Let’s focus on some happy things…Do One Thing Every Day That Makes You Happy: A Journal was recommended to me and I love it!!! Try it and add a little sunshine to your life:
Each day presents an opportunity to find delight, whether in your surroundings, your work, your relationships, your insights, or your actions. This journal will guide you to look inside and outside yourself to discover and appreciate what makes you happiest.
With prompts and exercises, the wise words of writers, musicians, philosophers, and leaders will help you reflect on what fills you with joy. You’ll measure your happiness at the outset and along the way; after a year’s worth of delight, your smile will be bigger than ever. – Amazon.com
For more information or to purchase this book, click HERE
Another week down!!!!! I wonder how many more to go? A reader sent me a message that she was sick of baking and wanted to know if I had any suggestions for something else to pass the time. I partnered with Target and found some really cool, really different crafts that everyone in the family might like. They are all under $15 and should arrive within a few days!!! Bon Weekend!! (click the image below to see the products)
I love this lip balm kit…everyone can use a new lip balm, right?!!!
How about buying a few of these and designing your own dessert or salad plates!!!!
If you love the MoMA like me….
I just thought this sun catcher was so cute…..makes me look forward to the summer!!!
Another favorite….an at home spa kit….we all could us this right about now….for sure
Such a great idea…a Terrarium!!!! This is just what we need with the lack of flowers around our homes these days!!!!
This has got to be one of my favorite things……a signature scent perfume kit!!!!!
For the reader that told me her 3 girls LOVE slime..I had to included it…
I saw this kit in a store in Greenwich a couple of months ago and I almost bought it then…these slippers are adorable…a great way to pass a few hours!!
I thought candle making might be a lot of fun!!!
This is not technically a craft but I bought these for me and my girls to try…and OMG they are awesome..for $5.00 they are super easy to apply and look great!!!!
The question used to be where are you going for Easter Sunday but now it is what are you cooking for Easter Sunday!!!!!????!!! So many of my friends are planing their Easter menus. I am going back and forth about what I should serve my family. Some friends are doing a big brunch, others are attempting a lamb dish. I am doing a combination of some take out and some cooking. I always love to try new side dishes. I found this rice recipe online the other day. It really looks good. How can you go wrong with butter, parmesan and mozzarella cheese? Bon Appetit!!!
1 cup rice, 2/3 stick butter, 2 cups milk, 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 1 large brick mozzarella (cut up into 1/4 inch cubes), 1 egg (beaten)
Cook rice in salted water (I use a rice cooker).
Add butter and milk gradually to the HOT rice. (If it appears to dry, add more milk but make sure it is not soupy).
Add Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese and egg.
Grease a pyrex dish, add rice, dot the top with butter.
Bake at 350 for 1 hour.
Do you remember the song 99 Red Balloons? That was one of my favorite songs during high school…Just the image of those balloons being released..pure bliss..My friend Xanthe started a balloon decor company called loveballoonsxoxo. She specializes in corporate events and celebrations. However, she is starting to bring her business back home. If you live in the Westchester area, Xanthe will deliver a special, colorful EASTER BOUQUET to your house just in time for the Easter Bunny. I love her designs and I can’t wait for my bouquet to brighten up everything around here, especially the attitudes!!!!!..I did not post a photo of the bouquet because right now we all really need a special uplifting surprise so if you do order one, you will be as surprised as I will when it arrives. Please keep Xanthe in mind for all your future celebrations, including all those cute quarantine drive-by birthday parties. To order your own EASTER BOUQUET email Xanthe HERE.
I cannot tell you how many times I hear “no one wants silver anymore”. It’s a pain to polish. It is a pain to polish but it looks so good when its all shiny and out on display. So many people have random silver pieces tucked away. Well, today is your rainy day. Get out that silver. You are home with hours to pass. Start cleaning and find a new purpose for Grandma’s or mom’s heirloom…Here are some really great ideas for making your old silver look new again, all around the house. Don’t forget…send me your photos…..I’d love to share them!!!!
PS…here is the best tip for polishing silver…….
Tarnished silver is no match for this aluminum foil “recipe.” Bring one liter of water, one tablespoon of baking soda, and one piece of aluminum foil to a boil. Drop silverware in the pot for 10 seconds (longer if it’s very tarnished), then remove using kitchen tongs. Magic!
Everyone is readying so much more during these long days at home..A friend told me that her son read one of the Monday book club books in ONE DAY!!! Woah…I need to up my game…Here are a bunch of books that you can get for your Kindle for free…they are all award-winning titles and sound really really good. If you are spending a lot of time on your computer these days, like me, try these Blue Light Blocking Glasses. They should help with headaches and eye fatigue. I just ordered mine so I can get reading!!
When Justin walks out on Alice on their honeymoon, with no explanation apart from a cryptic note, Alice is left alone and bewildered, her life in pieces.
Then she meets Evelyn, a visitor to the gallery where she works. It’s a seemingly chance encounter, but Alice gradually learns that Evelyn has motives, and a heartbreaking story, of her own. And that story has haunting parallels with Alice’s life.
As Alice delves into the mystery of why Justin left her, the questions are obvious. But the answers may lie in the most unlikely of places…
Impossible choices are made, decisions that leave the survivors tormented with grief and regret. Unable to let go, Finn keeps vigil as they struggle to reclaim their shattered lives. Jack, her father, who seeks vengeance against the one person he can blame other than himself; her best friend, Mo, who bravely searches for the truth as the story of their survival is rewritten; her sister Chloe, who knows Finn lingers and yearns to join her; and her mother, Ann, who saved them all but is haunted by her decisions. Finn needs to move on, but how can she with her family still in pieces?
Heartrending yet ultimately redemptive, In an Instant is a story about the power of love, the meaning of family, and carrying on…even when it seems impossible.
Kate’s return flips her family’s world upside down—her husband is remarried, and her daughter barely remembers her. Kate herself doesn’t look or act like she did before.
While the family tries to help Kate reintegrate into society, they discover truths they’ve been hiding from each other about their own relationships. But they aren’t the only ones with secrets. As the family unravels what happened to Kate, a series of shocking revelations shows that Kate’s return is more sinister than any of them could have imagined.
So, when wealthy couple James and Rosemary come to choose a child to adopt, Angela is desperate to escape.
Years later, Angela starts to search for her birth mother, Evelyn, hoping to heal the scars of her childhood. But strange and sinister events start to unfold. And Evelyn fears she may not survive her daughter’s return.
Then Charlie vanishes without a trace, and all that seemed safe is shattered by a tragedy that is incomprehensible—except to Liz.
It took one fleeting moment for her to change the lives of everyone she loves—a heartrending accident that can’t be undone. Neither can the second-worst mistake of her life: concealing it. As two marriages crack and buckle in grief and fear, Liz retreats into her own dark place of guilt, escalating paranoia—and betrayals even she can’t imagine. Because there’s another good neighbor who has his own secrets, his own pain, and his own reasons for watching Liz’s every move.
And only he knows that the mystery of the missing boy on the Deschutes River is far from over.
The story she pieces together is confusing and unsettling, and appears to have been patched over with lies. But who can tell her the truth? With her father sinking into Alzheimer’s and her brother reluctant to help, it seems Cara will never find the answers to her questions. One thing is clear, though: someone knows more than they’re letting on.
Torn between loyalty to her family and dread of what she might find, Cara digs into the early years of her parents’ troubled marriage, hunting down long-lost relatives who might help unravel the mystery. But the picture that begins to emerge is not at all the one she’d expected—because as she soon discovers, lies have a habit of multiplying . . .
From behind a computer screen, Autumn watches Grace’s every memory, from birthdays to holidays to bedtime snuggles. But what starts as an innocent fascination soon spirals into an addictive obsession that comes to a screeching halt the day the McMullen family closes their Instaface account without so much as a warning.
Frantic and desperate to reconnect with her daughter, Autumn applies for a nanny position with the McMullens, manipulating herself into Grace’s life under false pretenses. And it’s only then that Autumn discovers pictures lie, the perfect family doesn’t exist, and beautiful people? They have the ugliest secrets.