Cleaning your house can be Simple & Fun too !

Do you like a dirty house ? - 'No'
Do you like a cluttered house ? - 'No'
Do you love clean your house that gets cluttered every few days ? - The answer once again is 'No'

Though we know. 'Cleanliness is Godliness', but that cleanliness comes with a lot of hard work.
Being a working woman, I can really understand the challenge of keeping your house organized and uncluttered throughout the week/ month/ year - as we never want to waste our weekend/ holiday cleaning our house only. Hence, to achieve a perfect balance, I adopt few tips and tricks which works well to keep your house clean as well as the efforts won't feel annoying too. Here goes those tricks:

1. Get rid of the things that you haven't used in last 6 months.
If you haven't used something in last 6 months, probably you don't need it ! Please donate these stuff and push them out of your house. However, there can be a case when you want to keep some of those stuffs as memories or for using it once in few years time. If that's the case, pl find a separate place for these things and create space in easily accessible areas in your house. This activity can be done once in 3 months by contributing 2 hours over a weekend.

2. Divide and organise
Divide your house into different zones and create owners of those zones among your family members - to keep that zone clean, uncluttered and most sort after place in the house. This will be a good fun and positive internal competition within the house.

3. Standard work
The activity which are routine require same stuff for those activities. So, 'standard work' comes very handy here. All such things should have a assigned place and specific area in the house which is easy to access and sustain.

4. 20 minutes daily
Block your calendar for 20 minutes daily to clean your house and ensure that you are doing a different activity everyday. This will become something like your daily exercise routine. This will help you burn calories and can be a part of your routine work out sessions.

5. Enjoy and decorate
It is very important that you are positive when you are cleaning your house. This ensures positive energy in your house. Enjoy the cleaning part and then the decoration of your house. Try different combinations of furniture arrangements. you can change the set every 6 months, if your furniture is moveable.

6. Appreciate yourself
Once you have cleaned the house, you deserve an appreciation. Hence, treat yourself with good food or a good outing.

Japanese have a concept call 5S - Set in order, Sort, Shine, Standardize, Sustain.
This is an awesome concept and once you start following the same, keep your house clean will no more be a challenging job.

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Tender Feet, Delicate Skin, Lovely Smile of our bundle of Joy

Babies are the most beautiful creation of God; babies bring smiles on everyone’s face, their soft and smooth skin makes everyone look for excuses to cuddle the baby, touch that super soft skin and snuggle in its folds, their gestures take you back in time when you were a kid.

We all know the delicate things require care, but when it comes to babies they require the utmost care. Their skin, hair, muscle, bones, everything needs to be nourished very carefully, so that the softness and smoothness of the skin remains intact, the bone and muscle building happens appropriately.

Given the delicate skin of the babies, any product which uses artificial colour and chemicals can cause rashes to the baby’s skin and hence lead to irritation for the babies. Also early years are very important for the growth and strengthening of muscle and bones. Massaging your baby is highly recommended, as it helps make your baby active. It also promotes bone and muscle health and develops motor skills.

Oil massage forms a traditional part of taking care of babies as the oil not only nourishes skin and soothes tired muscles it also relaxes your baby into sleep. However, the oils which are used should have natural ingredients and not artificial colour and chemicals. Regular massages with Olive oil and Almond Oil will help in proper nourishment of the babies.

Olive oil is known to contain a fatty acid called oleic acid, which is believed to make the skin more permeable. An increased permeability of the skin could cause water and oil to be absorbed into your baby’s skin thus making it soft and supple. Almond oil is also very important as it reduces the chances of indigestion and upset stomach. This is a common problem in infants that can cause a lot of pain. Use this oil to gently massage your baby’s tummy. As the skin of new born babies is very sensitive, it is quite often prone to dryness, eczema, soreness and inflammation. The risk is even greater in environments where the air is dry and dusty. Application of sweet almond oil prevents such irritations.

Dabar Baby Massage Oil is one such product which is very good. The company has taken utmost care to understand the requirements of a baby’s skin and body and created this oil. No artificial colour, chemicals means pure natural ingredients and a happy smiling baby :)

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Family Life – Family Bonding - Planning a vacation can be very Exciting and increase Bonding & Love

Vacations :) We all love them!! Whether it is a weekend trip or a long vacation to a far off place in India or abroad, we just love the sound of vacations. But more often than not, we try to book holiday packages, especially while traveling to other countries / cities, as we do not want to spend time doing multiple bookings for travel, stay and excursions. Also, there is always a fear that something may go wrong and could spoil the vacation.

But are we not missing on the excitement of planning our own trip, the way we want, keeping a few things unplanned and rather than having a set agenda which may sometimes (on most occasions) become too exhausting and fails the very idea of vacations.

Well then, try and plan your vacation with your spouse and you will be surprised to find the difference. The excitement will start from the day you start thinking / planning the vacation and will last even after your vacation is over. In fact, the entire process of planning and finalizing the vacation in itself is an experience, which you will cherish. An opportunity to learn so much more about your partner and it will lead to increase in the bonding and love.

The initial process remains the same whether you book the vacation yourself or through the travel agent. In both cases you need to decide the place and dates. But the real excitement starts once you start researching about the place, things to do, hotels, excursions, learning about local culture, cuisines, shopping areas, specialties etc etc. The below are some of my experiences which may be helpful:

·         Jointly decide the type of vacation you want – romantic & relaxing, adventurous, filled with excursions, hills, beaches etc – This will help in narrowing down on the place you want to go.

·         Divide the work between you and your partner. Like who will take care of the travel, hotels, excursions etc

·         Spend time doing your research – it is like virtually exploring the place before going there. You will find out there are lot of things you can do which are not part of any travel itinerary. Blogs from travelers are the most helpful as per my experience.

·         Don’t book anything in a hurry! Accumulate all the research and discuss with each other. There is bound to be arguments, but it is a great way to explore each others' views.

·         Do not book everything before going on the trip, leave a few things to be decided on the spot depending upon your mood and time in hand. For example, there will be instances wherein you would like to meet the guys before any adventure sport such as scuba diving.

·         Also if you don’t book everything in advance, you will have all the time to explore the place the way you want. As there will be no one to tell you when to get up, get in the bus, move on from a certain place when you like to spend more time at a particular spot.

·         This also helps in exploring the local culture and local cuisine.

The above is not an exhaustive to do list, as all of us like to do things differently. However, a few of the above can be very useful. It has been for me surely.

Whether you plan your vacation on your own or take a fixed itinerary from a travel firm, vacations are always lovely. However, planning your own travel, can increase the excitement level of the trip, chances are it may help in exploring the place much better and will definitely help in learning & understanding so much more about your partner.

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Discover how the entire family can start enjoying sports together

Fitness, Exercise, Sports are very important not only for kids but for people of all ages. Physical activities especially sports are good for complete development / growth of children and helps senor people improve / maintain their health. However, given the work at school and office, we neglect sports all together. Most kids either are good at sports or studies, but the virtues of being good at both go a long way in building a successful career.

Recently while reading about trying to imbibe the culture of sports in kids, I came across this article on Reward Me – “Discover how the entire family can start enjoying sports together” - https://www.rewardme.in/family/family-living/article/get-your-family-to-embrace-sports. The article brought out a very different perspective than I had. I was looking for ways to imbibe sports, exercise into my kid’s life but the article reflected the importance of sports in the entire family’s life.

The article was indeed helpful in how to educate my kids and my entire family to embrace sports. Everybody may not like to play one particular game but people have varied interest. Trying to understand their interest is the most important thing.

If your kid is not interested in any particular game, then a great idea would be to take them to watch some game / sport, so that they can soak in the atmosphere, which may light the spark in them to try and play that sport. For eg, seeing India play the WC final and win it, would have certainly made a few kids play this wonderful game. Now-a-days a host of sporting activities take place which was not the case in earlier days.

Another important point which was very helpful is trying and involving every member of the family. Some may like to find out about the history of the game, some wants to spend time doing the calculation while the others may like to play the game. This way every member of the family is involved and the kid’s whole perspective about sport changes and realizes the importance of sports.

This also helps in bringing the family together, closer. This will also help us learn about team spirit, supporting each other and taking care of each other, build confidence and stay healthy.

The article was really helpful in reflecting how the entire family can be drawn towards sport and benefit from it. However, the same would not be possible but for RewardMe. RewardMe presents a platform to general public and not necessarily bloggers, to give their views from their personal lives, which are more relevant than any fictional write-ups or stories. Thanks RewardMe for being an ally as without you, I would not have come across this wonderful article.

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