Tania Michele

Thursday, 8 April 2021

Get These Home Improvements Done Before Summer*

When summer is approaching, you want your home to be ready. Whether you're planning on spending a lot of time at home, and maybe enjoying a staycation, or you want to go traveling, your home needs to be prepared for the summer months. There are some great home improvements that are ideal for completing before summer arrives if you're looking for a project or you just want to make sure your home is offering you more during the summer. Before it starts to get too warm, when you might feel less enthusiastic about doing any home improvement projects, consider making these changes.

Improve Your Home Security

Are you thinking about going away during the summer? If you want to take a trip somewhere, you need to consider what happens to your home when you're away. Some people might get a house sitter to care for their home for them, while others might plan to leave their home empty. If you're taking the latter option, it could be a good idea to improve your home security. One thing you could consider is putting in a smart security system. When you install security cameras, you could get a notification on your phone to let you know if they pick up anything unusual or unexpected.

Image from Pexels - CC0 License

Fix Your Air Conditioning

You don't want to be suffering from the heat during the summer. An efficient air conditioning system is vital, so make sure yours is working before the temperature rises. If you don't want to wait to get your air conditioning unit looked at, call a 24 hour AC service to get it taken care of right away. It's a good idea to have your air conditioning serviced before summer to prevent any problems from occurring. It's better to be prepared than to have your AC break down in the middle of summer when you need it the most.

Carry Out Energy-efficient Changes

You can use a lot of energy during the summer, even if you perhaps don't use as much as you might in the winter. You might have your AC running, use sprinklers in your backyard, or even have an extra freezer running for all your ice cream. Before summer arrives, consider some energy-efficient upgrades to your home. A smart thermostat can give you more control over the temperature of your home, keeping it at a comfortable level without using up too much energy.

Image from Pexels - CC0 License

Make Backyard Improvements

During the summer, your backyard can become your sanctuary. It's a place to hang out, whether you sit out in the heat of the day or you enjoy the cooler morning or evening hours. As well as tidying up your yard so it looks good for summer, you might want to add some features to make it an even more enjoyable place. Some outdoor seating, lighting, a new grill, a fire pit for evenings, and other improvements could all enhance your yard.

Get these home improvements completed before summer arrives, and you won't mind staying at home.

Saturday, 3 April 2021

10 Things To Do In 5 Minutes | Part 2

Ever have trouble getting some of your to-do list sorted quickly? Here are a few things that you can quickly do during the day, or if you feel the need to be productive. Pick one of the below, and spend 5 minutes for each of these items, and you'll have a few things checked off for the day!

Empty your inbox. Reply to emails, delete junk mail, send of replies
Clean up any rubbish off your desk, shelves, counter tops, floors, and throw it out
Reply to 10 people on any social media accounts you use
Throw out any expired food in your pantry or refrigerator
Throw out any expired, damaged or empty makeup items
Write a shopping list for your next shop
Swap out your seasonal clothes. Store the old season somewhere safe
Paint your nails, do a face mask, or any pamper you wish
Remove items from wish lists that you now own/no longer want
Put on a good song, and do a quick hoover around the house

What other things would you add to this list, and what things will you give a try? Let me know! Hope you have a great day and keep safe :)

Thursday, 4 March 2021

Up Your Board Game Skills With These Tips*

Image Source - CCO Licence

If you are the kind of person who is really into board games, you will know full well just how exciting and amazing they can truly be. As geeky as it looks to the rest of the world, for us gamers it’s just another great way to pass the time. And just as there are good and bad board games, so are there good and bad board game players. If you are keen to improve your board game skills, there are a few things that can really help, so let’s take a look at what those might be right now.

Play The Part

One thing that can really help is if you spend a little more time and energy really trying to play the part of a board gamer. That means that you have all of the necessary equipment, for one: a set of your own personalised dice from SkullSplitter Dice, some fancy card sleeves for your Magic: The Gathering decks, and so on. The more that you are playing the part by having these kinds of things in your possession, the more you are going to bring to the table, literally, and that will improve your skills no end.

Embrace a wider selection of games It would be easy to assume that focusing exclusively on one board game is the best way to master it. On the contrary, enjoying a range of games will be beneficial as you’ll gain transferable skills and learn to solve problems more logically. For example, you can borrow some of the aggressive tactics used in Monopoly to gain an advantage over your opponents in other games. As well as traditional board games, you can try digital versions found at popular casino sites. Table games may aid your board game playing skills too. Similarly, there are video game versions of many classic board games. So, even when your friends and family aren’t available, you can brush up on your skills by playing against the computer.

Read The Instructions

It’s always going to be easier to master a specific game if you know the instructions inside and out, of course, so that means you should aim to read the instructions every time without fail. As long as you do that, you are much more likely to get as good as you want to be at not just those specific games but also any games that might be looked into in the future too. That’s because a lot of board games do share certain elements, so the more you get used to them, the more you will be able to pick up new games with ease.

Have A Practice Run

It’s always worth having a practice run for a new game, especially if it is particularly complex. Ideally you can do this as a group, but if you want to come to the group prepared, you could practice on your own at home first. There are plenty of places online you can go to legally play games for free now, so you should be able to practice pretty much any game you might be about to play in real life. Consider downloading Tabletop Simulator for somewhere to practice your games.

Get Brain Training

All board games are going to be improved by you having a better ability to think logically and clearly - well, except for those games which are almost entirely luck - so the more you use your brain in other circumstances, the easier you will find it to win board games with your friends. Spend some time brain training in other ways, and you are going to find it translates over to the board game world very well, thereby increasing the amount that you win and improving your standing amongst your friends. The more you put into it, the more you receive.

Tuesday, 2 March 2021

My 2021 Workout Playlist

I love doing a little bit of exercise, and nothing helps more to get me into a good Pilates or Dancing session, than my 'pump it up' playlist! This is the playlist I've had to motivate me for the past year (with some VERY recent additions), and are all songs I love to have a dance to, even if it's just one of the songs as a super energetic solo bedroom dance session...

Don't judge!

The whole playlist is just over 20 minutes, which is just about all I can do before giving myself a nasty asthma attack - but that 20 minutes is a good workout for the body once or twice a week. So today I wanted to share the songs I use, and see if anyone has similar ones. Here are the songs I listen to for my warm up, cool down and the main session for workouts in 2021!

Warm Up - 2.47 Minutes

Main Exercise - 16 Minutes (approx)

Cool Down - 3.33 Minutes

The good thing with the Zumba songs is they have a dance routine for each of them which I can then do if I'm doing my own Zumba session. And the MNEK one has an accompanying dance from a DVD I had years ago - so I just wing it when the rest come on and try and get in a lot of stretches, squats and jumping jacks during that part.

My warm up and cool down both have a 60 second jogging on the spot as well as numerous stretches to make sure I don't hurt myself!

What are your songs for working out? And do you prefer an upbeat playlist or a more relaxing one? Let me know! Hope you have a great day and keep safe :)

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