The Cincinnati Enquirer ran a piece on Back to School recently, including a few food safety tips, below,   about how to keep lunches fresh- and safe!

If you don’t have an insulated lunch bag on hand, keep food cool by nesting two paper bags one inside the other. Whatever type of container you use, add a freezer pack or frozen food item to keep things on ice.

Keep hot foods hot. If your child is taking hot soup or chili for lunch, pack it in an insulated bottle. Between uses, wash the bottle and rinse it with boiling water.

Keep everything else cold. You can keep foods cold by using [Read more →]

Listen to the interview. Link contains Todd Kelly interview as well.  Rita’s interview, part 2.

Rita Heikenfeld is a certified modern herbalist, author, cooking teacher, radio and television personality and her weekly column in the Community Press Newspapers often features tips and recipes for cooking with herbs.  She was recently an invited presenter at the Herb Society of America‘s National Conference and one of her videos was featured on the Today Show in a montage of “successful UTube videos”.  Her segments on Sacred Heart Radio (Thursday mornings, on Bible herbs & foods) have gone national. Rita shared so many great  ideas  with me today . Check out her site for great ways to use herbs for home “spa” treatments,  how to dry and freeze herbs and so much more.

This is Rita’s beautiful garden. She shared this recipe for Gardener’s Hand Cream: 1/4 cup petroleum jelly to 1 cup generic hand cream – mix with mixer and add favorite essential oil.

Rita roasts tomatoes with basil. oregano and thyme. Click here to learn how to freeze them.

Listen to the interview.

Annie Spiegelman is a California Master Gardener and the garden columnist for the Bay Area’s Pacific Sun newspaper, where she writes the “Dirt Diva” organic gardening column. She is also a frequent contributor to Organic Style Magazine, New York Spirit, the Marin Independent Journal, Creative Home, Learn2Grow.com, and UrbanSustainableLiving.com. She’s the author of Talking Dirt: The Dirt Diva’s Down-to-Earth Guide to Organic Gardening.

She’s passionate about sustainable gardening and can often be heard lawn-bashing or talking dirt about the excessive use of chemical pesticides. Visit her website at www.dirtdiva.com (where critics will be composted).

Summer Pasta Salad

Ingredients:
1 large yellow tomato
1 large red tomato
1 large green tomato
1 medium red pepper
1 medium yellow pepper
1 medium green pepper
1 small red onion
1 small white onion [Read more →]

Listen to Amy’s tips.

Physical clutter leads to emotional and mental clutter that can cause  stress in our lives. That’s why when we take a minute here and there to get our desk, or our purse, our cupboards or our closets in order, we feel light, refreshed and ready to take on the world. The problem is that we often wait till the clutter gets out of control, instead  preventing it from happening in the first place.

What if you started a daily ritual of giving 10 minutes of your time to preventing clutter from ever building up in your life?  Here’s how:

Spend 5 minutes every morning as you’re getting dressed  de-cluttering your closet. Whether that’s spent putting away shoes or sewing a missing button on a favorite shirt or giving away an item you just don’t wear any more, those 5 minutes will be well spent. At the end of the day,  do the same thing.   Just 10 minutes, broken into manageable moments of time, really will make you feel, light, refreshed and ready to take on the world!

Here are some tips for getting rid of your closet clutter:

Each season, empty your closet and try on each item. Look at yourself in a full length mirror. Enlist your husband or a friend. Is that outfit doing you any favors? How do you feel in it? Does it fit right? Does it need mending? Will you ever be able to get out that stain? 
As you try on clothes, pay attention to which items your confidante tells you look great on you. And think about which outfits work for which occasion. Everyone needs a few go- to outfits that work for things like important business meetings or weekend vacations. Then create 4 piles and make sure to assign each and every item of clothing in your closet to one of those piles: keep, fix, donate, or toss. Follow the same steps for your shoes and accessories.

Once you’re ready to put things back in, consider treating yourself to some nice hangers. My favorites are the [Read more →]

You’re sure to find lots of crookneck squash at Findlay Market this week. Try this easy recipe for Pan-Fried Yellow Squash.

Ingredients
3 yellow crook-neck squash
2 cups flour
1 cup white corn meal [Read more →]

I love this Domino box from one on my favorite catalogs, Wisteria. It looks great and it’s become the perfect place to stash our (many!) remotes.

Listen to the interview.

Carlos Mota is the author of Flowers Chic & Cheap. He’s the editor at large of Elle Decor and has styled and produced featured stories for Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, the New York Times, New York magazine and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Carlos believes every room should have flowers. I couldn’t agree more! Flowers add a level of style and freshness to a space like nothing else can.  ”It’s not just a pillow and a throw. It adds something to the room,”  says Carlos. “A big part of interior styling is using flowers.”

Here are a few tips from Carlos to fill your home with flowers.

1.) Pedestals in the entrance hall-when you walk into your house the first thing you see should be flowers.

2.) Divide a room; place large branches in vases and set them on a skinny table or chairs between the two spaces

3.)In the bathroom-think of how nice it would be to see a rose instead of your sleepy morning face!

4.) In the kitchen, use something with more volume, like ferns and carnations.

5.) On window sills: they are so often ugly. Just a few bottles with a couple of stems and the light coming through the glass are so pretty.

Listen to Amy\’s tips.

The best way to get motivated to update your outdoor space is to plan a party. It gives you something to work toward. Look over your deck and yard with a truly critical eye, then jump right in. An hour here and there can really add up.

1. Clear it out: Have lawn tools, garbage cans or broken toys become part of the scenery? Get rid of them or store them away in the garage or garden shed.
2. Clean it up: Trim, weed, edge, prune, paint and repair.
3. Claim your space: Do you have kids? Create a play spot. Do lots of grilling? Outdoor dining should be [Read more →]

This pretty tomato came from my garden and I’m going to use it to make my favorite sandwich ever: Tomato and mayo on good bread. Lots of salt, a little pepper. Tomato still warm from the sun. Yum!