1 . The months of July and August are often known as the “dog days of summer”, bringing in longer, hotter and sunnier days for you to throw the perfect dog birthday party.

If you’re lucky enough to have a garden big enough, that couldn’t be better.     1    . If not, then dog - friendly parks, beaches and cafes can also make for great alternatives. Consider how many guests you’ll be inviting, both humans and animals, and make sure the space is big and secure enough to accommodate.

    2    ! Some bakeries and pet stores will provide treats perfect for the occasion. However when in doubt, homemade is always better. Take a look online and you’ll find a ton of recipes and take a look at the ingredients to make sure they’re good for the dogs.

Dogs love to socialise and play together, so why not bring a few activities into the mix. From frozen lick mats, tug of war to even a mini swimming pool, there are plenty of options to keep the guests of honour entertained.     3    . It can show off their dogs’ best skills.

Photos of your puppy party will give you memories to look back on forever, and who doesn’t love showing their pup off online? Add some props (道具) and a special backdrop to make your pictures even more double-tap worthy.

While the puppies are undoubtedly the real stars of the party, you can’t forget about your fellow human guests. Consider dog-themed treats, drinks and music. And finally, don’t send your guests home empty-pawed.     5    .

2 . Overcoming barriers to exercising

If you’re having trouble beginning an exercise plan or following through, you’re not alone. Detailed exercise instructions and workout plans are just a click awav. But knowing how and why to exercise was far from enough. Making exercise a habit takes more.     1    

While practical concerns like a busy schedule or poor health can make exercise more challenging, for most of us, the biggest barriers are mental. Maybe it’s a lack of self-confidence that keeps you from taking positive steps.     2     . We’ve all been there at some point. There are steps you can take to make exercise-more fun and active.

You don’t have to spend hours in a gym or force yourself into dull or painful activities to experience the physical and mental benefits of exercise.     3     In fact, adding just modest amounts of physical activity to your weekly routine can have a profound effect on your mental and emotional health.

Research shows that self-sympathy increases the likelihood that you’ll succeed in any attempt. So, don’t blame yourself too much for your current fitness level.     4     Instead, look at your past mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow.

    5     Try not to be discouraged by what you can’t accomplish or how far you have to go to reach your fitness goals. Instead, focus on consistency. While the improvements in mood and energy levels may happen quickly, the physical payoff will come in time.

3 . Sweating may not be your favorite thing to do, but it is necessary.     1    . Here are four research-backed reasons why this salt-based fluid can benefit you.

Sweat is known to cool the skin, bringing toxins (毒素) to the surface and giving the skin a healthy glow. Research shows that sweating can increase and maintain skin hydration. However, leaving sweat on the skin for too long can cause skin diseases such as acne.     2    .

When you’re hot, your heart beats faster to cool the body, releasing endorphins that cause feelings of joy.     3    . In a 2015 study, people who smelled “happy sweat” displayed tendencies associated with happiness. However, those exposed to fear-induced sweat showed characteristics of terror.

When sitting in a sauna (桑拿浴室), your body temperature rises, so your body works overtime to cool itself down by sweating. And you’ll be better off for it. A 20-year Finnish study found that people who sweated it out regularly in a sauna had a lower rate of sudden cardiac (心脏的) deaths.

If you sweat heavily during exercise, that’s usually a positive sign. Athletes tend to sweat sooner and more than inactive people. Their bodies have learned to cool down more efficiently during physical activity. A PLOSONE study supports this, showing that long-distance runners not only got sweatier sooner, but also activated more sweat glands, resulting in more sweat than their non-active counterparts.

4 . If you’ve ever tried something big, then you’ve probably had to deal with doubt at a certain point. No matter how often you face it, doubt can be depressing.     1     In situations where doubt arises, consider these methods below, and you can silence doubt and put your best efforts toward your goals.

·    2     Doing this stimulates the reward center, tricking your mind into focusing on completing the task to experience the achievement. And imagining desired outcomes can have potential benefits including improved motivation and confidence.

·Look back on past wins. Reflecting is a powerful way to tell yourself that you’re capable of doing much more. Get rid of doubt by entering reflection mode and reminding yourself that you are capable of getting things done.     3    

·Meditate (冥想) regularly.     4     But by meditating regularly, you can keep your energy levels high in the face of challenges and pressure and stay above doubt. It is a powerful tool to keep your mind clear about your goals and get your desired mission accomplished.

·Take action on your plans. A sure sign that self-doubt has you in its grasp is that you are beginning to buy into the excuses you make.     5     Taking action is the most effective method to silence doubt when sensing it. Don’t let the doubt hold you back; use it to motivate yourself. Then you’ll be fueled to move toward your mission.

5 . Who can imagine life today without an Automated Teller Machine (ATM)? They are available in considerable numbers throughout the world.

The first ATM was the brainchild of an enterprising Turkish-American inventor Luther George Simjian. When the idea of an automated banking machine struck him, he registered 20 patents before any bank agreed to give it a trial run. It is easy to assume that the inventor of such a popular machine was laughing all the way to the bank.     1     Within six months of its operation in New York in 1939, the device was removed due to lack of customer acceptance.

It was not until 1967, nearly 30 years later, that Barclays Bank, in a careful launch, rolled out a self-service machine in London, England, which proved successful.     2     The first cash machine relied on customers’ use of prepaid tokens (代币) to get envelopes with a fixed amount of cash inside.

    3     The banks’ principle was seemingly customer service. But it would be foolish to minimize the many advantages that cash machines provided to the banks themselves. By the late 1970s, the highest fixed cost for the average large bank was its branches. The greatest variable cost and loss to profits were its staff. Bank accounts swiftly recognized that self-service operations could reduce bank branch staff cost by70 percent.

Experts quickly determined that public acceptance of ATMs counted on convenience, simplicity, speed, security and trust.     4     For maximum efficiency, ATMs had to be located near public transport or in a shopping mall, not at a branch. The busier and more crowded the location, obviously, the better. Now, roughly 75 percent of all cash provided by banks to their customers comes from cash machines.     5    .

Public acceptance of deposits (存款) by machine was significantly slower than customers’ usage of ATMs for withdrawals. In general, it seems that customers sometimes still prefer and trust an over-the-counter transaction (交易) for deposits.

6 . Whether you are travelling for business or pleasure, every trip needs a little planning. Travel planning doesn’t have to be stressful, though. Here are some simple steps for you.

Start planning in advance.

    1     International trips can take months to plan. Trips during high seasons, like summer vocations, need to be planned further out than trips during low seasons.

    2    

Before you do anything, you need to know how much money you will have for this travel. It is easy to overspend when you are travelling if you don’t plan ahead. So start your planning by working out how much you want to spend on transportation, food, sightseeing and hotels.

Make reservations.

Booking transportation and accommodations in advance is quite necessary. Things like flights, trains and even car rentals can be quite different depending on when and where you book them. It’s worth considering booking accommodations online. There are many reliable websites for booking hotels.     3    

Make a tour routine.

Make your routine simple and clear. You don’t need to plan out every minute of every day.     4     Researching and planning these before you leave allows you to see and do more of you want.

Pack your essentials.

    5     For example, your ID card and mobile phone charges. Check the night before you depart. Check the weather and pack proper clothing for your trip.

7 . It is not hard to learn more about a piece of famous painting, but identifying an unknown painting can be tricky. What do you need to do to get its specific information? Here are tips to identify a painting.

·Use the signature or monogram (字母组合图案) to dig online and find the image. Look in the corners of the painting to see if there is a signature or monogram.     1     If it’s harder to read, see if you can break down the letters and read them. This will let you narrow down the search and figure out who the artist is.

·Turn to an image recognition app to identify the painting immediately. If you’re struggling to remember an artist’s name or you want additional information on a particular painting, download an image recognition app designed specifically for art. There are several apps for both Android and iPhone that allow you to snap a photo of a painting to search through museum catalogues, university databases, and art history texts.     2    

·Ask an expert to identify the era, style, or painter of an image.     3     The reason is that an expert like a professor in the field of art will be able to offer insights about the period, style, and give you a better sense for where to look. He may even know who the artist is as soon as he takes a look at it.

·    4     Contemporary painters may paint people or objects from the past, but they can’t time travel. If there’s a train, company logo or some other time-specific component of it, this is a great way to set a baseline (基准) for your search.

In a word, the tips above are helpful.     5     In this way, you will effortlessly identify the unknown painting.

8 . Eating more plants is a great move for your health and the environment.     1     There are some common mistakes people make when going meatless:

Not replacing meat with other protein sources. When you take something out of your diet, you take out the nutrients that food provided.     2     Some nutritionists recommend including protein sources like beans, soy foods, nuts and nut butters, seeds and seed butters, and whole grains.

    3     There are more choices than ever for plant-based burgers, sausage, and ground “meat”, and they seem like a no-brainer good choice. But man-made meats also tend to be heavily processed, which contain ingredients (成分) that offer zero nutrition such as preservatives and coloring.

Taking too much cheese. Limit your intake of refined carbohydrates (碳水化合物), sweets and cheese. Cheese is an easy way to get meat-free protein, but too much can end up adding a lot of saturated (饱和的) animal fat in your diet. People are suggested to get most of their protein from plant-based sources and use smaller amounts of cheese to give flavor.     4    

Not having enough vegetables. The point of eating more plant-based food is to eat more plants!     5     The trick is that no matter what you are eating, throw a handful of greens onto your plate or bowl.

9 . Finding friends that share your interests does not have to be difficult.     1    , and they want friends who enjoy the same sports, activities, social events and music. It can be as easy as attending one social event or going online and meeting people on friend seeking (寻找) websites. Learn how to find friends that share the same interests as you.

    2    . Some people may have moved to a different place and some people may want to make new friends within the town they have been living in for years.

Check out online friend seeking websites like friend finder.com, wayn.com or Facebook.    3    , and even do a search for certain qualities that you like in a new friend.

Go to social events in your area-maybe they support a cause you love or include a band that you enjoy. As soon as you meet someone at one of these events,you will know you already have an interest that you share.

Join a sports team at your community center.     4    , and you can start from there.

Meet new friends through friends you already have.     5    . If you and your old friend have things in common, then most likely (可能的) you will have things in common with their other friends.

10 . As fall approaches, like many of us who either follow an academic calendar for our work or have children in school, I’m preparing for a significant change in my schedule. As I anticipate more demands on my time, I reflect on how to maintain some sense of balance in my life.     1    

First of all, it is sensible to think small. We often feel like our values-based actions need to take a significant amount of time.     2     Look over the areas that you are having trouble fitting into your life. Is there a way to engage in a small part daily or weekly? Maybe instead of 90 minutes of yoga, you can do a few poses in the morning or stretch during work break.

    3     A good friend of mine often sets up calls with me while she is taking her daily walks. She still gets her exercise and her time outside, and we also get to connect. Doing housework as a family can help parents have valued family time while still keeping their homes running smoothly.

As we know, life is messy and ever-changing. It’s also important to pay attention while we are doing the actions that matter to us. It can be easy to think of the areas we aren’t engaged in.     4     Bringing mindfulness to our actions makes them more rewarding.

One more thing that needs to be added is the fact that no matter how much attention we bring to balancing our lives, we will unavoidably fall out of balance again.     5     Please be gentle with ourselves. And it may be helpful to think of the saying, “Fall down seven times; get up eight.”