Our editor Catherine Balavage’s new blogging book, The Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Successful Blogger, is only £1.99 until the end of today. It has already had a four star review on Good Reads and a five star review on Amazon. Catherine was also interviewed in Best of You Magazine. The print copy of the magazine is out now. You can buy The Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Successful Blogger here.
Frost founder and editor Catherine Balavage has been interviewed by Best of You magazine about blogging and her new book, The Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Successful Blogger. You can read the interview here or buy the print issue here. It is a great interview with lots of tips on blogging and becoming a successful blogger. Check it out.
In the bedroom it is best to not have too much stimulation. Here are some great bedroom ideas
Keep it neutral.
Keeping the bedroom in a neutral colour makes the bedroom a calm environment. You can add touches of colour and personality with furniture, bedding and cushions. A colourful lamp or bedding will add a pop. Some artwork is great but nothing too angry.
Keep your work out.
The bedroom should be a place where you sleep or relax. This may not always be possible. Especially in cities where many people live in house shares and rent a room in a house. I know when I lived in a house share I got irritated by all of the ‘the bedroom is only for sleeping’ advice in magazines. And what about weekends in bed? The bedroom should be a place of relaxing, sure, but also for fun and chilling out in general. Try to think of it as a place for recuperation. I often make the mistake of taking work to bed but it always leaves me stressed out. In my opinion the bedroom should be your safe haven from the world.
If the bedroom is all you have.
If you live in a house share then it is even more important that your bedroom is a place that makes you happy. You won’t really be able to separate work from relaxing time but you can still make sure your bedroom is a calm place. There will be a lack of space so invest in storage. Under bed storage is great and you can also invest in shelves and colourful boxes to put your stuff in.
Invest in good quality furniture.
Buying the best you can afford is a worthwhile investment. We still have some furniture that my husband was bought when he was a boy. The furniture still looks amazing today. Maybe we will even pass it down to our son.
Do you have any home hacks to share?
In collaboration with homify
The Ultimate Guide To Blogging is Launched.
The Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Successful Blogger by Catherine Balavage is now published.
ISBN 978-0-9929639-8-9
It’s all here, just take your time, and let the expert take you by the hand, and save you zillions of hours of stop and start mistakes.
Bravo, a book that needed writing …
Bestselling author Margaret Graham
Catherine Balavage, editor and founder of Frost Magazine, has published a new blogging book based on over ten years worth of blogging experience. Catherine founded Frost Magazine six years ago and in that time has made it into a successful online magazine. She first started blogging eleven years ago when she was a teenager with a LiveJournal blog. She is also one of The Huffington Post’s signature bloggers. Blogging has become huge in recent years and is only becoming more popular. The Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Successful Blogger has everything anyone could want to know about being a successful blogger.
From design to advertising, social media and publicity, the book is everything you need to start your blogging career. The book is packed with hundreds of useful tips and invaluable information which will save you hours of time and give you essential information to develop your blog to its full potential. It also covers vlogging and how to market your blog. The Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Successful Blogger is an in-depth and thorough book which covers every aspect of being a success in digital publishing. It covers various revenue streams, how to write the best content, how to take the best pictures, social media and SEO. Perfect for beginners or those who already have a blog but are unsure of how to take it to the next level, the book has a chapter on interviews with essential advice from other successful blogger, including beauty blogger Really Ree.
This is Catherine Balavage’s third book. She has also written an Amazon bestseller on Acting, How To Be a Successful Actor: Becoming an Actorpreneur, and a wedding planning book, The Wedding Survival Guide: How To Plan Your Big Day Without Losing Your Sanity.
The Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Successful Blogger is available on amazon.co.uk and is included in Amazon’s Kindle Countdown Deal. It is only £1.99 for another six days.
Thousands more will be booking extra holidays this summer with the riches they acquire thanks to the first national Clear Your Clutter Day on March 19.
Hoarders will be encouraged to dig out their stash of unused items and to sell them at car boot sales, on classified and free local selling sites, and even at auction houses. They will also be urged to bin useless junk and to donate knick-knacks and clothes to charity shops and the homeless. Collectors will even be shown how to upcycle other curios to make free presents for family and friends.
It is hoped that the annual scheme, called ‘Clear Your Clutter Day’, will reduce the UK’s bulging mountain of unwanted stuff and give consumers a huge financial boost so they can afford an extra fun holiday this summer.
Organiser Jasmine Birtles, the consumer finance expert, said it will also help the one-in-five UK households in “bric-a-brac bother”.
She said: “Britain has long been a nation of hoarders, with 20 per cent of households admitting to having enough clutter to fill a whole room. Most people would like to de-clutter but either don’t have the time or are overwhelmed by the task at hand.“Clear Your Clutter Day is the long-awaited catalyst to help people live stress and clutter-free lives. It is a time when hoarders can rid themselves of useless items once and for all.”
Jasmine, the founder of Moneymagpie.com and a regular guest on BBC Breakfast, Sky News and Channel 5 News, added: “The initiative benefits every one – the hoarder, bargain hunters, and UK charities.” which takes place on Saturday, March 19, a selection of how-to articles will be added to Moneymagpie.com.
A free ebook will also be available to anyone taking part in the Clear Your Clutter Challenge. On the day itself Birtles, dubbed the ‘Queen of Cash’, will be joined by a team of experts who will host live webinars on Google+ and Periscope.
To celebrate the inaugural launch of Clear Your Clutter Day,
Jasmine’s Top Five De-Cluttering Tips:
1. Make a bid for freedom. Look on de-cluttering as gaining space and freedom rather than having to get rid of things. If you see it as gaining something you’re much more likely to throw out things you know you don’t love or need.
2. Do it space by space. Don’t try and do your whole home in one go. Do it drawer by drawer and cupboard by cupboard. Start with the easiest room in the house (probably the bathroom) and once you’ve cleared that room, give yourself a quick break and then start on the next easiest room. Once you’ve done two whole rooms you will already have more of a sense of satisfaction and control over your life which should spur you on to do more cluttered parts of the house.
3. Do it with a friend. Get a friend or family member round to help you. It will make it more fun and help you sort more of your home than you would on your own. If you’re a natural hoarder, bring in someone who loves throwing things out, so that you’re not tempted to just keep everything.
4. Use the four box rule. Get four boxes which are marked ‘throw away’, ‘charity shop’, ‘sell’ and ‘recycle’. Everything you decide not to keep should go into one of those boxes. The ‘throw away’ one is easy (although even some broken electronic items could be given away through
The EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony will be taking place on Valentine’s Day, Sunday 14th February 2016. Continuing their love affair with the BAFTA Film Awards, Frost Magazine has teamed up with Champagne Taittinger and Villa Maria to invite you to sip like the stars. As the official Champagne and Wine and Partners to BAFTA, Champagne Taittinger and Villa Maria wines from New Zealand are delighted to offer you the chance to win a bottle of Taittinger Brut Réserve NV, a bottle of Villa Maria Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc 2015 and Villa Maria Private Bin Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon 2013, as served to the guests at the Awards.
Adding extra glitz to the awards for the 14th year running, Taittinger is the only leading Champagne house to remain owned and actively managed by the family named on the label. Taittinger is widely available. www.taittinger.com.
Villa Maria has been New Zealand’s most awarded winery for over 30 years and remains proudly family-owned. Villa Maria wines are widely available in all good retailers. Visit www.villamaria.co.nz
Terms & Conditions: Entrants must be 18 or over. Entrants must provide a mainland UK address and telephone number for delivery. Visit www.bafta.org for more information.
To be in with the chance of winning this fantastic prize, follow @Frostmag on Twitter or Instagram, or like us on Facebook. Alternatively, sign up to our newsletter. Or subscribe to Frost Magazine TV on YouTube here: http://t.co/9etf8j0kkz.Then comment below saying what you did or email frostmagazine@gmail.com Competition finishes 5th of February.
From Both Ends of the Stethoscope: Getting through breast cancer – by a doctor who knows by Dr Kathleen Thompson
ISBN: paperback: 978-0-9935083-0-1 ebook: 978-0-9935083-1-8
Published by Faito Books
Cancer cells appear in everyone’s body much of the time, and more than one in three of us will experience some form of cancer during our lives.
One of the commonest of these is breast cancer.
So what is breast cancer? What is cancer come to that?
What is it like to have breast cancer?
Cancer cells are usually destroyed by our immune system – but sometimes they breach these defences, and we get cancer – why?
What can we do to prevent this?
Actually there are lots of simple things we can do to avoid cancer in the first place, and to give ourselves the best chance of recovering completely.
This is a non-fiction autobiographical, self-help book written by a doctor who has had breast cancer. Sharing her own experiences, the author takes the reader through the raw emotions associated with having cancer and needing to face one’s own mortality.
Always referring to her own cancer journey, with all its highs and dips, she helps the reader understand what they will experience during the treatment.
She explains the various medical consultations, tests and procedures, and the different treatment options, and how to make the best treatment choices.
She uses her personal experiences of things going wrong to illustrate how to deal with such circumstances, including coping with problems as an in-patient, and challenging incorrect medical decisions.
She deals with the post-treatment period, and what to do if the cancer comes back.
Alternative therapies are discussed, and, importantly, advice is given on how to distinguish credible research, and genuine therapies, from quackery.
Finally that all important question is answered – what can we do to protect ourselves against cancer?
Biography: Dr Kathleen Thompson
Kathleen is a doctor, specialising in pharmaceutical drug research.
A few years ago her life changed completely, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This became the inspiration for her first book.
She writes medical contributions for Frost e-Magazine and has authored various scientific research publications through her career.
She has two long-suffering children, who patiently tolerate their mother’s crazy projects, and rescue her from frequent IT catastrophes.
She has a passion for ballroom dancing and enjoys adventures. She has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, walked the Camino de Santiago (500 miles) and cycled the mountains of Kerala, and also through Rajasthan. During two of these activities she raised funds for Women v Cancer –which provides funding for three cancer charities, including Breast Cancer Care.
Have you read Heidi Loughlin’s blog? Heidi is a young mother who has breast cancer.
She was pregnant when diagnosed, so treatment was started with chemotherapy drugs which were relatively safe for her unborn baby. The birth was to be brought forward, when she would switch to more effective drugs.
However her cancer progressed quickly, requiring an earlier delivery than planned, to allow Heidi to start Herceptin treatment sooner. Devastatingly, her baby daughter died shortly after the birth, just before this Christmas.
Heidi has inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). Although rare (1-4% of all breast cancers), it is important for two reasons— (1) it grows and spreads rapidly and (2) the appearance may mimic infection or injury (often there is no lump), and so breast cancer may be overlooked and life-saving treatment delayed.
IBC invades the breast skin, and blocks the lymph vessels within it. It tends to spread in sheets, rather than forming a lump.
This results in an unusual picture. The lymph blockages cause fluid build-up, so the skin swells and discolours, and hair follicles enlarge, forming multiple pits. The resulting skin resembles that of an orange (and is called ‘peau d’orange’).
However this classical appearance isn’t always seen either.
The breast may become red, hot and swollen, resembling infection, and if ‘mastitis’ doesn’t respond to antibiotics, IBC should be considered urgently.
Sometimes the skin appears bruised, or ridges or welts appear. There may be ulceration. Sometimes the nipple inverts or leaks fluid/blood, and there may be enlarged lymph nodes in the armpit or collar bone area.
If any of these changes occur, you must see a doctor without delay.
Because there may be no lump, and because it often occurs in younger women, with denser breast tissue, it may not be picked up on a mammogram.
Biopsy of the affected skin is key to diagnosis. AS IBC spreads early, PET or CAT scans of the body, and bone scans will also be needed.
The outlook for IBC used to be very poor. It is still not as good as for other breast cancers, but with modern treatment it has improved, and recent genetic research has yielded potential new hope.
Chemotherapy is usually started before surgery. Afterwards a full mastectomy is generally needed, removing more body tissue than normal, including armpit lymph nodes. Breast reconstruction isn’t normally possible until later on.
Radiotherapy follows surgery, then often more chemotherapy. If the cancer is HER2 positive, Herceptin will be given. If it is sensitive to female hormones, anti-oestrogens, either tamoxifen or an aromatase-inhibitor, such as letrozole will be prescribed.
Treating any cancer during pregnancy involves balancing risks to baby and mother, and, as in Heidi’s case, can involve bitter disappointments.
If you notice any unusual and persistent changes in your breast—not necessarily a lump, you must see your doctor without delay. Unless there is a good explanation for the changes, you should be referred to a breast clinic. Do push for this if you are concerned.
By Dr K Thompson, author of From Both Ends of the Stethoscope: Getting through breast cancer – by a doctor who knows
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01A7DM42Q
Further information:
http://storminatitcup.blogspot.co.uk/2015_12_01_archive.html
http://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/ibc-fact-sheet
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/101/19/1302.full
Note: These articles express personal views. No warranty is made as to the accuracy or completeness of information given and you should always consult a doctor if you need medical advice