Safe Cookware - Is Stainless Steel Cookware Safe?

Stainless steel cookware is a great choice for safe cooking. Many kinds of cookware react with the foods, either changing the taste of the food or even releasing harmful materials into the food that can cause imbalances or diseases. Many non-stick coatings like teflon are safe - but once they get scratched or overheated they can start to leak chemicals in the food that are according to some scientific studies dangerous and possibly carcinogenic.

Stainless steel cookware is very safe. Stainless steel is a mix of different metals: iron, chromium and nickel. Iron, as you are probably aware of is not a dangerous metal for the human body - one of the healthy aspects of spinach for example is that it has a lot of iron.
Chromium also is healthy for humans - between 50 to 200 (microgram) mg per day are recommended. Studies have shown that when you cook one meal in a stainless steel pan or pot it releases about 45 mg of chromium into the food - so that's even less than what's recommended daily, a very safe amount of chromium. That means even if you eat four meals a day that are all cooked in stainless steel pots and pans you would still be in the safe range, since 4 times 45 mg equals 180 mg (less than the daily 200 mg that are totally fine).

Kitchen And Dining

About nickel - nickel really isn't something that you want to put in your body. Fortunately when you cook with stainless steel cookware there is very little nickel leaking into the food - so little that scientists and medical professionals consider it absolutely safe. The only people to whom the nickel might pose a threat are people who have nickel allergies. If you have a nickel allergy I suppose you already talked to your doctor about that. Since stainless steel cookware is used in so many public places (restaurants etc.) I suppose that it still is normally not that big of a threat, but again, check with your doctor.

To some this might all sound a little weird and they might be surprised that when they cook part of the cookware also gets into the food. But this is really normal, it's the world we live in. You drink from a can and some tiny amounts of the can material will get into your drink. You drink from a bottle and some tiny amounts of the plastic get into your drink. When you cook there is heat involved which enforces reactions between different materials. This is nothing bad - remember that we human beings are designed to live in this world and to handle these kinds of things.

When you buy high quality cookware you can be pretty sure that it is safe to use - cause all these big brandname manufacturers have a reputation and they don't want to risk lawsuits. Of course if you buy cheap noname cookware that's a different case - which is one of the reasons why I always choose high quality cookware.

Safe Cookware - Is Stainless Steel Cookware Safe?

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How To Quickly And Easily Create A Living Room Furniture Layout?

If you planning to buy new furniture for your living room, then most probably you have already thought about the furniture layout in your mind or else you have probably thought of repeating the same old layout with only the new furniture pieces. In this article I will show you a simple method to create the most efficient layout for your living room.

Before we begin there are a few points that need to be considered. A living room is always a transition space. This means that entrances to all other rooms are located in living room. Other bedrooms, dining room, kitchen etc. are accessed through living room, that's why a sufficient "circulation space" for family members is a must.

Kitchen And Dining

So here is what you can do to create the most efficient layout for a living room.

1) Take a plane white paper. A4 size is also enough.

2) Draw a sketch plan of your living room on this paper. While drawing this plan it is important to show the following things in it:

a) Entrance door

b) Entrance doors to other rooms

c) Window positions

d) Minor column projections (if any)

e) Swing of the doors (inside or outside the living room)

f) Presence of staircase

g) Fireplace (if any)

3) Take a pencil and draw lines starting from entrance door to all other doors and window positions. This is the natural travel lines for any person using the living room. If the room is empty without any furniture these are the lines any person would follow to reach other point in the living room.

4) Now start placing the furniture units like 3 seat sofa, single/double seat sofa, coffee table, end tables lampshades, bookshelves, TV unit, etc.. Depending upon your budget you can go for any number of these units.

While placing these units it will always be seen that the furniture obstructs the pencil travel lines drawn in the third step. But that's OK for now. Now make as may combinations and arrangements of the furniture units as possible. Think out of the box while doing this. Try to do something different.

Remember if you try you will easily come up with at lest 10 layout for that same living room. You will be amazed at how many combinations are possible. Also imagine the furniture pieces you already have or can you replace that table in the bedroom with the one in the living room.

How about keeping it vertical rather that horizontal in the plan. Whatever you do keep one thing in mind. Always keep the human movement "unobstructed". People passing through the living room in other rooms must be able to pass without cutting vision if you are talking to other person in the living room.

That's why those pencil lines have been drawn. After you have drawn the furniture pieces on the living room plan, modify the travel lines. Now these lines will be around the furniture, especially at corners. The travel lines will now take the shape of the furniture at the edges.

After this short exercise you will have probably 5 different layouts on paper with. Select the one in which you see the following points of interest.

a)Travel line lengths are shortest.

b)Travel lines do not pass trough the furniture.

Apart from the efficiency there is another factor called as visual balance while designing a furniture layout. Finally does it look good to YOU. Are you comfortable with the final layout. The visual balance is achieved by making the most use of all walls of the living room with decorating elements such as paintings, color schemes, etc.

So if you follow a system from the beginning you will be definitely be able to create a beautiful living room in the shortest possible time. I hope this article has helped you to find more creative ways of doing this job more efficiently.

Copyright Shrinivas Vaidya

How To Quickly And Easily Create A Living Room Furniture Layout?

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Important Tax Deductions for Home Daycare and Child Care Providers

It's tax time - are you ready? Chances are, if you started a home based child care business in 2007 you are feeling very overwhelmed about your taxes. I know that feeling! I ran a home daycare for nine years and tax season can be intimidating! Whether you are having a professional complete your taxes or you are doing them yourself, there are several things you need to know to help the process go more smoothly.

First let's talk about the issue of professional tax preparers versus doing it yourself. Which method is better? I personally have used both methods. The first year I needed to file taxes for my home child care business, I attended a workshop put on by a local community college that dealt specifically with taxes for child care businesses. It was extremely helpful. I would suggest asking around to find out if there is something like that available in your area. You can check with other daycare providers, local community colleges, or child care organizations to see if someone can point you in the right direction. After attending the seminar, I decided to do the taxes myself that first year. I felt like I had a pretty good handle on the situation and professional tax preparers can be costly. I was able to get help from the IRS through their website http://www.irs.gov, and over the phone (see website for phone numbers). It takes some patience to get through to them because sometimes the hold time is lengthy, but when you do get through the help is outstanding! That first year I did my taxes the old fashioned way...on paper! I completed them on paper for a couple of years actually.

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A few years into my daycare business I chose to have a professional complete my taxes, mostly because of some items to be addressed in our personal taxes that we weren't sure how to handle. I was relieved to find out that I had been doing a pretty good job with my business taxes! The accountant was able to find a few more deductions that I hadn't been claiming that proved to be very helpful. After that year, I chose to go back to doing my own taxes, but I decided to use one of the tax software programs. They turned out to be easier than I thought they would be and the online question center was very helpful. I loved that I was able to file my taxes electronically, which significantly reduced my wait time to receive my refund. I continued to complete my taxes using computer software for the duration of my child care business years. Personally, I think that you can successfully complete your business taxes yourself, especially using tax software, and save yourself significant money. It might be beneficial to have a professional do it the first year so you are certain that you are taking all of the deductions you should take. After that, you can look back on the first year taxes as you complete them yourself to ensure that you are completing them correctly.

What sort of deductions should you be claiming? One of the biggest deductions you should be logging is your mileage. This is actually one of the deductions that I wasn't claiming until I had a professional complete my taxes. I found out that I had been missing out on a huge tax savings by not keeping track of my mileage. I didn't fully understand what mileage I could claim for my child care business. I thought I could only claim mileage for field trips or training classes. How very wrong I was! A home daycare provider can claim mileage for ANY trip in which child care business is conducted. This means that every trip to the grocery store to buy food for daycare, every trip to buy art supplies or toys, every trip to the bank to deposit child care income, is a business trip and you should be keeping track of your mileage!

Mileage is deductible from your home to the location and back again. That being said, you need to be honest with your mileage calculations. If in one day you first travel to the bank to deposit checks and then you head to the grocery store to buy food before heading home, you can't count mileage from home to the bank and from home to the grocery store. You need to calculate mileage from home to the bank, from the bank to the grocery store, and from the grocery store to your home to be fair. Just to give you an example of how large a deduction mileage can be...I live in a rural area, so a trip to the grocery store and back for me is about 30 miles. The bank is even further. In an average year, I was able to claim approximately 10,000 miles for a deduction for my child care business! This comes out to be a 00-00 deduction! I know you are wondering what to do if you make a trip to the grocery store to buy both food for your business and food for your family.

Can you claim that mileage? Absolutely! You are still there conducting daycare business, so that mileage is deductible! I know your next question is, "I didn't keep track of my mileage for 2007, so do I lose out on that deduction?" Not necessarily. One method I use to calculate mileage is the receipt method. I am sure that you have been saving your receipts from trips to the store. You need them for tax purposes anyway (see next paragraph). You need to go back through your receipts and create a mileage log based on them. Count up how many times you went to each store and write it up, including the name, address, and reason for going to each store. Then you will need to logon to a website such as http://www.mapquest.com and choose the option for finding directions. Put in your starting address (usually your home) and the address of the store you went to. Then click on find directions. When the program lists the driving directions, it will also list the mileage. You will need to double the mileage, since the program only gives you mileage for the trip to the location, not for the return trip.

Once you have the roundtrip mileage for a certain store, multiply the mileage by the number of times you went to that store for daycare business in 2007. Voila...you have a mileage log! You will need to calculate the number of times you went to the bank for childcare also, and use the same method as above for calculating the mileage. If you don't save all of your deposit receipts, go back through your checkbook registers to find all of your deposits. Remember to include things like field trip mileage, or trips back and forth from the school if you pick up child care children from preschool or kindergarten. Using this method will give you a fairly accurate calculation of your mileage and can provide you with a huge tax deduction!

Another deduction that you should be claiming is the cost of food and supplies for child care. This is another huge tax deduction! There are two ways to handle food for child care. You can either shop separately for your daycare food than for food for your family, or you can shop for both at the same time and separate items for daycare later on your receipt. Personally, I didn't shop separately for two reasons. First, if you shop for food that is to be used for your home daycare business, then that food can ONLY be used for your home child care business! That means that if your son or daughter wants to take a granola bar to school for snack and you purchased those for daycare, you are going to have to say no. I know that sounds extreme, but if you are claiming those items as strictly child care items, you need to keep them separated from food for your family. Secondly, it is really a pain in the neck to do separate shopping for your family and your business! It means either separate trips to the store, or at least separate shopping carts in the store! The advantage to shopping separately is that you can claim every penny spent on food for child care on your taxes.

I chose to shop for my family and my business together and not to keep the food separated. It made things a lot easier in my house. However, it did make my record keeping for my business a little trickier. Once a month I had to go through my grocery receipts and mark off items that I knew were not used for child care, such as coffee or soda pop. Once I had eliminated those items from my receipt total, I then had to calculate which items on the receipt were food items, which were consumable items (like toilet paper) and which were non-consumable (like toys). I then calculated a total amount for that receipt of each of these categories and wrote it at the top of the receipt. Come tax time, I calculated a total amount spent for the year for each of these categories. Then, in order to fairly calculate a deduction for each of these categories based on how much was used for child care and how much was used for my family, I had to apply the time-space formula to each category.

The time-space formula is an invaluable equation that allows you to fairly claim child care expenses based on how many hours out of the year you spend being a daycare provider. The equation is fairly simple. First, you need to calculate the approximate amount of space in your home that you use for your child care business. You need to include every space that is ever used for daycare. You need to include your primary child care room of course and your kitchen. But you also need to include the bathrooms that the kids use, the dining area if they eat or do crafts there, the laundry room since you will invariably be washing blankets, sheets, towels, etc. that were used for daycare, any rooms in which children nap, your home office if you use it to create forms and file business paperwork, and any other place the kids use. You need to exclude any rooms that the children in your care never use. Be fair in calculating the approximate percentage of your home that is used in your business.

Once you have this percentage, you need to figure out the approximate number of hours you spent in 2007 performing duties related to your business. You, of course, need to figure out the number of hours per day that you actually care for children. You also need to take into consideration the approximate amount of time per day that you spend cleaning up from child care or getting ready for child care. Then you need to figure out exactly how many days you provided these services in 2007. You then multiply the number of hours per day by the number of days you provided care. That gives you the number of hours you spent in your business in 2007. Now you need to figure out the percentage of hours you spent in your business compared to the number of hours in a year. There are 8760 hours in a year. So, take the number of hours you spent doing daycare and divide it by 8760 and this will give you the percentage of time you spent doing child care in 2007. Finally, you need to multiply the percentage of time you spent doing daycare by the percentage of your home used for business to find a final percentage that you can claim for costs shared by your business and your family.

This gives you your time-space percentage. Here is an example: Let's say you decide that you use 80% of your home for your business. Now, you spend on average 10 hours per day on your business and you calculate that you spent 200 days being a child care provider in 2007. Multiply the 10 hours per day by the 200 days (10 X 200), to find that you spent 2000 hours providing child care services in 2007. Since there were a total of 8760 hours available in 2007, you will now divide your 2000 hours by 8760 hours (2000 divided by 8760) to find that you spent about 22.8% of your time being a daycare provider in 2007. You can round that up to 23%. For your final calculation, you need to multiply the amount of space used in your home by the amount of time spent doing daycare to find a final percentage that you can claim. In this case, you would multiply the percent usage of your home (80%) by the percent of time spent (23%) (80% X 23%) to get a final percentage of 18.4% or 18% since we would round down. This is the percentage of food, consumable items, utilities, and mortgage interest you will be able to claim for your child care business. The calculation takes a few minutes, but it saves a lot of headache in the end. Non-consumable items like toys or cookware are 100% deductible for your business.

If you have a professional complete your taxes, you will want to make sure to have all of your information with you at the initial meeting. This will save you from having to get information to him/her later and can actually save you money in tax preparation fees. My accountant charged me less because she had less work to do since I had done most of the information preparation done before I met with her. You will want to bring a sheet that shows the total amount of income for your business for 2007, a calculation of your time-space formula, a list of expenses (include a note about which ones should be multiplied by the time-space formula), a mileage log, and any other information relevant to the business (such as a tax id if you have one). Be prepared to back up all of this information with receipts if your accountant wants to see them. Don't stress if you don't have everything the accountant wants. You can get it to them later if necessary. If you don't have everything in order the accountant will let you know, but it will cost you more since the accountant will have to spend more time in preparing your taxes. Be as prepared as you can and you will have much better, and cheaper, results!

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tax preparation for home child care businesses. This seems like an overwhelming amount of information, but there is actually a lot more. Don't give up yet. There are a lot of resources for you to get more information, such as the IRS, an accountant, or a local organization. The best advice I can give a home daycare provider is to be incredibly organized. Keep all of your receipts, keep an accurate mileage log, keep an accurate receipt book recording income, and keep all of it readily available. If you follow this advice filing your taxes will be much easier!

Important Tax Deductions for Home Daycare and Child Care Providers

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Feng Shui Tips for Home Interiors in Dragon Year 2012-13

Introduction

Organise your environment according to basic Feng Shui principles and soon positive results appear. High expertise isn't required-just get the basics right, implement some 'tips' and you are underway. Extensively used in both homes and offices world-wide, particularly in China and South East Asia, Feng Shui is increasingly popular in the West because of its inbuilt benefits.

Kitchen And Dining

Entrance Halls

Ideal 'Ming Tang' (Bright Hall) appearance means these should be well lit by day and by night and uncluttered to facilitate Qi-flow. Mechanical door-bells have the same energising effect as wind-chimes but before you install these be sure you like their sound!

Water (Year Element 2012-14) supports Wood so wooden wind-chimes with any number of tubes (except four) are ideal to deploy.

Stairways

Doors ideally, should be at right-angles to descending staircases. Otherwise a sudden fall in status or position is likely.

Windows

The 'eyes' of the building, these should be clear and free from cracked glass which has negative connotations in Feng Shui. Should sharp-edged 'poison arrows' face windows, keep these shut and use drawn curtains as a screen.

Ceilings

High well lit ceilings are ideal as low poorly lit ones cause headaches and depressions. Exposed beams and uneven ceilings can have similar effects and one should avoid eating sleeping and sitting beneath these. Suspended ceilings can overcome some of these problems.

Shelves

Avoid sharp-edged shelving with pointed corners (and especially sitting with your back to these) as they can correspond to interior poison arrows. Position shelving as low as possible.

Tables

Avoid sharp-edged square and rectangular dining-tables in favour of round or oval designs. Do not position the dining table directly underneath the upstairs toilet to avoid unfortunate and unhealthy leaks from above.

Mirrors

Be aware of what these reflect into the space concerned (e.g. the toilet pedestal or trash-cans outside). Ideal views (e.g. of water or garden flowers) can come from outside or pictures hung strategically in internal locations. Avoid having mirrors directly facing the bed in the bedroom. Mirrors in the dining room, reflecting food on the table, however, may convey notions of abundance.

Beds

Beds should not be at right-angles next to or face the bed-room door (the Mortuary Position). Ideally there should be a wall at one side for protection. Avoid sleeping with your head underneath a window.

The Kitchen

Neither Washing Machine, Refrigerator nor sink should be immediately adjacent to your cooker (as Fire and Water would be in conflict). Position your cooker separately elsewhere. Store kitchen knives out of sight when these are not in use.

Flowers and Plants in the Home

Whilst fresh flowers on display energise internal environments, dried flowers are dead and desiccated-artificial plastic varieties are preferable as these simulate life. Spiky Cacti are considered sources of Shar Qi in Feng Shui and should be avoided also Japanese Bonsai plants, as the latter represent stunted and retarded growth.

Overall

The above basic recommendations 'Cures' and tips represent basic principles of Feng Shui which are easily applied. Those interested in exploring this field in more depth should go on to consider the 5 Elements or 'Wuxing' implications of internal decor, design and the placement of objects.

Feng Shui Tips for Home Interiors in Dragon Year 2012-13

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Pendant Lighting Layout - How To

Pendant lighting has gained a great deal of popularity for use in kitchens over the last few years. A common place to install them is over an island or peninsula. One of the most frequent questions I see is how high do I hang them and how do I space them out? Both questions can be answered in several ways and as with any home design aspect there is no absolute or right answer. There is however some guidelines to use that can help you make the right decision.

One consideration on the height is with the fixture you choose. If a fixture has an open bottom and it is installed to high, it can become very annoying looking up into the light bulb all the time. By the same token, a fixture that is designed so that the top is not made to be viewed, if installed too low, can be very unappealing. There is an average height you can use as a guide, about 68" - 72" off the floor to the very bottom of the fixture. This puts the fixture at about eye level for the average person. The reason there is no correct answer is in a house where everyone is 6' 4" and taller this height would most likely be too low.

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Over a dining room table this same rule can be applied. A little tip or word to the wise. If your fixture is going to be installed before there is actually a table under it put something there in its place. It could be a large box, bench, folding table or a chair. It will save someone a trip to the hospital for stitches after walking into the fixture or a broken fixture.

Spacing the pendants when there is more than one is a matter of a little mathematics. The most common mistake is to just split the space into even sections but that is not entirely correct and I'll explain why. Let's say your island is 60" long and you have two pendants. A common thought would be to split the space into three sections that are even. This would give you each fixture 20" off the ends and 20" between them. A better choice would be 15" off each end and 30" between them. Why is that you ask? Well for one thing you'll see it is more visually appealing. The other reason is the light spread on most pendants is in the shape of a circle. If you can imagine the actual light that falls on the counter area picture two circles of light. To best illuminate the counter we want the edge of the circle to hit the edge of the counter. The other two edges should meet or overlap in the middle.

If you are not sure what it is I am describing take a look at the link below and view the diagrams along with the explanation.

Pendant Lighting Layout - How To

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Kirkland's Home Decor - Find Everything Your House Needs

Kirkland's home decor store is indeed one of the most inspiring accessory stores around. It has a broad selection of distinctive merchandise for the discriminating buyer, coupled with affordable prices to keep the average homeowner happy. Their stock consists of framed art, picture frames, lamps, candles, mirrors, accent rugs, and garden accessories.

A leading specialty retailer since 1966, Kirkland's was co-founded by Carl Kirkland, who is still currently the Chairman Emeritus. They opened their first store in Jackson, TN, and with over 340 stores in 37 states they have put Kirkland's home decor on the map. Home decor at Kirkland's is ever-changing, and offers you value and style at extremely attractive prices for both gift-giving and accessorizing your own home.

Kitchen And Dining

Kirkland's even has a designer advantage for interior designers looking for the best for their clients. The home decor at Kirkland's helps to create stylish and sophisticated looks on a budget that almost anyone can handle. Designers who buy at Kirkland's can now receive a 10% discount on all client related purchases, providing they spend over 0.00 per year. This would hardly be a difficult task with the selection that Kirkland's has to offer.

Kirkland's Holiday Home Decor

Apart from everyday accessories, Kirkland's offers much more - its seasonal stock is extensive and covers all major holidays. Kirkland's prides themselves on offering the latest looks with inspiring styles. For Christmas, you can find themed trees to inspire you with new decorating ideas, and suggestions for coordinating gifts that you can buy for a special couple.

Warm candle light, lamps, and other lighting are always popular during the holidays. Kirkland's home decor section offers a huge selection of holiday candelabras, votive runners for your fireplace, or red hurricane candle holders for your holiday needs. For the younger clientele they have plenty of Santa Claus knick knacks, reindeer ornaments, and lots of fun Christmas decorations to enthuse even the littlest buyer.

Kirkland's home decor also has plenty of amazing holiday selections for Halloween, New Years, Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving. Their huge choice will give you numerous options for your decorating style. Whether you prefer whimsical or sophisticated, you are nearly guaranteed to find what you are looking for at this store. The home decor at Kirkland's, both for the holidays and everyday decorating, is inspiring, creative, and unique.

Kirkland's Home Decor - Find Everything Your House Needs

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Tips For Great Restaurant Interior Design

One of the things that we really enjoy when we get to eat outside of our
homes and eat in a restaurant is the ambiance, besides the food that they are
offering. Ambiance really plays a big part when it comes to making you enjoy
your dining experience and for some, it determines if they will be returning to
the restaurant or not.

Here are some great tips that you can take note of for a great design if you are
one of those people who are thinking of opening up a restaurant. These tips play
a big part in design and are proven to be very effective when it comes to
creating a great ambiance where people will keep coming back for more of what
your restaurant can offer.

Kitchen And Dining

Know This

One of the best restaurants interior design tips that you should first take note
of is knowing and understanding your target market. Just by determining what
your customers are demanding, you can instantly create a design in your mind
that will suit best suit their lifestyle. Are you going for the young urban
professionals who wear a coat and tie most of the time that will require your restaurant interior design to be more
flashy and elegant? Or are you going for the market of kids who enjoy having
quick fixes for their tummies but will like play rooms or arcades at the same
time?

Getting a feedback from your target customers will clearly help you in
formulating the best design in your mind. Chances are, once that you have
finally determined what they want and once you have implemented all those
elements in your restaurant, the higher the chances that they will, time and
time again, visit your place and spread the word that yours is one of the
greatest restaurants that they have been in.

Ask Help From The Experts

It is also important to recognize that you cannot do all the
restaurant interior design by yourself and sometimes it will be best to get help from the experts. Vision Design is one of the most reputable interior design companies in the industry and they are
specializing in designing restaurants, spas, homes, and others and have already
received numerous awards for their outstanding designs and service.

Tips For Great Restaurant Interior Design

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