The importance of giving back…

The holiday season – the season of giving, family and friends is now truly behind us and I hope you all had a wonderful time with your loved ones and lots of memories for the  future!! I mention this because for the past few weeks I have had the privilege of  mentoring a group of young ladies from a school in North Las Vegas.

The ladies are all in junior high and are at an important but perhaps impressible age.  Many are gracious and appreciative – some have attitude, a little disrespectful and some a sense of being better than everyone else. Regardless of how they are today I am sure they will all grow into wonderful woman with families of their own and a full and rewarding life — and so it is with pride and joy that I am able to work with them and share some of my own experiences as a young woman, mother and an business owner with them.

My goal is to inspire each to fulfill their dreams and aspirations. In reality many of these young ladies may never get to experience the joy and excitement that many of other children have experience — a trip to Disneyland or even a visit to the beach for some this will never happen!! For sure they are bright and intelligent young ladies, but the cards they have been dealt are not great. I asked them how many nights a week they sat down with their families to have dinner and for most of them it’s never. My heart breaks for these children so the best thing I can do for them is teach them proper dining skills and table manners.  The little things like how to hold a knife and fork, and how to use your napkin properly (no big deal they thought), to sit like a lady and also learn that everyone needs to be treated with kindness and respect. Las Vegas with all it’s glitz glamour and wealth has many underprivileged children and we have to prepare them for the future whatever that may be.

Hopefully my experiences will help them understand that they each hold the key to their future success. It’s up to each of them to understand that they control their destiny and that with hard work and dedication that success can follow.

Giving back can be one of the most rewarding things you can ever do. I encourage you all to do it — and trust me you won’t regret it…..ever

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Valentine Gift Ideas

I have been blessed over the last year to be able to appear on FOX5 VEGAS (KVVU) MORE Morning Show as their Etiquette Expert. The show airs live every weekdays at 9am.

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Showtime – 10 seconds to go!

Todays show topic was Valentine gift ideas….if your dating under a year.. up to three.. and more than five years..I share gift ideas and suggestions for every stage of dating on this important day.  I discuss a broad range of gift ideas from flowers, chocolates, jewelry, an elegant dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago and much more – hopefully these ideas will inspire you to make your Valentine’s Day truly memorable.

You can watch today’s Valentine gift ideas topic on my website or on my YouTube channel.  Enjoy!

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Sheila and Cynthia @ FOX5

Over the last year I have appeared about a dozen times and loving it. I have to tell you that it is a wonderful experience – but the best part is that the team is amazing to work with – they provide the inspiration and the encouragement that enables me to appear live — and I hope provide helpful and practical etiquette tips and ideas each time I appear. Thank-you to Jason Feinberg, Monica Jackson, Rachel Smith and the wonderful Cynthia Newdell for all the encouragement, inspiration and support.

Remember that you can contact me anytime if you have etiquette questions and please also sign up for my newsletter, class announcements and etiquette tips my website.

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Cauliflower Rice

Cauliflower is a wonderful healthy alternative to potatoes and cauliflower rice is my latest discovery — and dare I say I could eat this every day. This a very simple recipe and it can be made in just a few minutes.  You will need one cauliflower head which will make about four cups of florets and a food processor with a grating attachment.

Instructions

  • Remove the leaves and thick stem from the base of the cauliflower
  • Cut the cauliflower into pieces that will fit into the top opening of your food processorIMG_20150118_122950
  • Pop the florets into the food processor using the grating attachment
  • Grate the florets so that they resemble fine grains of rice
  • Put the grated cauliflower into a microwave safe dish, add a teaspoon of water
  • Cook for about 2-3 minutes

Once the cauliflower has cooled you can keep the cauliflower rice in the refrigerator or you can freeze it and use in the future. Cauliflower rice is great for stir fries or in place of regular rice – but it is not so good in a chicken and rice soup as the grains dissolve quickly!

Happy cooking …

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America bound…..

Oh my – what can I say. Thank-you to everyone for the amazing response to the launch of my blog.  Your feedback, comments and encouragement have been inspiring.  Please continue to spread the word and my commitment to each of you is that I’ll try to bring interesting, inspiring and informative posts on the topics that we each share a deep interest in.  With that said I wanted to continue to share details of the truly amazing life journey that I have experienced so far – from a little girl from Northern Ireland to an etiquette coach, actress and TV resident etiquette expert here in Las Vegas.

But before I forget many of you have asked what the photograph is on my blog page. It is the tree lined road known as The Dark Hedges — and you will likely have recognized them because these iconic trees have been used as a filming location in HBO’s epic series Game of Thrones, representing the King’s Road — so now you know!

Another interesting item I wanted to share is that my good friend Michelle Fairley starred in Game of Thrones and is the daughter of Brian Fairley.  Brian owned an Irish pub in Coleraine. At that time I worked at Fairley’s behind the bar and spent a lot of time witMichelle Fairley 2h Brian and his family including Michelle. And this is where I met my husband John and the perfect segue from the last post. Michelle also starred in the most recent smash hit TV series 24 with Keifer Sutherland.

To recap — in my last post I talked about my family and the incredible parents, siblings and friends that I had as I grew up in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. As I just mentioned my husband is John Keast who I married in 1981. We met in Fairley’s where he was sat at the bar drinking his usual pint of Guinness accompanied by a hot Bushmills Whiskey – actually several pints of Guinness.  Thirty plus years later now we have three wonderful children — two sons, one daughter and two amazing little grandsons.

We left Ireland in 1984 to move to Scotland and then to London, England where we decided one wintery December day to come to America for John’s work with DHL. We thought about it, decided and packed up in 3 weeks and arrived in California in January 1990 leaving many good friends and family behind but never forgotten — the sun was shining and we knew we had made the right decision. We lived in Half Moon Bay, CA for about a year and then settled in Redwood City, CA where we remained until June 2006. In my next post I’ll spend some time on the many wonderful years we spent as a family in California and how our 3 young children evolved from being cheeky little english kids into successful adults with successful careers, full and rich lives of their own.

As always — if you like my blog please follow me by clicking on the Follow button and that way you will be notified every time I post to my blog — and sign up for my newsletter on my website. Thank-you.

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How it all started …

I’ve been thinking back to what got me interested in Etiquette. I am certain it was my upbringing back in Northern Ireland and coming from a large family of seven boys and two girls. I was the youngest girl and eighth child to my amazing parents James and Susan Baxter. Everything was done in order. Laundry on Monday, baking on Tuesday and Thursday with ironing thrown in there somewhere. My mother sent me to elocution lessons after school and to Irish dance lessons. Of course church played a big part so I sang in the choir. At one point I was the only girl in the boys choir. The choir master heard me sing at my cousins wedding and so after a talk with my mother I reluctantly agreed to join as long as I could sit in the second row where no one could see me!

We were a big happy family and we learned so much from our parents – perhaps the most important being respectful and never talking back. The entire family always sat at the table for dinner — it might have been a bit crowded, but it was always so good and so much fun. My mother made the best soups and stews and her rice pudding was to die for. She could make a pocket of steak filed with sage and onion stuffing feed all of us for Sunday dinner and not a morsel was left.  My father was an equally good cook — he could mash a pot of potatoes with a fork and not a lump was to be found. He baked amazing apple pies and to this day I can still taste them. My brothers all learned a trade like my father so it was up to me and my oldest sister Anne to make up their lunch boxes every night. It was always sandwiches with homemade cakes and biscuits and I always remember waiting on Daddy coming home with something left in his for me even though I made it for him.  Those were such good time and great memories.

Over the coming weeks I’ll post details of how our family arrived in the US and how that launched my passion for etiquette.  If you like my blog please sign up for my newsletter on my website and follow my blog. Thank-you.

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Welcome!

Welcome to my blog at Sheila Keast Etiquette. I’ve been meaning to do this for along time and I’m so excited to finally have it up and running. I’ll be adding some recipes and Etiquette tips in the next few days so stay posted. Have a wonderful day…

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