Improve Reading Speed & Reading Comprehension

Read Early in the Day - Many people can double their reading speed and improve their concentration by reading the material that's important to them early in the day.

Prioritize Your Reading - Create three piles for your reading materials - important, moderately important, and least important. Then read the material in their order of importance. You'll improve your reading speed by doing this, and improve your reading comprehension by getting to the important material first, when your mind is clear and sharp.

Skim Material First for Main Ideas - Speed read for main ideas in nonfiction works like how-to books and educational texts. Scan the table of contents and first and last sentences of each paragraph. You'll improve your reading speed and comprehension if you understand a book's structure first. This will help you know which parts of the book to skim and which parts to read more carefully.

Form a Question - Improve your reading comprehension, reading speed, and concentration by turning headings and subheadings in textbooks and other nonfiction books into questions. Then scan the text for the answers. Your reading speed improves by doing this, and you become focused on your material.

Read in the Proper Environment - Prop your book or magazine using a bookstand - angling your reading material at 45 degrees improves your reading speed and reduces eyestrain. Avoid reading difficult or important material in bed, where your mind and body tend to relax. You'll stay alert if you sit at a desk instead.

Write a Course of Action on Correspondence - Improve your reading speed and avoid re-reading correspondence by jotting brief notes immediately after reading each piece of correspondence. Simply refer to your notes on each piece when you're reading to respond some time later.

Avoid Highlighting - Although readers believe that highlighting in yellow (or any other color, for that matter) improves their reading speed and comprehension, the reverse is actually true. Highlighting simply means they don't want to bother learning the material right now. The result: They end up reading the material twice, and possibly not understanding or remembering it either time!

Preview Before Reading - Look through material first to get a sense of what's interesting and important to you, and what you might be able to skip. Then focus on the sections that you need to understand and remember, and skim or skip the rest.

Use a Flexible Reading Speed - Some reading material must be read slowly and carefully: legal contracts, mathematical equations, and poetry are a few examples. Other reading material can be read at much faster speeds: newspapers, magazines, and novels. Adjust your reading speed to the type of reading material and your reading purpose.

Enroll in a Speed Reading Class - Avoid on-line speed reading courses and do-it-yourself speed reading software. They don't work. Speed reading is best learned in a speed reading class taught by a knowledgeable, experienced, speed reading expert. Adopted from www.learningtechniques.com

Vitamins For The Mind! - Three Keys To Greatness

A few years ago, the author of this article recorded a 56-minute video for teenagers called, "Three Keys To Greatness." Although his focus was on teenagers, the principles he shared certainly apply to adults as well.

Recently he was asked to list these three things using one to two sentences for each. See if you agree that these are important keys to greatness at any age!

1. Setting Goals. This has been called—the view of the future. Most people, including kids, will pay the price if they can see the promise of the future. So we need to help our kids see a well-defined future, so they will be motivated to pay the price today to attain the rewards of tomorrow. Goals help them do this.
2. Personal Development. Simply making consistent investments in our self-education and knowledge banks pays major dividends throughout our lives. It would be wise to have a minimum amount of time set aside for reading books, listening to audio cassettes, attending seminars, keeping a journal and spending time with other successful people. Charlie Tremendous Jones says you will be in five years the sum total of the books you read and the people you are around.
3. Financial Planning. Is another name for the 70/30 plan. After receiving your paycheck or paying yourself, simply setting aside 10% for saving, 10% for investing and 10% for giving, and over time this will guarantee financial independence for people that use these keys!

If a young person, or for that matter an adult, focused on doing these three simple things over a long period of time they will more easily open the doors to success! Adopted from www.getmotivation.com

Painless Money-Saving Tips

Here are some practical and painless money saving tips to help you save some cash each month.

• Convert to a gas water heater. They are more efficient and will save you money in the long run.
• Request a reduction in the interest rate for your home equity line of credit. Some mortgage companies will agree to reduce the rate by 0.50% or more. And if you are looking for a home equity loan, Lending Tree Home Equity Loans is a great place to check out available options.
• Request a reduction in the interest rate on your credit cards. As with home equity loans, credit card companies sometimes are willing to reduce the interest rate. It can’t hurt to ask. If your credit card company won’t help you, switch to a low interest credit card or a one of several 0% APR credit cards
• Refinance you mortgage. If you can reduce your interest rate by one percent or more, it is often beneficial to refinance. This is particularly true for those with high rates due to less than stellar credit scores. If your score has improved, you may qualify for a better rate. Start by asking your current mortgage lender about lower rates.
• Get rid of Private Mortgage Insurance. If your down payment was less than 20%, you are probably paying PMI. Once you have a 20% cushion through reducing your debt and home appreciation (yes, prices do go up from time to time), contact your mortgage company to start the process of removing the PMI.
• Get your books from the library. While there might be a specific book you want to own from time to time, it pays to borrow most of your books from the library. Simply put, it’s hard to beat free! Adopted from www.doughroller.net

Recipe Of The Month - Irresistible Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and baking soda. Blend egg and buttermilk together, and add all at once to the flour mixture. Mix just until moistened. Stir in butter. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 65 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the bread comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Wrap in foil for several hours, or overnight, for best flavor.

Monthly Stress Reducer - What Kids Taught Me

You find out interesting things when you have kids, like...

• A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq. ft. house 4 inches deep.
• If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.
• A 3-year old boy's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.
• If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.
• You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. When using a ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.
• The glass in windows doesn't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.
• When you hear the toilet flush and the words "uh oh", it's already too late.
• Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it.
• A six-year old kid can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year old man says they can only do it in the movies.
• Certain Lego's will pass through the digestive tract of a 4- year old boy.
• Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.
• The fire department in Austin, Texas has a 5-minute response time.
• VCR's do not eject "PB&J" sandwiches even though TV commercials show they do.
• Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.
• Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving
• No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming pool you still can't walk on water. Adopted from http://www.surfersam.com

Eliminate Stress From Your Life

But these sources of stress can be eliminated with a little thought. Here’s how:

• Controlling. We are not the Master of this Universe. I know we sometimes wish we were, but acting as if we are is a sure way to get stressed out. Trying to control situations and people cannot work, and only serves to increase our anxiety when it doesn’t work. Learn to let go, and accept the way that other people do things, and accept what happens in different situations. The only thing you can control is yourself - work on that before you consider trying to control the world. Also learn to separate yourself from tasks and to delegate them. Learning to let go of our need to control others and the situations around us is a major step towards eliminating stress.
• Multitasking. Having multiple tasks going on at the same time might seem productive, but in actuality it slows us down from actually focusing on a task and completing it - and it stresses us out in the meantime.
• Eliminate energy drains. If you’ve analyzed your life and found things that stress you out, you might have also noticed things that drain your energy. Certain things in our life just cause us to be more exhausted than others, with less value. Identify them, and cut them out. You’ll have much more energy and much less stress. Happiness ensues.
• Avoid difficult people. You know who they are. If you take a minute to think about it, you can identify all the people in your life - bosses, coworkers, customers, friends, family, etc. - who make your life more difficult. Now, you could confront them and do battle with them, but that will most certainly be difficult. Just cut them out of your life.
• Simplify life. Simplify your routines, your commitments, your information intake, your cluttered rooms, the mass of stuff going on in your life… and have less stress as a result. Adopted from http://zenhabits.net/20-ways-to-eliminate-stress-from-your-life/

Gardening Secrets For Spring Garden Preparation

Let’s take a look at how to approach your spring garden preparations to optimize your results during this year’s growing season:

Finish deciding which plants and seeds you’ll be purchasing and which existing plants you might want to move to a different location.

If you have plants you want to move, do this spring gardening preparation step while the plant’s still dormant, before it starts to green up.

Take a look at your garden tools and get them cleaned up, making a note of any that need replacing.

Order your supplies. Your plants will be shipped according to your area’s planting dates, while tools and seeds are usually sent right away.

Next step: Get a soil test. This spring garden preparation task is often neglected. It’s really worth the money. You’ll know just the right amounts of which amendments you’ll need for the correct Ph for what you want to grow. Most test kits instruct you to take soil samples from a number of locations for the most accurate results.

Before you go digging around in the garden, turning soil and adding amendments, be sure the soil is dry enough! Wet soil, worked too soon, has a tendency to compact even further, with a poor soil structure at the end of all your hard work.

Exercise patience when removing winter mulches, such as you might have around rose bushes. Be sure that spring has sprung before removing those protective mulches. At the same time, refresh mulches all around the garden, laced with a little blood meal (comes powdered, in a box at any nursery) to replace the nitrogen lost by the breakdown of last year’s mulch.

One of the least favorite spring garden preparation jobs, a thorough weeding now will save you many hours later. The sprouting weeds are easy to pull and don’t have a chance to go to seed. Adopted from http://homeandgardenguideonline.com

Quick Dogs Tips

• If you are bringing home a new baby, first bring home an article of your baby’s clothing. This will help familiarize your pets with the smell of the new baby.

• If you have a busy schedule, your dog’s behavior may tell you it’s time to slow down. Being left alone for extended periods of time can be stressful for your dog. If your pet engages in destructive chewing, bouts of diarrhea or vomiting, he may be telling you he needs more attention.
• In a study, dogs who were exposed to classical music spent more time resting ~ and less time barking ~ than dogs who were exposed to heavy metal music. Next time you leave your dog home alone, turn the radio to a classical station to help minimize barking. Adopted from http://www.palsforpawshc.com

Easy Ways To Eat Healthy

Life can be hectic with jobs, household duties, and social obligations—making drive-through or dial-up delivery dining an easy fix. Our waistlines beg to differ, though. Good nutrition will keep us strong and energized to meet those challenges head on.

• Eat breakfast, even if you don't feel hungry - You're groggy when the alarm goes off and all you have time for is a cup of coffee? Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, nutritionists say. It gets your systems functioning and powers up your brain; a sweet pastry and coffee are not going to cut it. You need fruit, whole grains, and some protein to tackle your day. If that donut is calling your name, try eating a slice of bread with peanut butter and honey to satisfy the craving. Good breakfast suggestions: whole grain cereal with pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top and fresh fruit or oatmeal with berries and sliced almonds. If you don't have time to cook the oatmeal, opt for instant oatmeal. Another alternative is to make a big pot of oatmeal and then freeze single serving size portions so you can heat them in the microwave and enjoy them in just minutes. Your body absorbs more nutrients when your food is less processed and contains fewer additives or preservatives.
• Choose healthy snacks and plan for hunger attacks - People snack for a variety of reasons, whether it's physical hunger because we need a boost to beat the afternoon slump and didn't have a substantial lunch, or mindless noshing while lounging on the couch watching our favorite sitcom. One nutrition mistake people commonly make is not eating enough throughout the day and then gorging at night. Snacking throughout the day can help you get your vitamins and minerals and it keeps you energized. Plan for healthy snack attacks; eat veggie sticks with yogurt dip instead of greasy potato chips with empty calories. Raw vegetables may sound bland, but add some herbs to yogurt for a dip for a wholesome, flavorful snack. If you're a yogurt fan, try plain yogurt with fresh fruits, nuts, and a little honey to avoid all the extra sugar added to flavored yogurts. Snacks don't have to be fancy to be satisfying: try peanut or other nut butters on whole grain pita wedges or crackers. Tasty!
• There's more to nutrition than cute packages - Walk down the cracker aisle at the supermarket and you'll be bombarded by boxes of packaged mini-foods that promise only 100 calories per serving. They are appealing, but you'll eat two or three bags before you know it. Most are not filled with nutrients, but are processed and packed with preservatives. Instead, make your own mini-bags. For example, buy a bag of precut vegetables and portion them into small baggies, or make a homemade trail mix with raw almonds, peanuts, raisins, and other dried fruit; crunchy, filling and delicious. Adopted from www.sheknows.com

Reel Partner Of The Month! MVP National Title

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From our state of the art facility, using cutting edge technology, we can assist you in all types of real estate transactions, from a simple refinance to a complex commercial purchase, and everything in between. Our dedicated and well trained team of title and escrow specialists will close your business seamlessly, with little or no hassle for you , our client.

Our Professional Services Include:

• Same day turnaround time on rush orders Reliable, accurate & professional service that is 24-48 hour turnaround time on normal orders unparalleled!
• Same day closings
• After-hours, mobile, Saturday closings welcomed!
• Title Searches/Owners Title Policy
• Homeowners Title Policy/Residential Loan Policy
• Commercial Owner & Loan Policy
• Copies of the Plat & Conditions, Covenants & Restrictions (CC&R’s)
• Document Preparation & Retrieval
• 60+ years experience with our professional staff

Tim West

Office: 317 885-4710 Email:twest@mvptitle.com

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