Bungalow 360 has this adorable, reversible tote for $26. It just screams SUMMER and I think that’s why I love it so much. It reminds me of the kind of canvas bags I used to carry around all of my beach toys. Apparently, it is reversible with polka dots on the inside. A-DOR-ABLE!

I’m a beachy girl AND a Pisces…so I love all things relating to the water.

My routine at night is pretty standard, but I realized how much it is influenced by pattern and color. I brush my teeth and rinse with my favorite, hand-painted mug that I bought in a tiny store in Rockport, MA. I don’t drink coffee, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love coffee mugs. I am also just about to begin a renovation project on my bathroom. It will be the first renovation project that I tackle on my own, so wish me luck. I’ve always liked the tiles on my bathroom floor, but change is good, so now I’m in search of a new bathroom “look”.

My bed is my safe-haven. I have always gone with a country-style when it comes to quilts and pillows. I’m a big fan of quilts. I can’t fall asleep without reading. Right now I’m deeply immersed in SALEM FALLS by Jodi Picoult. It is the perfect book for these long winter days.

I’m already looking forward to Spring! Today was a tiny hint of what’s to come. This is a shot from the March 2009 issue of Country Living.

Love, love, love!

How much do you love this teapot? Found it at Bauer Pottery Company.

I love their simple lines and use of vibrant colors. Here’s a vase.

I got this cute idea from Martha Stewart. Here are the instructions:

These little hand-stitched felt bears have an important duty: safely guarding teeth awaiting pickup by the Tooth Fairy. As Martha Stewart Living television stylist Cindy Treen demonstrates, you’ll need to know several basic embroidery stitches for this project: the backstitch, satin stitch, French knot, and whipstitch.

Tools and Materials
Tooth Bear template
Scissors
Felt
Straight pins
Embroidery thread
Needle
Polyester fiberfill
Chopstick or bone folder

Bear How-To
1. Print and cut out template. Pin to felt, and cut out one bear half; repin to a new piece of felt, and cut out second half.

2. Make the bear’s face: Embroider two French knots for the eyes, then make a nose with a satin stitch. Extend the nose one stitch down on each side to create the mouth.

3. Cut the pocket shape from the bear template, pin to a piece of felt, and cut out. Embroider a name and tooth image on the pocket, using a simple double-thread backstitch (this will make the details stand out). Attach the pocket to the bear’s front, using a single-thread whipstitch.

4. Starting at the top of one ear, stitch the front and back pieces of your bear together with a whipstitch; stop at the top of the other ear to create a space at the top of the head for stuffing.

5. Stuff the bear with polyester fiberfill, packing the stuffing tightly so that the body is firm. Use a chopstick or bone folder to push stuffing into the legs and arms.

6. Whipstitch the top of the bear’s head closed.

7. Embroider claws onto the ends of each arm and leg with a 1/4-inch whipstitch.

Cindy Treen used polyester fiberfill from JoAnn Fabrics and wool felt from Magic Cabin Dolls.

Tiny problem…I don’t know the whipstitch, or any stitch for that matter.

When it feels like your world is falling apart around you, the hardest thing to do is continue going about your daily tasks and focusing on work and responsibilities. However, with the economy crashing around us and people losing their jobs left and right, it is imperative that you remain professional and balanced at work. No emotional breakdowns allowed. So how is someone supposed to deal with emotional trauma and remain professionally “together?”

Christine Hassler tackles this question over at The Huffington Post. She also mentions something fascinating. A Japanese firm gives employees “heartache” leave when going through a break-up or divorce. Hassler advises readers to take a personal day, but take it seriously.

Don’t slack off on your personal day – it’s not a vacation! Use it to attend to your personal issues, not just as a day to catch up on errands and TiVo. Make an appointment with your counselor or life coach if you have one, spend time with a friend or mentor and do things that support you in dealing with your emotions so you can be more focused at work. Make the day one of closure with your ex.

Life is indeed a balance of dealing with the normal day in and day out “to-do’s” with the curveballs that get thrown our way. As tempting as it is to dodge the curveballs, it’s more empowering to deal with them head-on in a healthy way. But it is also our responsibility to attend to our personal matters outside of the office so that when we are on the clock, we can be focused and productive.

An article in today’s Boston Globe brought light to an area of the health industry that I find particularly intriguing.

At Duke, specially trained health coaches are helping patients implement a personalized care plan that complements treatment prescribed by their regular physicians. However, centers must straddle the line between adopting non-mainstream therapies that may improve a patient’s quality of life while avoiding unproven alternative therapies. “We’re extremely wasteful in healthcare in America, because we don’t respect what the patient can bring to the table, the healing properties of the body itself, the use of lower-technology routes to healing,” says Dr. Donald Berwick, a Harvard health-quality specialist who heads the non-profit institute for Healthcare Improvement.

But as always evidence matters. That’s why Medicare funded a Duke study of 154 middle-age people at high risk of heart disease. In 10 months, people who received health coaching were exercising nearly 4 days a week, two days more than when they started, and had an average 10-point drop in cholesterol, while the people who only got standard checkups barely budged.

My favorite dress at the Oscars! Love, love, love!

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I am intrigued by the current debate going on over the future of print journalism. Recently, The Daily Beast, weighed in with their opinions on the fate of print journalism. It is an interesting argument coming from one of the new leaders in online news and opinion. But here is the question, are sites like The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, The Women on the Web providing enough impartial journalism or are they too heavily weighted with opinion pieces?

Jill Abramson, managing editor of the New York Times, spoke at NYU recently and provided her observations on the importance of strong investigative reporting and print journalism. But can’t strong reporting come on the web? Is it the immediacy that causes people to consider it to be insignificant or inaccurate?  It is that the rush of getting the story out FIRST propels most websites into disseminating news before it is checked for accuracy or fact? This is the primary problem that leads to a lack of trust with online sources. However, in the world of topical issues, the more voices heard, the more accurate the understanding of the issue at hand. If you search for how the recession is affecting relationships, you find a number of personal, well thought out and well written stories about people’s reaction to the current economic downturn. This is the internet at its best. I think websites excel when they adopt the “Lifestyle Section” method for delivering information. These are the stories that people want to send around, talk about, use to create a dialog and post comments and reactions.

Yes, websites don’t have the same strict and stringent editorial process, but that doesn’t mean the information or news they provide is any less valid. In certain ways it mirrors how we, as a society, think and work, moment to moment with things changing all the time.