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● Laura Thornberry ● Lifestyle Blogger ● London Based ●

 GUEST POST| After the glow of the honeymoon phase has faded, you may feel as though your relationship has got a little stale. You still love your partner, of course, but you may have fallen into a rut in the romance department. It’s completely natural for a relationship to shift over time, but you don’t have to settle for watching the passion slowly fade away. You don’t need a holiday or special occasion to add a little spark to your life. Here are 8 creative tips to renew the romance in your life.

relationship

1. Set up a self-care day.
When you’re feeling stressed and exhausted, romance is the last thing on your mind. Give your partner the gift of a day of rest and relaxation, and they may just thank you for it in a special way. Book a massage at your local spa, put together an at-home spa kit, or set them up with their favourite snacks and a stack of DVDs. However, your partner likes to relax, make it happen.

2. Share a homemade meal.
Nothing is more romantic than a candle-lit dinner, so throw on your apron and whip up your partner’s favourite meal. Pour yourselves a glass of red wine and spend the evening enjoying each other’s company. It’s the perfect time to check in with each other and to really focus on your special bond.

3. Write them a love letter.
When you’ve been with the same partner for a while, you develop a certain level of comfort. While it’s certainly a good thing to feel comfortable with your partner, sometimes couples find themselves falling out of the habit of really communicating. If you want to spark some romance in your relationship, write your partner a love letter. Remind them why you love them, recall cherished memories from the past, and maybe offer a little teaser of how you hope the night will end.

4. Upgrade your bedroom décor.
If things are feeling a little stale in the bedroom, switch it up – literally! Purchase some new pillows, upgrade your worn-out comforter, and add some soft lighting. When outfitting your bedroom, it’s important to consider both you and your partner’s personal taste, but really try to focus on making the space a cosy, comfortable place for the two of you to share.

cosy bedroom

5. Book a hotel room.
Sometimes it’s difficult to get in the mood at home, especially if your home is also your workplace. If you’re looking to rekindle some romance, book a hotel room for you and your partner to enjoy an overnight date. It’s the perfect chance to visit your favourite restaurant or order some room service and just enjoy the night together.

6. Surprise them with new lingerie.
Nothing sparks a little romance like new lingerie. Whether you’re donning it yourself or purchasing it for your partner, lingerie is a great way to shake things up in the bedroom. When choosing lingerie, the key to feeling confident is to find something that makes you feel good.

7. Show them how much you care.
Physical intimacy starts with emotional intimacy, and sometimes all someone needs to feel romantic is to be reminded how much their partner cares for them. Spend the afternoon tackling your partner’s to-do list, so they can spend the evening relaxing. Buy the groceries, wash the car, or do whatever it is they’ve been putting off, so they have the time and energy to enjoy a little alone time with you.

8. Address your own insecurities.
If things are lacking in the romance department in your relationship, take a good hard look at yourself to see if you can figure out why. Sometimes when our confidence is low, we distance ourselves from the people we care about, and it can create a rift in the relationship. Whether you’re struggling with erectile dysfunction, you’re dissatisfied with your bodyweight, or you have another issue entirely, do what you need to do to address it, and you may just see the results in the romance department.

Every relationship is unique, so don’t feel like the ideas on this list are your only options. Get creative, using these ideas as inspiration to come up with something your partner will appreciate. What matters most is that you care for each other, and you’re both wiling to work to keep the spark alive.
10:00 No comments
 AD| Streaming concerts have picked up out of necessity over the last couple of years, but there's no reason to fear that live shows are going to be replaced forever. Although you can more easily visit a digital concert, these are the top reasons why viewing these performances in person will always be king.

live stream

The Human Connection of the Crowds
When you're in a huge crowd of people who also enjoy what you do, there's a human connection that you can't get from just a chat room. You get to talk to others, feel a human link in person, sing along with the more popular songs as a group, and enjoy the rush of knowing that you're part of a community in person. Although you can be in a community online, seeing it in person makes it feel more real. Two thousand people in a live stream is nothing, but two thousand people in a stadium singing along together can feel emotionally powerful.

The Audio Quality of Music in Person
When you listen to a live show online, your sound experience is controlled entirely by whatever recording equipment they use and whatever speakers you have at home. This can be very limiting. At live concerts, you get to listen to them sing through fantastic speakers, or sometimes without any audio equipment at all. Although you can find musicians for hire outside of concerts for this experience, getting to see it with your favourite celebrity is unique.

Getting to Be in the Same Room as Stars
There’s nothing as incredible as getting to be in the same room as the stars you love! Even though a concert hall is often massive, you can sometimes get within a few hundred feet of a celebrity, and that can be thrilling. This is especially fun if it's someone whose career you've followed for years! It gives you the chance to see they're a real person putting their all into their career.

live music

The Incredible Adrenaline Live Shows Offer
The average person experiences a sublime rush of adrenaline during a live show. This is why some people cry at concerts, even if they're not sad. You get an intense swelling of emotion, and your chest can feel like your heart is going to beat its way out of your ribcage in excitement. This is something you can also experience through streaming concerts, but it's not as common an experience through a stream as it is in a show.

The Unique Memories This Creates
Streaming can give you the chance to create memories, but none are as unique or interesting as creating memories of a concert in person. You can grab dinner before you go, take your seats, and say that you saw a performer you adore in person! This is unique and incredible beyond any stream.

Streaming is Fine: But Live Concerts Rock
Of course, you can stream if you can't attend concerts right now! It's more than recommended for the average person. Still: it's a good idea to remember the joy of live shows and know that they're not going to leave for good, even if you can't attend one right now.

Do you enjoy live music shows? Who are your favourite bands/artists/musicians?
14:00 No comments
 GUEST POST| Never underestimate the power of a healthy smile. Research showed that almost half of adults in the UK did not visit an NHS dentist in the past 24 months. Avoiding the dentist can impact your dental, overall, and even mental health. Investing in your smile can have numerous benefits. As such, it is worth spending the time and money on ensuring that you have a healthy, gleaming smile. These are a few reasons why you should consider investing in your smile.

WOMAN SMILING

Creates A Strong First Impression
First impressions are crucial. It forms the foundation of a person’s opinion about another person. One of the first noticeable things a person’s eyes will be drawn to is your smile. Investing in your smile can help you showcase it instead of hiding it away. When you invest in your smile, you are also investing in your self-esteem, as you are not attempting to hide your teeth. You are no longer feeling conscious about the appearance of your teeth. You no longer worry about it during work meetings or when talking to someone new.

Helps To Boost Your Confidence
Aside from creating a solid first impression, investing in your smile can help to boost your confidence. It can help you feel more confident about showing your smile in front of others. Investing in your smile by having your teeth straightened or whitened can help you gain a higher confidence level.

Find a dentist that offers an extensive range of services. They could either be local to you or a little further afield. For instance, if you were to live in London, regardless of where in the capital you lived, you could visit a dentist in Fulham, such as fulhamroaddental.com. Selecting a dentist that offers an extensive list of services will allow you to receive all of your treatments in the same place. You will not have to search for another dentist to have specialist treatment or procedures to help you achieve a perfect, confidence-boosting smile.

Limits of Expensive Dental Chances
Recommendations suggest you should be visiting the dentist twice a year. Each visit is to have a routine check-up and professional cleaning. It helps to ensure that any signs of tooth damage or tooth decay are spotted and treated, and resolved, limiting the chances of a significant dental issue. A common dental concern is gum disease. The sooner it is treated, the better. Gum disease can lead to extensive treatment to restore your gums when left untreated. This procedure is more invasive than the standard preventative cleaning received when visiting the dentist regularly.

Investing In Your Health
A surprising fact is how oral health can be connected to your overall health. It surprises many people when they learn how much of their oral health affects the rest of the body. Studies are looking into the connections between overall health and oral health. Research is looking to see the link between inflammation of the gums and inflammation of blood vessels that can cause heart disease. When you invest in your teeth, you are also helping to maintain the overall health of your body.

Poor oral health can impact your life in multiple ways. Your smile will influence how others will perceive you. It impacts your confidence and self-esteem. Investing in your smile to create a healthier mouth can positively impact overall.

How do you look after your teeth and smile?
10:00 No comments
AD| Compound interest occurs when interest gets added to the principal amount invested or borrowed. It's essentially interest on interest, which can in some cases work to your advantage as your savings and/or investments grow over a period of time. Compound interest plays an important financial role in both your savings, investments and any debts you might have. Understanding how this works could help you to make more money over time—or it could mean you pay more in interest if you're not careful with your planning.

The difficult thing about compound interest is that it can be both a good and a bad thing, depending on how you utilize it. For example, it’s great when interest compounds on an investment, allowing your contribution to grow. However, when compound interest is added to say a loan or debt on a credit card, it's not great because that's extra money you’ll have to pay back.

investments

What’s The Difference Between Simple & Compound Interest?
Simple interest is the interest you earn or accrue on the amount you invest or borrow. For example, say you invest £100 and earn 10% interest on your investment in a year. The interest earned would be £10. This £10 is simple interest.

Compound interest is the extra interest you earn in addition to the simple interest you've already earned. For example, with compound interest, the extra interest is added to your initial amount. So that £10 of interest would be added to your total, meaning you now have £110. Year-on-year, this amount would keep increasing as your compound interest would keep adding to your total.

So How Does It Work?
Say for example you put £1,000 into a savings account that had a 10% interest rate that compounds annually. At the end of the first year, you'll have £1,100. The £1,000 you initially put in to it, plus the £100 in interest. Then, at the end of the second year, you'll have £1,210. The £1,100 from the previous year, plus the additional £110 in added interest.

Compounding interest works slightly differently as instead of calculating interest based only on the original amount you put into savings, compounding interest calculates your annual interest based on your original amount, plus any previous interest you earned the previous year. So by the end of the 10th year, you'll have £2,594 (based on the 10% interest rate). You’ll have doubled your initial savings, without having to add any more of your own money. This is all thanks to compound interest.

How Do You Calculate Compound Interest?
To be able to calculate compound interest, there are a few things you need to work out first.
1. The amount you plan to invest that will be eligible for compound interest.
2. The interest rate on this amount.
3. How often compounding will occur.
4. How long your interest will compound.
Once you have the answers tool of the above, you will be able to calculate compound interest for your investment. Here is a reliable compound interest calculator you can use.

Use Your Knowledge of Compounding Interest Wisely
Once you understand how compounding works, you can make better, more strategic financial decisions. For example, you could look for a savings account that offers daily compound interest, instead of yearly. This means you can then transfer your savings into the account as frequently as possible. The more money you have in there, the more interest you will get from it, meaning you’ll get more of a return.

Hopefully this article will help you when it comes to working out if compound interest is for you.

Are you aware of compound interest?
12:00 No comments
How well did your blog perform in 2021? Did you achieve all your blogging goals you had set for the year? Are you looking at ways to improve your content, be more organised, more productive and more successful in 2022?

In 2021, I managed to have an incredibly good year for my blog for a number of reasons. First of all, I managed to hit my financial goal I had set myself for the year from working on a number of sponsored posts and campaigns with brands and PRs. Secondly, I got to work alongside a number of incredible and well known brands for a number of posts on my blog - some of these brands being Hotel Chocolat, The Poster Store, Parfum London, as well as submitting some recipe posts for the B&M website.

Thirdly, I used my time wisely throughout lockdown and being placed on furlough to really work on ways I can improve and expand all areas of my website. My lifestyle blog now has a total of 10 lifestyle based sub-sections, allowing me to share new articles on a wide range of topics, that can be relatable and engaging for a larger amount of people. Finally, time for some statistics. My lifestyle blogs audience is predominantly UK and US based, but it does currently have influence across many continents across the world, including Europe, Asia and the Americas - crazy right!?! 

In 2021 alone, I reached a staggering 550,527 page views, reaching to 210,157 users - these numbers I grabbed from my Google Analytics - making 2021 probably one my of best years to date, and in 2022, I'm looking to top it! The question is.. How can I achieve more and be more productive and more successful? Listed below are some of the ways I'm going to be more productive this year, and hopefully achieve another successful year for my lifestyle blog, and hopefully some advice you can also take on board to grow your own blogs.

productivity quote

- Start Using A Daily Diary -
To be a more productive and organised blogger, you simply need to plan well. This year, I've started to use a daily diary in order for me to keep track of certain tasks I need to complete, emails/invoices I need to send, blog posts I need to write, and being able to plan my week ahead to use my time wisely. Most diaries will have a number of extra pages you can use for note taking and planning ideas - this will help you visually remember any blog posts you wish to write in the future, any brands you hope to work with, and you can also make a note of any goals or targets you wish to reach for the year ahead. You could also use a diary to keep track of your blog's growth over the year, and to track your progress of page views, followers etc.

- Create To-Do Lists -
It's simply impossible to keep up with everything you're thinking about and all of your ideas that are inside your head. The best thing you can do it to write it all down so you can have it all as a visual reminder in front of you. One of the most practical and important reasons that you should start to use a to-do list is that it will help you stay well organised. When you have written all your daily jobs and tasks in a simple list, they seem more achievable and manageable. When you can see a clear outline of what you've got to do for each day or each week, and are able to tick off once you've completed, it helps you stay focused, motivated and on-top of your work. Making to-do lists are an easy, stress-free and effective way of keeping up-to-date with certain tasks and things you need to do throughout your day. As a blogger, this could include things such as sending emails, taking photographs, writing up blog posts and creating invoices, to name a few. 

blogging

- Update Your Media Kit Regularly -
For those who don't currently use a media kit, it can definitely be worth taking a look online to see what you need to include and browsing some media kit templates to give you some inspiration for your own. A media kit gives you the opportunity to showcase your blog and present yourself exactly as you want to be seen -  it is simply a digital-based, online portfolio that informs your potential partners, sponsors and clients everything they need to know. You are able to give a brief overview of your blog, about you as a person, the content you write about, and any other information you believe to be relevant - this could typically include recent blog statistics, demographics, social media platforms you use, services you offer with relevant fees and some of the previous brands you have collaborated with. All of these features can allow a brand to gain an in-depth overview of you, your website and what you have to offer in just a few clicks, so it's important to make sure you update this regularly and all information included is correct and up-to-date, for example - DA score, follower count, email address and fees for collaborations.

- Break Bigger Goals into Smaller Goals -
So, you may have set yourself some blog goals for the year ahead, and they may look slightly overwhelming to start with. Maybe you want to earn £10,000 for the year, you want to gain 5,000 new followers or you want to write 200 new blog posts for that year. If you look at them like this, it can be very stressful and cause a lot of anxiety for you, especially if you're working non-stop trying to make this happen. To make things look that little bit more manageable and achievable, why not break these big goals into smaller goals? Instead of looking at your full years overview of your blogging goals, it may be wiser to break these down into weekly or monthly targets - for example, if you are looking to make £10,000 from your blog in 2022, why not break this down to around £800 a month, 200 blog posts a year, it could be around 16 per month - looks much less scary!

emails

- Avoid Distractions -
On how many occasions do you go to sit down and begin writing a new blog post but manage to get distracted by your social media accounts, phone notifications etc. If you're running your blog or working from the comfort of your own home, there are endless distractions that surround you and your working space. Your mobile phone, TV, pets, children, emails from your favourite fashion or beauty brands - the list is simply endless. As a blogger, it's probably a useful tip of knowing how to try and avoid these distractions, as this will most probably allow you to achieve your goals and become more successful at a faster rate than you otherwise would. Here are a few examples of things you can implement to help you avoid distractions whilst blogging/working;
  • Set up a tidy, clutter free working environment
  • Use your diary and to-do lists to ensure you complete all tasks
  • Switch off your phone and log out of any social media websites
  • Work using time frames or set a timer to carry out certain tasks to help avoid distractions and increase your productivity levels
- Keep On Top Of Emails and Admin -
Finally, the dreaded emails and admin tasks that are always left until later or tomorrow. Get them done today! Managing to stay on top of your emails/admin jobs can be extremely overwhelming and time-consuming - especially as a blogger as you could be getting multiple emails through daily regarding things such as collaborations, payments and invoices. In order to keep on top of this, there are a number of things you can do. For example;
  • set aside some time each week to go through your all of your emails and respond to them
  • empty your junk folder and deleted emails regularly to avoid them piling up
  • group your emails in folders for easy access
  • update your admin files daily/weekly - e.g. spreadsheets for your blogging income, followers total and your weekly plan for your blog
  • make templates for specific emails you send as this can save you time - brand pitches, media kit emails, invoices etc
How successful was your blog in 2021? What other ways are you going to be more organised and productive this year?
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