The best way to wipe out the pain of the past is to fill up the present with hope for the future. That’s why it makes a lot of sense to make writing your bucket list part of your post-divorce recovery.
Read MoreHow to Use the Chakras to Attract Abundance
You are a wonderful and radiant being of light and colors. Inside your body along your spine, you have 7 energy centers called Chakras where the energy exchange between you and your environment happens.
Read MoreHow to Get What You Really Want Without Ever Apologizing
Ever think about who you need to become in order to have a life and business you love? I say it’s about authenticity and not about struggling, beating yourself up or, trying to fit into any lame cookie cutter molds.
Read MoreThe Most Precious Gem in The World (and it's not what you think!)
As women we often want to be everything to everyone, and that is an exhausting way to live. I firmly believe that we all need to focus on making ourselves happy first and then we can be there for those who mean the most to us.
Read MoreOverpower Your Shadow Self to Set Positive Intentions
Have you ever been in the process of changing your life for the better? Whether it be a new habit, way of thinking, lifestyle, image or career and as much as you set the best of intentions, something overshadows your efforts and you’re pulled right back to where you didn’t want to be?
Read MoreDestress the Mind with Breathing
Stress related diseases are huge. Our daily lives are hectic, rushed and can become an overwhelming blur because we don’t stop and experience the present. Worrying expends a ton of our energy yet produces nothing good. Stress wreaks havoc on our bodies and minds. We constantly waste our precious moments on concerns, past mistakes, and anticipating future problems. Living in the moment is difficult to do in our hustle bustle lives.
Read MoreHow to Be More Radiant in Your Own Skin
We all have been created perfectly with divine intention, which means we don’t need to change or refine or even overcome a crappy past to be totally awesome. That perfection has already been made. To live it is our birthright.
Read MoreHow to Go Green, One Sheet at a Time
HOW TO GO GREEN, ONE SHEET AT A TIME
Authored By: Cinthia Singleton
Photo Credit: Carley Page Interiors
Featuring: Jennifer Harrison
According to The Energy Co-op, the average American uses approximately 45 pounds of them per year. Yes, it’s true, and even in an age when everyone says they want to live a more Earth-conscious, ‘green’ life. How ‘bout we start by thinking about using fewer paper towels, people.
Check out this ‘green,’ albeit old-fashioned alternative to paper towels: cloth.
1| Stop setting a roll of paper towels on the dinner table. Instead use vintage napkins that you keep in a basket on the table. Personalize the collection by seeking design styles that speak to you. Chicken images. Shabby chic embroidery. Days of the week. 60s mod. When the supper dishes get picked up, the napkins go into a soak bucket then get run in the next wash. [Soak bucket / sōk buck•et / noun / a bucket filled with sudsy detergent, bleach and water. Otherwise known as Ask Your Grandmother.]
2| Dishtowels. Now here’s where older can be better. Cotton or linen, vintage dishtowels are fabulously absorbent and soft, and generally lint-free. Calendar, travel themes, novelty prints… Quite a many are adorable too.
3| Instead of cleaning up spills and messes with several winds of paper towel, use a vintage towel. Terrycloth is super absorbent and comes in various sizes. Can’t say that about a paper towel. Keep ‘em on hand for when pups track in mud or kids drop juice boxes. Tip? Don’t just use some old towels but fun, colorful ones you pick up at estate sales. Just because they’re for “mop wiping” doesn’t mean they can’t be a cheery hot pink or groovy damask pattern.
4| As the cloth items get thin and worn they can then be used for other household projects (i.e. painting or washing the car) instead of the paper towels.
But aren’t vintage linens hard to clean? Nope. Got a bucket or laundry sink, water, Oxy and/or Shout, and a washer/drier handy, it’s EASY. Treat any stains and toss items in the soak bucket for the next wash load. For specific types of stains there are many ‘how to’ tutorials on the interwebs.
Doesn’t this create extra laundry and, in the process, more gas, electricity, and water consumed? Not really once the habits are in place. It will create conscious thought about one’s paper towel habit and, in the process, some new and ‘greener’ ones.
How hygienic are vintage linens, really? Quite. Hot water wash cycle and they’re sanitized, clean and ready to be used again.
What about bacon? Ah, yes, and what about BACON? Whether swine or vegan rice bacon, there’s gonna be grease, and you know what? There’s no better way to sop up and soak grease than with a good old-fashioned paper towel. Use paper towels as needed, of course. Just as needed.
How to start this ‘new’ vintage linens consciousness…
1 :: Bring out Aunt May’s linen napkins or the tea towels your mother inherited from her mother. They were meant to be used and loved. Pick up pretty linens at yard or estate sales, eBay or Etsy. Remember that vintage doesn’t have to be dowdy. Look at vintage Vera table linens, for example - as fresh today as they were in the 1960s.
2 :: Keep linens in handy, easy to reach places. Basket of napkins on the table. Mop towels in a drawer by the back door or hand towels in the glove box.
3 :: Stop keeping the paper towel roll in the most convenient places, i.e. on top of the counter near the sink. Force the household into new habits, drawers or glove box.
In time - one square at a time - you’re keeping some of that 45 pounds of paper towel from hitting the landfills.
Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do, or do without.