What is the matter with “Twilight”?

I find myself being some kind of “weirdo” these days, when the normal thing is that everyone is going absolutely crazy for Twilight; Film, books, even shirts. I saw the film and I have to say that I really liked it, but not that I am overly “Crazy” about it.

You wouldn’t be from this planet if you didn’t hear about the love story between a human girl Isabella Swan and Edward Cullen, a vampire. This is today’s “Romeo and Juliet” although I haven’t seen the ending outcome of the four parts; I hope that is a more positive one.

I just had to rush to the post office today. My sister, who has previously seen the film ( three times already) just finished reading the first book, so she was absolutely desperate to get the other three as soon as possible and is quite difficult to get it where she is living now ( at least the original, English versions).

So much fuss about the film and the books and the amazing thing is that Stephenie Meyer (the author) is just a 30-year-old mom of three children from Arizona and TWILIGHT is her first novel. Well, definitely an awesome result!

If you have the chance you can check it out:

Cooking with your kids

The weather has been terrible today, so the option of staying at home looked more appetising than usual. Although we went out for a little while we spent most of the day inside. For those grey days we always find lots of fun things to try at home.

Most of the times, the simple act of cooking is a whole event on itself.
It never stops amazing me how much children enjoy cooking and being around the kitchen. Although supervision is a must, as long as you know they are safe it is ok, what is more if you let them get involved in the kitchen you will not have to stop fights and arguments because of them playing somewhere else.

From very little, even the smallest one, children love to be where you are and they naturally find the kitchen fascinating. I find that, when I am in the kitchen, this is one of the best places in the house to be. Everything is a learning experience the name of the vegetables, meats, how to cook them, the process, the organisation, the cleaning, they ask questions but they also experiment and while they experiment they learn. They learn about the basic things in life but sometimes the most important, they learn about organisation, for the kitchen to be a workable place everything needs to be in place and they are more than happy giving a hand washing, drying, organising, putting things away, from the smallest to the older ones.

What is more apart from all the skills that are learned, letting children in the kitchen with you has been proven to help fussy eaters, all children love to eat all that they help themselves to cook. Try it and you will find a new joy. You can also get hold of some books that will help you with some recipes easy for your kids to do, and tasks to keep them safe and busy.

The Okinawa, healthy over 100! Learn their secrets of longevity

Regarding health, this is probably one of the most exciting books I had the chance to read. The book is based on 25 years of research by Dr. Suzuki and Drs. Bradle and D. Craig Willcox. This astonishing book proves that the possibility to live over 100 healthy and free from our most common diseases is a real one not just a myth.

The people from Okinawa have been recognized as the world’s healthiest people. Okinawans live their active lives well over 100, while still exercising and working. Opposed to us, Okinawans don’t retire. Their bodies look 30 years healthier than their real age. Their secret seems to lay in a combination of different aspects, their diet, their exercise, their religious practices and their social traditions.

The research seems to prove that longevity is nothing to do with our genes. New generations of Okinawans travelling abroad and leaving their diets and healthy life style while adopting Western diets, suffer from the same diseases as their western counterparts.

Studies show that longevity doesn’t have to do with genes, but with a healthy diet and life style. As the title of the books goes… know how they do it and you can do it too.

The Okinawa Program: How the World's Longest-Lived People Achieve Everlasting Health--And How You Can Too takes you step by step through the process to change your life and adopt their healthy life style. With over more than 80 of their traditional recipes, pack with information from 25 years of research, the book will take you from where you are now to a healthier and alternative life style in four weeks. That is why it achieved The New York times Bestseller rank!

Keep Learning

Not too much of action today. As I keep learning as I go along I can’t always move forwards, instead it is something like "today I do, tomorrow I don’t". Some days I publish an article, I do research for another article or another website. Other days I just have to sit down and keep learning to be able to advance.

I have all sorts of books and reports about SEO and building your income online. And actually with children so small that they need you at every little step that they make this life is as hard as it can get. I am already knackered however I know that if I want to achieve something I can’t go to bed now, that thought only is what keeps me up every single night. Tomorrow at 6.00 am a new day starts whether I slept 4 hours or 6. As they say “if you want something, you’ve got something to give” however these days I read something like “Poor people work hard for their money, rich people make their money work hard for them” Does someone know the secret?

The Attachment Parenting Book

I just finished doing the research of a new article that will be published tomorrow. The article is about the different aspects of something I believe in; attachment parenting. For some of you that don’t know too much about attachment parenting I would recommend to read the book by Dr. Sears a pediatrician for nearly thirty years and a complete expert in attachment parenting, his advice is really respected and followed by millions around the world.

Dr. Sears supports a natural and intuitive way of parenting, attachment parenting doesn’t follow the traditional methods such as letting the baby cry to sleep and similar prescriptive patterns, it just follows a more natural approach trying to build a strong bond with your baby from birth and especially in those early years when the baby is more dependent. In this way, instead of spoiling your child, your child will grow in a more balanced way, becoming a more balanced and self-confident adult.

Attachment parenting supports practices like co-sleeping and breastfeeding, it follows a series of principles such as the practice of positive discipline versus traditional punishments and responsiveness to your baby’s needs with love and respect.

The Attachment Parenting Book provides also scientific research that explains how and why this approach works and it is more positive than the traditional one that has been followed in the western countries.

Learning and marketing

The end of another day! I promised myself I would write 2 posts today, apart from all the stuff I had to do. I have updated one website with one more article and it is still left to do some marketing for today.

I have been up and down all the day, and although I don’t believe caffeine is good for you I have been stopping myself from having too much tea, to keep me going. From 7 am in the morning I have been everywhere, gone to buy some books, gone to the post office, printing some photos, gone for shopping, cooking, washing clothes (by hand), gone to the library, done the house. Today I have dedicated every single minute I had spare to study a report I got hold of (not yet finished, by the way). I don’t consider myself an expert in Internet marketing and online business, however if I intend to leave on it, I have to learn as much as I can. So while I am active building websites, updating and doing marketing and stuff, I am also learning a lot about affiliate marketing, adsense, SEO, niche websites, keywords and everything that might have an effect on the results. Because although I am killing myself every single night until 1-2 am, it would be ridiculous to make things half way because of laziness or just pure ignorance.

So there you go, still here and now ready for some marketing, otherwise as we say...”no marketing, no visitors. No visitors, no business”

The business of being born- Ricky Lake's birth story

I just thought that anyone interested in natural parenting would be interested in this documentary.

This is a really interesting documentary. If you haven’t seen it before you shouldn’t miss it. Ricky Lake presents and is the direct protagonist of this documentary where you will see the recorded birth of her second son. The documentary talks about the business of the “birth industry” in America, the different options available and the experience of parents that have made different choices. You can check an interview with Ricky Lake about the documentary for the CW11 Channel.

The Secret to Online Success

I just recently had the chance to watch the film The Secret, although I had to struggle to see the complete movie (because of lack of time) I finally managed to finish it and I felt it was really worth it. From time to time I need some kind of positive input in my life and when you are alone all the day at home with the kids, the house chores, the shopping to do and your work online until late at night, you actually need something to pick you up, to put some motivation in your life, to renew a bit that worn out energy.

These days I am starting to think that the secret to online success might be lying in multiple streams of income and residual income (that means income that is still coming again and again for a work you have done before), at least this is what I am concentrating at lately. I keep updating my other sites and trying to find better niches. This is actually taking a lot of time in the day (or better to say “in the night” ) and then, all the marketing involved. I am wondering if I will ever get there.

Making a healthy marmalade

Here is also my recipe for a healthy sugar free orange marmalade. If you prefer you can substitute the orange by lemon. I have done both successfully with the same quantities. Just adjusting the sweetener. I like to use Splenda when I use sweetener in my recipes is the only one I have found that has the taste more similar to sugar, but doesn't affect your blood sugar levels. To me Splenda is the best alternative and it is not expensive.

Ingredients:
4 oranges
4 spoons of splenda
28gr. (1 ounce) of unflavoured gelatine
Water (as needed)

Preparation:
Wash the oranges thoroughly in water and dry them properly with a towel. Cut them in half and squeeze the juice out of each orange. Separate the skins from the pulp, seeds and rests of fruit and place all these bits in a little cloth bag or muslin bag (it is easy to make your own and keep it for cooking purposes). Cut the skin in very thin strips and put them in a pan together with the juice. Place also, the bag with the remaining bits of fruit, add more water until the orange skins are covered. Boil the water and leave the mixture simmering at low fire and covered until the skins are very soft. Remove everything leaving only the skins in the pot.

Place in a cup a bit of hot water and dissolve there the gelatine and the sweetener together. Pour the dissolved mixture on top of the skins and mix well (taste that the amount of sweetener is right). Place the marmalade in jars previously sterilised and close them tightly. Let them cool down before storing. Once cold place in the fridge or freezer.

And there you have it, your own jam and your own marmalade ready for breakfast. Without preservatives or any other artificial stuff. I feel proud that they are healthy as they don't have any sugar and inexpensive, as I usually get the cheapest fruit in the market.

Making your own jam

Sometimes when you go to the market late in the afternoon you might find good bargains of sellers that want to get rid of fruit. There is when I get lots of them for the whole week, even for longer. You can cook it and store it, pickle it or like me, make your own jams.

It is so easy, the good thing is that you know what goes on it, you know that has got plenty of fresh fruit and specially no sugar, at least I try to make the healthy version of it.

Of course, sugar is the one thing that preserves the jams so, sugar free jam wouldn't last as long as its sugary version, but still it will last a good 2 weeks in the fridge and a whole lot more in the freezer.

Here is my recipe, you will need:

3 cups of ripe strawberries
1/2 cup of concentrated apple juice
1 cup water
4 spoons of unflavoured gelatine (follow manufacturer’s instructions)
1 spoon of sweetener (optional)

Preparation:
Wash the fruit and blend it.
Boil the water in a pot, add the gelatine and move with a spoon until the gelatine is dissolved. Add the strawberries, the apple juice and the sweetener (taste before adding it and add accordingly). Leave everything at low fire for 2 minutes more. Remove and place in jars, close them tightly and allow them to cool down.

Apple juice is used usually instead of sugar, so you might find out that after using the apple juice you don't feel like using the sweetener. Or you might have really sweet teeth and find that you want actually more than is in the recipe. Well, that is the time to taste it.

End of the day

The end of another long day. I was really happy with myself yesterday, as I managed to finish another niche site. However, I feel as if things go really slowly like drop by drop.

Today, my day was completely full, I managed to write an article and take some time for marketing and networking, which I make the effort to do everyday, and that was all about it really.

It is 12 o clock in the night, and although usually at this time I am buzzing around, today I feel absolutely knackered. So I think that for once I am going to "switch off" early. As they say "Tomorrow will be another day".

Keep eating healthy in times of recession

Nowadays, every time you visit the supermarket the prices have soared in every single item. You just think “Goodness sake! I just bought this yesterday for 10p. less". However, there are still a lot of tricks you can use to still keep eating healthy and, most importantly, on budget.

1- Cook everything you can from scratch. You will save a lot instead of buying ready made meals.

2- Cook what you can by yourself. Here you can include, bread, check my recipe for easy bread, milk, check my recipe for oats milk, pizza (huge difference on price between the pizza from “wherever” to the pizza you can do with just few leftovers).

3- Go to the market at the end of the day. You will find the fruit and vegetables at knock down prices as the sellers are about to go. You can even start making your own jam of different fruits if you have bought too much (try apples, pears, not only strawberries)

4- Go to the supermarket at the end of the day. Better still “find what time your local supermarket makes the reductions”. At the end of the day products about to expire, fresh bread etc. get reduced as the supermarket will not be able to sell them on the next day. That doesn’t mean that they are off. I buy as much as I can and fill up the freezer as soon as I get home.

Well, these are just a few of my tips for times of recession, well, actually for all times. I love to be responsible with everything we got, save us much as I can and don’t waste anything, food included. I am a master of cooking with leftovers, proud to say: “In my house we never have leftovers”.

Feel free to share your own personal tips.

Making your own oat milk

As you know by now, I am up for everything and anything I can do at home by myself. Sometimes I wonder why we choose to buy certain products in the shops when we can make our own better at home. We save the journey to the shop (the distance and the time), at home it ends up being cheaper, and fresher, and also more natural, you know exactly what your recipe contains and there is no artificial colouring or big amounts of sugar, salt, saturated fats or any other dodgy stuff.

Usually we prefer to make our own milk and we try with different and healthy possibilities. Today I decided to post our recipe for oat milk, I might include other milk recipes in later posts.

In the same way as the bread, making your own oat milk is dead easy, quick and inexpensive.

Ingredients:
4 cups of cold water
2 cups of previously cooked oats
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 pinch of cinnamon

Preparation:
Place everything in a blender and mix it well until perfectly smooth. Put in the fridge to cool down. Shake well before using

Note: you can add as well 1 banana to the mixture, and/or sugar or sweetener to taste, both ingredients are optional, but you might want to try them. I would advice to try one or the other, as both together give a very sweet milk as a result.

Dr Seuss' tales

Today we had a day out going shopping and, as usual, going for some books. I like to encourage the children to read so, as long as it is reasonable, I don’t interfere. I think it is better to spend the money in books rather than in junk food or sweets.

In the end, we went for two of the most well known books by Dr. Seuss. After so many years his books still rank unfailingly the Top 20 lists on book reviews, and they will keep doing it for still years to come, that must be for a reason.

If you haven’t read it yet, you should try to get them for your little ones (even for yourself): “Green Eggs and Ham” and “The Cat in the Hat”. They are just lovely, not only the stories but also the illustrations, the rhymes and the easy vocabulary, still entertaining and fun for the little ones.

Steiner Taster classes

Although this might be with very short notice, I just didn't want to miss the opportunity, to let you know about this event.

For those of you in London (UK) that are interested in Steiner Education and would like to know more, there is the possibility to attend next Friday 6th March from 5.00-8.00 pm to a taster Steiner class at the SW London Schools "An evening in the classroom for grown-ups".

If you are interested and you would like to find out more, the details of this event and the possibility of booking are in their website:

http://www.waldorf-swlondon.org/

Marketing

Today I have spent most of my "little time available" marketing the websites.

Online everything is marketing. If you don't do the marketing, you don't get visitors. If you don't get visitors, you don't get sales. No sales, no bills paid. Well, you can imagine the rest.

It is actually time consuming and the time spent doing marketing is time that you miss from doing research and writing new articles, you can't do both things. At least, you can't if you are a full time mum and stay at home with the little ones. However it has to be done. So for today we had enough. One article written and some marketing done. As I say at this time every night "Tomorrow will be another day".

New Month

March, the start of a new month. Did someone say that working online is easy and will make you rich? Well it is not true. This is going drop by drop... eternally slow, if we are going to pay the bills like this we better start working 48 hours a day.

I have tried Google Adsense in different sites but it doesn’t seem to do too much, well it builds up little by little, until the time you can withdraw the minimum amount for a paycheque, that is $100, you can be nearly retired (well, just kidding) however, we are just checking other alternatives. Meanwhile we keep writing and updating our websites, even when the going gets tough you cannot give up.