small business, Self improvement, working at home, mental health, cooking, hobbies, gardening, wellness, health, fitness, motherhood and raising families

I USED TO OFTEN FEEL SO GOB SMACKED WHEN GOING WITH MY SON TO THE PSYCHIATRIST

Another situation which arises is that, the person with the illness may be quite lucid during the interviews, so the doctor may have difficulty making any analysis at all of an illness until he views the  symptoms at a later date.  Sometimes it can be weeks, or sometimes months and years, before a true diagnosis can be made.

AND I can understand why.  I have sat in on psychiatrists appointments and thought to myself, "his is not the same son that I have living with me"!   He has conducted his conversations well, he has answered all the questions and done a good job. 

This in itself is a part of the illness, well not a 'part' of the illness, but something that happens at times.  At times when lucidity is needed at their discretion, it is possible that they can maintain a level of lucidity that makes it very difficult for doctors to diagnose exactly where the situation is at, or in fact, even IF there is an illness.  It is a bit like 'selective hearing'. 

Sometimes too, I used to think my son was lying (and he rarely ever does), but then I realised that what he was telling the doctors was exactly as he saw it.  He often didn't remember incidents that I wanted the doctor hear about, and often had quite a different view of what happened, or was said.

It was over time with him, and discussions with doctors that I realised that his world was so different from mine, even if we lived in the same house.  We just saw things totally differently.  Me from a carer's perspective, and him from his own view on the circumstances.

For more insights like these perhaps my ebook on   Managing Mental Illness – Coping Strategies For The Carer would help you a lot.

AS TEMPTING AS IT IS, USING CHEAP WAX CAN CAUSE PROBLEMS

It really is a ‘cheap’ hobby, so don’t try and save more dollars by using a concoction of wax that has been lying around the house.  Use good clean wax that you have bought and handled correctly then the chance of any problems is much, much less.

There is more chance of wax spitting, of joins not holding together, and 'dirty candles', in other words, candles with dirty flecks in them.

In our ebook Candle Making – Start With Confidence we give tips on how to use your discarded or unused wax, so really when you buy your wax, and it is cheap, you will not have very much wastage.

TAKE PHOTOS – AND TAKE MORE PHOTOS!  BE READY TO MAKE YOUR CHRISTMAS SCRAPBOOK ALBUM

Get that camera out and be prepared for Christmas photos.  Starting looking for cheap embellishments, or wait til the after Christmas sales, and buy yourself some cheap trimmings for your family Christmas scrapbook.

If you are going on holiday, don't forget to collect things that you can add into your scrapbook.  Drink coasters, menues, tickets, sugar wraps, etc.  All small and interesting items to remind you of your holiday.  Post cards are great too.  The pictures are (dare I say it) often better than ones we take ourselves. 

Get some more great ideas at

http://ebooksnowonline.com/hobbies/scrapbooking/ 

Have fun!

BEING A CARER IS NO FUN, BUT THESE INSIGHTS MIGHT HELP YOU

One of the problems a carer faces is trying to find out what type of mental illness they are dealing with.  It can often be a very long period of time before a mental illness is diagnosed because so many symptoms can present the same and sometimes a person can suffer from several symptoms of several illnesses. 

Also, there are other issues, such as the person that is ill may not, at the time of assessment, be able to communicate that well and therefore the doctor cannot get a clear picture of what is happening. Because of this it may take several psychiatrist visits, or hospitalisations, to fully understand what exactly is happening.   

LEARN THE BASICS OF YOUR CRAFT AND YOU WILL ENJOY IT SO MUCH MORE 

Like any hobby, candle making takes a little to learn before you start, but there are some very easy techniques to learn in the early stages to make stunning candles.  Here are some safety tips for candle making.

1.  Never have wax near an open flame, wax is flammable.

NOT EVERYONE KNOWS HOW TO OPERATE A WEBSITE, EVEN THE 'FREE TO SET UP ONES', SO SET UP A BLOG AND USE IT AS YOUR WEBSITE

If you go into a site like Wordpress.com you can set yourself up a blog and start promoting your business.   You can also have a blog at Google Blog.

Either of these two sites are very easy to use, and have great exposure in the market place.  They are free to set up and have great pulling power.  One word of warning though, they do not have instant exposure.  It can take a couple of months to get noticed, and you do need to be fairly active, say 3 – 5 blogs a week to make an impact.

 Use helpful and meaningful content so that readers will want to keep coming back to read what you have to say.  In time you will get a following, and people will start interacting with you.

For many more great cheap tips on your small business marketing you can go to

http://ebooksnowonline.com/internet-marketing/marketing/ . Also if you are stuggling to get ideas for a small business to work at home either to bring in extra money or start a new job, look at

A Guide To Working At Home

DON'T RUSH IN TO YOUR CANDLE MAKING – CHECK OUT ALL THE SAFETY FACTORS FIRST

Like any hobby, candle making takes a little to learn before you start, but there

are some very easy techniques to learn in the early stages to make stunning candles.  Here are 3 candle making safety tips, but for more important ones get our ebook Candle Making – Start with Confidence where you will learn safety, have projects to do and may helpful tips as well.

 1.  Always have cotton gloves handy to handle molds.2.  Keep a chemical fire extinguisher handy in case of fire.3.  Keep a pile of newspapers handy in case of spillage on the floor or bench top.

Have fun!

REMEMBER, KEEP VARIETY IN YOUR SCRAPBOOK

If you are anything like me you will be in a bit of rush when doing your scrapbook.  You love doing it, but you don't have all the time in the world.  But, do try and not to rush so much that you don't take the time to add variety to your work.

 Questions to ask yourself are: a) how can I make this page different from the last, b) should I do it with the photos, c) should I do it with the colors, or d) should I do it with the embellishments. Asking yourself these sorts of questions will keep your work interesting, especially to other people looking through your scrapbook.

YOU COULD BE FORGIVEN FOR THINKING THAT ALL IS BAD

But the reality is that there are lots of opportunities out in the market place even if times are tough.

If small businesses are cutting back on staff there is an opportunity for you to offer your services as a part time worker.  If you are good at working on your computer, you might offer to work at home and do their work on a piece meal basis.  This can save a company a lot of money, only paying for the work that is done – no holidays, no sickies, no broken equipment, no down time.

You could do data entry, invoicing, letter writing, report writing, and other administrative duties.

These are good selling points for you to try and score yourself some work.  Watch that you evaluate these points though when you are pricing your services. 

Jobs you could offer for would be data entry, invoicing, letter writing, report writing, and other administrative duties.

More ideas are available in our ebook about working at home. Take a look.

LEARN TO LOOK FOR THE SIGNS

Being a carer for a person with a mental illness is difficult to deal with at the best of times, but when you don’t know what you are dealing with then it is even harder.  Sometimes it is years before a person is given a diagnosis in regards to a mental illness they may be suffering.

There are many reasons why this happens and we will be looking at them in the next few weeks, but if you would like more help as a carer of a mentally ill person, strategies have been set out in our ebook Managing Mental Illness – Coping Strategies For The Carer 

When you are coping with an undiagnosed illness, life can be very difficult.  You often don't know what to do for the best. 

Like learning how to do anything, time will teach you.  Keep trying new strategies until you can get a firm diagnosis.