letyourspiritgrow.com blog

Guacamole

4/25/2017

This contributed recipe uses the Avocado, a Superfood due to it's high levels of healthy monounsaturated fat which may help lower blood cholesterol levels.

Guacamole is a sauce made with avocado and green chile. The name guacamole comes from the Nahuatl “Ahuacamolli” translated into Spanish, which is composed of the words Ahuacatl (avocado) + molli (mole or sauce). The avocado had an erotic significance for the Aztecs, so much so that the women could not perform the harvesting of the fruits, since they symbolized the testicles.

https://tinyurl.com/m66d9fo

In Mexican food we used it a lot, for example with Tacos, Quesadillas, Soups, Sauces, and many others.

… Do you know how do we say Avocado in Spanish?

Guacamole Recipe
ingredients

https://tinyurl.com/kbqfjnd

Optional: SERRANO PEPPERS (green chile) as many as you want, depending on how hot you want it. In Mexico we usually use three of them.

For this recipe you will need:

2. Avocados
½ cucumber cut in small pieces without the seeds
1 bunch of fresh of coriander
1/2 of an onion cut in small pieces
1 teaspoon of ground oregano
1 tomato cut into small pieces
½ fresh lime (juiced)

Preparation Time: 15 min

Mash the avocado with a fork until it is chunky.
Add the rest of the ingredients
…. IT’S READY!

https://tinyurl.com/lmqgwse

You can eat it with:

Some “Totopos” which is similar to a tortilla chip. We also us them in making Nachos.
crackers.
a simple taco made with corn tortillas.

… Do you know how do we say Avocado in Spanish?

Aguacate

Additional Info

The Avocado is high in vitamin b6, which helps boost male libido, and also potassium, which regulates the female thyroid gland. They're also rich in folic acids, which is good for the heart and energy levels.

Author

Alejandra Cabrera is a Mexican mom who lives in Canada. She has both Spanish and English Youtube channels where she shares her delicious recipes, fun ideas and other family friendly videos.

0 Comments

Maintaining Long-Term Pet Health

4/23/2017

0 Comments

Pet Health is highlighted in this contributed post.

https://tinyurl.com/l523guz

Everyone wants their pet to live forever. Unfortunately, at least with most pets; this is impossible. There is something that you can do to improve the length of their life, though. In fact, there are loads of things that you can do. All animals are very similar to humans. With the right care and attention, it’s possible to foster a very healthy example of your animal. And, to help you out, this post will be going through some of the areas that need to be focused on the most. So, now, you just have to start putting them into action.

All animals are emotional. As you spend more time with your pet, you will see just how emotional they can be. Like humans, if you don’t give your pet any attention; they will start to become depressed or stressed. You are the most important part of your pet’s life. They don’t have a choice to be with you. So, it’s critical that you put in as much as you can to make sure that you’re there for them. Stress can cause a lot of health problems. And, depression could lead to your pet becoming very hard to manage.

Now, it’s time to get a little lighter. The physical parts of your pet are also incredibly important. And, teeth come in at the top of the list. Tooth pain and irritation can make your pet’s life hell. And, it’s very hard for them to let you know that they are uncomfortable. A product like Mintie can provide you with the perfect way to keep your pet’s teeth healthy. Of course, different animals will need different treatment. For most, having dry food occasionally should help your pet to keep their teeth clean.

Like teeth, eyes are very important to all animals. And, this is an area that needs to be watched very carefully. It’s easy to let your pet’s vision go unchecked. But, there are loads of conditions out there that could cause problems. To start, you should look up the common problems your pet might have and the ways to spot them. Then, you should be giving your dog regular examinations. An issue like glaucoma can cause blindness. But, it’s easy to both spot and treat. If you notice cloudiness in your dog’s eyes; it’s best to go to the vet to get them some eye drops.

Your pet’s overall healthy will be largely dictated by the food that they eat. The cheapest of the cheap pet foods are usually no good for your animal. They will be packed with unhealthy ingredients. And, they may not fill your pet’s nutritional needs. Instead, you should be looking for the best pet food that you can. Companies like Hills have loads of options to get you started. But, you will need to do some research for your pet.

Hopefully, this will give you a good idea of what needs to be done to make sure that your pet remains healthy long into the future. It can be hard to consider these things on a daily basis. Most people fail to look after themselves; let alone their pet. But, just image how bad you will feel knowing you could have had an extra few years.

0 Comments

Raising Happy Children

4/20/2017

0 Comments

Nurturing happiness in your children is the focus of this contributed post.

https://tinyurl.com/mlc5gzy

Children are the most resilient little creatures. They’re inquisitive and full of imagination and they believe in magic. They believe in their parents and what you tell them and they watch carefully. People often do not give children the credit that is deserved, but children watch everything very closely. You as an adult will know this, because you once were a child. Profound memories come from childhood and when you’re the parent and raising children, their happiness is at the forefront of your mind.

Parents do everything that they can to raise secure, balanced children. No one decides to have a family with the idea of anything less than perfection. You want your kids to be the best they can be, to have better than you ever had and you want them to fly as high as they can. The happiest children are the ones who have a happy family surrounding them, elevating them and being a constant, steady support.

https://tinyurl.com/mjse7zj

People focus on milestones. They focus on first steps and graduation day and the little milestones that children hit one after another. Sometimes, happiness can get lost along the way. There is a lot of pressure on parents to make sure that their kids are a success, but what makes a child a success? Is it the number of trophies they have from their athletic clubs? Is it the honours they graduate with in high school or college? Or is it the fact they can have normal relationships with people in their lives and feel confident while they do so? All of the above matter, but security matters the most.

Children that are secure have been raised to believe that family is something that they can rely on. Whether your relationship stands the test of time and family is irrelevant, really, if you can keep the stability going then your children will be minimally affected. Companies like http://www.asb-law.com/ can advise about custody, should your relationship breakdown and children are involved. The one thing that all parents – together or not – should remember, is that if there are children involved then maturity is key. No one goes into marriage imagining it will end in divorce. There’s always the possibility but no one thinks about it. What you must think about though, is how your behaviour as an adult affects the happiness of the children.

https://tinyurl.com/n67jd7k

Happy kids need to know what is coming next and this is the job of a parent. They need to be secure that there will be a meal on the table, a bed to sleep in and a pair of arms to fall into when their hearts get broken for the first time. Your children need to feel heard, appreciated and wanted and all of this can still be the case even when the family dynamic changes. Parental maturity matters and if you can show your children unconditional love no matter what, that there is maturity. Your children rely on you to feel whole, the same way they make you feel whole, too.

0 Comments

Starting Again After A Break-Up

4/10/2017

0 Comments

Self care after a breakup is highlighted in this contributed post.

One of the worst feelings in the world is grief, and it doesn’t just follow a death. Grief can follow a change in situation, such as having family or friends move abroad or a breakup. We feel like there has been a loss in our lives and that is exactly what is being dealt with, except it’s a loss of love and companionship and not life. Relationships coming to an end are a challenge and there are stages you go through before you can truly function again.

https://tinyurl.com/kjkphbv

The whole emotional rollercoaster of starting again after a relationship breakdown can feel overwhelming, scary and lonely – no one wants to go on this ride alone! Adjusting to the single life again feels like going back to the start of a race that you’d only just finished, and if there are children involved, it’s even more heart-breaking. To be able to move forward with life in a positive way, there are two paths you must choose between: winning your ex back or moving forward alone. If you plan to try and win your ex back, you need a game plan. You need to be able to face them without breaking apart and that means doing things in reverse. You should work on yourself and loving yourself, so that when you try to fight the battle of winning them back, you can be successful. With these steps, you can work yourself into a position where you are strong and feel like you can conquer anything. It’s important to feel like you can look after yourself if you don’t win, and that requires you not to feel like you’re going to fall apart.

https://tinyurl.com/zsmlqyr

Believe In Yourself
Self-belief is possible the hardest thing for most people to grasp, especially after confidence is brought down with a break-up. You need to realise you were born with magic inside you! If you were left by someone, you’re not going to feel magnificent in the slightest, you’re going to feel like you’ve got something wrong with you – you haven’t. If someone else cannot see your shine, then that’s not for you to worry about. Be secure with who you are and make a point of reminding yourself of all the reasons you are brilliant. Start focusing on the best things about yourself and recite them every day so you don’t forget. This’ll help you move into a more positive mindset, and accept that you’re not a bad person.

Take Ten
The grief you’ll feel in the initial days of the breakup is going to feel all-consuming. Like an open wound that’s being poked! What you need to do is allow yourself ten minutes a day to cry, to scream, to punch pillows and to feel sorry for yourself. Then balance those ten minutes out with something amazing for yourself like reading a book, a walk in the sunshine or a face mask. Give yourself permission to be happy and healthy and be the bet you can for yourself. This type of healing will allow you to move on from the pain, even if you do decide to bite the bullet and get back together. Let yourself mourn, absolutely, but don’t let it consume you.

Learn Lessons
The bitterness and regrets you may feel following the breakdown of a relationship can make you feel depressed and sad. There will be a lot of ‘what if’s and ‘if only’ and wondering where it all went wrong. These thoughts aren’t healthy and while they’re okay for a while, you cannot keep them going. Learn from the relationship, perhaps start meditation like this to find your calm and learn from the mistakes that were made on both sides and allow yourself to move forward from them. Stop worrying about what happened then and think about what you can do to move ahead.

https://tinyurl.com/n6ygnmk

Make You Happy
Starting again after a relationship ends starts with making yourself happy. If that means going on holiday, starting an exercise class or splashing some money shopping for yourself, do it. Whatever it is that’s going to make you feel fantastic about yourself you need to do it. Work out what matters to you and what will make your soul soar and do those things. Each time you find yourself wallowing on the things that went wrong, pull your focus around to you. it’s not about ignoring the heartbreak, it’s about fighting it with happiness. If you’re feeling happy and secure and well-rounded, you can feel excited for the future and the old insecurities won’t hurt so much. Take the time to discover things you like that you may have put to one side because your partner didn’t and revisit those things again. Make yourself remember what it was like to be dependent on yourself and bask in that happiness.

Reinvention
Every book will tell you not to do anything drastic once a relationship ends, but reinvention doesn’t mean starting with cutting off all your hair and quitting your job. It starts inside, and telling yourself that you can move ahead happily single. Don’t change your appearance, but change how you view it! Feel more successful in the way you can still get up in the morning and face the day. Embrace the days you can stop crying sooner than the day before. Focus on all the positives that come from the ‘after’ and you won’t find yourself dwelling on the ‘before’.

Starting again after the end of a relationship doesn’t mean doing it alone. Self-rejection after a breakup is common, but not something you need to be party to if you don’t want to. You need to look at life in a way that means you are able to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep smiling. There’s no one in the world that can make you feel bad about yourself so take a deep breath, put those shoulders back and keep going forward.

0 Comments

Identifying Depression in Yourself and Others

4/7/2017

0 Comments

Signs of depression are explored in this contributed post.

https://tinyurl.com/lwednua

The societal stigma of mental illness is starting to dissolve. Things aren’t perfect yet, however. This is partly why people still find it so difficult to open up about depression, but it’s not the whole story. For many people, they just don’t feel totally safe or comfortable revealing such a part about themselves; something that is, in the end, very personal indeed. Others feel that it can’t possibly be that big a deal, that surely it’s something they can deal with by themselves.

Perhaps you know someone who might be depressed. Perhaps you’re not quite sure; there are behavioral changes you can’t quite put your finger on that are leading you to suspect something might be up. Maybe you’re even going through something yourself that isn’t easy to identify.

This is a quick guide to identifying some of the behaviors that are often associated with depression. While this list is in no way exhaustive of all the signs that could point to depression, nor are any of these signs proof positive that someone is depressed, it will still be invaluable for those who are worried about the moods of themselves and others. Anyone who feels they are affected should consider reaching out to others. This can take the form of talking to friends, family, or even trying out counselling.

We’re going to take a look at the most common signs of depression - but not ones that you may typically associate with it.

https://tinyurl.com/kczmthp

Trouble concentrating

The least recognized of all signs of depression, it’s also, perhaps, the most common. If someone has trouble reading, or often forgets something you told them, or has been drifting off a little during conversations, then they are clearly having increased trouble with their concentration. This is often why a decrease in work performance in concomitant with depression. People often notice things like visible anxiety or a sudden lack of confidence; a decrease in concentration can be harder to spot. But if you see it in yourself or others, it may be time to start asking questions.

Sleep and/or appetite problems

The problem that people have in identifying this is that they feel that depression is always associated with one extreme or the other - that someone who has trouble sleeping is more likely to be depressed than someone who sleeps more, or that someone who is gaining weight is trying to ‘comfort eat’ their woes away whereas someone losing weight has another problem altogether. But depression can cause overeating or undereating, and it’s actually more accurately associated with an increase in sleep than a lack of it. It’s important to understand that it can go in any of these directions.

Waning interest

Perhaps you don’t see them going out as much as they used to. Perhaps they used to play games, or read books, or write, or paint. Whatever the hobby is, you’ve noticed that they simply haven’t been doing it that much these days, if at all. Depression often comes with a greatly decreased sense of pleasure from things someone used to enjoy a lot. Ask them why they think their interest has waned.

0 Comments

The Biggest Causes Of Family Stress Revealed

4/5/2017

0 Comments

Factors which can cause stress in the family are discussed in this contributed post.

Stress is an unstoppable force sometimes, and your family should be an immovable object. When these two meet, it can be painful. Stress is a part of life and it is unavoidable, however we can find our own ways of dealing with, and releasing stress. A good way to fight stress is to identify the causes of stress. If we can find out what is causing our family pain and worry, we can work to avoid it.

So what are the biggest worries that could potentially face our families? Work is one of them. Working can sometimes be long and arduous and on other occasions it can take us away from our families. This can cause friction.

There are a lot of things rolled up inside the package of work that can cause stress. Unemployment is a huge one as it makes the future unclear, the stress of interviews and not being able to find a job can hurt and impact the family. Working hard and not making enough money can in some cases be even worse as the work related stress builds up on top of the financial worries creating quite the situation. Even being unhappy with a job can lead to stress in the family as anger brought in from the workplace flares up at home.

Financial woes and legal worries are massive causes of stress within families. The crux of a family is safety and stability, and finances go a long way to providing that in the home. Not having enough money to make ends meet can be a huge worry, and spiraling stacks of debt can crush the best of us. The best thing to do with financial stress is to attempt to examine the situation and find out what can be done to make ends meet, but most importantly of all, it is to open up and take on the reality of the situation. Talking won't solve issues, but it can certainly help you feel better about them. There are many ways in which you can seek financial relief and advice, though - you simply need to open up and talk about it, so that you can seek help with the situation. Legal issues are linked - talking is good as it allows you to gain knowledge, but you've got to speak with the right people, like building a list of questions to ask a divorce attorney, for example. It is situational though, and it depends on the legal issues that your family are going through - it can still be a stressful time though, especially with something that might split the family.

https://pixabay.com/p-2005640/?no_redirect

There are plenty of other worries that can haunt a family - death, addiction, behaviour problems, school. The list doesn’t really end. What you and your family need to do is attempt to find the source of the stress and see what can be done at either preventing the stress or finding ways to help cope with it. Stress is all around us, we simply have to find out what we can do to cope with it.

0 Comments

How To Grab Quality Time With Your Kids

4/4/2017

0 Comments

Ways to connect with your children are explored in this contributed post.

It can be hard nowadays to grab hold of good quality family time with your kids. Once they get past a certain age, they’re more interested in doing their own thing rather than cuddling up to either of their parents. They’ll always come back when they need us, but in their developmental stage of independence, we are the least of their worries. Getting everybody together to make memories can be harder than you think, even if you are all living in the same house. Work commitments, children's event commitments and other occasions that pop up in life are all things that can get in the way without us realising. Make a date and make sure that you are sitting down to get to know each other all over again.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/artwork-materials-on-wooden-table-159657/

Craft

Crafting with kids can be somewhat of a messy ordeal, but that doesn’t mean that the idea should be shunned completely. There are some craft ideas which don’t require many items to get them going, and less to work with means less mess in your house. If you’re thinking of setting the date closer to the summer, you could do crafts such as tie-dye outside and wear the shirts or whatever items you have dyed together. It’s a really great way to bond.

https://tinyurl.com/k3l6n7v

Slouch

If you’ve got a job which demands a lot of activity, whether physical or mental, and your children take part in a lot of extra-curricular activities through school, you may not want to do anything with them at all but sit down and chill out for a bit. For movie apps to download, you could try out ShowBox to watch films on demand - especially if you’ve ran out of DVDs or television programs that you can agree on. Make sure that you have enough food, blankets and cushions to make it into a cinema-at-home experience.

https://tinyurl.com/ny7ua9v

Cook

Families who cook together, stay together … or so the saying goes! Children love to get involved in the kitchen, and baking cupcakes or getting them to help you cook the dinner for the evening can be a great way to really get involved in something together. The best thing about it is they get to consume what they’ve created at the end of it.

Work

Sometimes, you just need to get the job done before you can afford to take a step back and relax. You shouldn’t feel guilty about getting your kids involved with any housework that needs doing, and setting them simple chores to do will actually increase their sense of motivation and give them a responsibility to take care of. Children love having responsibility, as it makes them feel a tad more grown up than they actually are - the best teachers will delegate jobs to their students in classrooms to give a sense of camaraderie throughout the class.

https://tinyurl.com/lssz745

Sing

It doesn’t matter if you’re musical or not - kids love to sing. Especially with the release of hit Disney movies like Frozen, and now the remake of Beauty and the Beast, there is a mashup of classic and new songs for you to choose from to keep your children entertained.

0 Comments

Guacamole

Guacamole Recipe
ingredients

Author

Maintaining Long-Term Pet Health

Raising Happy Children

Starting Again After A Break-Up

Identifying Depression in Yourself and Others

The Biggest Causes Of Family Stress Revealed

How To Grab Quality Time With Your Kids

Explore By Category

Explore By Date

Guacamole

Guacamole Recipe ingredients

Author

Maintaining Long-Term Pet Health

Raising Happy Children

Starting Again After A Break-Up

Identifying Depression in Yourself and Others

The Biggest Causes Of Family Stress Revealed

How To Grab Quality Time With Your Kids

Explore By Category

Explore By Date

Guacamole Recipe
ingredients