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| Featured in Real Simple April 2012 |
I recently spotted this brush in a magazine being touted as the ultimate detangling brush. My inner skeptic guffawed "pftt, riiiiight". But as I ripped through the tangles in my fine hair the next morning, my mind drifted back to this cute colorful brush and its promise of pain-free grooming. Surveying the product graveyard in my bathroom, I decided the $6 investment to give it a try was no worse than the useless fortune I'd already spent in attempts to easily detangle my mop. 
I was so excited to see these pop up in my local Publix supermarket recently. This cute little sponge won me over in a heartbeat. I'll never go back to the old holey, bacteria-magnet version.
I recently bought a new chair for my balcony from Pier 1. It came wrapped in paper and tied up with cool, flat nylon looking twine. I recycled the mound of paper, but couldn't bring myself to toss the big wad of nylon in the trash. I actually have nightmares about the amount of trash we all toss every day. So I was thinking what I could make with it, spotted my suitcase by the door and had the AHA moment! So here it is, 75% of the wad of nylon I saved from the landfill... repurposed as a bag tag! Perfect, indestructable, very cute... and free! The next time you're about to toss something th
at could be repurposed, pause for the AHA!
That's the actual name of this bright wonder. There's a mirror on the side of the tube and a light in the cap you click on when you're in a dark place so you can stay flawlessly luscious without having to run to the loo to reapply.
Favorite jeans too long to wear with flats and you're not into rocking cuffs? Packing for an extended trip and bulging suitcases are forcing you to choose between taking 2 pairs of jeans as opposed to 5? Enter the magic... HemGems!
I just came across this great article I ripped out of the January 2009 Glamour Magazine. So simple, so sweet and so chic. You can cover bottles with any kind of string, rope or ribbon. For fall, think gem tones like plums and rich shades of blue and red. Grouping a couple of them together also looks nice. And guys.... you don't have to put flowers in it - you could put some cool leaves or berries in it to make for a more, ahem, masculine centerpiece when you make dinner, or serve breakfast in bed, to your lovah :) For my fellow crunchies.... think about just wrapping it partially with hemp or twine, and inserting end of summer wildflowers. Beach girls (you know who you are!) twine, sea glass and shells, ... need I say more?
My obsession of the week... a sweet little orb, full of smoothing magic for your smackers! It's so cute, I leave it on display planted atop my PC next to my mini buddha. It caught my eye in Walgreen's and I'm a rather smitten by the Honeysuckle Honeydew. Then I found a multipack at Target containing even more lovely recipes! Packed with jojoba oil, shea butter & vitamin E, they're veritable moisture bombs. But don't toss that lipstick quite yet... there's no color involved here. Other things these little lovelies don't contain: parabens, petrolatum, gluten & phtlatates.
Upcyle fabric scraps into blooming flower garland! 
weet little blooms!
f wrapping paper. And if you must use paper... think about recycling a brown paper grocery bag. There are so many other fun ways to dress up brown bag gift wrapping...hmmm... I smell another blog!
fresh kiwi - chocolate sprinkled froyo while trying to appear as if this is a completely normal, rational request...
st out your beads, pliers, arts and craft supplies and get to work!
Move over DiorShow and FiberWig, there's a new wand in town, and it's won my wink! Tarte is one of my favorite makeup lines, first because they're cruelty free and second because I'm a devotee of their cheek stain sticks. And after an absolute marathon makeup session at Sephora over the weekend, I've flipped for this mascara!
I love this fabulous chandelier, created by Michelle Brand, especially because it's made from upcycled empty 2 liter bottles! I'm actually having to restrain myself from buying soda and dumping it just for the bottles. Being that I don't drink soda, and neither, it seems, do any of my friends... it's going to be a w
hile before I can collect enough bottles to make one of these! Hmmm... maybe I can raid the recycling bin at work for the small water bottles we use and cut them into flower shapes. Or, I'll just have to don a makeshift Hazmat getup and go dumpster diving in my building's recycling containers.
I break a lot of glasses, and I eat a lot of Bonne Maman Raspberry Preserves. As a result, I have many a half-set of water glasses, an
d a lot of adorable jam jars. So when I came across this idea, I was ecstatic and launched scavenger hunt around my house to reclaim all the repurposed jars I had, tossed them all in the dishwasher and voila! I have the sweetest new set of tumblers which are rather strong, so they may actually be long-termers! And if they're not... my love of PB&J and Tartines will quickly render me a replacement!
As if losing your job due to the Gulf oil spill isn't bad enough, many families are finding they also have to give up their loving family companions as a result of the income loss as Randi Kaye reports in this AndersonCooper 360 story http://bit.ly/bnSNK5, many families are having to choose between putting food on the table and feeding/caring for pets.
That's the seemingly simple question tackled by this fascinating dive into the reasons people decide to have or not have children.Lori Leibovich: A few years ago a woman in her thirties wrote to Salon, begging us to publish more stories about people who had chosen not to have children. She was the primary breadwinner in her family, and was struggling with the question of whether or not to procreate. "What would be the return on the investment?" she wrote. "Are there any laws that would require my children to pay for my nursing home when I am old? Are they going to be a sufficient hedge against poverty and loneliness?" This letter sparked a heated office-wide email debate. Some of my colleagues thought that anyone who was looking at childbearing in such stark, financial terms shouldn't be a parent in the first place. Others felt the letter writer was being refreshingly honest about her fears.
Since the question of whether or not to procreate spurred such a contentious discussion in our office, we decided to explore it in a series. I asked five staff writers to answer the question, "To Breed or Not to Breed?" From the minute we posted the first essay—a piece by Michelle Goldberg, a happily married 28-year old who has no maternal instincts but worries she'll have regrets one day if she doesn't have children—we were flooded with hundreds of emotional emails from our readers, sharing their own personal stories. After sifting through the letters—some of which we are going to reprint in the paperback edition of the book—we decided that this topic was too big for a series, and deserved a book. So I began to recruit other writers.
