Everyday Life

Sleep Soundly – How to Beat Insomnia

October 16, 2018 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

Insomnia is a sleep disorder that causes suffers to experience trouble when falling asleep, or staying asleep. According to the Sleep Health Foundation, one in three people suffer from this disorder in some degree. More commonly, insomnia is seen in elderly people, and is twice as likely to affect women than men. This may be due to increased rates of anxiety and depression in women, which can be associated with insomnia. Though the disorder affects sleep, the effects last throughout the day with suffers often unable to focus on tasks. It is important to recognise insomnia, and work towards overcoming it. Here are three things that may assist with your sleep, and lead you to having a better night’s rest.

Get Comfortable.

The first and perhaps most important aspect of sleep is the environment around you. According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, the bedroom environment can have significant effects on sleep quality and quantity. Assess your sleeping situation, and consider if it can be improved. Light has a large impact on sleep, so ensure that the room is sufficiently dark during times of rest. Temperature is also a huge factor, with the optimum level unique to each person.

Finally, your mattress and pillows will ultimately determine the position in which you sleep. Ensure that your pillows are supportive, and your mattress free of any lumps. You may have to purchase some upgrades, perhaps splurging on a memory foam mattress or some expensive pillows; since we spend one third of our lives asleep, it is a worthwhile purchase!

Stay Active.

While this point may scare some people away, it is no secret that staying active can significantly improve your ability to fall asleep at night. This has been scientifically proven, with many contributing factors discovered, including lowering of stress levels and regulation of body temperature. Taking care to participate in regular exercise, therefore, is a way to assist with any sleeping issues you may have. This exercise does not have to be in a sweaty gym, or running 10km a day (although if this is your thing, enjoy!), and can simply consist of a morning or afternoon walk.

Dancing, swimming or even rollerskating are all other options to consider, so don’t be afraid to get creative with staying active. Participating in a sport is a great way to stay consistent in your exercise routine. The Department of Health and Human Services has some great information about this, so check out their website if you’re interested.

Have a Routine.

This may not be possible for everyone, especially those who do shift work, but having a sleeping schedule can help program your body to know when it’s time to sleep. For one week, try going to bed at the same time every night, and wake up at the same time every morning. See how you feel, and if it has made an improvement then incorporate a sleep schedule into your everyday life. If you do not see any changes, consider adopting one of the other tips mentioned, or see a healthcare professional.

There we have it, three ways to get a better nights sleep! Try them all, or pick one or two and assess your progress. Remember, if you have suffered from insomnia and these tips have not shown any improvement, consult your doctor. Your sleep is very important, and any struggles should be recognised and addressed. Good Luck.

Getting Your Home Ready to Move

October 16, 2018 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

Do you have a move coming up? If so, you’re probably stressing out a little. There is a lot that you need to do, and it can all seem overwhelming. With that in mind, here are the things you need to do to get your home ready for a move. We hope that this list will help organize your chaos a little bit and make moving a little less stressful.

Create a Checklist

The first thing you should do is create a checklist. Take some time to sit down and think of all the things you need to do. Jot them all down, no matter how big or small the item is. As you’re preparing to move, you’ll probably think of more things that you need to do. Just jot them down at the bottom of the list. Once you finish an item, cross it off. Having a moving checklist like this will help to ensure that you don’t forget everything and will make it so you don’t have to keep everything to do in your head.

Find a Mover

A good mover is key to a less stressful move. They will handle the majority of the work, and free you up to do other things. Take some time to search through local movers in your area and compare them against one another. Look at their online reviews, their insurance coverage, and their rates. This should give you a good idea as to which mover to hire and make your moving day much easier.

Get Rid of the Junk

One of the biggest things you’ll have to do before you move is get rid of any junk. Chances are you’ve accumulated some things over the years that you just don’t need any longer. By getting rid of them before you move, it will help you to pack light, and make your moving day a little easier.

Go from room to room and figure out what you no longer need. Then you’ll have to decide what you’re going to do with the items. You could try to sell them online or through a garage sale, donate them to charity (for things like old clothes), or simply throw them away. Consider how much time you have and how much effort you want to put into this. If you’re moving in a week, you likely don’t have time to throw a garage sale or post everything online, so just donate it or throw it away and be done with it.

Gather Enough Packing Supplies

With the junk out of the way you should now have a better idea as to which stuff is going with you. From this you should be able to figure out how much packing supplies you need. You’ll need plenty of boxes to hold all of your things, along with tape to hold them shut. You’ll also need some bubble wrap for your more expensive items, or maybe even some tissue paper.

When getting packing supplies, consider buying in bulk. Chances are you’ll need more than you think, so it’s better to have too much stuff than not enough. You can also go to places like your local grocery store and see if they have any freemoving boxes that you can take.

Pack the Right Way

Now that you have packing supplies, it’s time to start packing up. Don’t just throw anything you find into a box however. You should be more methodical to make the moving process run more smoothly. For instance, group similar items together inside boxes, but don’t overload them. You might have twenty books that you want to bring with you but putting them all into one large box will be almost impossible to move.

When packing you should also label each box with what’s in it and what room it’s going to. This will make it easier for the movers when they are unloading and make your job easier as you’re trying to unpack it all.

Start Cleaning

Finally, once all of your stuff is packed up, give your home a good cleaning. You don’t want to leave it a mess for the next owners, so take some time to sweep, dust, and clean the windows. It won’t take you that long, and the new owners will appreciate it. Don’t go crazy though, as you’ll likely track in some dirt when you’re moving and the home will just become dirty again anyway.

Organization is Key

When moving, the key is to stay organized. Take things one step at a time and the whole process won’t seem so overwhelming. If it helps, print out this guide so that you can remember what you need to do, when you need to do it. Just remember that eventually moving day will be over, and you’ll be all settled into your new home, ready to relax.

Author Bio

Judy Lees is a Content Contribution with darkroomclicks.com who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, branding and networking. He frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing, digital photography & wedding photography.

Top Six Tips for a Hassle-Free Home-Shifting!

October 12, 2018 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

Relocating or shifting houses isn’t that easy a task to accomplish. It requires lots of efforts and organizational skills to shift homes, and take the household stuff from one place to another. House moving, especially in big cities, is a quite dreary undertaking. One needs to be extremely cautious, regarding the movement of household items without damaging or losing any of it. Depending on a hired mode of transport or doing it yourselves, may come to your mind. But, the time taken, the accuracy and the professionalism should be considered in such crucial situations.

That’s where an experienced and professional moving company in Fairfax va comes into the picture. Choosing the best packers-movers company is of utmost importance, as they are the ones solely responsible for the well-being of your possessions — namely, your large appliances, furniture, gadgets etc., are some of them. So, to avoid bearing the cost of breaking or damaging any item mid the moving process, do make sure to hire an efficient Fairfax based moving company. Blake & Sons Moving & Storage, Inc. is one such moving services firm, whom you can trust. They offer you solutions for all your moving and storage needs. But along with choosing the correct services for the moving process, you need to follow some tips and tricks that will make the moving process even easier.

Follow these tips for a smooth and easy home-relocating process:

So, along with choosing one of the best residential movers in Fairfax, you still need to keep some things in mind for a smooth moving process. Some rules if followed will reduce your workload by half the amount instantly. Get your organizational skills up to date, and with this checklist in hand, you are bound to become a moving superstar.

Put a Tag: Packing and unpacking of boxes is one of the most tiresome and frustrating work that one can engage in. To make this job a tad bit more tolerable, we advise you to put name tags on the boxes. These tags will let you know what exactly is in the box. This will save you a lot of time, which is otherwise spent in futile searches for a particular item.
Fragile-Cautious: As obvious as it can get, you should definitely be more cautious regarding the fragile items. You should make sure to take special care (and use bubble wrap) to pack expensive and prone-to-breaking items like mugs, saucers, paintings, show pieces, glass etc.
Avoid Unnecessary Baggage: When you are going about the packing process, you should separate out all the unnecessary and unwanted items. Put them in a separate box or bag, that you can dispose of, or sell it; and hence, avoid taking junk to your new house. Also, you can dump extra things inside a storage cot/pod while moving.
Furniture Care: In case of furniture that comes with a disassembling option, make sure to utilize it to the fullest. Disassemble them, pack them separately, using newspapers, or shopping bags or covers and it will be a much more convenient process.
Fridge Pointers: Your refrigerator definitely needs some care during moving. Along with informing whichever Fairfax residential moving company you choose, you should also take care of a few things. Before the moving takes place, empty the refrigerator of all items and make sure to keep t properly locked during the moving.
Carry Valuable Items: This is yet another crucial factor to keep in mind. Do not mix valuable items like gold, silver jewellery, documents, cash, among other things that need to be moved. Ensure to carry these with you.

So, these were some of the most useful tips and tricks that will come to your use, when you are moving houses. Follow each one of them, add some more to your liking, hire well known moving services and it will all be a piece of cake. Sounds too easy? Well, do it to believe it.

How to Get Rid of Ants From Inside of Your House

August 29, 2018 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

Seeing a few ants every now and then is not the end of the world. But when a long trail of ants is being spotted marching across the floor of your house on a daily basis, this can be a cause for concern. Not only can ants be a nuisance, but also they can create a health hazard by easily getting into your food causing contamination.

When it comes to controlling ants there are a few different treatment options available, you could try to solve the problem by doing it yourself.

Here are six steps that will help you to effectively get rid of ants in your kitchen inside of your house and the backyard without the need of hiring a professional.

Keep the Area Clean

Ants are most likely to appear in your kitchen and bathrooms first, because of moisture and food being readily available there. All other rooms in your house can also attract ants if there is food left behind. For the most part, ants are drawn to, scattered crumbs on the floor, grease traces on the kitchen counter and sweet products in the pantry.

The most important in not attracting ant is to keep your kitchen area clean. Ensuring that you wash all your dishes and get rid of food stains from the counters is a very good start. Regularly sweeping and vacuuming the floor is always a great help too.

Identify the Type of Ants

Ants are one of the most successful, well organized and structured insects. They live in colonies that range from a few hundred to many thousands of individual ants.

There are many different ant types around, but only a few common pest ant species in the urban environment are known to cause havoc inside homes and gardens. The very first step in successful ant control is to determine what type of ants are causing the problem. Take a closer look at them, or have them identified be a professional. Alternatively you can search for information about this particular ant online in order to find as to what steps can be taken to keep them away from your house.

Use Acidic Wips

If you see only a few ants in an area of your house, you can be sure that more will follow, especially if there is a smaller ant type infestation. What works well in preventing ants is, mixing one part of lemon juice with one part of water and using it for wiping all areas and surfaces on which ants are trailing. Vinegar is also very effective and can be used, mixed with three parts of water for mopping the floors. Ants are deterred by all acidic products and lose their sense of following their tracks. It will eliminate the scent that the outside ants use to follow the trail of those who already inside.

Locate and Kill the Ants Nest

When the odd ant appears it makes sense to spray it immediately. But if you are starting to see an army of ants regularly parading on your kitchen counter, it is a sign there may be a more serious issue. In this instance, it is always a good idea to find out where all the ants are coming from. Follow the trail and it will often lead you to the ants nest. You can use vinegar and water mix to kill the colony.

Set up Ant baits

While finding the ants nests is not always possible, setting ant baits can be an excellent alternative. All ants are drawn to moisture and food and setting food baits for ants is the most effective way to get rid of these annoying pesky pests in your home. Ants will naturally find themselves going into those traps transferring the poison bait throughout the entire nest.

Once this happens the ant colony will be eliminated and all the ants should disappear. This is one of the better choices to ensure the entire nest is dead and ants are no longer an issue.

Weigh up Your Options

It is it not always easy to engage in effective ant control during the hot summer months, especially when the problem gets out of hand. But if you keep the area clean, set bait and use ant traps, you will have a very good chance of eliminating the entire ants nest.

While getting rid of some ants may be an easy task, cases of a severe ant infestations may be best left for the professionals.

5 Ways to Make Moving Less Stressful

July 10, 2018 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

You’ve finally found the right house in the right neighborhood with the right schools, and the best mall in the state right next door. You navigated the mortgage minefields and managed to get a fairly decent interest rate on your loan without completely destroying your credit score. The negotiations were tough, but you finally got the seller to agree to fix the heat pump and the compressor and knock 15% off the price because of the roof that hadn’t been changed in 22-years. Now, you are ready to make the big move from apartment dweller to homeowner where instead of calling the landlord to fix the garbage disposal; you go to a big box store, buy an In-Sink-Erator and watch the YouTube how-to about 5 times before you finally call a plumber to install it. But, at long last, it’s time to move in.

1. MAKE A PLAN AND STICK TO IT

If you are moving locally, say within a 15-mile radius, you want to plan very carefully so that you get all of your ‘stuff’ out of one home, and into the other, within one day. This is definitely doable – if – you plan your day carefully and intelligently. This also means that all of the pre-packing of boxes, and labeling of said boxes, has been done beforehand. That way, you’ll be able to estimate pretty accurately how long it will take to pack the moving van. Unpacking it will take about one-third to one-half less time than packing because you aren’t mentally organizing the various objects to fit inside the truck.

But if your new home has narrow or complicated entryways and elevators to deal with – those impediments could increase unpacking time significantly. That’s why it’s a good idea to actually visit your new home, with a representative of the moving company, if possible, days before the actual move, so that you can both survey your new home’s location and pre-plan for any impediments that might be there.

2. KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING

Another benefit of surveying your home before your moving day would be to take the time and effort during this scout day to discover the very best route between your old house and your new home. That means driving the route at approximately the same time that your moving van will be doing so on your moving day so that you have some idea of what the traffic will be like. For example, it might be wiser to use surface streets for part of the drive, instead of a freeway because a factory near that freeway changes shifts at the time your van will be traversing that part of your route. Google Maps or Mapquest can be very helpful in your route planning because of their ability to help you change the route and offer alternatives.

3. PAINT BEFORE YOU MOVE IN

If scheduling allows, it is always a good idea to do repair, paint and remodeling tasks before you move into your new home. Also, paint takes many hours to dry completely and the odors and chemical residues during the drying process can be nauseating. But a good paint job is so important not only for the beauty of your home, but also for its durability.

If you are going to paint your home before your moving day, why not consult with a professional stylist to help coordinate your home’s colors to give it a coordinated look. The money you spend on a designer could be more than made up for if you end up changing your mind and re-painting several rooms multiple times.

4. WATCH OUT FOR THE HIDDEN COSTS

Different moving companies use all sorts of different methods for determining the costs of your move. Make sure you pin the company sales rep down on his/her estimate before your moving day commences. It is always a good idea to get an Outline of Moving Costs from any moving company that you involve in the bidding process for your move. You don’t want a big $urprise at the end of a day in which you have been going full-force for 12-to-14 hours and are, consequently, too tired and stressed to even consider haggling about prices.

5. BE PREPARED

In spite of all of your pre-planning, moving days, by their very nature, can be filled with unexpected disruptions. We can all certainly apply Murphy’s Law to any enterprise, like a moving day, that utilizes so many people and consists of so many moving parts. So, be prepared for the ‘wheels to come off’ some time during your moving day. If you’ve anticipated this, and planned prudently, you’ll be able to handle that disquiet with composure and poise so that it doesn’t spoil your day and you can eventually get back on track.

Judy Lees is a super-connector with Photographers In Islamabad who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, Photography, branding and networking. He frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing, digital photography.