Veronica Bettencourt

There are many benefits to growing an indoor herb garden. It can be a rewarding first experience for beginning gardeners, or an excellent solution for any gardener with limited planting space. It is also a fun and efficient way for home cooks to keep fresh herbs at their fingertips.

There are lots of points to have in mind should you wish to try your hand at developing an indoor garden. One key consideration is picking the correct location. You’ll wish to find a spot that receives at least eight hours of direct sunlight every day. If the stems and leaves get overly lengthy, or if the leaves start to fade or fall off, a lack of sunlight is the likely culprit. It’s feasible to supplement natural light, if essential, with grow lights or florescent work lights hung 4 to six inches above the plants.

When you have decided on a location for your garden, figure out which particular herbs you would like to grow. You can study nursery catalogs, or ask your local nursery staff, or you can just select the herbs you like the most. Your best bets are oregano, chives, mint, rosemary, basil, parsley, and thyme. These all frequently appear in popular recipes and they are all attractive and fragrant. They are also fairly hearty, and are relatively easy to successfully transplant outside later.

Some gardeners and cooks have such a fondness for Italian cooking that they grow an indoor or outdoor Italian herb garden. You could specialize in a national cuisine as well, if that suits your interests and tastes.

Your garden center staff can help you pick the right type of containers. You will need 6 to 8 inches across, and at least 6 to 8 inches deep. You could also choose to use a larger container and group the plants into 6 to 8 inches apart. Drainage is an extremely important consideration. Place screen mesh across the drainage holes on the container, and place containers inside a tray gravel-filled tray. The nursery staff can also help you select a potting mix that drains well and is approved for use with edible plants.

Layer potting mix into the bottom of the containers. Carefully set the plants into the potting mix at the depth they were growing in the nursery pots, and water them. It is essential that you do not over water your herbs. A thorough watering no more them twice a week should be plenty. If you like, you can supplement the potting mix once or twice a month with a fertilizer approved for use with edibles.

Clip the outer leaves as you require them, leaving lots of healthy growth on the stems. That way, the herbs will continue to create usable leaves and sprigs for quite some time.

You might encounter a couple of pitfalls with your indoor garden. Indoor air lacks the humidity of outdoor air and you might have to supply the herbs with added moisture by misting the leaves or adding water to the gravel-line drainage tray. You also might encounter an issue with insects. If so, fill a spray bottle with tepid, soapy water and spray the leaves and stems. The soapy solution will kill off the intruders without having harming the plants.

Otherwise, all you have to do is appreciate the flavors and fragrances of your fresh herbal that can serve as herbal home remedies, and bask within the pride of successfully developing an indoor herb garden. No matter what your  level as a gardener or a house cook, you’ll no doubt be pleased with the outcome.

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Ins stains are indeed very tough to clean. You do need some kind of special cleaners to clean your carpet from those stains. Here we will help you how to remove those inks from your carpet when no other solution are quickly available. The following site carpet cleaning service will tell you about a great carpet cleaning service.

The main aspect to consider when cleaning such stains is the delay between when you’re starting to clean them and when the spilling happened. Wet ink, for instance, is easier to clean than the dry one. Hurry and don’t let the ink dry. Using hot water might seem a good solution. In fact, it’s not. If you put hot water, the ink will go deeper into your carpet. You will have then a very hard time to remove it afterward. Simply blot the stain with some cloth with cold water. Don’t rub the ink. If you do, you will have a hard time after that to remove the spot. Go here carpet cleaners to learn more about carpet cleaning and this website local carpet cleaning has great infos about local carpet cleaners.

Over the ink spot and under it, put absorbent tissues (or clothes). Once done, put an heavy object over. This is supposed to be allowed to take action for a few minutes until there is no more ink to absorb. Put lots of hair spray on the spot to be cleaner and repeat the absorbing process with the clothes (or tissues). If you see some stains after, dry it. Use a toothbrush and a solution of part water, part white vinegar, to fully remove the remaining dried ink.

Another good solution is to use alcohol to clean ink stains from carpets. It is very easy. It works well and most people do have alcohol at home. When the spot has dried, use alcohol. Using a cotton cloth, dip it into alcohol. Then blot the ink stain. Here again, don’t rub it, it will only but make it bigger. Do not pour the liquid directly on the spot. Dry the stained area and repeat the same procedure until the stain disappears. Buy a commercial product only if all the previous methods didn’t work for you. Then you should remove effectively the ink.

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If you or someone you know has problems with anxious thoughts, they might be interested in this article I found by Barry Joe McDonagh:

Getting to Sleep and Panic Attacks at Night

As most doctors will tell you, there are two things that disturb sleep: physical pain and worry.

It’s therefore understandable that many people with anxiety report frequent sleep disturbance as a major problem.

Not being able to sleep can actually be quite traumatic for many people.

The first thing you need to understand about sleep is this: it’s not the amount of sleep you get that’s important, but rather the quality of the sleep.

Quality over quantity.

I am going to give you some quick tips to help tackle any problems you are having with sleep. Firstly, to break the insomnia cycle, begin by not presuming you will sleep! That seems like the wrong attitude, but if you approach each night as just a possible opportunity to sleep, this helps remove the pressure you are placing yourself under.

In a way, some people have performance anxiety when they think about sleeping:

“Will I be able to make myself sleep tonight?”

The answer is maybe yes, maybe no. If you’re going through a period of sleeplessness, a good night’s sleep isn’t guaranteed, for whatever reason, so you have to accept that for the moment. If you get one or two hours’ sleep, that’s well and good, and if you get nothing, then accept it and move on. Each night, as you retire, say to yourself:

“I’m preparing for bed, but I won’t try to force sleep. If it comes, it comes. If not, I won’t beat myself up over it. This is a period I’m going through, but I’ll soon return to normal sleep patterns.”

Every person goes through periods of sleeplessness from time to time. It’s very natural. You may not be aware of why you experience sleeplessness, but at the very least, you can accept it.

Let me emphasize the importance of surrendering to your inability to sleep. Surrender to whatever may or may not happen during the course of a night, and you’ll put your mind under less pressure. After a certain point, it’s really the anger and frustration that keep you awake most of the night.

Naturally the best way to get a good night’s sleep is a good physical workout each evening in the outdoors. This is very effective because the mind may try to keep you awake, but the sheer physical exhaustion brings on sleep quicker. Couple that with a willingness to accept sleeplessness, and you’ll find yourself sleeping much easier.

Remember that alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine should be avoided several hours before sleep. You may be the type who finds it initially hard to get to sleep as your mind races with anxious thoughts. Should you find your mind racing and you simply can’t achieve sleep, keep a journal beside your bed. Sit upright and start to write down how you feel:

“I’m feeling quite restless. I keep turning over and over, trying to sleep, but I have worries on my mind.” Now write down all of your worries, for example:

“Tomorrow I have to do X, and I’m afraid I won’t be well rested, etc.”

Continue to write down your worries until the exercise actually becomes quite boring. Then your body and mind will slowly want to return to sleep. Writing like this is a simple tool for preparing your mind in a linear way to wind down and return to sleep (an advanced form of counting sheep).

Don’t be afraid of writing pages and pages of nothing in particular. What you’re doing is helping the conscious mind release whatever is keeping it awake so it can stop obsessing and return to sleep.

You see, one of the reasons we can’t fall asleep is that our mind feels these worries (whatever they are) are important to analyze over and over; they need urgent attention and therefore should be thought about all night long.

The more worked up you get by the worries, the more your body gets stimulated and the harder sleep is to achieve. Writing down all your worries on paper has the effect of saying to your mind:

“Okay, mind, you think these are important. I’ve written them all down in detail. They won’t be forgotten, I promise. I can come back to them tomorrow and deal with them then-but RIGHT NOW, let’s sleep.”

The mind can be like a small child who just needs reassurance that things will be dealt with and looked after. That’s all it needs to let go of these mental worries. You then discover, in the morning, that almost all of the worries or concerns aren’t big issues. Many of our worries are the workings or an overactive imagination.

Dr. Dennis Gersten of San Diego suggests an approach that is effective for particularly restless nights. You may want to experiment with it the next time you are very restless in bed.

Try the following:

-As you lie there in bed, start by remembering a time in your life when you absolutely had to stay awake! Maybe it was an important exam you were studying for and you had to keep cramming through the night.

Maybe it was staying up all night nursing your baby to sleep. Maybe it was when you were traveling through the night on a bus and needed to stay awake in case you missed your stop.

I am sure there have been many different occasions in your life where you had to force yourself to stay awake.

-Remember the weariness and the effort just to keep your eyes open. Remember how your eyelids felt like lead weights and you wished you could close them, even just for a minute. At that time, you could not give in to your urge to fall asleep; you had to fight hard to stay awake. Relive those memories and really try and remember exactly what that felt like.

-Now think about right now, and how good it feels to actually be in bed with no pressing need to stay awake. Think how much you would have given to be where you are now, lying in your bed with your head resting on the pillow and the complete freedom you have to fall asleep. It feels really good to actually have full permission to fall asleep right now.

There are no demands on you to stay awake. With your eyes closed spend a few more minutes remembering that time.

-End of exercise.

Night Panic Attacks

People with anxiety disorders can sometimes be awakened at night by panic attacks. We know that most nighttime panic attacks aren’t caused by dreams. Records of sleep polysomnographia show that most panic attacks take place during the early sleep phase (phase II), not during the REM phase associated with dreams. This is different from nightmares. Nightmares happen during the second half of the night, so we’re often able to remember the content of these dreams.

It’s important not to go to bed fearing you might have a panic attack. Go to bed confident that if one should arise, you’ll successfully deal with it. That way, you don’t put yourself under pressure to NOT have a panic attack. Many panic attacks are experienced at the very moment of falling asleep.

If you wake with a panic attack, implement the One Move Technique as outlined in my course Panic Away. (See end of article)

Here’s a description a woman recently gave of her experience:

“Getting to sleep is a real problem. Just as I’m about to drop off to sleep, my body seems to jolt awake, like an electric shock, which then frightens me and keeps me awake for hours.”

This jolt is called a hypnic jerk, or hypnagogic massive jerk. A hypnic jerk usually occurs just as the person enters sleep. People often describe it as a falling sensation or an electric shock, and it’s a completely normal experience. It’s most common when we’re sleeping uncomfortably or overtired.

There’s been little research on the subject, but there are some theories as to why hypnic jerks occur. When we drift off into sleep, the body undergoes changes in temperature, breathing, and muscle relaxation. The hypnic jerk may be a result of the muscles relaxing. The brain misinterprets this as a sign of falling, and it signals our limbs to wake up, hence the jerking legs or arms.

People turn hypnic jerks into panic attacks because they already feel nervous about their condition and the jolt scares them into thinking something bad is happening. Again, it’s a fearful reaction to a sensation.

Usually when these people wake up, they gasp for air, and this can also turn into a fear of a breathing problem while sleeping. If you jolt awake with panic, then simply understanding the nature of a hypnic jerk can strip away the anxiety from the experience.

Reassure yourself that you’re safe and that the jerk isn’t something to worry about. It doesn’t disrupt your bodily functions, and it doesn’t put you in any danger.

I want to leave you with a few last comments. All too often people with anxiety are pressurized to end their anxiety. People pass remarks like:

“I wish you could just snap out of your anxiety”.

Although people mean well, these type of comments are not helpful. People don’t just think one thought and snap out of anxiety. There is a step by step process of removing the illusion that anxiety creates and for some this can take time where the anxiety has been present for many years.

I really want to impress upon you that anxiety is curable. What you must never stop doing is searching for the right approach for you. After many years working in this area I am now more convinced than ever that every single person, regardless of how severe, can end their anxiety problem. If you have a thought that is telling you different then you need to lose that thought.

Never stop trying, never give up. That is the best you can do.

Best Wishes

Barry Joe McDonagh

If you want to learn more about my work then visit the following link:

www.panicaway.com

All material provided in this article are for informational or educational purposes only. No content is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Consult your physician regarding the applicability of any opinions or recommendations with respect to your symptoms or medical condition.

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I recently watched this video  with Will Smith about his wisdom in life and I absolutely had to share it with you. I’ve always admired Will Smith. The video is just under 10 minutes long so take the time to watch it without distraction. If you have a drive to do something in your life, here is some motivation to keep you moving forward…

Feel free to leave a reply to let me know what you think

Veronica Bettencourt

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Use all of these tips or choose a few of these to implement in your home. Choose one tip today and then visit this list next week and choose another getting organized tip and implement it. Small changes over time can really add up and make all the difference.

1. Segregate your clothing by color and by occasion of use too. Not only will your clothes look neater, they will be easier to find too!

2. Do you find yourself always loosing your keys? Get a key finder. If you lose your keys, press the button on the key finder, and that will trigger a sound from where your keys are located. Another option is to have a decorative bowl at the entry of your home and get in the habit of dropping your keys there when you enter. Forming new habits may not be so easy for some people so a key finder may be more ideal.

3. Minimize the time you spend doing laundry by using different hampers for clothing. Use one for the dark colored clothing and one for the light colored clothing. When laundry day arrives, you won’t have to spend time separating the white and dark clothing.

4. If you share a bathroom with other members in your household, assign a caddy or space to put their stuff. Your bathroom will be more organized and clutter free.

5. How’s that glove compartment in your car looking? Organize it to have easy access to important documents that you need in a flash so you don’t waste time fumbling through your glove compartment when you need something in a hurry.

6. Vehicle trunk full of stuff? Remove clutter from the trunk, especially heavy clutter. Weight adds up to the car’s drag which adds up to gas consumption.

7. Keep all your appliance manuals, guarantees, and troubleshooting in a big envelope or folder. It can save you the trouble of expensive repairs.

8. Install a corkboard in key places in your home: possibly near the telephone, refrigerator, or home office area. Use this to pin up urgent messages and reminders.

9. Extend the storage capacity of your closets by adding attachments such as hooks and rods on the closet doors, where you can hang your belts, ties, scarves, ribbons, and other accessories.

10. Use empty ice trays or egg cartons to store trinkets suck as charm earrings and buttons or any other small items. Finding them now will be a breeze.

Have any organizing tips of your own you would like to share? I always welcome positive feedback and ideas. Feel free to comment

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Do you know of someone who has a pattern of always dating losers, bad boys, who always break their heart and leave them crying? For those women, oftentimes they need help in identifying the signs of such unreliable men.

Let’s define a loser as a man who is totally into himself and has little empathy for a woman’s needs. He is a man who has a pattern of sweet talking women in an attempt to sweep them off their feet and into the nearest bed. He will wine you and dine you and tell you how beautiful you are and how lucky he is to have met you. These men are very good at what they do because they’ve had a lot of practice!

These men are wonderful in the beginning of a relationship; however, in time they most always become less attached and more distant to their partner. Some never call back, others break dates and some even “forget” their wallet and their date ends up paying for the meal.
Have you ever met or dated a man such as this? Perhaps he never said he loved you, and whenever you spoke about commitment, he would change the subject.

The truth is that no woman ever wakes up in the morning and says to herself, “Today I need to find a man who will hurt me.” Rather what most often happens is that many women (and men) tend to confuse intensity with reliability. They meet someone who makes them FEEL wonderful or excited and they assume that he is a good man. The problem isn’t that their feelings are wrong. What gets them into trouble is that their intense feelings often cause them to ignore bad or inconsistent behavior that they would clearly see if they were not so emotionally involved.

What if there was a way to effortlessly attract men that were both exciting as well as dependable? Not simply a technique, but a manual that showed how successful women captivate men in such a way that they never get mistreated.
What if information was available to transform you into the woman that men adore? Thankfully such information is available and it’s just one click away. “The Woman Men Adore…and Never Want to Leave,” shows every woman the secrets to attract and keep the man of her dreams. Click Here to see for yourself! And yes, I got this myself and couldn’t stop reading it until I was done; very worthwhile.

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Valentine’s Day is a special time of year to share with those we love. It’s not just for boyfriends and girlfriends or husbands and wives.

I’m making this a quick post just so I can share with you that I have just put together something special for you for Valentine’s Day. It’s a short 6 page report with some fun ideas for the whole family and  little romance ideas after the kids go to bed too.

It’s absolutely free as a thank you for being my subscriber.

Go ahead and download it here:

http://www.veronicabettencourt.com/valentines-report.pdf

Enjoy!!

Veronica Bettencourt

P.S You need Adobe Reader to view this file. You can download Adobe Reader here at

http://get.adobe.com/reader/

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If you are like many other Americans, you may opt for a New Year’s resolution. It’s never to late to start one..whether it is January, February, March, or any month of the year for that matter. But, what should your new year’s resolution be?  How can you choose the perfect New Year’s resolution?

Here are some tips for choosing a New Year’s resolution:

Look at the main aspects of your life. These aspects are health, family, and finances.  Closely examine each and you may automatically get your New Year’s resolution. Have you been letting your health slip?  If so, make a quest to eat healthy and visit the doctor more.  Have you been focusing too much on work?  If so, make your New Year’s resolution spending more time with family.  Are you in debt?  Make this your year to get out from under it.

Consider your stress sources. We all have stress.  Unfortunately, many individuals mistakenly believe that stress in unavoidable, but it doesn’t have to be.  Look at what causes you stress.  It is an unclean house, long hours at work, or limited financial resources?  In most cases, New Year’s resolutions are designed to change and improve one’s life.  Now is your chance to do so.  Examine your sources of stress and see what ones you can change.  For example, you can lose weight, improve your productivity at work so you don’t have to work late, and spend more time with your family.

Pick one New Year’s resolution at a time. As previously stated, you should look at the main aspects of your life and stress sources to decide on a New Years resolution.  Since stress is common and a lot causes it, you may automatically come up with three different New Years resolutions.  This is nice, but pick one and stick with it.  It is easy to get out of debt or lose weight, but you may find it too difficult to do both at the same time.  To increase your chances of making your New Year’s resolution true, don’t put too much on your plate.

Write down your options. As mentioned above, it is common for many Americans to have many aspects of their lives they want to change.  Most want to have better relationships with their families, lose weight, quit a bad habit,get out of debt, or earn more money.  Since you are encouraged to start with one goal at a time, write down all of your options.  Closely examine them and see what is most important to you.  That should be your New Year’s resolution.  Also, don’t throw your list of goals away.  Keep it.  If you meet your Near Year’s resolution early in the year, work on the rest of your list.

Choose a realistic New Year’s resolution. One mistake that people make is aiming too high.  Yes, it is good to do so, but that often results in disappointment.  That disappointment causes many to stop trying all together.  Do you want to lose weight?  Good.  Instead of saying you must lose 30 pounds by March, give yourself the entire year.  This way you are not in a rush.  When you give yourself time to achieve your New Years resolution, you are more likely to see it become a reality.  If you set realistic goals, they will be easier to meet.  In fact, if you do so early, start working on other aspects of your life to improve.  You do not have to wait until New Year’s to make a change.

Many use New Years resolutions to make a big life change.  You do not have to do so too.  Are you in good shape, have a good relationship with your family, and are not in debt?  If so, you may not have a huge goal to set.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t make a New Year’s resolution.  Instead, think of something small, but meaningful. For example, redecorating your home, buying Christmas gifts ahead of schedule, or helping others in need are unique, but good resolutions.

Mine was to get organized and simplify. I created ‘My Home Management System‘ to help me do just that. Click the following link for details on that: http://www.simpleandstressfree.com/my-home-management-system.html

Good luck in meeting your goal!

Veronica Bettencourt

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I was reading an email someone sent me that I thought would be worth sharing since it is both odd and interesting. The following is the exact email message that was sent about how to prevent yourself from getting the flu virus:

ONIONS FOR COLLECTING THE FLU VIRUS

In 1919 when the flu killed 40 million people there was this Doctor that visited the
many farmers to see if he could help them combat the flu. Many of the farmers and
their family had contracted it and many died…

The doctor came upon this one farmer and to his surprise, everyone was very healthy.
When the doctor asked what the farmer was doing that was different the wife replied that
she had placed an unpeeled onion in a dish in the rooms of the home, (probably only two rooms back then).
The doctor couldn’t believe it and asked if he could have one of the onions
and placed it under the microscope. She gave him one and when he did this, he did find
the flu virus in the onion. It obviously absorbed the virus, therefore, keeping the family
healthy.

Now, I heard this story from a hairdresser in Arizona . She said that several years ago
many of her employees were coming down with the flu and so were many of her
customers. The next year she placed several bowls with onions around in her shop.
To her surprise, none of her staff got sick. It must work.. (And no, she is not in
the onion business.)

The moral of the story is, buy some onions and place them in bowls around your home.
If you work at a desk, place one or two in your office or under your desk or
even on top somewhere. Try it and see what happens. We did it last year and
we never got the flu. If this helps you and your loved ones from getting sick,
all the better. If you do get the flu, it just might be a mild case..
Whatever, what have you to lose? Just a few bucks on onions!

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Just last week, I was going through my daily agenda and realizing that the year is almost up..I wondered if I should by a new one. I noticed how I always stuff paper in there either at the back or front of the agenda like coupons or take-out restaurant ads. My agenda was quite messy but I wanted to keep some things on hand that didn’t quite fit into the agenda itself.

So I decided to create my own system.

I went online and found some great templates for calendars,shopping lists,and the like. However, I wanted to customize mine just the way it would work for me. So I created my own templates using Microsoft Word.They aren’t anything fancy but they are practical and customized to my own needs and liking.

It took me about a whole day to do them but now that I have them in an organized  notebook (actually a binder), I can’t tell you the sense of mental freedom I have gained. I also know that I can’t get lazy or put something off for another day. If my weekly routine says I have to do laundry on Thursday, then I have to do it. It keeps me accountable.

Now I know for some people having a structured life doesn’t sound like a good idea. However, this is not really the case because I leave my Sundays completely free to do as I please and even my Saturday afternoons. This could not be possible if I didn’t keep my other days productive with a timely schedule of tasks that need completing.

I know that I have provided you with some helpful info on time management in the past, however, this one is a biggy in my books..pardon the pun. Below is a list of sections (in order) that I included in my home management notebook:

• Routines (Weekly/Monthly/Occasional) (I don’t include daily but some people do)

• Cleaning Routines (Weekly/Occasional)

• Master To Do List
  

• Master Things To Buy List (these include Shopping Mall items-not groceries or necessities)

• Grocery Master Checklist (a plastic cover & a dry erase marker to check off things as I need them)

• Weekly Planner (I first write in my routines on certain days of the week as mandatory)

• Monthly Calendar Contact List (phone numbers & emails and includes a section for personal contacts and another for business contacts)

• Birthday List
  

• Gift Ideas
  

• Books/Movies I Would Like to Watch
  

• Other Notes
  

• Coupons/Flyers (I put this in a plastic sleeve that is open at the top and closed on the bottom but still fits within my binder)

You can search online for some templates or just create your own. If you are not very computer savvy, you can simply use lined or blank paper for some of the sections you want to create. I simply used lined paper for some of the sections such as the master to do list and the master to buy list, and just inserted it into the binder.

I also created an inbox for any incoming mail that arrives and I have scheduled as a routine to only go through and empty the box and pay bills on Fridays. Knowing that, I actually save myself some time and distraction and only check the mail on Fridays. It works for me.

Incorporate some of these ideas to help alleviate some stress and give you some clarity, focus and value the time you have. Free up more time to spend it with those you love.

Feel free to leave a comment.

Happy Housekeeping:)

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