Wednesday 6 October 2010

What is a domestic goddess?

The term domestic goddess has been around for some time, but more often it is being used in an ironic format to mean someone who is a homemaker or housewife. Knowing what the guidelines are as a domestic goddess and how you can achieve goddess status can be a tricky task. There are many who deem themselves worthy until they come across the Stepford wife woman and realise how wrong they are.
No longer being satisfied solely in the workplace women all over are returning to the home to become the best of the best.

Here are some basic requirements:

Kitchen knowledge – The typical domestic goddess, not only knows her way around the kitchen, she could cater a dinner party also. Being skilled at the most basic and intricate of meals the domestic goddess can conjure up any dish required. Furthermore should there be a missing ingredient she will know what the replacement item needs to be to have the recipe still work, to please every stomach in the home.

Family contentment – In addition to satisfying the family’s stomachs the domestic goddess has the ability to please her partner in every way possible leaving nothing to be lusted after. Where children are concerned they have a doting mother at hand, who attends every school play and meeting, assists with homework and projects and has an excellent mix of firm but fair. All while remaining calm and collected with perfect looks.

Pristine looks – The best of domestic goddess appear turned out whatever task they are involved in, they could have their head underneath the bonnet of a car and still have hair and make up in place. Not to mention a perfect outfit for every occasion.

Housework – In order to have the perfect outfit every aspect of the domestic goddess’ housekeeping is well tended to. There is not an item in the home out of place, washing and ironing is kept to a minimum and repair are made when required and often by the goddess herself.

Intelligence – Rounding up the looks and skills the perfect goddess is far from an average woman, in addition to being able to multi task to the extreme, during her quite time she fills her brain with knowledge, ready to converse with others and show herself to be the well rounded woman she is.

Career – Modern domestic goddess’ not only fulfil the regular requirements they have managed to add the ability to hold some form of employment too. Whether the money is used to take some burden of the partner or as her own personal pocket money; the amount tends to be irrelevant as most of the work doubles up as a networking exercise.

Looking in jest at the requirements required, how close are you to being a full blown domestic goddess and getting your badge?

5 Tips for Shiny Hair

Hair can be one of the most changeable things on a person and having a bad hair day can impact your mood, here are 5 tips to brighten up your hair.

- Don’t brush wet hair
When your hair is wet it is in a fragile condition, although brushing your hair when wet may be easier than dry, doing so can cause damage. When wet the your hair is stretched avoid brushing otherwise you can cause it to become weak, brittle and break.

- Condition once a week
Give your hair a treat once a week with a deep conditioner, hot oils and conditioners provide vital nourishment and should be factored into your regime.

- Finish with cold
After you’ve washed your hair give it a rinse with cold water as it seals the hair by closing up the cuticles. If you are using heat to dry your hair use the cold setting too after, this acts the same way and prevents frizz.

- Limit heat
If you don’t have to use heat then don’t, cutting back one day a week can make a huge difference to your hair quality. Try a heat free day once a week and see if you can notice the difference.

- Eat healthily
Having a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables will provide your body all the nutrients that it requires to allow your hair to have the foundations of being strong and healthy.

Following these tips over time can help the condition of your hair to improve. Treat your hair well and look forward to more good hair days.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

The figure of a perfect woman

Deciding what the perfect figure is for the average woman is a matter of opinion, many females struggle with accepting that the body shape they have suits them. They may feel that they are too curvy or not curvy enough, but what is the perfect body type.

Depending on who you are asking there are many men who like the svelte figure of a woman and equally there are those who love something to hold onto in the form of hips and thighs. Having shape or curves, doesn’t mean to say that you are overweight, you may not be as toned as an athlete but your height verses weight ratio may be just fine. Hopefully there are not too many men who fancy the stick figure look.

Putting on and losing weight should only really be considered if there is a medical requirement, as long as you are eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise, be comfortable in your skin. There are many ways to dress for your frame and to flatter the figure that you have and doing so can be an easy achievement.

You may feel pressure from others to have the figure of a perfect woman, but in reality there is only one perfect figure for you and that is the one that is proportionate for you. There is no point in idealising to curves / slim line waist if it is not going to match the rest of you, you could end up looking like one of those celebs who have stick figures and heads that look far too large for their bodies!

Monday 4 October 2010

Home Decluttering Tips

Your home is where you heart is however, if your home is in chaos then you may not realise but it is quite difficult to function effectively and these home decluttering tips may come in handy.



- Within your house everything should have a place, it isn’t possible to tidy up if the item in question does not have somewhere to be put.

- If you come across items that do not seem to have a home put them all in a bag or box for now this can be changed as you make space.

- When it comes to decluttering you must be ruthless, if you hold onto everything you will never gain any space.

- For sentimental items it is important to decide whether the item has any function, if you all your sentimental items can fit into a reasonable sized box and put away then there is no real issue in keeping them. If however they take up space and have no actual function then perhaps a photo of the item is best, your memories are what count.

- Everyone has items that may come in handy, may be used at some point in the future or you may slim down into. If you own an item of clothing that you haven’t worn for 18 months then pass it on to a charity that will make more use of it, this doesn’t necessarily apply to high value items however. Same goes for clothes that do not fit you at present, when the time comes that you do fit into it – you deserve something new! As for other items such as books and gadgets, if you haven’t used it for 2-3 years, it’s time to let it go.

- Most of us have a box in our home that hasn’t been opened for a while, we’re not even sure what it contains, when you go through this bear in mind that if you haven’t needed it for this long, you may not need it at all.

- Be ruthless where paperwork and filing is concerned, ensure you hold onto paperwork for the required time where tax purposes are concerned, but other items do not need to be held for so long, telephone bills for example may only need to be kept for three months.

- If someone else can make more use of something you own and do not use, be charitable and donate it, if you feel it is worth more than that you may find that it is good to use some of the auction sites.

- Selling your items can be addictive once you start seeing the profits that you make from your unused possessions.

- If you bring in one bag of ‘stuff’ like food or shopping a day, try to remove the same also.

These are just some basic home decluttering tips that will start you on the road to finding space within your house; you can only really bring new items in by removing things. Above all do a little bit at a time and you will start to see differences.

Sunday 3 October 2010

Easy ironing – I wish

At any given time I seem to have a huge pile of ironing. It varies from one wash load to several wash loads. This is a problem that needs to be tackled.



When I raise this issue with friends, most of the time I get a standard reply of “you iron, why bother”. Am I the only person who takes the time out to iron? Or at least leaves the clean clothes in a pile ready to be ironed? Forgive me for taking a little pride in my clothes, I say a little as there are some days when I really could not care what I have on, if I have to run to the shops I’m going as I am, be it in jogging bottoms and shoes or a skirt and trainers. An emergency is just that, there is no time for co-ordination. Having said that the items that I am usually running to the shops to get is toilet roll, had I been more domesticated I would not have to be making such mercy dashes.



When trying to conquer the ironing pile I vary from sitting down in front of a movie and doing it all in one large swoop, or breaking it down into manageable 30 minute chunks, either one of these does mean that I get through the pile. However, it really isn’t ideal to have this growing pile continuously. Another option I could take is to iron the clothes straight out of the machine while they are still damp, however I find that it doesn’t always create the pressed look and can often re-crinkle. The final option is to iron on the day of wearing the clothes, but this does mean that I would have to be spending additional time each morning to ensure that I have smartly ironed clothes. I fear I would not do this, would throw on the clothes and be wearing the wrinkled look.



So, given that the washing up is going fairly well, I say fairly there is a pile to do, but it is not huge and I haven’t used the dishwasher yet, which I see as progress. I feel now is a good time to say that for every wash load I do each day, I must iron the other load that is more than likely still hanging up on the line in the living room. No more piles of washing!

Fighting my kitchen

One area of my home that I love to have tidy is my kitchen and once its tidy it sets the mood for the rest of my home. The kitchen is supposedly the heart of every home, but it is the one place that I just find so hard to manage.

Within the last flat that I rented my kitchen was way out the back and quite often I used to shut the door on the kitchen and only tackle it when it got to point of no more utensils available. So when I moved to this one that I am in now I thought that I had the situation handled. The new flat has an open plan kitchen, living room, diner and I figured that because of that, my kitchen would forever be tidy, dishes always washed and generally to have my homes heart under control.

I was foolish, it remains in the same state however now it is very visible. The worst thing is that I now have a dishwasher, so I have no excuses. I am very good at putting on the dishwasher and leaving it to do its job; my down fall is emptying it once it’s clean. Meanwhile there is a new generation of washing up being generated, which is finding its way across the work surface. It doesn’t seem to stack for some reason instead it makes every attempt to cover every visible surface.

Working out the best course of action here is my pledge:
Put away what is out of place
Put the dirty stuff in the dish washer
Clear the sides and keep it that way
As soon as the dishwasher is finished I will empty it
Should I fail I will be resorted to hand washing the dishes (my worst nightmare)
Oven cleaning and so on will follow and does tend to feature in my cleaning routine, wish me luck.

Domestic bliss

It’s not that I have no clue about domestic bliss as I frequently have a spotless home, lovely home cooked food and a pristine presentation of myself. However since I have returned to working full time I more often than not let the home and body slip until the weekend and frankly I want to be a 24/7 domestic goddess; call me stereotypical but I like the whole housewife image, with a job, yes people, I want it all.

So join me as I endeavour to put it right one step at a time. I am a firm believer that less is more in the home, the piles of paper would not show you that, I’ve moved three times in the last three years and this last move I have a lot less space to accommodate my stuff, from paper to clothes decluttering is the way forward. As for the body it’s more of a healthy eating need that I have than a eating too much problem. So meal planning is a definite need, along with actual cooking and eating the food that is on the meal plan.

First on the agenda today is to find all the surfaces in my home, from the floor, to the sofas and beds and side tables; I can see them and it’s not too bad but there are items that are not in their homes and items that do not have homes. For those without homes they will be put into a bag for the moment and sorted at a later stage.