NordenBladet – Pregnant women exposed to air pollution are five times more likely to have children who develop behavior problems related to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, a new study reports.
Helena-Reet Ennet
Shocking news! Scientists: Less exercise leads to small brain
OHMYGOSSIP — It’s a well-known fact that being a couch potato is no good for your health, but new research has discovered lack of exercise may even shrink your brain.
6 “She wants you to” LESSONS! What your girlfriend wants, but will never ask for
She wants you to touch her mindlessly while the two of you watch a movie – she doesn’t want that ‘Netflix and Chill’ touching, where the movie is clearly just a pretext to do something else. She wants you to drag your fingers lightly along her arm, in her hair, on her hand. She wants to know that you want to touch her as a matter of habit, as a reflex that just feels more right than doing nothing at all. Touching should become second nature, not always a means to an end.
She wants you to surprise her, but not with some grand gesture you saw in a movie. She doesn’t need the guy lighting a hundred candles in the shape of a heart or a cheesy word, and she doesn’t need to be serenaded with soft guitar music. She needs something that is romantic to just the two of you, exactly to your definition. Surprise her with a bacon egg and cheese and coffee on a Saturday morning after she’s been working hard all week. Surprise her with a bar that’s full of board games, so you can finally see who’s actually better at Connect Four over vodka and orange soda. Pick a movie that you know she loves more than anything, even if she’s already seen it a dozen times, and set up a movie night around it. Let her know that you notice the little things.
She wants you to say that you love her, at weird, random moments when no one would expect it. She wants your words to feel like a kiss on her forehead in the dark, something she can barely feel but which she absolutely needs to feel is there. She wants your love to be something fluid and effortless, not built around “big moments” you feel obligated to mark. Sure, there can be special events, but there’s something a thousand times more heart-swoony about hearing a quiet “I love you” when she’s got a face mask and bathrobe on, when she thinks she’s at her least lovable, when it’s the last thing she expects.
She wants you to love her just as much in front of your friends. She wants you to kiss her cheek, to joke with you, to be the exact same way around them as he is around you. She never wants to feel like the girlfriend who has to be dragged around, like she’s an anchor to all of the fun you would otherwise be having. She hears the way other guys can talk about their girlfriends when they’re not around, like their relationship is an obligation. She knows it would sound needy to ask, but she wants to know that you are never like that with her.
She wants to get a letter from you, to be surprised that you remembered something that she didn’t, to hear the words “I already took care of it.” There is nothing more wonderful than knowing that someone else has already been putting in the thought, that you were on their mind enough to commit it to writing or make real plans. Because that’s the real romance that’s been dying – the romance of being thoughtful, the romance of taking your time and doing things right. She doesn’t want to be the thing you remember only when it’s late and you don’t want to sleep alone. She doesn’t want to be the one you come over to pretend to watch a movie with, just so you can spend a few hours in her arms. She wants to be the one you plan ahead for, the one you take a few extra minutes to make things special for. She doesn’t want your money or the things you can buy her, she wants your time. She wants your attention.
She wants your patience, in a world where everyone is going way too fast.
Featured image: (PantherMedia/Lev Dolgachov/Scanpix)
Source: ThoughtCatalog/Charlotte Green
Problems with overweight? Read how drinking water can help you lose weight!
OHMYGOSSIP — For a long time, drinking water has been thought to help with weight loss. In fact, 30–59% of US adults who try to lose weight increase their water intake. Many studies show that drinking more water may benefit weight loss and maintenance.
Daily challenges only working moms can really appreciate
1. You’ve typically accomplished 25 things before 7:30 AM.
You’ve changed 1-2 diapers, brushed multiple sets of teeth, made multiple meals, gotten multiple people dressed and watched at least one cartoon or episode of Sesame Street. You have no idea what is going on in the world because your child won’t let you watch the news and you’re too busy making milk bottles to check your phone. There’s also a fairly good shot you’ve read a board book, colored, mashed Play-doh together and stepped barefoot on a Lego.
2. Every time you walk out the door, someone’s got a heartache.
You say your goodbyes to the kid, who either screams and cries like it’s the end of the world or, worse yet, completely ignores you and pushes you away when you attempt to kiss her good-bye. You spend the commute to work worrying about whether the crying kid is still crying, if you should just quit your job now or if you can perhaps come home early to spend more time with the crying kid, who most definitely stopped crying 30 seconds after you left.
3. Every moment of peace is quickly followed by torturous worry and/or guilt.
The morning flies by and for about 15 minutes, you indulge in a quiet cup of coffee at your desk followed by an uninterrupted trip to the office bathroom. This is, without question, the most relaxing part of your day because a small person will not barge in on your bathroom time or scream, “Mama!” repeatedly until you acknowledge her or let her watch you do your thing. Then as soon as you actually feel yourself relax, you worry about the 10 things you have to get done at work that morning so you can eventually get home on time. That’s when the guilt circles back.
4. You learn a lot of things about your kid from a secondhand source.
You hear about what your kid is doing from your nanny, your spouse or a friend who saw your kid at a music class or play date and sends you a text or a photo of your kid. Your heart immediately jumps into that text or photo and wants to be there, reassuring your kid that you love them to itsy bitsy pieces and just want to scoop her up and hug her to infinity. You spend the next hour worrying that you’re not spending enough quality time with your kid and that she’ll grow up to resent you being away so much.
5. It’s a serious challenge to spend quality time with your kid during the week.
On days where there are doctor appointments, the rare music class that you can attend or the opportunity to have dinner together, you race out of work, paranoid that even though you’re leaving a mere 30 minutes early, everyone is judging you for lack of dedication. Then you’re cursing the hurdles that are making your commute longer than normal. You can feel your pulse jump out of your neck with anxiety. How much longer until you can get there? Will you make it in time? When you finally arrive, you’re usually sweating, starving (because you skipped lunch so you could finish your work) and exhausted.
6. You’re a walking collage of kid excrement.
During one of your sacred office bathroom trips, you go to wash your hands only realize while looking at yourself in the mirror that you have milk, oatmeal or snot wiped across your blouse and it’s been there the entire morning while you’ve had multiple meetings with senior executives. You’re grateful that it’s not poop and regularly travel with hand wipes and miniature organic laundry spray to get stains out. Discovering that the arm of your black blazer is covered in dried glue is not that surprising considering you were wearing that blazer when trying to drop in on your toddler’s playgroup’s holiday art project during your lunch hour.
7. You’re a walking pharmacy.
Your oversized, bowling ball heavy work bag contains most of the following: a pacifier, organic pureed ready-to-eat pouches, hand sanitizer, wipes, children’s Tylenol with syringe applicator, a disposable bib, a hair bow if you have a daughter, your wallet which is open and been sifted through by tiny fingers, a few loose credit cards, a Lego or two, a board book, a diaper (hopefully a clean one, but a pee soaked one might make an occasional appearance) and two cell phones (one you use, and an old one you let your kid play with).
8. You always leave work feeling as if you’re not quite finished.
You’re consumed by the projects that you’re working on, but there’s always something tugging at your heartstrings like curiosity over what your baby is eating for lunch. How is she spending her day? Is she happy? Sad? Is she wondering where you are? Does she ask for you? Does she understand why mommy isn’t there? When you finally make the decision to pack up for the day and head home, you feel unaccomplished and stressed about everything that’s left to do. Then you get home and your second job starts. You don’t want to take a break because you haven’t seen your kid all day, but you’re exhausted.
9. You’re the worst date in the world the night before.
The day before an actual date night with your spouse, you go from being extremely excited for some quality time to worried about how much the babysitter and a dinner out will cost and whether leaving your kid at home so you can have a peaceful evening as a couple is even worth it. You finally learn to enjoy yourself with a glass of wine at dinner and realize that you need to do this more often. You’ll get lost in conversation with your husband, and if you can stop thinking and talking about your children for 5 minutes, you’ll find that you’re actually having a great time. It will seem like you just got there when you realize that it’s been 3 hours and your little night out with your husband that used to be free now costs over $100.
10. Your to-do list is literally neverending.
By the time you get home at night, you’ve been going strong since the early morning hours but there are a hundred other things to do in addition to spending time with the people you’ve been thinking about all day. You want to chase your kid around and read to her and stack wooden blocks and boxes and watch Bubble Guppies, but there’s laundry to do and bills to pay and dinner and mail and grocery shopping and the complete mess of a home you left that morning. You are very aware of the limited free time you have and have enough experience to realize that you’ll only accomplish a small fraction of your to-do list no matter how many hours there are in the day.
11. The kid(s) are finally asleep and you can barely keep your eyes open.
You consider it a victory if you make it through an entire episode of Homeland without falling asleep. You tell your husband that you’re, “just resting your eyes,” but he’s on to you and makes you go to bed. You don’t argue because you feel like a cross between a zombie, a mental patient, a great-grandmother and a master of all trades for having balanced another day as a working parent.
Featured image: (PantherMedia/ Wavebreakmedia ltd/Scanpix)
Source: ThoughtCatalog/Stacey Becker
OHMYGOSSIP is now also available in Swedish!
OHMYGOSSIP – I started to develop Swedish Ohmygossip’s platform already in 2014, but now I have also opened a separate webpage Ohmygossip.se. As you can see the page is still in development but I’m planning to do the blog posts in 4 languages. Estonian (Ohmygossip.ee), English (Ohmygossip.com), Finnish (Ohmygossip.fi) and Swedish (Ohmygossip.se). This is the order I’m planning to translate the articles, thus on the last pages the stories will appear with a little delay.
As the plan is to regularly grow and expand and my target is the Scandinavian market, I’m planning to move towards that direction step by step. In September we opened Ohmygossip.fi page and this worked out so well that I thought not to wait anymore with the Swedish page. It feels great as I wanted to do this a long time ago. I have blogged in Swedish before at Mondoblog.se, Spotlife.se and Blogg.se platforms, but some of those platforms have even stopped their work by today. I want to dedicate more time to Finnish and Swedish page and increase Ohmygossip’s fame in the Northern countries. I know that due to lack of time and financial means I am doing mainly baby steps but even a small step is a step in the right direction.
My goal is to become one of the major bloggers in Scandinavia. In social media I have already reached that goal with my followers but I still have the desire to reach that aim also with daily unique readers and general fame. Although I believe that it is not possible to decide who is the biggest influencer as there are many variables to measure it – readers’ number, the fame of the blog, the base of blog’s social media, the income of the blog, the internationalism of the blog, blog’s name as a brand, brand’s value, services/products sold under blog’s name, the number of collaborations and contacts, the amount of subscribers, blog’s activity on social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc), blog’s Google Analytics and blog’s ratings in different lists.
Check out OHMYGOSSIP also in Twitter and Facebook!
I would already like to start with spring gardening!
OHMYGOSSIP – There were two amazing and sunny days in Estonia. So, yesterday, before I went to sleep (without checking today´s weather forecast), I made a plan in my head that I will start with spring gardening today. But I woke up already in the night as there was a huge storm and torrential rain which was beating against the window, and I realized that I have to replan my day.
I have left the children home from school second time this week. I allow them to play truant when I see that there is a huge sleep debt. They study so hard during the year that spring fatigue does not surprise me at all. Estella Elisheva will go to the Lehaim camp next week and she started with packing already. Ivanka Shoshana surfs around the internet, for eight-year-old, she is very skillful with computers. And I think there is no way I can any longer postpone cleaning the house. Otherwise, we need a house extension. A lot of pointless and unnecessary things accumulate all the time and I usually just throw them away during the cleaning process (except children’s clothes and toys which I give away for recycling). Actually, I like cleaning and sorting. I love when I have an overview of everything and the things are in order. For example, when I was a child, I couldn´t start to learn before my room and drawers were in order, disorganization disturbed me a lot. After getting children this branch of perfectionism is gone for good. Every free second I have, I use for work or to develop my projects. However, clean house is always a pleasing phenomenon.
Rainy view in front of and behind the house. I´m waiting the summer so much already! There´s so much to do in the garden and once the weather will be fine and goes green, it is wildly beautiful here in my countryside!
Today, I´ll start to build Ohmygossip.se!
OHMYGOSSIP – Woke up at 6:30 as usual. I sent the kids to school, and Margus to work, then leisurely drank my coffee and read the morning paper. On economic side Postimees wrote that the number of farms decreases in Estonia. Over the past three years, the number of farmers has decreased by 13%, 2,500 households have closed down or restructured.
Why am I writing this? Because I really feel in my heart that it should be vice versa – the number of farmers should rise, and the life in the countryside should enliven. At least I feel that I am so tired of all kinds of artificial, fraudulent and phony stuff, specially I don´t like the tinsel what comes with big cities, everything is so “pushed”. I´m knowingly looking for simpler solutions, more natural and realistic choices.
This is also one of the strongest reasons why I make changes in OHMYGOSSIP – people need more real life and less bright cover sheets. Almost nobody look in real life like they are in photoshopped party press pictures, and usually their words and deeds are pretty different. I believe that people should be directed back toward the real life, people could love more the nature and abandon excessive technology. I´m pretty sure that many of today’s illnesses and misfortunes will disappear then. People yearn to be closer to nature, they love simplicity, however, the artificial intelligence stares at us from every corner.
Now, when I also try to make OHMYGOSSIP more natural and prosaic, I must admit that this is not an easy task. I’m a perfectionist, and for example posting a picture which is not 100% perfect is something I find very hard. Normally I add professional pictures with well designed rooms, etc., I am used to that everything is picture perfect. But from now on I will publish more real life pictures, because otherwise my actions speak against my words. Life is really beautiful and perfect and interesting when it is as it is!
I found some pictures from my computer (I guess these are from 2012). Estella Elisheva was still very young. In opening picture, you´ll see my old home office and on this picture below you see what happens when I turn my back for a second. Making news and parenting at the same time is a pretty big challenge. But now I´ll start to build Ohmygossip.se!
Some modifications in OHMYGOSSIP!
OHMYGOSSIP – Ohmygossip is expecting big modifications in the upcoming months – I have a plan to largely change the existing structure and strategy. The first bigger change will be the transformation to a more blog-centered format meaning that there will be less foreign news, referencing and translated news. Also the gossip of the social elite will be presented to the reader from another angle – through the blogger’s eyes or as an exclusive interview. In general the plan is to decrease the amount of daily news and enlarge the amount of exclusive blog posts.
From a web to a blog platform?
Yes and no. Ohmygossip will stay according to the plan a combosite, where the main focus (80%) will be on my personal blog posts and the readers get the selection from our carefully selected rubrics – Traveling & Culture, Home & Kids, Healthy-Body-Mindfulness, Society & Gossip, Beauty & Fashion and Relationships. In addition, Ohmygossip will offer a platform to numerous bloggers whose posts you can keep following on Ohmygossip.
New bloggers:
Bloggers who would like to bring their blog to our platform or start a new one on our page could contact helenareet@ohmygossip.ee (preferably in Estonian or English). Blogging can be done in 3 languages – Estonian (Ohmygossip.ee), Finnish (Ohmygossip,fi) and English (Ohmygossip.com). Soon it’s also available in Swedish (Ohmygossip.se).
Ohmygossip.ee:
Estonian bloggers whose page has at least 50,000 unique readers can join our page for free. Bloggers with a smaller audience will have an annual fee of 500 euros for a private person or 1500 euros for a company.
Ohmygossip.fi:
Finnish bloggers whose page has more than 80,000 unique readers can join for free, bloggers with a smaller readership will have an annual fee of 800 euros for a private person or 2400 euros for a company.
Ohmygossip.se:
Swedish bloggers whose page has more than 100,000 unique readers per month can join for free, bloggers with a smaller audience will have an annual fee of 1000 euros for a private person and 3000 for a company.
Ohmygossip.com:
Bloggers writing in English whose page has more than 100,000 unique readers per month can join for free, bloggers with a smaller audience will have an annual fee of 1000 euros for a private person and 3000 for a company.
All Ohmygossip bloggers will get in addition to free hosting and their personal domain name:
1) Part of our daily traffic. Our pages have 80,000-140,000 unique readers per day (up to 4,2 million readers per month). All blog posts will be shown on the homepage. For instance, when you blog in English, your blog’s link will be also shown on Ohmygossip.fi, Ohmygossip.se and Ohmygossip.ee.
2) Share your posts with Ohmygossip’s several millions of followers on social media platforms depending on the language of their blog: Twitter: (@Ohmygossip_ee; @Ohmygossip_fi; @Ohmygossip_se; @Ohmygossip_USA). Facebook: (Ohmygossip Estonia; Ohmygossip Finland; Ohmygossip Sweden and Ohmygossip.com).
3) You keep 100% of revenues from any sponsored posts sold by yourself. 20% of revenues from sponsored posts go to OHMYGOSSIP if sold by us, either directly or through the platform. OHMYGOSSIP keeps all display advertising revenues generated at your blog site.
Server’s relocation
In the end of March Ohmygossip’s server will relocate. We’ll change the service provider and move from Zone.ee to Veebimajutus.ee. We’re hoping that the relocation will happen without any issues and there will be no problems on loading/reading our pages.
The decision to move wasn’t due to Zone being bad or offering a service below the standard but because I have over 30 domains and approximately 10 webpages, thus it’s easier to administer from one place. I also like the self service account offered by Veebimajutus and their economic price. I am hoping for the speed of our webpages to develop but this depends a lot on the SEO made for the page.
Design of the page:
This is the biggest headache – which kind of a homepage should we have? If you have any good ideas, write me! I would like to write a new code and give the homepage a completely new and fresh look! Should I choose a simple blog-style full length posts which you could scroll with one sidebar or should I make a different magazine-style homepage?
There will be other modifications but I’ll introduce these in another post.
11 Healthy foods to help you feel full longer
OHMYGOSSIP — One of the reasons why people end up overeating or gain excessive weight quickly is because whatever they consume does not satisfy their hunger. Hence, they start eating more. Since it’s a human tendency to keep eating till the time the stomach does not feel full, we mostly focus on the quantity of the food, and not on the quality of it.