Tag Archives: lifestyle

Mar21

Forever Young: It’s Never Too Early To Start Delaying The Aging Process

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Forever Young: It’s Never Too Early To Start Delaying The Aging Process

Most of us want to look and feel youthful for as long as possible. Even if you’re only in your 20’s or 30’s, it’s never too early to start thinking about trying to delay the aging process. It’s impossible to make time stand still, but there are ways that you can look younger and prevent the effects of aging from taking their toll prematurely. Here are some tips to help you stay forever young besides listening to the song on repeat for the rest of your life:

Look After Your Skin: Your skin is usually the first part of your body to display visible signs of aging and it really is never too early to start protecting and caring for it. Your skin is your body’s barrier against the environment and it has to withstand a lot. Take care to protect it from the elements and nourish it using skin care products. Always wear sunscreen, drink plenty of water, and never go to bed wearing makeup. Choose products that suit your skin type and treat yourself to a pampering session from time to time. If you’re tired, an indulgent facial could be just what you need to lift your spirits and restore your skin’s radiant glow.

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Ahhhh 🙂

Brush Up On Dental Hygiene: If your teeth are worn, broken, or stained, this can make you look a lot older than you are. In contrast, a healthy-looking and bright smile can make you look incredibly youthful. Take good care of your teeth and gums and don’t shy away from the dentist. Regular checkups reduce the risk of decay and gum disease by up to 60 percent and you can boost this statistic even further by sticking to a thorough daily oral hygiene regime at home. Remember to swap your toothbrush every 3-4 months and brush for 2 minutes each time. If you’re interested in natural whitening to give your smile that little bit of sparkle, take a look at websites like https://miswakclub.com/. If you’re worried about discoloration, consider using a straw when you drink, especially if you are a fan of wine, cola, or coffee.

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Smile!

Get Your Body Moving: Exercise isn’t just important for your health now, it’s also essential for good health in years to come. If you work out on a regular basis or you have an active lifestyle, you’ll cut your chances of developing illnesses such as cancer, obesity, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. People who exercise are also less likely to suffer from stress, which can be a cause of premature aging. Keeping in shape will also help to reduce the risk of injuries in later life and improve the radiance of your complexion. When you’re moving, blood flow to the skin increases and this ensures that your skin cells get all the nutrients they need. If you need more convincing, check out more benefits of exercise here https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/pa-health/.

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Namaste in bed!

We’re all going to get older, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to look or feel our age. If you’re keen to maintain your youthful looks and joie de vivre for as long as possible, hopefully these tips will inspire you and help you to make positive changes to your lifestyle.

Featured Image By: Pixabay

Mar8

How To Improve Your Physical, Mental, And Spiritual Health

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How To Improve Your Physical, Mental, And Spiritual Health

In the hustle and bustle of daily life, it can seem almost impossible to find the time to look out for Number One: Yourself. Creating a healthy lifestyle not only for your physical well being but for your mental and spiritual self, as well, can only benefit you in the long run. In this article, we will explore some simple changes that you can employ for a better, healthier you:

Your Physical Health

Start Eating Well: There’s nothing better for your health than making sure that you eat good food cooked from scratch. Convenience foods may be handy but they often contain more sodium and sugar than you should be eating, which can affect your fitness and moods. Start meal planning so you don’t get stuck for what you should have for lunch or dinner and make sure that you eat breakfast so you aren’t tempted to snack on candy and junk food during the morning at work.

Get Physically Fit: If you don’t feel as though you’re at peak physical condition, now is the time to change that. You don’t necessarily have to go to the gym every day after work – instead, start walking more and make sure that you start to take the stairs instead of the elevator whenever you can. Start a class like yoga or Zumba – you could even take a friend along with you for moral support and a good laugh!

Take Care Of Your Senses: As much as we may rely on them, we often overlook our senses when it comes to making positive changes for our health. Ensure a routine hearing check to get the full scope of your hearing health, and to see whether you might need hearing aids or not. Make appointments for eye tests, as well. As we get older, the chances of changes to these senses increase exponentially, so we have to be proactive in addressing them.

Pain Management: If your aches and pains feel constant, it is not only a huge deterrent to your physical health but mental health too. This is not something that you should simply live with but find a way to improve. Clinics like next pain management roswell (or something similar in your local area) can provide personalized treatment plans to help you get back to feeling your best. With excellent pain management, you will notice a boost in your energy levels and overall sense of well being.

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Namaste!

Deal With Your Chronic Conditions: If you have any chronic conditions, then it’s important that you deal with them carefully and that you get healthy to whatever extent that you can. If you have asthma, make sure that you use a preventative inhaler to stop yourself from getting tight chested and suffering from asthma attacks – Ventolin can be ordered online. If you suffer from chronic pain, make sure that you stay active and do gentle exercises to help ease the tension in stiff joints.

Your Mental Health

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Learn Coping Strategies: If you suffer from panic attacks or depression, then it’s important that you try to learn coping strategies that will help get you through every day. Learn to identify issues that will affect you – perhaps you don’t like crowded trains or there are certain things that your boss says that rattles you – and focus on how you can better deal with them. Breathing deeply often works wonders as well as giving yourself plenty of time to deal with anything that might arise.

Go To Your Doctor: If you think that you may be suffering from mental health difficulties, then go to your doctor. It’s an illness like any other and you shouldn’t feel ashamed if you’re affected by a condition like depression or anxiety. They can negatively affect a lot of areas of your life, which means that you need to get them sorted out as quickly as possible. Therapy can help a lot of people, as can medication. Remember, you’d medicate a physical health ailment so why not your mental health, too?

Sleep Better: It’s very difficult to get much done during the day if you aren’t sleeping well. If the light comes into your bedroom in the morning and wakes you up, then why not invest in blackout blinds? You should also make sure that you turn off all of your technology like your laptop and phone before you go to bed, because they can keep you awake. Instead, use the hour before you go to sleep as an excuse to have a lavender scented shower, read a book, or light some candles and meditate.

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Zzzzzz…

Your Spiritual Health

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 Pexels Image

Learn To Be Alone: If you don’t spend much time by yourself, now is the time to start. Learning to love yourself begins with realizing that you’re an interesting person to be around. Make sure that you indulge yourself in your hobbies – you can go to see movies alone, you can go to galleries, to shows, to concerts. Take a solo vacation and luxuriate in the joy of having only your own whims to attend to.

Be Around Good People: One of the battles of everyday life is instantly won when you’re around good people who truly listen and want the best for you. If you have any old friends who don’t make you feel good anymore, it’s okay to gently phase them out of your life. Friends who challenge you and make you think are great but if your friends don’t support you, they might not be a healthy fit for your current lifestyle.

Be Kind To Yourself: Finally, you need to make sure that you treat yourself with as much kindness as you treat others. Cut yourself some slack – make sure that you have a night in by yourself if you feel tired and worn out by other people and don’t beat yourself up too much for any little embarrassing moments. We often tend to treat ourselves a lot less kindly than we would treat others so try to remember how supportive you’d be for someone in your situation and treat yourself the same way. And remember: You’re one hundred and fifty percent totally awesome.

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Take some you time!

Featured Image By: Pexels

Feb27

You Are The Butterfly, Think About The Effect You’re Having

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You Are The Butterfly, Think About The Effect You’re Having

From Fichte to Lorenz, many meteorologists and philosophers have acknowledged the effect the present can have on the past. We’ve seen the butterfly effect in literature and movies time and time again. You know the scenario; the main character travels back in time and makes a small change with catastrophic results. But, have you ever thought of applying the butterfly effect to your life? Of course, you aren’t going to be traveling back in time. But, the effect can be simpler than that.

Every choice that you make, good or bad, has an impact on your future. From what you choose to eat to how you act throughout the day, everything counts towards where you’re heading. If that’s the case, why do so many of us live each day as though it’s inconsequential? With the butterfly effect in mind, you should spend every day trying to make your future as good as it can be! If you’re anything like most people, you don’t do that as it stands. But, it’s time to make a change. If you need convincing, here are a few ways your actions now can affect your future self:

As your job takes up the majority of your days, we’ll start there. Your job offers the clearest evidence of the effect that your actions have. You achieved the job you have through your qualifications or lack of them. You got those qualifications by making choices in your early life and acting on them. Or, you made different choices that mean you don’t have the skills that you need.

It may be that you made the right decisions and are happy in your career. Or, you made the wrong ones and ended on a career path that doesn’t suit you. Either way, your past is what shaped where you are now. Think back to what caused you to make those choices. Was it where you were living, who you were friends with, or something that you saw on television? The smallest thing can shape the largest part of our lives. Often, a huge choice has the most inconsequential start. That goes to show how much of an impact the tiniest decisions can have.

Choices don’t only affect your career, either. Though the path of impact is harder to follow in other aspects of your life, it’s there just the same. Take your teeth, for example. The way you look after your teeth comes from your mother, who learned from her mother and so on. If you care for your teeth the way you were taught, you should have no dental problems as you grow older. But, if you choose to break from the path your mother set, you could run into problems. Say you skip brushing for one day. A piece of food lodges between your teeth and starts to rot them. That piece then causes weakness, which grows, even if you brush every other day. Then, you decide not to clean again, and the weakness gets worse. Before you know it, you’re faced with the task of finding an oral surgeon and having serious work done. All because you didn’t brush for one day! This may seem like an extreme example, but it’s a good way to show how important each decision can be.

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Flickr Image

This theory also applies to your health. Let’s be honest, we all make unhealthy choices more often than we would like. For the most part, though, we laugh them off as though they’re nothing. There’s no need to go into too much detail here because you get the gist by now. But, again, each wrong choice adds up. When someone is diagnosed with an illness, it’s often their unhealthy choices that got them there. Those choices can be anything as simple as eating the wrong foods or smoking for a year when you’re in your twenties. Remember, cause and effect. Everything you put into your body has an impact. It may be years before you see that effect, but that doesn’t mean that you should put it out of your mind.

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So tempting!

So, what’s the point in all this? In short, it’s time you started making the right decisions. Instead of laughing about your bad choices, acknowledge the effect that they could have. If you always keep your future in mind, you’re less likely to make unnecessary mistakes. Next time you’re faced with a choice, take the time to weigh up what it could mean for your future self. That’s not to say you need to live in the future. Living in the present is always best. But, the right choice for your future self is often the right thing for your present self, too.

And, you don’t have to wait for a choice to arise before you make a change, either. You have the power to make your own changes. If you’re in a job that you don’t love and are now thinking you’re stuck, think again. Look at where you are, and acknowledge if it doesn’t make you happy. That can be your moment of impact. Then, learn what you need to do to achieve the new job you want. Set your sights on a new job and do what you need to get it. Sign up for evening courses and send CVs to the right people.

Visit a dentist regularly to ensure your teeth stay in good health. And, make sure to keep up with your brushing routine. Remember, even one missed brush can lead to problems! Think, too, of your health. Make positive changes by embracing a healthy lifestyle. Find out what foods you should be eating. Cut out bad habits, such as drinking and smoking. Think, too, about finally getting around to that exercise routine you’ve been avoiding. All these things will ensure that your health improves and stays good in the future. Anytime you feel your habits slacking, remind yourself how important it is to get it right. There’s no time like the present!

Featured Image By: Pixabay

Feb23

Which Life Adjustments Are Worth It?

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Which Life Adjustments Are Worth It?

There are many adjustments that we make to our lives over time; some drastic, some not so much. It all depends on a lot of factors, including finances, family, influences from our friends, and our drive to get to where we want to be. So what are the main things that we are choosing to change as we get older?

Our Job: None of us stay in the same job forever. At some point you will want to or have to change to further your career. There are so many options available to us to get us further into the field that we are interested in, and not all of them are age-considerate. For example, you can earn a high school diploma from online distance learning or at an evening college class if you never graduated, and college is available to go to at any age. There are so many different ways to learn, especially with the internet at our disposal; simple tricks, trades, and hacks can be learned online, even if it’s just picking up a remotely-located job to do for a couple of weeks to build up your experience.

With mediums such as LinkedIn and Facebook available for us to network around and build up our career portfolio in an accessible place, there is no reason for us not to give different occupations a go. A job change and the opportunities that they bring, such as traveling to new countries and the ability to work from home are on the increase and are now easier for us to find than ever. It’s no wonder that we get bored so easily in one job knowing that there will be something bigger and better waiting around the corner for us.

Our Friends: Friends come and go and it’s up to you to decide which ones you want to keep for the long-term. The associates that you may have had in school or college could have grown up to have completely different ideals to you, and that’s okay – diversity is what makes the world go round and it’d be boring if everyone were the same. However, it’s when people get too different from each other to be compatible that the problems start to occur. Surround yourself with those who you know will be on your wavelength for the foreseeable future and you’ll be just fine.

Ourselves: We diet, we exercise, we lose weight, we gain weight. We know what looks good on us at some points in our lives and don’t in others. If you want a more drastic option you can find it from Roxy Plastic Surgery, but otherwise we stick to changing our clothes, hair, and makeup to offer us the changes we need to get ourselves through different stages of our lives.

Our Perspective: Our attitudes and values change; what we may have held dear to us when we were fifteen could be totally different now. There are so many things that are accountable for this, but most notably is the formation of new relationships and big events happening in our lives, such as becoming a parent. Everything changes once our lives are flipped around and shared with somebody else; embrace it.

Featured Image By: Pexels

Feb22

Lose Weight But Don’t Diet

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Lose Weight But Don’t Diet

There are times in our life when we feel like we need to shed a few pounds. This could be just after Christmas and the holiday season or it could be a gradual thing. Over the months or years, we’ve found that the weight has crept on, and we feel that it’s now time to take action. The instinct may be to embark on a diet. But this might not be the best move. Research has shown that for many people, dieting doesn’t work in the long term. Instead, it causes a painful cycle of dieting and overeating. For most people, changing a few habits in their life is all that’s needed to obtain and maintain a healthy weight.

Identify Bad Habits: The first step to revolutionizing your eating is to identify some bad habits. What are yours? Some people find that they eat sugary snacks when they’re alone, at home, or in the car. For others, it’s those glasses of wine they’ve become accustomed to after a bad day at work. Whatever your bad habits are, identify them.

If you’re not aware of your eating habits, it’s useful to keep a food diary for a few days. Write down everything that you eat and don’t omit anything. This includes your morning coffee, those two biscuits you ate while you were making the coffee, and anything else you consume. When you read over your diary, you may be surprised at the results.

Know Your Labels: When you do the grocery shopping, make sure you’re familiar with food labels. Sugar appears in pretty much everything. In fact, it’s hard to find foods that it hasn’t been added to. This includes savory food such as ready made meals, soups, stews, hamburgers, etc. So, get into the habit of checking all food labels and become familiar with what goes into your meals.

It’s important to remember that it’s not just food that can contribute to your calorie intake. Drinks can also have a big impact. That morning smoothie you grab on your way to work, thinking it’s a healthy option, may not be as healthy as you think. Fruit juices tend to be full of sugar, and this can boost your calorie intake significantly. And did you check the sugar and fat content of your morning coffee? The creamers and sugar can really add up!

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Yummm

A Balance Of Vitamins & Nutrients: A healthy body performs healthy functions, and one of these is to regulate your metabolism. So the healthier your diet and lifestyle, the more able it is to burn fat. When we talk about a balanced diet, we mean a diet that includes a range of food types that will provide the necessary vitamins and nutrients that we need to live. Some people opt for supplements to enhance their diet with vital vitamins and minerals. For example, Garcinia Cambogia is often used to boost weight loss. But does Garcinia Cambogia work? The evidence suggests that it does. By boosting the metabolism, regulating blood sugar levels, and suppressing the appetite, research has shown that it has a positive effect on weight loss.

Establishing Healthy Habits: A healthy lifestyle is not about deprivation. If you fancy a cake, that’s fine, but just have one. Evidence suggests that a little bit of what we fancy once in a while is good for you. It removes the cravings. Adopting some simple, healthy habits can work wonders. If you have decided to forgo your regular, unhealthy, sugary snacks, replace them with something else. Treat yourself to something you like, so you don’t feel deprived. This could be a book, magazine, or manicure, etc. Another effective strategy is to make some small changes. If you’re averse to exercise, try getting off the bus one stop earlier and walking the rest of the way home.

It’s often the little things we change that have the biggest impact. This is because they are easier and more practical to maintain. Over time, you will notice that these small changes yield big rewards.

Featured Image By: Pexels

Feb21

Little Changes You Can Make Today To Guarantee A Healthier Future

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Little Changes You Can Make Today To Guarantee A Healthier Future

We all have little things that we would like to change about ourselves. Health concerns that we really need to get diagnosed or concerns about our future health. but when they’re not pressing, it can be easier and less scary to just sweep them under the rug. They say that prevention is better than the cure and it’s a whole lot cheaper, as well. Here are a few changes or appointments that you can make today to put your mind at rest about your future health:

Go Green: Usually going green is about changing your lifestyle to a more environmentally friendly one, but in this case, we literally mean make your food greener. If you’re not eating a whole lot of fruits and veggies a day – at least five different pieces – you could be putting your body at risk of heart disease, digestive problems, and even cancers. Greens are full of all of the nutrients that your body needs to function at its best, but it also helps to ensure that you’re digesting everything properly and your metabolism is working efficiently. Introduce a load of leafy greens to your diet and see positive changes almost immediately, and further down the line too.

Visit Your Gynecologist Regularly: Many women are embarrassed to visit their gynecologist and discuss “women things”, but it’s a really important part of your general health. They check that everything is working as it should, that your fertility is fine, and that you won’t face any problems further down the line. For example, pap smears to check for abnormal cells which could lead to cervical cancer, one of the leading causes of death in younger women in the USA, can catch problems before they escalate. All you have to do is pop down to your local family planning clinic or your gynecologist, and the exam will take just a couple of minutes. It could save you all sorts of problems in the future, so it’s far better to be safe than sorry.

Cut Your Meat Intake: Eating meat every day really isn’t necessary for our bodies to function – there is a whole load of protein in dairy, vegetables, and legumes which means it’s perfectly safe for us to go without meat at all. Red and processed meats are full of fats and salts which are terrible for our body. If you cut meat out of your diet for one day a week, such as Meat Free Monday, you can make a significant improvement to your health.

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Yummm

Get Your Cholesterol Checked: A poor diet doesn’t just affect our weight, it also puts a whole lot of pressure on our arteries and heart. Even if you’re not overweight, you could have high cholesterol. This is the stuff which helps to build new cells, but when there is too much it can clog arteries, which leads to heart attacks. If you have a family history of heart disease, ask your doctor for a cholesterol check and they will be able to advise on how to bring it down to a safe level.

There are so many changes we can make to our health today to guarantee our health in the future, so don’t put it off and you will begin to reap the benefits.

Featured Image By: Pixabay

Feb19

Fashion From India To Singapore

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Fashion From India To Singapore

Hello hello and welcome to a poignant and thoughtful post by my friend Lakshmi from The Rink. Spring is always connected to transformation and new life. In this personal excerpt from Lakshmi, she discusses the metamorphosis of her personal style after she moved from India to Singapore. Miss Lakshmi has been featured here on lifewithlilred before and I absolutely love working with her. I encourage all of you to check out her page and get to know her because she is such a doll and a talented writer, to boot!

Fashion From India To Singapore

I used to live in a small city in the conservative South India and went on to the developed island nation of Singapore. There were so many differences that I saw…from the small things like food, the way they dress, and basically everything! A small introduction to Singapore is Mini-America – in terms of how the culture is. People from other countries come as immigrants, become citizens, and embrace their unique culture. It is true that there are lots of South Indian families, but somehow, they have adapted to Singapore in such a way that they had accepted a different more accommodating lifestyle. So, even though I could relate to them, it stopped to some extent. This changed in a matter of time. Why, my fashion sense actually evolved there!

Revealing Clothes: The first thing that I noticed was how the girls would flaunt their exposed skin! They felt free and not a soul leered at them or judged them for the way they dressed. I knew that it marked the beginning of my transformation from being a girl from a conservative city to a girl in the open world! Gradually, I started wearing shorts and letting the outside world know that my change had begun. I stopped caring about what others thought of me and my style and it was all about whether I liked the outfit or not. I had the choice to wear any outfit I liked. I had the choice to expose skin…It was crazy!

Styling Up The Daily Outfit: Back in my city, my daily outfit would be a round-neck shirt or a regular top with a pant or skirt. I never thought much of it and that was it. Other than the regular pair of earrings and a watch, I wore absolutely no accessories! I was never interested in accessorizing my outfits. However back then, I was no fool when it came to dressing at that point – my outfit would have always been well suited and matched. Nevertheless, it just improved when Singapore entered my life! I got a better insight into style by just looking at my Singaporean friends. They wore their accessories in a simple yet elegant fashion and it looked so chic. The proper jacket or a perfect belt sure does make a huge difference!

Keeping Up With The Trends: Speaking of accessories, I was in Singapore during the rise of choker chains. For a long time, I did debate on buying one and giving it a shot but I always felt that it was going to choke me to death! Hahaha! There was this one day when I felt like I had to experiment with this style and tried it on – it looked classic and it was like my neck’s guard and it really didn’t choke me. With instances like this, Singapore had soon become a place where I experimented with the styles and current trends. And guess what? I wasn’t alone in this endeavor – all my friends did this from time to time!

Singapore brought about great changes in my wardrobe, but the best part is that I always retained my love for Indian fashion (especially the Indian prints). This was also the period when Indian fashion designers rose to bigger and international platforms, and they started tweaking Indian clothes to accommodate western styles. The timing couldn’t have been better! Fashion from India to Singapore didn’t change me or my identity over the course of time – it became another dimension of my life.

THE RINK

^^^ Thank you so much again to Lakshmi for creating this post special for lifewithlilred! Please be sure to check out her page and give it some love! How has your sense of style developed over time? Can you relate to Lakshmi’s story at all? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

To close out my Think Spring guest bloggers series, the lovely Nida from Shopaholic Blogs will be featured on my page tomorrow!

Feb9

Going Local: Enjoying Where You Live

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Going Local: Enjoying Where You Live

We are probably all a little guilty of spending too much time in our homes or venturing far away when we want to enjoy a little social time. It’s crazy to think that we choose to live somewhere because we love a location and then spend a majority of our time enjoying other places, instead!

Getting to know your area is great fun and brilliant for increasing your social circle, support unit, and even living a healthier lifestyle both physically and mentally. A great place to start is getting online and researching the history and culture of your home town and surrounding area. What is it famous for? Did any celebrities live here? What are the restaurants like? Getting an understanding through research can help introduce you to things you didn’t even know existed right on your doorstep.

The best way to understand a place, though, is to get involved with the community. You will probably have a local church, shop, or park with a variety of events happening and it is here that you will meet the experts on local knowledge. Getting out and meeting other parents will help you find out what activities you have within walking distance of your front door, it will also help your children and gives you the chance to spend quality time with your friends. Heading to the local bar is great for adults who want to know more about the services in the areas. Most small towns love to advertise other small businesses and will have attended all kinds of networking events with the owners. So get to chatting and find out what is on offer!

Taking long trips to the larger supermarkets is pretty time consuming. You can use the internet to find out what shops you have in your area. From seeking out a local green grocer to sticking donuts near me in your search engine, you’ll be surprised what you can buy locally to save you time and support local companies. Of course you will also have restaurants near you, too. The internet has loads of review sites to let you share feedback with other customers, although the best way to find out what the local buzz is is to hit the streets and eat. Try everything, one person’s bad experience may not reflect your own. Plus, you have the added benefit of not needing to drive, so you can enjoy a couple of drinks with your dinner!

Your local services such as the police and fire station are good things to know and if you have young children, they can offer a fun day visit. What kid doesn’t enjoy putting on a fire hat and watching people slide down poles? It’s also likely that you have some form of library even if it is a mobile library. Make the most of these services and support them where ever you can. More customers means better demand and you will see your area staying alive with shops and activities. If you lose them, then property values will decrease and your dream home may not be worth as much as you need it to be!

Featured Image By: Pexels

Jan28

Never Been On A Date

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Helloooo everyone and happy weekend! I hope all of you are having a wonderful day so far. So in case you guys weren’t aware, my Think Spring guest bloggers series is launching on February 15th. This series has been a fun one to work on and it has given me the opportunity to make some new blogging friends, like Lakshmi from The Rink. Lakshmi will be featured in my guest bloggers series but she was also kind enough to provide me with another terrific post for lifewithlilred. This article is titled “Never Been On A Date” and you saw it here first!

Never Been On A Date:

Terms, which you won’t believe, that exist!

I am L.R. and I come from India. For those who don’t know, there is this system in India known as the “arranged marriage system” – a guy and a girl who are ‘destined’ to be with each other (through the idea of horoscope matching) get married. They need not know each other or even have to love each other before getting married. Why, in the olden times, they wouldn’t even meet each other until the wedding ceremony. Just to clarify, this system doesn’t happen all over India but in the conservative families.

The rules have since relaxed a little. Nevertheless, it is still of importance to get the girl married before she turns a certain age, currently it is 24 (which is pretty late according to them!). I am in this inevitable system. There is this thing known as “trust” – something that I built with quite a strong foundation in my parents’ minds for not ‘loving’ or ‘dating’ any guy. This will keep me out of any relationships with a constant status of “Single but not available”. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to my friends of other lands but that is how it is!

I live in the Present too!

Being in such a connected world in the 21st Century, I have to say that 99% of the movies I see, books I read, and all of media revolve around “love”… not the daughter-parents love or platonic love but love – the feeling you have towards a special someone. While people on every other side of the Earth keep waiting to meet “the one”, I know that I’ll meet him through my parents. Nope, the guys on whom I have crushes on will never be my one. As of now, love is a forbidden emotion, almost like the Candy House in Hansel and Gretel! Yes, I know that I live in 2017!

I mean, forget love… lets talk about the dating game.

Have I ever dated? Nope! Because this will lead to love, of course. While some of my friends go on dates and love guys, I freak out about the fortress of trust. Once we break it, it will take long to re-build it. Do I want to go on a date? I am restricted from giving an absolute answer. I want to try it. Just imagine that you are forbidden from eating chocolate for your entire life and everywhere you see, there are movies and books about chocolate (analogy is, admittedly, not the greatest here). You would want to taste this restricted deliciousness… at least once, right?

Looking back at it now, it is funny that I have grown up with this ‘inserted’ thought that I’m not beautiful and I should be beautiful only for the guy I marry. To tell you the truth, I’m not a very pretty girl but a girl with some definite admirers. Yes, some of them have mustered up the courage to even approach me (dating game and love is still considered a mild taboo). I just rush away from the spot or speak to them meanly or even lie to them about already having a boyfriend. Haha! This is what I did! After all of this, my girlfriends and I sit and talk and laugh about these encounters! Although I kept brushing away dates, deep inside I knew that I wanted to try it once.

When I really wanted to try it and I asked some of my ‘experienced’ friends, they always tell me to never fall into this trap! Then, they would overflow with episodes from their bad dating life – the ones in which I would hate to be a part. Seeing them cry, I would feel that it is the right decision to stay far away from the dating world. But hey! I don’t know how it will be… These friends of mine recommend it one in four times… one in four times, they would actually be content in the game. This left me with the only thing that improved over the years – my imagination.

I imagine being on a date with the most awesome and handsome celebrities out there in the world. Even in my daydreams, the date doesn’t go well! I feel like everything is in the right place except my conscience. Haha! Growing up this way, I don’t think that I will ever sneak around to go on a date. I just cannot be a badass – it’s not me. And guess what? I like this style of living. I am familiar with it. I don’t have heart-breaks. I don’t need to search far and wide for my true love. I don’t need to date a couple of losers to find the one. I kind of get a fast-pass to the real deal in this game! Around 95% of the arranged marriages that happen through this system in India come with a guarantee that the couple will stay together as long as they live!

Welcome to my life!

❤ L.R.

Fashion blogger

THE RINK

^^^ Thank you so much again to Lakshmi for such an informative and delightful read! You can catch her again soon during my Think Spring guest bloggers series! What is the best or worst date that you have ever been on? How does Lakshmi’s lifestyle differ or relate to your own? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

PS: If you are interested in participating in my guest bloggers series, feel free to shoot me an email at sarah.mush6794@gmail.com! 🙂

Jan25

Quick Changes For A Healthier Lifestyle

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One thing that we can all agree on is that we all want to be as healthy as possible. Learning how to live a healthy life is the kind of thing that takes years and years of practice, trial and error, and so on. However, there are a few basic things that can help anyone to enjoy a much healthier life and many of the necessary changes are so quick and easy to make that you can do them pretty much whenever you like. In this article, we are going to look at some of the quickest changes that you can make for a significantly healthier lifestyle. Let’s have a look and see what you can do to improve your health today:

Take A Walk: Many people know that they need to get more exercise into their daily routine, but struggle to make it happen. The truth is, more often than not these people are making the whole routine of exercise to be more complex than it is. If you want a healthier lifestyle, then more exercise is a good idea, yes. But all you really need to do – at least to start with – is go for the occasional walk. Even having a brief stroll every day is likely to make a huge difference to your overall health. And if you decide to walk in nature, then the psychological benefits of the walk will be even more pronounced.

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Love a good hike!

Drink Purer Water: We all know that you need to drink as much water as you can for a healthier life. But something that people often forget is that the quality of the water is just as important as the quantity. The fact is, if you want to be and feel healthier, then it is a good idea to drink water which is as pure as possible. If you are unsure of how to do that, fortunately there are some elegant solutions. One particularly useful one is the use of home reverse osmosis systems. These allow you to have the purest possible water that anyone can get at home, and all for a relatively small price tag. If you are wondering if reverse osmosis is safe for you, the answer is yes, so this is well worth looking into for a healthier lifestyle.

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High quality H2O!!

Eat More Fruit: Fruit is one of the food groups that need a particular amount of focus if you want to enjoy a longer and healthier life. Yet we often find ourselves avoiding it or not getting enough of it. There is little excuse, in fact, considering that it is remarkably easy to get more fruit into your diet. Drinking juice or smoothies is a great way to do just that or you can always sprinkle berries onto your cereal. As long as you are getting more fruit into your diet, you can be sure that you will live a longer and healthier life. And remember, too, that many fruits are superfoods, which can be particularly useful in improving your health situation.