<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/" xmlns:blogger="http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0" version="2.0"><channel><atom:id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7090834621530759716</atom:id><lastBuildDate>Sat, 25 Jun 2022 04:56:57 +0000</lastBuildDate><title>House Keeping Knowledge Blog</title><description></description><link>https://housekeeping-knowledge.blogspot.com/</link><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (House Keeping Knowledge Blog)</managingEditor><generator>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>2</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7090834621530759716.post-5907561862057641077</guid><pubDate>Wed, 06 Feb 2019 03:59:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2019-02-05T19:59:50.615-08:00</atom:updated><title>Clean homes for a healthier household</title><description>As dozens of people require the services of a housekeeper, a cleaning business go into business. Currently on the market, cleaning services are becoming quite fashionable. To date, cleaning services are very popular business trends. When the service is outstanding, more business comes along, because of word of mouth estimates.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;You should not have a housekeeper for home cleaning services. Many large houses cleaning offer various tariff plans, which can be used to provide you with various cleaning rooms to choose from. For example, if it fits your budget, you can have your house cleaned every day. This ingenious time saver for the whole family. You can enjoy the guarantee of a clean home and spend more time with his family to do what you want to do what is most profitable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can have a house cleaning come clean for you once or twice a week, if you can not afford the daily cleaning of the house. This will give you time to do daily tasks such as washing dishes and laundry, and you let the house cleaning to do big things more complicated. Depending on whom you hire for cleaning prices will vary. You can choose a franchise that deals with cleaning services on a larger scale or private companies. They can send different people to your home every week to clean it for you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Always make a reference check on anyone you choose to hire, to learn about their experiences from others who use their services. Remember that all your needs to know to clean the house from the beginning. Do not let them get away with not caring responsibilities they are given. Make sure they do their job!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cleaning services can offer you a real pleasure to live in a clean house, as well as the opportunity and freedom to spend their time constructively. You can spend more time with your children and other family members. Remember, a house-cleaning services are not only for the rich and famous. Most cleaning services are more than willing to work with you on cleaning rooms. Thus, allowing everyone to fully utilize this type of service, regardless of income.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;sociable&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;sociable_tagline&quot;&gt;Be Sociable, Share!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>https://housekeeping-knowledge.blogspot.com/2019/02/clean-homes-for-healthier-household.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (House Keeping Knowledge Blog)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7090834621530759716.post-6392626705523438854</guid><pubDate>Wed, 06 Feb 2019 03:58:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2019-02-05T19:58:35.591-08:00</atom:updated><title>7 Tips For Defusing Holiday Stress</title><description>&lt;div id=&quot;body&quot; style=&quot;border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;&quot;&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;The first key to creating a peaceful holiday season is identifying those holiday traditions that you ENJOY and those that you don’t. When you spend your precious time and energy on activities that you don’t find rewarding, you are destined to become FRUSTRATED and cranky. So go ahead and be honest with yourself before the season even starts. Make a list of every possible holiday “obligation” that you can think of. Your list might contain (but not be limited to) the following:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;- send greeting cards&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- bake holiday goodies&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- decorate the house&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- shop for gifts&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- wrap gifts&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- make the holiday meal&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- attend church services&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- go caroling&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- volunteer&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- visit extended family&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- visit friends&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- spend time with spouse&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- plan family get-together&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- spend time with kids&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- decorate the tree&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- clean house&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- shop for food&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- attend a concert/play&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- watch holiday TV&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- visit Santa&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- look at lights&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- host a party&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- attend a party&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- take a walk in nature&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;Now, here’s the real trick — circle those items that you absolutely enjoy doing and don’t want to miss out on this holiday season. And cross out those that you hate, despise, and dread. Be HONEST here! If you loathe baking, don’t try to convince yourself that this year you will turn into Donna Reed with a batch of homemade gingerbread. And you can get very specific if you need to. You might love visiting with your parents, but can’t stand seeing your critical Aunt Louise. That’s fine — make visiting your parents one activity and seeing Aunt Louise another. It might be a good idea to have everyone in your family make their own lists — everyone has different ideas about what activities are joyous and which ones are miserable.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;FITTING IN THE JOY&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;Take a look at your list — which items did you circle? Did you feel so strongly about some activities that you double-circled them or put a star by the side? Those are your true priorities — and no matter what you do this season, you need to MAKE time to fit them in. Notice I didn’t say “find” time — the best way to assure that you will never get around to doing something is to say, “I’ll do it when I find a few free minutes.” If you want to do it, SCHEDULE it into your calendar. If walking around your neighborhood with your family singing carols and looking at holiday lights is a priority, sit down together and pick an evening and have everyone block it off. It’s as simple as that.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;So at the start of the season, decide ahead of time which activities on everyone’s lists are the most important. Of course, you’ll have to be realistic about what you have time for — you may only have enough room in your schedule for each person to pick three priorities instead of eight. And you may need to do a little TRADING with your loved ones — “I’ll go to Christmas Eve services with you, and in return I’d like for you to go for a nature walk on Saturday with me.” Creating harmony in any situation is about COMPROMISING — just don’t allow yourself to bend so far that you give up all of your priorities for someone else’s. Everyone should feel that his or her needs are being met.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;LET GO OF THE “HAVE TO’S”&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;So the big question now is “how do I fit in all of these priorities when I’ve got other chores to do?” It can seem hard to make time for caroling and roasting chestnuts and all of the good stuff when you have so many OBLIGATIONS. Those “I have to’s” will absolutely kill you! Well let me start by asking WHY you “have to”? Are you being graded on how much you accomplish during the holidays? Are you going to be judged harshly by your family, friends, and co-workers if you skip out on the cards or parties or baking this year? If they do judge you harshly, I guess you need to ask yourself why you would want to have that kind of people in your life in the first place! If you don’t want to do it, a simple NO should be sufficient – especially if you find an activity that everyone in your household has crossed off of their lists. Remember, the only things that you “have to” do in this life are pay taxes and die — putting up a Christmas tree isn’t required!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;Let me share a story to illustrate. A few years ago, my husband and I had a really rough year and decided to SKIP OUT on the traditional family Christmas get-together for the first time in our lives. We chose to go on a trip by ourselves — cross-country skiing in the middle of nowhere in Colorado — instead of spending the holidays with our family. And since we were going out of town so early in December, we only put up minimal decorations and didn’t send any holiday cards. We worried and worried that we were going to OFFEND someone with our crass insensitivity — but do you know what happened? Everyone we talked to (family included) said, “Boy, I wish I had the courage to do that!” It turned out that 90% of the people we knew had considered doing the same thing at one point in time, but had never been able to walk away from the pressure of the “have to’s.” Well, we had a marvelous time (one of our best Christmases ever), everyone loved hearing about our trip, and we now take a holiday vacation every other year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;FIND SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;But just because you don’t want to do it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have to get done at all. And, just because it needs to be done, doesn’t mean that you have to do it (that’s the reverse corollary!) Start by sitting down with your family and compare everyone’s “wants” and “don’t wants” for the season. This is the time for a little BARGAINING. If you love baking and shopping for presents but really don’t enjoy decorating the house, see if your spouse or kids have decorating marked as a priority on their lists. At the very least, you might find someone else who feels neutral about a chore that you completely despise! The holidays are an excellent time to learn the fine art of NEGOTIATING!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;And if you decide as a group that you really do want something done but no one wants to do it, consider HIRING someone else to do it for you. If you like having the house decorated but hate putting up lights and garland, find a florist or interior designer that can take on that particular chore. The same is true of many holiday “obligations.” If you don’t like cooking, have your holiday meal catered or buy a pre-cooked meal from the local deli or eat out. If you love giving goodies to friends but don’t have time to bake, buy “homemade” cookies from the local bakery. Have a housekeeper give your home a good cleaning before your out-of-town guests arrive. In this age of convenience and SERVICE-ORIENTED businesses, I guarantee that you can find someone who is willing to do almost anything for a fee!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;DON’T MAKE IT A CHORE&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;Unfortunately, many of us have turned the holiday season into just one more chore to be tackled. It’s as though the holidays have been transformed into an intensified “to-do list” — baking, shopping, wrapping, visiting – no wonder the holidays stress people out so badly! But it doesn’t have to be that way — it’s all about PERSPECTIVE. Do you remember when you were a kid and one of your parents introduced you to the “clean up your room” game? Maybe you rushed around trying to see how quickly you could get everything put away — or perhaps you sang and danced while you straightened up. Cleaning up was fun, until you learned to look at it as a CHORE — something to be tolerated, something that “had” to be done but wasn’t in any way enjoyable.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;Holiday tasks are the same way. At our house, we turn every holiday “chore” into a PARTY. We have a house decorating party, where we invite our friends to help out, put on some Christmas music, and give everyone spiked eggnog. We take our holiday cards to the local Starbucks and spend a very pleasant afternoon listening to carols, drinking hot cocoa, and chatting as we write out our holiday greetings. We even make gift-wrapping fun (my husband and I compete to see who can get their gifts wrapped the fastest — just like when we were 6 years old!) The point is, you can make anything FUN, if you create the right mood and the right frame of mind. So think about how you can put a cheery spin on at least one “chore” this year — you might be surprised what a good time you have!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;LOWER THE BAR&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;In a world where we seem to think that perfection can be attained if we just work hard enough, we often feel a tremendous pressure to outdo ourselves during the holidays. Each year, we want to buy more gifts (or more expensive gifts) than last year, to host the most elaborate party of the season, to make the house look more festive than any other on the block. And in the process of trying to OUTDO everyone else in the world, we end up missing out on the real meaning of the holidays. We no longer have time to spend with our loved ones, because we are on an insane quest to create the PERFECT holiday.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;SET YOUR PRIORITIES&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;&quot;&gt;This year, why not be a little bit REALISTIC about your holiday? Accept right from the start that things may not go perfectly — and the harder you try to mold your holidays exactly as you had planned, the less likely they are to cooperate. And quite frankly, sometimes less is more. Instead of attending a different party full of strangers every night, why not pick two or three gatherings where you will be surrounded by people you love? Rather than planning a seven-course meal serving 75 people, wouldn’t a small potluck dinner with your 10 best friends mean more to you? Do you really need to buy dozens of gifts for your kids, or would they be happy with just a few things they really wanted? Maybe this year, it’s time to focus on the QUALITY of your experiences instead of the QUANTITY.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>https://housekeeping-knowledge.blogspot.com/2019/02/7-tips-for-defusing-holiday-stress.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (House Keeping Knowledge Blog)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item></channel></rss>