Inspire a Life!

I’ve always believed that equality may not mean being fair. Equality could mean that if I buy a new pair of rubber shoes for one, I should buy for all. But that may not be fair at all. What if the other does not need or want a new pair of rubber shoes? What he needs could be a more expensive pair of leather shoes. If I give one a new ipod, that doesn’t mean that my other son would also like to have one too. For all we know, the other would prefer to just save the money either for himself or for another sibling. Or maybe save the money for a future bigger item purchase.

Another thing that I keep on saying to my kids is that EVERYBODY IN THIS WORLD is intelligent. One may be a genius in mathematics but poor in cooking while another has great skill in the creative concoction of new recipes while having low grades in school. This understanding that every person is a genius in his area of intelligence has allowed my children to appreciate every person instead of judging anyone as less intelligent than them.

One thing though that is the same for ALL OUR CHILDREN is this: every single one of them will at one point engage in computer games.

As parents, one of the responsibilities is to guide our children to watch the right movies, play the right games and be with the right playmates. Here are some of my insights when in comes to playtime with the kids:
1) Kids want to play and have fun. And we as parents should take the opportunity to spend the fun moments with them while they are young not only to weave beautiful memories with them but also to have the opportunity to have small talks and be able to discuss virtues and values that we want to impress upon the young minds;
2) Kids learn fastest when they are enjoying what they are doing (Hmmm… doesn’t this follow for adults too?);
3) There are a lot of games for every type of child: word games, puzzles, adventure, mystery and games of logic, etc.;
4) Since I promote a violence-free world, I influence my kids to play educational games that test their wits and reflex, or even teach some concepts of caring for a farm or aquarium and time management;
5) I cannot just buy one game and expect all my kids to enjoy that same game which could mean a bit expensive for the pocket. As a wise super mom, I can choose to look for activities that don’t need to spend money, or play the free online games, or subscribe to a game membership site for unlimited games or just find ways to make more money to afford all the games that my kids want to download! ;
6) There are so many other activities that I can do with my kids like online scrapbooking, singing together some home-style karaoke challenge or doing crafts and making artworks.

All of these activities are part of building trust and respect and anchors for our children to hold onto as they grow older.

I have encountered many questions being debated whether it is healthy to wear prescription eyeglasses or not. The myth that the eye problem will only get worse by prolonged use of prescription eyeglasses is just not true. If one does not wear his prescription eyeglasses, the eyes get strained and stressed trying to focus. But instead of simply wearing plain prescription eyeglasses, there is actually something better — prescription sunglasses.

Why wear prescription sunglasses? Whether one is only far sighted or near sighted, bifocal or multifocal, wearing eyeglasses will be able to at the very least, arrest the further degradation of eyesight. The beauty of having sunglasses is to protect the sun from the harmful rays of the sun, from UVA and UVB rays that are unhealthy to our eyesight. Aside from that is having sunglasses will also keep our eyes younger-looking!

Prescription sunglasses can help prevent crow’s feet that are unsightly at the corner of our eyes. And also the fine lines and wrinkles that show under our eyes. These can happen due to excessive squinting caused by the following:
1) when our eyes are trying to focus simply because we are not faithfully wearing our prescription glasses;
2) when our eyes are hurting because of the bright sunlight;
3) when we squint because of the glare from the oncoming vehicles when night driving.

Another benefit of wearing prescription sunglasses aside from the obvious eye health benefits and better vision is that it is fashionable! By choosing the right frame that matches your facial features, and color that enhances your skin tone, your prescription eyeglasses no longer has to make you look older but it can actually make you look even younger.

I have been near sighted almost all my adult life. I used to wear prescription eyeglasses and tried out contact lenses too. Being busy just like all of the supermoms and superdads out there, I want a less-fuss lifestyle. I want to be able to just grab my prescription glasses and run! My eyes have the added problem of being very sensitive to light. I don’t know if some or many of you have experienced glares to be almost painful to your eyes, sometimes causing some headaches. When driving in the evenings, the oncoming traffic practically blinds me with all those strong headlights.

And so, I decided to use prescription sunglasses. I had to scout for the sunglass frame that best suits my facial shape and look for the pair that’s within my budget. Thanks God for the World Wide Web. Nowadays, searching for the perfect product within our budget is no longer a strenuous exercise.

The common problems with most online eyeglass stores are having no sunglasses in their offerings or having poor or no virtual try-ons. I suggest that you go for the ones wherein you will be able to have the best pair of prescription sunglasses for your budget. Buy it from the store that offers fashionable pieces at affordable prices without compromising the quality.

Busy parents need not appear aged before our grandchildren go to college! We just have to understand the right anti aging skin care for busy people.

It is true that as we grow older, the natural ability of our cells to regenerate slows down. But wrinkles, dark circles and open pores do not suddenly show up overnight. They are brought about by our neglect of our skin health.

I’d be lying if I would say that it never happened with me that “youthful glow” suddenly leaves my skin every now and then. These were the times when I am just too busy with so many things that I practically don’t have time to even look at my face on the mirror for more than a minute before I fly out of the door in the mornings!

And if I don’t do something to arrest the deterioration of my skin, soon, the signs of unhealthy skin will eventually become permanent. So the most important thing to do is to do something NOW to correct the problem before the condition becomes too serious.

So what are the causes of those temporary dullness of my skin?

The skin is only a reflection of 4 things basically: genes, what you eat, lifestyle, skin care products.

1) Genes – with genetics, there is very little that we can do about it. But that does not mean to say that with bad genes, we cannot have beautiful, glowing skin even at past 60 years old!

2) What you eat – there are no short cuts to anything great in life. Anything beautiful is worth putting in some effort. If you eat junk, it will show on your skin. Lots of fruits, vegetables, water will provide suppleness and glow to your skin.

3) Lifestyle – How many hours of rest do you get? Do you have some physical activities to keep your blood transporting oxygen and much needed nutrients throughout your body? How much sun exposure do you get everyday? All these have huge impact on your skin. We should be sleeping enough to allow our skin and muscles to repair itself. And I cannot stress it enough that sun exposure damages our skin. In fact, prolonged direct exposure can cause skin cancers.

4) Skin Care Products – Do you take care of your skin? Do you feed it with nutrition on a daily basis? It is important that we do that everyday to prevent hastened aging.

So what is the anti aging skin care regimen that I could recommend?

There is no better way than going back to basics and laying down the right foundations. Cosmetics are suppose to be used in order to enhance our appearance. As much as possible, let us try to avoid having to use cosmetics to cover up our neglected skin.

1) Eat the right food. What you eat will show;
2) Feed your skin with the right nutritious foods. Natural skin cleansing products, preferably without mineral oil; apply toner, preferable without alcohol; moisturizers that are non-greasy, nutrients that will nourish you skin;
3) Avoid being under the sun. If unavoidable, don’t forget to put on HIGH SPF creams or lotions. But, whether you will have direct sunlight exposure or not, the sun’s rays can still damage your skin and thus, it is advisable to apply sun protection everyday. There are products that are moisturizers with tint and high SPF at the same time;
4) Be active. Go out, walk, work, go a few flights of stairs everyday. This will be good for your blood circulation and will bring pinkish glow to your skin;
5) Be positive. Be productive. Our mental health has direct impact on our skin’s rejuvenation. Have you ever noticed how dull your skin is whenever you’re feeling low and depressed and stressed? Whereas your skin glows whenever you’re excited and enthusiastic over some goal or project?

For the products that I actually use, I might be able to share them with you sometime in the future. Just to give you a hint, as much as possible, I go for all-natural. I believe in the practice of integrative medicine, wherein the natural or herbal healthy products are used with the conventional medicines or products. If there are all-natural products that will solve my problem, by all means, I’d go for the natural products. But if there is a need for synthetically prepared products to intervene, I use them. For skin problems that are not severe, natural products can be used. Or if you have the patience to wait for longer periods of time to handle severe damages, then all-natural home remedies or nutritional skin care products will be good for you. But, since our society nowadays have “spoiled” us to expect quick results, then synthetically produced anti aging skin care products are very popular.

Anti Aging Skin Care is not really about THAT ONE secret product or the search for the elusive fountain of youth. Our skin is just one part of our whole self. The right attitude and lifestyle is still the best anti aging skin care system there is in the world.

How does one achieve the perfect eyebrow then?

First, you have to understand what your facial shape is. Actually, no shape is less beautiful than another so don’t worry. It is a matter how one enhances the strengths and downplays the flaws. Sometimes, all it takes is just to refocus people’s attention to your best feature so that any flaw becomes unnoticeable. It’s also about understanding how to balance the look. How you cut your hair can also help a lot in balancing your unique facial shape.

Once you already know, I suggest going for the most natural-looking eyebrows in the shape that will best complement your facial shape.

There are 6 different facial shapes:
1) Oval – cheekbones are prominent, forehead is wider than the chin and the chin is narrow but not long
2) Round – the width is almost the same as the length but widest at the cheeks
3) heart shaped – the face is almost the same as the oval but the chin tapers to a point
4) diamond – the face is widest at the temples, with shorter forehead and highly angular overall look
5) long – the face appears to be elongated, the width of the forehead, cheekbones and the jaws are almost the same though the chin tends to be more prominent
6) square – shorter than the long face, but having the same width of the forehead, cheekbones and jawline less the prominent chin, the squarish jawline is the most obvious feature

Once you have determined your facial shape, then you can now work on what eyebrow shape is best for you.

The objective in having the right eyebrow shape is to: either break the elongated look, make a round face appear longer than it is, soften the strong jawlines, or balance the angular look.

Oval or heart shaped faces need to have some soft arched angle for the eyebrows; while the long face need straight eyebrows because any angle or arch will just give the illusion of elongating the face even further. The diamond face needs some curved eyebrows, somewhat a little bit wavy which softly arches to break the angular look. The square face needs eyebrows that are either angled to make it stronger than the angled jawline or a pair of softly angled eyebrows to balance the prominent squarish jawline.

I personally tried using different eyebrow pencils but have always met the two biggest challenges in using one:
1) Unnatural color that don’t match my skin tone;
2) Eyebrows that look like drawn lines in a coloring book

I tried scratching the tip of the eyebrow pencil on an eyebrow brush before applying the brush on my eyebrows but I just could never get that natural look. I think it is because the browns are just too yellowish brown while the black is simply out of the question for me because it’s like using a black whiteboard pen writing on a white board. I guess, very few women have jet black hair.

As I continued my search, I have finally found one that is perfect. It also has the perfect eyebrow brush — hard enough to have a quick application but soft enough so that it doesn’t hurt my skin. And the shade of brown is perfect! To be honest, no one ever thought that my eyebrows are the product of Body Shop eyebrow kit because they just look so natural.

Eyebrows are supposed to be clean, not too thick nor too thin, and the most important thing is they should not be standing out of your face. They’re just there to complete your look with the most natural-looking perfect eyebrows.