October 15, 2018

How to Choose the Best Holy Communion Dress 2019 Guide

The first holy communion is vital in a child’s life. This is a day they will always remember; this is the first step they’ll take in their journey of religious faith. This step must be treated with, love, respect, and honor. As tradition dictates, the kids should dress to honor the day, boys always wear suits on this day while girls will wear beautiful dresses. Picking up a dress can be filled with anxiety and excitement, this might corrupt your choices for the best dress. You can, however, make this a beautiful experience with your daughter at the Madame Bridal Dresses and pick the best dress.

Before getting it, consider the following;

Start shopping as early as you can.

Communion season is usually during the spring, so during winter in December and January, are the best time for shopping. You will have a series of dresses to pick from at affordable prices, and there will be no need for the last minute hurry for the right dress.

Get a recommendation and dress rules from the priest or parish.

There are no rules for the first communion girl’s gown, but the general rules are white for the color of all dresses. The dress should also be modest. Sometimes, individual priests or the parish might have their own set of rules, so it is essential to check in with them first before going shopping.

Consider your cultures and traditions and incorporate them in the day.

Your family might have a symbol, and you might want to include it in the dress like embroidery or a flower that has a significance to your family or culture.

Ask your daughter what she wants.

Talk to her about what she expects, you might get her the wrong dress, and this will ruin her day. This will also help avoid conflict during the shopping trip. Listen to her ideas and what she wants and also ensure that she is aware of the rules.

Take accurate measurements.

First communion girl’s gown are not similar to casual girl dresses; they are sized differently. You need to take the correct measurements to ensure that the dress will fit properly.

Picture the accessories you wish for the dress.

For instance, if you choose a sleeveless dress, some churches will require a bolero or scarf. Find something that will go with the dress and will be comfortable for her throughout the ceremony. A small purse is also a good idea.

Think about adding a veil.

If you feel like a veil is necessary, make sure it’s of the appropriate length so that she might not trip if it’s too long.

Set and stick with a budget.

If you are going to use a credit card, you should set a budget to avoid unnecessary debts. It is easy to be carried away with a beautiful dress and how your child is begging for it, try and negotiate the price and if that’s not allowed convince her to pick another dress in your price range.

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October 15, 2018

Here’s Why You Should Consider Hiring a Cleaning Service for the Holidays

Holidays are getting close and it’s time to think about getting the right gift for your family and yourself of course. Why not choose something practical and useful this time around? We’ve talked recently about this to the experts at Barrie Modern Cleaners and they gave us this awesome idea to hire a cleaning service for the holidays. Here’s why:

A clean slate

You remember how daunting and time-consuming it is to clean the entire home in order to prepare it for holidays. Why not skip that boring part and just let your family enjoy the fun of decorating and actually spending a quality time together.

A cleaning service can do all the hard work for you in no time. Your house would be so clean and shiny, you wouldn’t even need to decorate at all!

We guarantee that everyone would be happy because there’s no greater joy than having a good time with your family in a clean house during the holidays.

Make it easy on yourself

We all know how stressful it is to prepare a holiday party at your place. There’s plenty to do and the list seems to get only bigger.

It’s time to chill out and give away a big chunk of your chores to someone else so that you can focus on things that really matter, and that’s making those delicious cookies everyone really loves.

You don’t want to waste time and energy cleaning, remember, holidays are about relaxation and fun, you need to put aside as much stress and frustration as possible, or at least let professionals deal with all that stuff.

Be smart, take our advice and give yourself a quality holiday time you really deserve.

Make guests feel at home

If you are having guests over, that’s another reason for stress, especially if they decide to stay for the night, then you have to make things extra tidy because it’s always important to leave a good impression.

Your guest rooms will probably need even more attention than the rest of the house, and that’s just another chore added to the list.

Avoid all that and let cleaning service take care of your guest rooms, they know all the tricks of the trade to make your home postcard-worthy.

Not only will you open up more space in your busy pre-holiday schedule, but the cleaning service’s professional touch will drop some jaws, and you as a host will be the only winner.

Holidays at work

Professional cleaners do not limit their work to your house only. You can easily hire them to take care of your office space as well.

You know how dirty offices can be, with papers and dirty coffee cups all over the place, not to mention if anyone remembers when was the last they had it vacuumed.

If you and your coworkers want to organize a party, this is the perfect excuse to get that extra help so you don’t have to stay late after work to do it yourself.

This would also impress your boss and the rest of the collective as it shows initiative and ability to solve problems.

Not a single person would complain about having their workspace neat and tidy, at least at this time of the year.

Post-holiday depression

We all get that feeling, it’s perfectly normal, especially when you realize that you need to repeat all the hard work. You need to put decorations back, do all the dishes, laundry, etc.

Give yourself another treat for the holidays and hire reputable Barrie cleaning services to do this work for you. Use that extra time to do things you love.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I might receive a small commission,
if you make a purchase using this link.

October 15, 2018

Should You Stop Naps to Boost Your Sleep at Night?

Sleep patterns in the young and the old vary. The young especially infants and toddlers sleep heavily during the day and night. Adults aren’t able to maintain this routine. Some adults prefer having naps during the day for relaxation. Naps help your body relax and take a break from the chores of the day. Unfortunately for some adults, this does not work. Such adults prefer not to have naps during the day to avoid interfering with their sleep patterns for the night.

Your daytime job is an important factor in determining whether you should have a nap. Doing manual jobs may not give you room to nap if you want to. Luckily for such workers, they are able to sleep very soundly during the night. Employees in white-collar jobs engage their brains more than their strength during work hours. Using your brain may not appear as tiresome as using your energy. On the contrary, employees in manual or white-collar jobs both feel exhausted at the end of the day.

For white-collar job employees, they could opt to have naps in form of bed rest in their offices. This offers a soothing and great relaxation to their bodies. That may not be the case at night as their desire to sleep could have reduced greatly. Employs in hard labor work the whole day but sleep heavily during the night. The bridge between these two sleeping patterns can only be determined by you. Get to know what sleep patterns suit your body. This will help you choose whether a nap is worst or best for you.

Health benefits of napping

Napping increases performance during the day. If you have numerous tasks to accomplish before the end of the day, a nap helps you to stay alert and functioning. Science has proven that a nap:

Sharpens your memory

Sleeping at night is known to boost and improve your retention of information. Studies on the subject have also found out that naps during the day can improve your associative memory. Associative memory is the ability to remember information about objects that are not related. Through this type of memory, you have the ability to remember the aroma of a given perfume.

A 90-minute study conducted by Neurobiology of Learning and Memory had interesting findings. The study conducted between two groups of healthy participants made one group to have a 90-minute nap. Before napping both groups were shown two sets of photograph pairs. Both sets had the same images but each image had been paired with a different face. The group that had a 90-minute nap was better at responding and retaining information they saw on the photos.

Improved Physical Stamina

A research conducted in 2007 and published in the Journal of Sports Science gives proof to the fact that naps help to improve physical strength as well as your mental health. Participants in the study were made to run before and after a 30-minute nap. Thy napped after having their lunch. Participants who napped and ran covered long track distances as compared to participants who did not nap. The research concluded that a nap after lunch has the ability to improve physical and mental alertness.

Faster learning of new skills

Faster learning of a new skill improves with the frequency of naps you have during the day. A test done proved the effect of habitual napping on reading and retaining information. Students who studied and had frequent naps showed better performance in retaining information. Conversely, the opposite is true for students who have less or no naps.

Improves night attentiveness/Alertness

Napping 30 minutes to 4 hours during the day has the profound effect of improving your attention during the day. Coupled with a drink of coffee, a 30 min to 4 hours’ nap greatly improved the performance of night shift workers. Further studies conducted between napping and caffeine drinking proved to nap as superior in keeping one alert at night as compared to caffeine.

Improves body immunity

Sleep is important for your overall health. Repeated lack of sleep makes your body to react by producing an excess of stress hormones such as cortisol. The body also produces cytokines, a type of inflammatory molecule. In a 2015 study, participants were restricted to a 2-hour night of sleep. The following day, urine and blood measured from their system showed an increase of cortisol, norepinephrine and cytokines. The participants were offered a one-and-a-half-hour nap. Their urine and blood samples showed a great reduction in stress hormones and cytokines.

Hormones play an important role in influencing sleep patterns. Apart from melatonin, the hormone responsible for inducing your sleep, the relation between adh and sleep cannot be understated. The antidiuretic hormone also helps control the water that the kidneys convert into urine. Without ADH many would have frequent sleep interruptions to go pass water. Your body should have the right levels of adh to support your body water retention and blood pressure.

Night Sleep vs naps

Sleep and a nap are both very important components of body rest. Neither can substitute the other as they both hold immense health benefits to the human body. Napping and sleeping are needful for the body and can only be harmful if they are misused. Some can nap during the day and still sleep heavily at night.

Final thoughts

Whether to opt for a nap or sleep solely relies on you. What works for another person may not work out for you. Ensure to take note of your sleep patterns both in the day and the night. If you struggle to sleep at night because of nap during the day, consider doing away with naps. However, if both patterns work for you, you can make the best use of them to your advantage. Given the benefits of a nap to your body, you could consider scheduling time for your body to rest during the day. This will work well for you if you can also sleep soundly at night.
Related Sleep:
Not Sleeping Well? Get a Better Night’s Sleep With These Top Tips!
Sleep and Dream: Habits to Ditch for a Good Night’s Sleep
Get Quality Night Sleep by Getting the Right Mattress

October 15, 2018

Green Card to Work in the USA – What You Need To Know

The American Dream is alive in the hearts and souls of millions of people around the world, and being a holder of the Green Card is one of the ways through which a good part of those millions hope to achieve it. As a Green Card holder, you will have the right to live and work in the United States permanently. The card is usually valid for ten years, and you must renew it upon expiration, and as a holder still, you are eligible to apply for citizenship after lawfully staying in the country for at least five years. Follow these US green card renewal steps.

If you have any intentions of getting the Green Card to work and live in the United States, then it is proper to understand that there are different kinds of Green Cards, and you should be very clear about the specific type you will be applying for. To help you out about the processes and the types, here is a brief guide on the fundamental things you need to know about the various types of card as well as the application process-:

What is a Green Card?

A Green Card is also known as the Permanent Residency Card. The name Green Card arose from the fact that the very original cards to be issued to those who qualified for permanent residency were green in color. Over the years, the card has been designed with different colors and the designs currently in use are very different from the designs that were initially used, though the name has stuck.

A Green Card holder is, therefore, a permanent resident of the United States, but this should not be confused with them being citizens. They can become citizens through an elaborate application process after lawfully staying in the country for at least five years as permanent residents. However, the process of being citizens of the United States will be slightly different if they get married to legal US citizens or they got into the country as refugees.

Though Green Cards may be obtained through various approaches such as family, refugee status, investments as well as a few other special conditions, one can also get the card through employment, and if you had dreams of living and working in the United States as a permanent resident, then you should know the various types of green cards you can apply for. Below is a brief description of some of the types of employment-based green cards you can potentially consider-:

First Preference Green Cards – the category of persons who are eligible for first preference permanent residency include international executives, researchers, distinguished academicians, professors and people with special abilities. If you are interested in this type of green card, all you will have to do at the time of application is to provide evidence on why you merit to be considered for this status. The evidence can be anything that really makes you special from the rest and they may range from Nobel Peace Prize to stellar athletics achievements or a breakthrough in scientific research.
Second Preference – if you are a professional with an advanced degree or you have exceptional talents, then this is the category of green card you should apply for. This would also be the right category if you are professional from another country and you already have a firm job offer in the United States.
Third Preference – this category is for professionals and skilled workers in different fields. For you to eligible to apply for this card category, you will be required to have at least two years of experience and you must also have a degree from a recognized university.
Fourth Preference – the individuals for this category are considered under special circumstances and they may include certain religious workers, armed forces members, translators, employees who have served for NATO-6 or workers for international organizations.
Fifth Preference – this category is for immigrant investors that intend to invest between $500,000 and $1,000,000 in the United States and be willing to create at least new jobs which will be taken up by citizens of the United States or any other lawful permanent resident.

How you can get a green card through employment

There are basically four ways through which you may get a green card through employment and this include-:

Through a job offer – this is by far one of the most common approaches many people use to get to the United States. It happens after you receive a formal job offer in the United States, after which you can go ahead and apply for the Green Card.
Self-Petition – if you are a distinguished individual with special skill or abilities, or you are lucky enough in your area of expertise to be granted a national interest waiver, then you may be able to file for a green card.
Through investment – America loves investors and those who are willing to help create more jobs for the citizens, and so this is another avenue you can use to become a permanent resident through the green card. All you have to do is to establish a business venture in the United States and create jobs for the citizens. In this case, your green card would be under the fifth preference.
Special Category Green Cards – Some of the people who may be eligible to apply for green cards under this category include international employees, broadcasters, and specific religious workers.

The Green Card Application Process

The application process of a Green Card will vary based on the specific Green Card you will be applying for, but if you already have a job offer in the United States, either you or the employer will have to fill in and submit the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker Form, commonly known as I-140. If the petition is approved, you will then have the green light to go ahead and apply for the Green Card. This will be done through form I – 485.

Then there is also the Green Card Lottery program which can be used by potential immigrants to gain lawful permanent residency status in the United States. This is by far the most popular way most people hope to get to the United States, and it is opened every year for people from various countries to try their luck at becoming permanent residents of the United States.

If you try and fail in getting the Green Card through the normal application, you should not lose hope. You can always try again, or you can head to their neighbor in the north, Canada. You can check out more information about the Canada ETA visa here, but don’t think this is how to become a Canadian citizen. It is just a quick way to get into the country, and you must leave upon its expiration.