Whether you’re buying your first home or your 21st home, it’s never easy to find exactly the right house. Finding your dream house requires patience and persistence.Let’s be honest. Buying a house is an emotional decision, as well as a rational, financial one. Take my friend Trina, for example. Trina was house hunting one day in the early spring when her broker showed a house with daffodils blooming by the front door. Trina instantly fell in love with the house, despite the fact that it had 2 bathrooms instead of 3, and a den but only 3 bedrooms. It also had a formal dining room, not the great room that Trina really wanted. But, it had daffodils blooming by the front walk. Trina and her husband bought the house, and started expensive renovations. Five years later, they have the house they’ve always dreamed of, but at a price.”Looking back, it would have been a lot cheaper for me to find a house with all the features that we needed, and plant daffodils!” Trina says.It’s important to know exactly what you are looking for, when you buy a house. If Trina had made a list of her wants and needs before she started house hunting, she could have saved herself years of noisy, messy renovations.Before you open the real estate section of a newspaper, or contact a real estate agent, sit down with a pencil and paper and make a list of your wants and needs. If you are buying the house with someone else, have them make their own separate list. Then, compare the two.The first question you need to ask is, “What do I need in a house?” For Trina, the answer was 4 bedrooms and 3 baths in her children’s current school district. With the birth of her third son, the family had simply outgrown their current home.Your list of needs might be totally different. Maybe you need a house on one level, so that you won’t have to climb stairs. Maybe you need a big, sunny kitchen, a spacious family room, or a yard large enough for soccer. Maybe you need an area with no restrictions on having a home-based business.Next, ask yourself “What do I want in a house?” Maybe you’d love a great view, open, sunny rooms, cathedral ceilings, a fireplace, a walk-in closet or solar heating.Finally, ask yourself “What do I hate?” Make a list of the features that you will not accept in your new home. For Trina, Tudor-style architecture is high on that list. “Our old house was Tudor style. It was so dark, and the rooms were so ugly, that I soon hated it!”Now, compare your list with your partner’s. Are there items that both of you want or need? That’s a good start. Are some of your “hates” on your partner’s “wants” list? If so, you’ll need to discuss it and compromise.Finally, create a master list with all the needs, wants and hates for the two of you as a couple. This is your home buying guide.
Home Buying 101
Are Nocebos Harming Your Health and Fitness Efforts?
What the heck are nocebos you are probably wondering and what do they have to do with your health and fitness? They are the evil cousin of placebos. You know that placebos are used quite a bit in testing of drugs and supplements.The test is set up so that one half of a group gets the actual drug and the other half gets a placebo. The placebo is usually some kind of sugar water and it doesn’t have any of the drugs in it. In a double blind study neither the participants nor the researchers know which group gets the drug and which group gets the placebo.The idea of the placebo is that it isn’t the real drug and that it is not harmful in any way. This way the researchers can get an accurate measurement of what effects the drug actually has. An interesting thing happened during testing. Both groups responded to the drug.This shows the power of the mind. If you think you are getting a drug that is going to help you, you respond as though you are getting the drug and that it is helping you, even if you are in the placebo group and only getting sugar water.This effect is called the placebo effect. Many people have taken this placebo effect and used it in a not so positive manner. The nocebo effect as mentioned before is the evil cousin of placebo. It is when someone tries to affect a negative and harmful effect in you by using the power of the mind to control your response.This might make more sense if you think of a witch doctor. There have been many documented cases of where witch doctors have actually killed people just by using the power of suggestion.They do their incantations on someone and that person, because they believe the witch doctor, fall violently and sometimes fatally ill. That is the nocebo effect taken to the extreme.So what does this have to do with you and your health or fitness goals?Plenty. How many times have you said you are going on a diet, or going to start eating healthy or start going to the gym only to be met with a round of laughter and put downs from your friends and family?That is a milder form of the nocebo effect. And it does affect you. Very few people are able to overcome such negative and harmful statements.It has taken a lot of strength for you to admit you need to change your lifestyle to become healthier. It takes even more strength to admit it to others.When that strength is met with derision, scorn and laughter, it is like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.It is almost too much to overcome. Does that mean you shouldn’t tell anyone? Well, maybe. Or maybe you need to be pickier in who you tell. One of the best things you can do to help you in your health and fitness goals is to find others that are trying to reach the same goals. You can go to a gym or you can go for walks in the park. You will see and meet others doing the same thing you are doing.Surround yourself with other like minded people and you will be able to easily overcome the nocebos in your life. One place where you won’t meet any nocebos is at Val’s health and fitness site. Check it out – see below.