Every relationship is a continuous work in progress. It takes a lot of effort, adjustment, patience and nurturing for partners to make it work because relationships and commitment is not that easy. The key to keeping a happy relationship is to stay in love but sometimes, love may just not be enough.

Being in a relationship means that both must work hard to keep the love alive. If there’s a way to keep a blooming flower grow in Spring, there’s also a way to keep the love alive.

Communication

One of the most important keys in keeping a relationship is communication. There’s almost nothing you can’t fix in communicating with each other and as long as both partners understand each other, then it’s a relationship that’s about to last a long time. With communication, both partners learn and grow with each other thus leading to a love that always blossoms.

Space

Being in a relationship doesn’t mean your whole self must be attached to your partner. Not all the time anyway. Having enough space between each other to grow and make decisions for themselves is a must to keep a breathing distance within each other. Family time, alone time or time with friends allows both to explore a world outside their own. This allows both parties to accept each other for who they are and to know who they are without their partners.

Quality time

Not all couples can survive without quality time. This is because they lose the intimate feeling between each other that keeps a relationship interesting and sweet. Simple acts like holding hands, a kiss on the cheek or even just holding the door for the other can already spice a relationship. As what they always say, actions always speak louder than words.

Loyalty and Faithfulness

The difference between loyalty and faithfulness is that being faithful means that you don’t look at anyone else aside from your partner while loyal may look somewhere else but at the end of the day, their hearts belong to only one person. Whatever you are, being loyal and faithful to someone means you’re committed.

Sense of humor

Having a special sense of humor between the two of you is nice for any relationship. It’s like you have your own special code or world between the two of you. Be silly together. Be childish and make fun of each other. Keep each other entertained by teasing each other and then end each laugh with a romantic kiss.

While every couple has their own secret ingredient to staying in love, these are the basics and the ones every couple should have to holding a happy and healthy relationship. As long as both parties are determined to stay committed, there is nothing that can hold back a love that’s eternal.

Being a mother is a special job. No other job can top the job of being a mother. Yes. You bear the child for 9 months tops, you suffer through childbirth and the next 5-6 years, waking up in the morning, whenever the child awakes, running to their sides once they come home crying. As a mother, you’re not only a hero, you’re everything to any child, whether they show it or not.

Until, of course, 13 years later and the child enters teen hood and higher education – in teen words: building relationships, following fashion trends, taking interests in different kinds of music, styles and different stuff, socialization and most of all, finding oneself and the meaning of their existence.

When this happens, not all children grow up asking their mothers for help. Some even go as far as rebellion to find their limitations and their place in the world. And when this happens, only 2 things can happen. One, mothers can just let their kids go or two, which is what usually happens most and what probably causes more rebellion as time goes by, mothers become overly protective.

It’s not their fault; after all, no mother would like to see their child coming home with a broken heart – or worse, a baby in the works. But is it possible that being overprotective can actually push children to become even more out of control?

Although, no scientific studies have been made to answer that question, it’s quite a no-brainer for most teenagers who are probably nodding their heads while reading the past paragraph.

Life is one great journey. And everyone has their own journey to take – whether as a teen or not. One day, there will come a time that your children will have to learn for themselves. They’ll have to get heartbroken to stand up and realize true love. They’ll have to fail subjects to learn how to pick themselves up again. They’ll have to be a part of the loser crowd to know what it feels like. If they don’t learn these, they won’t know what it’s like. They’ll have no idea what their lives are heading to, and their definition of right and wrong would only depend on what their mothers say. Sadly, mothers won’t be there forever.

So it’s not really a question of being protective to be a good mother or a cool mother. It’s the question of being the guide you’re supposed to be. How is your child going to survive alone if you won’t let them learn? How will they know how to cross the road themselves if you keep holding their hands?

No one is saying being protective is going to kill. But being too overprotective is going to ruin your child and how they view this world. It’s a dangerous world out there and no one knows that more than a mother. But as a mother, it is also your job to prepare your child for it, and there is no way better to do that then to let your children make their own mistakes and learn from it – of course, with you by their sides.

It’s not wrong to be overprotective. Just don’t keep sniffing around your child’s room or wandering around wherever they hang. Trust them. Because if you do, they’ll also trust you.

Depression is a state of mind. It affects the brain, one’s personality, social life and everything related to a person. It doesn’t discriminate anyone. It affects men, women, teens, young kids, the elderly and basically anyone who might have had a great change in their life to cause this state of mind. Whether it is pressure, fear, failure, rejection or some other type of trauma and huge changes in life, it can cause you to sink into a dark hole that someday you’d have to fight hard to get out.
Being depressed doesn’t mean you’re crazy. But if you don’t treat it properly, then you might as well be. How do you know if you’re depressed?
There are many symptoms that can lead to depression. Most of these are ignored by many people and yet, one day they find that depression doesn’t just go away with a bite of a healthy apple and a love life.

• Emotionally unstable – whether you feel grandiose or down, or maybe irritated, being emotionally unstable is one of the most common symptom of depression. Being sad is different from being depressed. Being sad takes a few minutes, a few tears and then a hug. Being depressed is emptiness, numbness and the feeling of loneliness all at once and may continue for weeks. Learn the difference of being sad and depressed – because both are two very different feelings.
• Sleep abnormalities – insomnia or oversleeping, you’re just not sleeping right. Thus, this can affect your studies, your work, your performance daily and your personality.
• Loss of interest – a very common symptom that is highly likely to be ignored in teenage years. This is because as a teen you think your interests change a lot and change may be a good thing. But when you lose interest in something that you’re not ready to lose interest in, now, that’s a problem. One day, you like soccer, the next day you just want to sit and play play-station all day and forget soccer ever happened – and then it trudges on and on until you realize you have a passion for soccer.
• Fatigue – Being lazy can be a one time thing. When you’re fatigued, you’re not just lazy, you’re tired and yet, you haven’t done a thing to be tired of.
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt – this can occur especially after a loss or a great change in a person’s life. You feel worthless, you feel guilt, you blame yourself for everything. You can’t forgive yourself. And suddenly, you’re on the couch with no plans of moving.
• Increase/decrease of appetite – while some people lose appetite while depressed, others turn to food for comfort.
• Anxiety – you’re always thinking, you’re always worrying, you’re always anxious – and sometimes, anxiousness can catch you in your sleep.
• Crying – buckets of tears have poured out. Your eyes are swollen. Yet you still cry – and worse, you wonder why.
• Difficulty in concentration – you lose concentration in work, at school. When talking to someone, you just can’t concentrate. When you’re studying, you can’t remember a thing.
• Lack of good judgment – making bad decisions, wondering why you even made them in the first place. Other times, you can’t even decide at all.
• Suicidal thoughts – the worst and yet one of the most ignored symptoms of depression. Having suicidal thoughts is not normal, nor is it any type of joke. Hurting yourself in any way physically is already wrong.

Depression doesn’t mean you’re a psycho or anything. Don’t hate yourself for being depressed. But you have to help yourself. Don’t let others misguide you into thinking you’re alone. You’re not. Millions of people suffer from depression. Hundreds die of it. Help yourself and fight for your future. Contact a psychologist or a psychiatrist as soon as you can.

There are a lot of ways to earn money online. One of these is by creating an online shop. Here are a few tips on how to make one:
1. Plan – To make an online shop, one must plan first. Know what you want to sell, where you’re going to get stocks, how you’re going to get stocks, prices and information of what you’re going to sell and how you’re going to promote your site.
2. Budget and allocate – Know your budget. Set a tight budget for your expenses, for the stocks, the camera needed and your internet and electricity expenses. Make limitations for your stocks, set aside those not needed during the run of the business.
3. Create a website – Multiply, Ebay, Amazon, wherever you can start up small would be good. Set up an account, post pictures of your items and lay out information. Terms and conditions, set a business number, set a business email and get an attractive theme for your site.
4. Promote. Call all your friends, tell them, email all your contacts. When that’s done, visit other sites and promote. Go to classified ads pages and list your business. Write the URL of your business in your blog. Have your friends link your site to theirs, talk to other sellers. Most of all, treat customers well. Not only do they come back, but they help spread the word as well.

4 easy ways to create an online shop. It may sound easy and it may look easy. But most of the time, handling and taking care of an online shop requires a lot of planning, patience, promoting and marketing technique.

There are many ways to earn money. Like running a business, selling clothes, baking and selling cakes or getting a job. But all of these require capital. Even baking businesses would need to buy flour and vanilla and other ingredients. Yet, there are some ways to earn that won’t need any money spent – during the regular course of the business anyway.
1. Work as a freelance writer. Aside from being a freelance writer, you can also try other types of work like transcription, data entry, research, programming and html. You can try websites like www.getafreelancer.com, www.odesk.com, www.helium.com and www.academia-research.com. These websites help in making freelancing an easier and more safer way to do.

2. Another way to earn is to blog. There are websites that offer hosting of blogs, like in blogger and pay or post, they pay blogs that bring in traffic and that write blogs with specific keywords. Some blogs really earn a lot just by writing about their thoughts, daily life and special experiences.

3. Pay to Click websites are those sites that offer people who sign up just to click on ads for other companies. Spend a few seconds on each site to earn some cents. Although this can take quite a lot of time before building into real income. But if you’re really patient and you really want to earn money, this can be put into consideration.

4. Search through Search engines that pay. There are certain search engines like mysearch funds that pay every time you use the engine for a search. Although the search engine is not as reliable or as famous as other engines like Yahoo, it’s earning money. So instead of using Yahoo or Google for searches, maybe you can change to this search engine for slow but sure income.

5. Get paid to take surveys. There are many websites online that pay people to take surveys. Companies need testimonials from people, feedback and sometimes many people can’t afford to take time out to answer surveys or some are just too lazy to answer these surveys. People actually do get a lot of money out of these surveys.

Making money does not need to be very expensive. Even getting a job would need to spend gas money or commute money just to get to the company location. So to those who need to make money, try these ways. Patience is important because these do not really get fast money. But at least, it’s a start.