Treat yourself with loving compassion and respect. Instead of telling yourself off, speak to yourself calmly. When negative thoughts and feelings come to you, name them. Say "This is the I'm-too-fat thought," or, "Ah, here comes the 'everyone here knows more than me' thought." When you are praised, say "Thank you." If a compliment is innocent and sincere, it is impolite to reject it. To reject a compliment means missing out on the chance for a positive connection with another, and a positive affirmation for yourself. Let your friends and family affirm you.  If you are feeling truly down on yourself, you can ask someone you love to tell you something they like about you. Go ahead and return the compliment. Some cruelty comes disguised as kindness. Do you have a friend who is always pointing out your shortcomings? Does anyone in your life make fun of you or criticize you in public or in private? When you are proud of something, does anyone try to take you down a notch by acting nonplussed or condescending?  Try to eliminate these people from your life or spend as little time with them as possible. Accept the state you are in before you try making radical changes. If you try to fix yourself without acknowledging your inherent value and loveliness first, you may cause yourself harm. Improving yourself can be fruitful, but you have to love yourself first. Treat yourself like a flourishing garden that needs watering, pruning, planting, and general upkeep: not flood or fire.  If you would like to do better in school, first tell yourself "I am intelligent, hard working, and I have dreams and ambitions. I am capable of doing the work I have set out to do." Do this instead of saying, for example, "I'm too stupid and lazy and I failed my last exam and I will fail the next one." Once you have a positive framework, you can work on your plan of action. When there is something you want to work on, you are not eliminating or hiding a flaw of yours; rather, you are learning new skills.    Instead of "I'm going to stop talking so much," tell yourself "I'm going to learn how to listen better." Instead of "I'm going to stop being so judgmental," try "I'm going to work harder on understanding and accepting perspectives and lifestyles different from my own." Instead of "I'm going to lose weight," try "I'm going to work on taking better care of my body by exercising more, eating better, and reducing stress." There are a lot of images, beliefs, and ideas that one encounters in the world that may not be realistic to hold yourself or others up to. These may come from the media, from organizations like schools, or held by family and friends. If you find yourself unhappy with some aspect of yourself, you may have to confront these ideas. For example:   Looking like a supermodel. Only a very tiny percentage of people can come anywhere close to looking like an actor, model, or the like. Most people are not born gorgeous, thin, and whatever the "in" look is at the moment. Even then, they usually have a whole team of make-up artists, personal trainers, designers, and graphic artists to produce this image. Being less than this is not a flaw—you are just normal, which is just fine. If you are holding yourself up to a standard that is unrealistic, of course you will be unhappy. Being a perfect student. Most of education is focused on mathematics, science, and literacy. And while these are important, not everyone has these as strengths. Even brilliant people will flunk a quiz or forget a deadline occasionally. School, unfortunately, does not typically grade how good a friend you are, your artistic abilities, or how athletic you are, your ability to work hard, or your keen sense of adventure. Not being a great student is not necessarily a flaw—your strengths may simply lie elsewhere. You can be a successful adult without necessarily being a straight-A student. Not as "high achieving" as other family members. You may be made to feel flawed if you just do not share a family trait that is prized by family members. But you may not be flawed; you are just different. Although a well-balanced, loving family may embrace this, it can be hard to be who you are if you just are not like the others. This may include:  Athletic ability/ interest Intellect Political leanings. Faith Interest in family business Artistry

Summary: Avoid self-criticism. Accept affirmation from others. Notice if someone is trying to put you down. Love it before you improve it. Re-frame how you view self-improvement. Recognize unrealistic standards.


Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen. A drop-down menu will appear. It's at the top of the drop-down menu. Doing so opens a new window. This option is at the top of the "About This Mac" window. In the upper-right side of the window, you'll see the amount of storage remaining out of the total available storage on your computer (e.g., "15 GB free of 249 GB").  You can see a color-coded breakdown of which programs are taking up the most space on this page as well. If you hover over a color-coded section, you can see exactly how much space the section's pertaining files (e.g., "Apps") are taking up.

Summary: Open the Apple menu . Click About This Mac. Click the Storage tab. Review your Mac's hard drive space.


If you choose to care for a wild bird egg, you will need to know the species’ incubation period and what to feed the nestling should the egg hatch. Fortunately, wild bird eggs are relatively easy to identify. If you don’t already have one, buy an electronic incubator with adjustable settings and a built-in fan. The incubation protocols for wild bird eggs are mostly unknown, so you will have to follow the protocol for domestic poultry eggs.  Set up the incubator in an area free from direct sunlight and drafts. Before setting the wild bird egg(s), run the incubator for a couple of hours with water in the incubator’s pan. This will stabilize the incubator’s internal atmosphere. Successful incubation depends on four factors: temperature, humidity, ventilation, and turning.  Temperature is the most important factor, and you should maintain a constant temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the duration of the incubation.  Keep the incubator’s pan full. Relative humidity within the incubator should be around 60 percent. Maintain air flow, and rotate the egg(s) a half turn at least three times per day. This ensures that the egg is warmed evenly. Most wild bird eggs that you find will never hatch. Incubation could have been interrupted, or the egg’s inner membrane could have been damaged. In each case, the embryo dies. If the incubation is successful, you will need to feed the nestling every fifteen to twenty minutes from sunrise to sunset for about two weeks. Wild bird diets vary a great deal from species to species, so make sure you have the right kinds of food on hand. Keep in mind that hand-reared wild birds have a low probability of surviving: humans simply cannot teach wild birds to fend for themselves in the wild.

Summary: Identify the species. Acquire an incubator. Be consistent. Don’t be disappointed. Be prepared.


It will absorb the liquid from coffee, tea or wine spills, making it easier to remove the stains. This solution will also remove food stains from your hands, such as beet juice or food colorings. Simply sprinkle some into your pan and rub it with a dry cloth.  After rubbing on the paste, rinse and dry the objects; they’ll look shiny and new again. The solution loosens grime and will even keep ice from forming on your windows when the temperature drops below freezing.  Let the liquid stand in the cups for a few hours, then wash and rinse—the coffee and tea stains will be gone.
Summary: Sprinkle salt on spills. Mix a little salt with vinegar to clean your hands after you’ve handled raw onions to remove the odor of the onions. Use salt to clean your cast iron pans. Remove stains (and deodorize) your cutting boards by rubbing them with salt and a little lemon juice. Form a paste with salt and vinegar and use it to polish brass, copper and silver. Add several tablespoons of salt to a gallon of warm water and clean the windows in your house and car with it. Clean and refresh your silk flowers by putting several cups of salt and your flowers in a paper grocery bag and shaking them for several minutes. Put 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of vinegar in your stained tea and coffee cups.