#Health tips
How to check yourself for skin cancer
Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in New Zealand and our skin cancer rates are the highest in the world. Melanoma accounts for almost 80% ...
Category Archive
Recommended
Discover curated guides and tried-and-tested recommendations for everyday living, books, home, recipes, and lifestyle.
82 articles
#Cleaning tips
How to clean a microwave without scrubbing
Messy microwave? Want to get it clean with minimal effort? Here’s the easiest way to get a sparkling clean microwave – without nasty chemicals.
#Life skills tips
Dealing with death
Everybody has different ideas on how to cope with grief. As everyone is different, we all grieve differently. I wanted to share with you my ideas, based on ...
#Craft tips
Knit edgings & trims, 150 stitches
I had better confess straight away: Harmony Guides are my knitting bibles. I have two of the older editions of the Guides to Knitting Stitches and hardly a ...
#Recommended books
The truly terribly horrible sweater … that Grandma knit
For his birthday, little Cameron gets a colourful hand knitted sweater from his grandma. Have you ever received a present that was made with love especially for you ...
#Craft tips
Special family knits: 25 handknits for all seasons
Debbie Bliss patterns are always worth a look, if not for the actual pattern, then certainly for inspiration. ‘Special family knits: 25 handknits for all seasons’ has great ...
#Craft tips
25 bags to knit: Beautiful bags in stylish colours
I’ve always loved making my own bags, and I’m one of those women who think one can’t have too many bags. Some of my handmade bags have been ...
#Recommended books
A mini guide to the identification of New Zealand spiders
It’s one of these books I have an inane aversion to opening. Even looking at mere pictures of creepy crawlies is not my thing. But as it is ...
#Food tips
Slow cooker: Easy and delicious recipes for all seasons
Ilove the melt-in-the-mouth silkiness of a slow-cooked pork curry, the hearty creaminess of home-made baked beans and the rich, sweet lusciousness of a sticky date pudding. In fact, ...
#Food tips
The complete Australian guide for parents: Managing your child’s food allergies
It’s great to find a book that takes a complete look at food allergies in children – from understanding the nature of allergies and diagnostics to the importance ...
#Pest control tips
How to get rid of cockroaches
Just when you have everything sorted with your kitchen, along scurries a cockroach! As a Pest Controller, I specialise in cockroach control. I am often asked how do you ...
#Craft tips
Finishing techniques for crochet
Most crafters like their ‘crafty’ books and often have a small library of useful guides. My stash of craft books is fairly small because styles and colours usually ...
#Food tips
The organic pharmacy
In her introduction author Margo Marrone, a qualified pharmacist, herbalist and homeopath, illustrates the fact that all aspects of our lives are connected to each other. When she ...
#Food tips
Everything but the squeal: A year of pigging out in northern Spain
Much has been written about some foods – almost too much: Jack ate locusts at the back of Timbuktu, Jill had an unforgettable donkey steak in the Andes ...
#Food tips
Feast: Food that celebrates life
Food and eating are not just about keeping us alive – a fact nobody can explain better than Nigella Lawson. Jamie Oliver is passionate about best ingredients, Gordon ...
#Food tips
Flavours of Melbourne: A culinary biography
Chef and food writer O’Brien has put together a culinary portrait of her hometown Melbourne, the food capital of our Aussie neighbours.
#Life skills tips
How to make a good first impression
I’m Judy James and I’m a body language expert. I’m going to be showing you how to make a really good first impression. Always make a great entrance. ...
#Life skills tips
Collins complete writing guide
What a cracker! This fat little paperback has taught me more about good writing than all the How-to-write-good-English guides I’ve read put together. It’s not a new book, ...
#Pest control tips
Stop bed bugs biting
A global plague? Bed bugs are found throughout the world and are becoming more common in New Zealand, particularly where there is a large turnover of visitors; places ...
#Pest control tips
Time to stop rats and mice pestering you this winter
Now is the time to think about keeping your home free from rats and mice this winter. Rodents have been outside feeding and breeding in the warm weather. ...
#Food tips
My year of meats
Jane Takagi-Little is a young American/Japanese documentary film maker living in New York. She is broke and looking for a job when she gets a call from her ...
#Cleaning tips
How to clean your garden tools
Ok, so the last thing you feel like doing after a long session in the garden is cleaning all your tools right? But, we both know that taking ...
#Life skills tips
How to tie a Windsor knot
The Windsor knot is the don of all knots, fat and wide. It projects confidence and so is considered a power knot for business.
#Recommended books
Five unusual novels for Christmas
You still have a few minutes left to rush to your bookshop and buy a novel for your reading friend or family member. These novels are remarkable in ...
#Food tips
Nigella Christmas
If there is one celebrity chef that can smile sweetly and show cleavage for a Christmas cookbook cover, it’s Nigella Lawson. No one else would be able to ...
#Cleaning tips
How to kill bacteria on your toothbrush
Your toothbrush can be a breeding ground for bacteria. If you have one of those family size holders that everybody parks their toothbrushes on top of each other, ...
#Pest control tips
How to get rid of white-tailed spiders
White-tailed spiders are reported to be biting Kiwis. There have been reports in the press of incidents around the country and specifically in Palmerston North of people ending ...
#Pest control tips
How to stop borer eating your home
Protect your largest investment. There are up to seven species of wood-boring insect in New Zealand that might attack the timbers of your home or other buildings. The ...
#Pest control tips
How to get rid of ants
Are ants bothering you in and around your home? As summer approaches and the weather warms up so the populations of ant nests rise and they become more ...
#Life skills tips
Body language: How can I look more approachable?
When we use body barriers, we signal to other people to leave us alone. They make you look extremely unapproachable. For that reason, avoid things like folded arms. ...
#Fitness tips
Guide to the basic principles of exercise
To understand why we should exercise, it’s essential to first explain the basics of a highly complex piece of machinery, better known as your body. All animals, including ...
#Food tips
How to understand your food triggers and find your healthy weight
Have you ever wondered why a new diet is launched every few months? Nutritionists and dieticians have been voicing their concerns over fad diets for years.
#Food tips
7 reasons to reduce your sugar intake
Did you know your body can turn excess sugars into fat, but it cannot turn fat back into useable sugar? Sugar is a carbohydrate, our brain uses carbohydrate ...
#Food tips
How to be a vegan
If you don’t want animals to play any role at all in your diet, here’s how to go vegan. You will need: willpower vegan equivalents to meat and ...
#Health tips
How to avoid back, neck and leg pain
Today I’ve got a nice little chiropractic tip for you and it’s going to be a way that may help you improve your spinal health and your health ...
#Food tips
Meat protein vs plant protein
There has always been the staunch advocates and critics arguing which protein source is the best for athletes, (or anyone for that matter) wishing to increase their lean ...
#Recommended books
Alive: The story of the Andes survivors
Here’s a true life story, written by Piers Paul Read who interviewed the survivors of the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in October of 1972. As ...
#Recommended books
Cold mountain
A seeming nobody professor, Charles Frazier, from North Carolina State University sat down and began writing his first novel in the early 1990’s. By 1997, he had a ...
#Recommended books
After the absolute by David Gold
Tired of the “New Age Circus” and want something with some real meat and potatoes truth to it? Want to read it for free in the next two ...
#Recommended books
The bridge across forever
For those of you who enjoyed the best-seller Jonathan Livingston Seagull and have a taste for a real-life love story, here’s another one by the American writer Richard ...
#Recommended books
Into the wild
Long live Alexander Supertramp! Here’s a book that may look like a boring mountain hiking tale or a story about “nature” but take a second look. ‘Into the ...
#Recommended books
50 amazing and essential novels to enrich your library
I recently ran into a couple of reading lists and realized that LOVE reading book recommendations. I can’t get enough of them. So I decided to compile my ...
#Fitness tips
Married bliss: Don’t let the wedding weigh you down
Type ‘wedding diet’ into an internet search and you’ll find a zillion diets for brides to be. All designed to get you looking like a model in your ...
#Recommended books
Midnight express
Here’s a book that doesn’t look like much when you glance at the cover and read the summary. I was lucky enough to have a friend who insisted ...
#Recommended books
Replay
Replay is a novel by Ken Grimwood that won the 1988 World Fantasy Award and often gets misjudged by its cover. The book had an influence on Harold ...
#Food tips
Understanding your glycemic index
The glycemic index was first developed 25 years ago by a professor of nutrition to help determine which carbohydrate foods were best for people with diabetes. Carbohydrates are ...
#Food tips
Foods to boost your immune system
Short of hibernating from May through to October, there is little we can do to avoid the chill of winter. Winter brings with it many good things; the ...
#Food tips
Recommended alcohol intake
The risks of overindulging in alcohol have been widely publicised, but sometimes knowing just how much is safe and within the guidelines, can be tricky.
#Food tips
Recommended dietary intake of fats
Though fats have a poor reputation, they are in fact a key part of a nutritionally-balanced diet. Fats allow for the absorption of vitamins, as well as aiding ...
#Fitness tips
Recommended daily exercise
In an ideal world, we’d all have that extra hour in the day (and the corresponding motivation!) to pound the pavement or hit the gym, to well and ...
#Food tips
Recommended daily water intake
A sufficient water intake is needed to combat dehydration, which saps energy, causes fatigue and reduces concentration. The standard ‘eight glasses a day’ of water, which equates to ...
#Food tips
Recommended superfoods
While the blueberries have had more than their fair share of positive press in the field of superfoods, there are countless other foods in your supermarket that are ...
#Health tips
Recommended tips for a great night’s sleep
The world just seems a better place after a good night’s sleep, but not getting good quality sleep is a problem that plagues many of us. While serious ...
#Recommended books
The outsiders
The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton, was first published in 1967 and the author was only 15 when she began writing it. She published at 18 and the ...
#Recommended books
Brave new world
Only two decades ago, Huxley’s ‘Brave new world’ was read like a futuristic science fiction novel where mankind would be transformed into a genetically engineered world of automatons. ...
#Recommended books
The fountainhead by Ayn Rand
“It all starts with Ayn Rand.” – That is the famous saying about how young, innocent minds, basking in the openness of their future, find themselves tempted into ...
#Recommended books
The Prince of Tides
It’s just too bad what Hollywood has done to true art. When Pat Conroy first penned this amazing feat, who knew it would be destroyed by the like ...
#Recommended books
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: An inquiry into values
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: An inquiry into values is the Introductory course for all spiritually inclined individuals. Robert M. Pirsig’s book explores the Metaphysics of ...
#Recommended books
The road less traveled: A new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth
The road less traveled is a book that can literally change your life. Published in 1978, this book was written by a psychiatrist M. Scott Peck who had ...
#Recommended books
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, written by Richard Bach, is a short fable that is presented in the form of a novella. Just the mere presentation of this book attracts ...
#Recommended books
From onions to pearls: A journal of awakening and deliverance
What do you get when you take a fully grown onion and begin peeling away the layers to the very core? First, you get a whole lot of ...
#Recommended books
The catcher in the rye
Banned in the US for many years because of its profanity and liberal portrayal of teenage angst and sexuality, ‘The catcher in the rye’ was eventually chosen as ...
#Recommended books
Power vs force: The hidden determinants of human behaviour
Throughout history, all major advancements have come about through the discovery of individuals who gathered together the information of their time and came to a particular conclusion which ...
#Fitness tips
How to start running
Running may seem like a daunting workout, but you don’t have to be an athlete to incorporate running into your weekly workout routine.
#Food tips
Fun nutrition facts: McDonald’s vs apple, Fast food vs fruit
To give you an example of the mineral concentration of fruits, I want to tell you the difference between a piece of fruit and Gatorade. We actually had ...
#Health tips
How to take care of yourself when you’re sick
Oh, the misery! Your head is pounding, your whole body aches, and there’s nobody – nobody – around to pamper you. You’ll just have to pamper yourself.
#Life skills tips
How to overcome any fear
Whether it’s heights, flying or public speaking, a profound fear can compromise the quality of your life. Don’t live with yours another minute.
#Life skills tips
How to make a move on a girl while watching a movie on a couch
If all the important things in the world – peace, hunger, poverty – this is pretty much the most important. So listen closely.
#Food tips
How to make an organic fruit and veggie wash
You never know what kind of pesticides or dirt may be lurking on the skin of your favourite fruits and vegetables. That’s why it’s always a good idea ...
#Health tips
How to improve your memory
Can’t remember names, dates, or even why you walked into a room? Luckily there are a lot of things that you can do to increase your memory power.
#Life skills tips
How to give a neck and shoulder massage
We’re going to show you how to give a quick and easy neck and shoulder massage. James Orci, a nationally certified massage therapist from the United States will ...
#Life skills tips
How to give a massage
There’s never been a better way to say, “I love you,” than by giving a massage. Follow these instructions to become an instant hit.
#Health tips
How to do a breast exam on your girlfriend
You’re touching them anyway, you might as well try to save her life while you’re at it.
#Life skills tips
How to cope with panic attacks
You can’t always get rid of panic attacks completely, but you can learn how to live with them.
#Food tips
How to boost your sperm count
Infertility affects one in six couples. About 90% of male infertility problems are caused by the failure to produce enough sperms. Here is some advice on how to ...
#Food tips
How to eat a kiwifruit
Kiwifruit are a fantastic source of vitamin C and fibre. Green kiwifruit have more vitamin C than an orange – gold kiwifruit have three times more than an ...
#Life skills tips
How to memorise lines
Whether you’re a budding actor, a businessperson who has to give presentations, or a PTA mom, we all need to remember lines now and then. These tricks will ...
#Pet tips
How to understand your cat
Sure you talk to your cat now, but does he know what the heck you’re saying? And do you understand his purrs and meows? If not, it’s time ...
#Pest control tips
How to stop your cat scratching
Your cat isn’t evil and determined to shred your house, she’s just being a cat. Cats need to scratch, it’s a hardwired and necessary part of healthy cat ...
#Pet tips
How to select food for your cat
Cats can be pretty finicky eaters but pet parents can be pretty finicky too. Hi, I’m Doctor Robin and this is Tiger. Today I’m going to explain the ...
#Pet tips
How to litter train a cat
By the time a kitten is old enough to come home they’re usually already house trained. If not, don’t worry. Cats are quick studies.
#Food tips
Eating well for a healthy pregnancy
From the first day of conception, your baby is being nourished by you. When you are pregnant all of your body’s resources are called upon to help your ...