock pot, put five cups of chicken broth. Slice a pound of Andouille sausage and add to the pot. Add a can of white beans and one pound of coarsely chopped kale. Cook to let kale soften, then serve. It’s great with crusty white bread on the side. This recipe literally takes about ten to fifteen minutes – just long enough for the broth and ingredients to get hot.
When looking for fast family meal ideas, look to your resources. A crock pot and make-ahead recipes are a busy family’s best friend. Plan ahead, prepare what you can in advance and enjoy meal time with your family.
Chicken Salad with Grapes and Pecans
1/2 cup light or regular mayonnaise
1/2 cup light or regular sour cream
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 pounds skinned and boned chicken breasts, cooked and chopped
3 cups red and white seedless grapes, halved
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Lettuce leaves (optional)
In a large bowl, add the mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Stir the mixture together.
Add the chopped chicken and grapes to the mayonnaise mixture and toss gently to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it into the refrigerator to chill for at least one hour.
Just before serving, stir in the toasted pecans. Serve over a few leaves of lettuce.
Effective Food Portion Control Tips
One of the most effective ways to both lose weight and maintain your weight is to manage the size of your meals. Learning about appropriate portion sizes for the various food groups is the first step. Once you know what a healthy portion looks like, then you can take advantage of a few tips and tactics to stay in charge of what you eat.
#1 What Does a Portion Look Like?
The first step is to know how much you’re supposed to eat to meet your body’s nutritional and caloric needs. There are a few handy visual aids to make this step easy.
* Meat – The size of a deck of cards
* Vegetables or grains – the size of your fist (or if you have a large hand, about the size of a tennis ball)
* Fats and dressings – two dice
* Bread – a hockey puck
#2 Out of Sight
One simple tactic to make sure you only eat what you need is to keep serving dishes off of the table. Fill your plate at the counter or stovetop and then sit at the table. You’ll be less tempted to reach out for seconds or to nibble from the dish.
#3 Veggies First
If you eat your vegetables first, before your meats and grains, you’ll fill up faster. You may not have room for that serving of meat, bread, or pasta.
#4 Eat More Slowly
One of the reasons many people tend to overeat is because they eat quickly. It takes your body about twenty minutes to send a “full
Double-Dipping: How to Get Double Use from Items
College dorm rooms are notoriously small, with limited storage and little floor space. For students who are used to large bedrooms at home, the transition to college housing can be challenging.
The challenge to arrange a small room so that it is attractive and functional, with room for everything that two or three students need for two semesters, can be met by “double-dipping.
Dance Your Way to Better Health
Dancing is excellent exercise, and it’s also fun. There’s no age limit to dancing, and it’s completely customizable. There’s no need to make exercise miserable to reap benefits!
Here are some of the benefits of dancing for your health, and some suggestions on how to incorporate dancing into your everyday life.
Benefits of Dancing
Dancing is a weight-bearing exercise, like walking, so it helps build your bones in addition to strengthening muscles. Here are some specific benefits to consider.
1. Cardiovascular health
When you get your heart rate up, your dance routine kicks in to start giving your heart a good workout. There’s little debate that regular workouts where your heart rate stays up are excellent for cardiovascular health.
2. Total body workout
Depending on the kind of dancing you take up, you may discover muscles you didn’t know you had. Dancing uses your whole body, and can even target certain areas for toning (such as with belly dancing).
3. Mental benefits
Studies have shown that dancing actually sharpens your mind! Older adults who took dance classes twice a week for six months exhibited better memory and cognitive function. In fact, studies have even found that people who take dance classes are less likely to develop dementia. This might be because dancing requires you to remember moves and learn new ones, and put them together in a coordinated presentation.
Dancing lifts your mood and boosts your confidence. It gives you a sense of accomplishment, too.
4. Social benefits
Dancing is usually done in classes and groups, so you get the opportunity to socialize and make friends. And when you get to see your friends at dance class, you’re more motivated to go.
5. Immune system boost
Did you know that exercise stimulates the immune system? Studies have shown that exercise increases antibodies, and it also raises your body temperature, helping to kill bacteria.
Types of Dancing
What kind of dancing should you do? Choose something that you really like that fits your style. Many dance classes and dance-based exercise routines are based on a certain style, but they are not strictly that style.
For example, ballet-based dancing may include interpretive dance and other ballet-like moves. Ballroom dancing encompasses various dance routines like waltzes. A belly-dance based routine strengthens core muscles and tones targeted areas of the body.
Here are some of the more popular kinds of dance-based exercise.
1. Jazzercise incorporates cardio and toning.
2. Zumba is also a cardio workout that you can do in a class or at home (or both).
3. Belly dancing is an ancient form of dance that is not just for the young. It’s also a cardio workout that promotes flexibility and coordination.
4. Salsa dancing requires a partner, and might be a great chance for a couple to do something fun and healthy together.
Dancing is one of those rare activities that is fun and healthy. Maybe you can find a class in your community and sign up!
Baked Cheesecake
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
6 eggs, separated
1 lb cream cheese
1 lb sour cream
1 cup sugar
Juice of half a lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons flour
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease the sides of a 9-inch spring form pan and set it aside.
Put the butter into a small saucepan and melt it over low heat. You can also melt the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Add the graham cracker crumbs and stir until they are all moistened. Press the crumb mixture into the bottom of the spring form pan. Save a little of the crumbs to the side.
Add the egg yolks, cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, lemon juice, vanilla and flour in a medium sized bowl. Using an electric hand mixer, beat the ingredients together until it is light and fluffy. Set the mixture aside.
In a small bowl, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the cream cheese mixture until well incorporated. Pour the batter into the spring form pan, shaking to level it out. Sprinkle the remaining graham cracker crumbs on the top of the batter.
Bake the cheesecake in the preheated oven for one hour. After the hour has passed, turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake there for an additional hour. Open the oven door and leave it ajar. Allow the cheesecake to cool in the oven for an additional half hour.
You may garnish the cheesecake with your favorite fruit toppings or sprinkle it with a dusting of powered sugar or cocoa.
Creative Dorm Room Decorating Ideas
On move-in day at college, all of the rooms start out looking the same: bland, generic and beige. The institution-provided desks, chairs and dressers are boring at best and scuffed and scratched at worst.
Talk to your roommate during the summer to plan your room decorations. That way, you can set it up easily and quickly, and start settling in to your “home away from home.
How to Decorate Your Home with Homemade Halloween Decorations
No Halloween celebration is complete without scary decorations that can turn your home into a whole different world. Whether you want to go with a less-scary harvest-season theme, take more of a cute approach, or go all-out and make your house look like a haunted castle or graveyard, you can make all of these decorations yourself.
Here are some tips and ideas on how to decorate your home with homemade Halloween decorations.
1. Gluey Ghosts
This is a fun craft for kids, and takes a more “cute” approach. Put these little ghosts on your windows with a little white beeswax, or write on them with permanent marker to make place cards. There are lots of possibilities with these! Here’s how you make them:
On a cookie sheet lined with wax paper, make small, ghost-shaped outlines with white glue, and fill them in with glue. Allow to dry, and then peel them off the wax paper. With a permanent marker, you can make eyes or write names, or whatever else you’d like to do.
2. Ghosts and Gourds
Have you ever looked at gourds and realized how ghostly their shapes are? Gather up some gourds at your local market and allow them to dry. (Or you can purchase already-dried gourds.) Paint the gourds with white spray paint and use black craft paint to create eyes, mouths, bowties, and whatever else you like. The gourds can be upside-down or right side up.
Use the ghostly gourds to make a scary garland (drill a 1/4″ hole in the top of each gourd and run twine through), or set them up as table decorations. If you have a bay window, these would make a great ghostly gathering in the window.
3. Homemade Tombstones
These will look appropriately spooky in your yard, or in your house if you’re going with a haunted house theme. Here’s what you’ll need:
* Pieces of plywood in whatever size you’d like
* Silk flowers (roses are good)
* Wooden craft letters (RIP)
* Wooden craft numbers (to create dates)
* Hot glue
* Garden or tomato stakes, 1 for each tombstone (this is optional – use if you want to mount the tombstone directly into the ground)
* Stone spray paint
Nail the stake to the middle of the plywood, leaving about 6″ of the spiked end at the bottom. Use the hot glue to attach the roses, letters, and numbers (and anything else you come up with!). Once dry, spray paint the front of the tombstone with stone spray paint, and it will look like a carved stone.
4. Specimen Jars
Now you can use all those rubber toys in your kids’ rooms! You can also raid your local dollar store and spend a little money to collect plastic and rubber spiders, bugs, rats, and doll heads. Just put them in clear jars, fill with water that you’ve colored with green or yellow food coloring, and if you like, make some labels. Tie the labels around the jar lids with twine.
Hopefully, these ideas have inspired you to get creative for Halloween!
Crazy Morning Breakfast Ideas
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Your mother said it; your grandmother said it and doctors agree. However, chances are they don’t live the same hectic and crazy life you do. So how do you get that meal into your day without being late? The following crazy morning breakfast ideas were created just for you.
#1 Fruit Bread with Nut Butter
If you are able to bake on the weekends, then great. Find a tasty fruit bread recipe like raisin bread or banana bread and make a loaf. Pop a piece of that bread in the toaster in the morning, smear a bit of nut butter on the bread and you have a well-rounded and healthy breakfast. Try almond butter or hazelnut butter if you’re not fond or peanuts or simply want a change. If you can grab a piece of fruit on your way out the door, even better.
#2 Egg Muffins
If you enjoy eggs and have a few minutes on Sunday, you can make egg muffins ahead of time. Grab a muffin pan and spray it with cooking spray. Crack one egg into each muffin holder. You can sprinkle toppings like ham, cooked bacon or sausage, or even a bit of parmesan cheese on the top.
Cook for 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees F. Remove the eggs from the oven and let cool for a minute or two. Using a butter knife, loosen the edges of each egg muffin. Allow to cool completely, then store in a baggie or container. You can take these handy little breakfasts with you on your way out the door – they’re good warm or cold.
#3 Snack Mix
Okay, this may sound a little weird but a handful or two of snack mix with a variety of nuts and dried fruit is not only healthy, it’s also quite tasty. You can make your own snack mix by visiting the bulk food section at your supermarket. Try different dried fruits, including berries. Add your favorite nuts and seeds and enjoy. It’s packed with fiber, protein, and nutrients.
#4 Fruit and Cheese
Cut up your favorite fruit and cheese the night before. Place them in a storage container or a baggie and set it right in the front of your refrigerator. Hint: a little lemon juice on the cut fruit will prevent it from turning brown and soft.
#5 Smoothies
A smoothie is one of the most delicious ways to start your hectic day. Yogurt, milk, or juice combined with your favorite fruits and/or vegetables and maybe a bit of protein powder can set you up for the day. However, chances are if you have truly crazy mornings you may not have time to whip up a smoothie. Make them the night before, or even on the weekend, and freeze them. If you freeze your smoothies, make sure to take one out the night before you’re going to use it.
You can take good care of yourself even if you live a crazy, busy life. In fact, your health depends on it. Plan ahead and make sure you have options in the house that make grabbing a fast breakfast on the go possible.
Worms for Brains
8 to 10 medium sweet orange peppers
1 package (16 ounces) spaghetti
1 pound ground beef
1 jar (26 ounces) spaghetti sauce
Wash the peppers and then cut the tops off of them. Set the tops aside. Remove the seeds and membranes from the peppers. On one side of each pepper, cut out a face like a jack-o-lantern. Set the peppers aside.
In a medium pan, cook the spaghetti according to package directions. Cook and drain the ground beef in a large pan or Dutch oven until it is no longer pink. Carefully drain the fat from the ground beef.
Drain the spaghetti after it has cooked the allotted time. Add the ground beef and then pour in the spaghetti sauce. Continue cooking the spaghetti until the sauce is heated through. Remove the pan from the stove and then spoon the spaghetti evenly into the prepared peppers. Add back the tops of the peppers and serve.
Circumstances That May Lead to Living with a Roommate
Living with a roommate is traditionally associated with attending school, specifically college or boarding school. However, there are many scenarios that lend themselves to finding a roommate.
College
Freshmen are often required to live on campus at four-year universities and colleges. Upperclassmen may also live on campus if there is enough housing. Generally the students with seniority get first pick of accommodations each year.
First-year and transfer student roommates can be friends or acquaintances who agree to room together. (More and more incoming students are finding roommates on the university’s Facebook page for their class.) Students can also choose to go “random