Turn Your Home into a Summer Retreat (HGTV.com)
The sun is shining, the garden's in full bloom and the grill is beckoning you from the patio. Even if you can't get away for vacation until August, you can turn your home into a summer retreat that's perfect for long, languid summer nights and playful weekends.

     When the warm weather comes, entertaining friends and family naturally follows. You can extend your entertaining space—and your living space—by blurring the line between the indoors and the outdoors. Furniture is a great place to begin creating this seamless indoor/outdoor look and feel.

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Get Your Kids Organized for Life (HGTV.com)
When it comes to organizing, my two sons couldn't be more different. Drew, 13, is a neat freak and Justin, 17, is, well, far from being the King of Clean. I have a relaxed attitude about clutter, but I'm not a slob. So, how did I wind up living with Oscar and Felix from The Odd Couple?

     "Kids may react to their parents' lack of organizational skills in two different ways: They'll either become super organizers to combat your shortcomings, or they'll try to be an even bigger slob than you are," says Marla Cilley, who offers online coaching to purge clutter and is the author of Sink Reflections: FlyLady's Baby Step Guide to Overcoming CHAOS...Read entire article

Food Roots: Iron Chef Sue Torres (Hallmark, February 2009)
As told to Jennifer Haupt

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of the summers I spent with my grandma Ramona Rosa Torres in her three-story house in Queens. As a girl living in the suburbs of Long Island, the exotic smells in her Puerto Rican kitchen—onions, garlic, peppers and beans cooked in lard—transported me to the caribbean island of my ancestors...contact me for entire article

Find More Time (Woman's Day, March 2008)
Between everything I have to get done for work and my family, organizing my house and even my own social life just falls to the bottom of my to-do list. It seems that there's just never enough time to get everything done. What if you could actually squeeze more minutes into your day?

      "The trick is to maneuver all of the little tasks that can build up and overwhelm you into the nooks and crannies of your daily schedule," says professional organizer Mary Jo Rulnick, who suggests keeping a running list of five-minute jobs on the fridge and in your purse for easy reference...Contact me for entire article

Garden of Eatin' (AARP: The Magazine, January 2005)

Please don’t eat the daisies—but feel free to munch on tulips, roses, pot marigolds and other garden-variety flowers. “People pay $4 for a little container of 10 pansies in the gourmet produce department, and edible rosebuds can easily run $20 for 50 little blossoms,” says Cathy Wilkinson Barash, who has been growing edible flowers for 35 years and has been known to snack on a handful of orange day lilies. “The shame is that you can easily grow tastier flowers in your own yard or windowsill for free.” ...Contact me for entire article