A morning bath can make you feel revitalized. Use a stimulating essential oil such as rosemary or grapefruit. 

Don’t stay in the tub too long, as an ultra-long bath strains your circulation and hot water dissolves your skin’s natural lipids. There is a definite correlation between bath temperatures, duration of soak and the mood your bath leaves you in.

REFRESHING
77 degrees F to 86 degrees F – Duration 10 minutes

RELAXING
98 degrees F to 102 degrees F – Duration 15-20 minutes

THERAPEUTIC
102 degrees F to 104 degrees F – Duration 10-30 minutes. To treat a cold or induce sweating.

Farmers Markets Flowers are a staple in my house every summer.  Farmers Markets have more than fruits and vegetables, they are also known for their gorgeous flowers (usually sold on the cheap).  In fact, for a well-rounded Farmers Market experience, you should leave with your hands full of fruits, veggies, herbs, breads, soaps, and, of course, gorgeous flowers.

The Tea Time Vivabox includes seven Numi Organic Teas: Aged Earl Grey, Monkey King Jasmine Green, White Rose, Ruby Chai Herbal Rooibos, Temple of Heaven Green, Starlight Rose Flowering Tea, and Sunset Oolong Flowering Tea. In addition to the teas, a gift card for one of Vivabox’s Tea Time Gift Set options is included. Winners can choose from one of the following products: the Single Origins Tea Set, a Bamboo Flowering Gift Set, the Dancing Leaves Teapot with five flowering teas, a Bamboo Book of Tea with six different flavored tea bags, or the iRelax with Numi Organic Tea gift. All winners will also receive a soothing CD to help enhance your teatime experience. (value $49.50). VivaboxUSA.com

Enter To Win Here.

My friend Michelle, aka Buffmother, taught me a trick I use on a daily basis.  She loads up her To-Do list with things like Drink 10 oz of water or Stretch for one full minute.   She calls it her five minute mojo checklist.  My favorite way to find my “mojo” is to take five deep breaths, …very…..long…..slow…..breaths.  Controlling your breath centers you, and calms your central nervous system.  Breathing in five (minimum) deep breaths helps you to focus, and is excellent in calming anxiety.  Great stress reliever.   

Create a secret garden in your own yard.  Pergola arches are sold at home improvement stores, and berries patches or vines will grow abundantly all over them with relatively little upkeep.  Totally eco-chic!  Secret gardens are the new hot tubs.   This is a fairly easy weekend project that will give you years of zen pleasure.  I instantly think of English tea cups and garden parties when I think of secret gardens….and outdoor weddings!    Gorgeousness!

Hello Lover!  Could you be more perfect?  More luscious bath design!  Let’s discuss!  This bath appears to be on the first floor…which makes the windows a bit risque, but the windows are at least one-third of this bath’s gorgeousness, so the windows stay!   The columns scream classy, sophisticated.  The warm buttery-honey color softens the tone, creating instant relaxation.  And lets face it, the tub is big enough for a party.  Love that!  The columns make this bath stand apart from the rest.  It brings an expensivse, upscale spa feel.  When you are choosing colors for the bathroom, keep in mind the feeling you want to have when you are in there…calm, zen, sexy?  That’s what I want, but it’s all relative and very personal.  Loud colors would never work for me in a bath.  If you want to know what your true style is, start a design folder and start collecting pictures from magazines of everything you love.  Your design style will be obvious after a while. 

You know those someday aspirations?  As in…someday, I’m going to accomplish __x__.  Someday, I’m going to have the career I love.  Someday, I’m going to backpack around Europe.  We all have someday aspirations.  One of my small, but significant, ones is having a greenhouse in my yard.  I’ve dreamed about it forever.  To be able to grow herbs, fresh veggies, and flowers in your yard without having to guard them like Fort Knox from the elements and animals is absolutely divine to me. What a sanctuary that would be!  I’d probably move my office in there just for the ultra zen appeal of it all.

Someday, I’m going to have a greenhouse in my yard.  And what a day that will be!

Here are some examples of unique and seriously beautiful greenhouses.

Here are five great selections to give to yourself, or a friend this holiday season.  Everyone loves a great read, and more so, everyone starts to think about ways to improve their life this time of year (think New Year’s resolutions!)  Here are a few of my favorites.   Extra points if you can turn someone on to the love of reading.  One of these great books will get a non-book-reader headed in the right direction. 

   Quiet Mind by David Kundtz.   More than a meditation book, Quiet Mind is a series of reflections that can illuminate every aspect of life. It offers readers guidance on using the moments between activities, which the author calls “stillpoints”.  As opportunities to focus on becoming more fully awake to who they are. “These times are the ‘spaces in between’ the events of your life,” writes Kundtz, “spaces often lost, or worse, filled with anxiety. And these spaces in between are just waiting to bring you the calmness and clarity that an over-demanding schedule steals from you.” A welcome respite for anyone whose gear shift is perpetually in overdrive, Quiet Mind is an invitation to rest, find peace, awaken, and remember. It offers deceptively simple wisdom to help readers sharpen their senses and make room for life.

    Instant Karma by Barbara Ann Kipfer.  Help others. Help yourself. Be a better person, and make the world a better place. Using the wisdom of the East to instruct and inspire, INSTANT KARMA is a universe of things a reader can do, right now, to accumulate good karma. And, like pennies going into a piggy bank, each is a seemingly little thing-but feed the bank day after day and feel it grow richer and happier.  Created by Barbara Ann Kipfer, the author whose books-including 14,000 Things to Be Happy About, 8,789 Words of Wisdom, and The Wish List-have 1.2 million copies in print, INSTANT KARMA is a compulsive, densely packed, chunky little book of 10,000 or so suggestions, wishes, thoughts, and the occasional heartening quotation.

   It’s Up to You by Karen Casey.  It’s Up to You invites readers to do three simple things: meditate, pay attention, and make choices to change their lives–for a few minutes each morning and evening, one principle a week for twelve weeks. As we reflect on Casey’s insight into the insidious ways we create misery or drama, try to impose will, and suffer needlessly, and as we follow her gentle prompts to make different choices, we begin to see that we can change just about anything in our lives by taking these small steps. Nothing could be simpler, and nothing could be more effective. Or as Karen Casey puts it, “Progress is guaranteed. Perfection isn’t expected.”

   Easy Green Living by Renee Loux.  We are what we eat, but we also are what we use to clean our homes, pamper our skin, and decorate our rooms, according to Renée Loux, accomplished raw food chef, award-winning author, and host of Fine Living TV’s Easy Being Green. In her new book, Easy Green Living, she applies her whole-foods philosophy to home, garden, and beauty routines.  Renée Loux demonstrates that being green at home is easy, affordable, and better in every sense of the word. She discusses the daily choices we face that can keep the home, personal care, and beauty routines free of toxins. She exposes the dirt on cleaning products and common hazardous ingredients and reveals her recommendations for greener options, including her “Green Thumb Guides” for choosing non-toxic, eco-smart, and human-friendly products. Peppered with compelling and inspiring facts, Easy Green Living is full of “5 Step” lists, products and recipes for green cleaning, helpful charts, safer choices for every room, and inspirational advice so we can save the planet–one cleaning spritz at a time.

  The Girls’ Guide To Building A Million-Dollar Business by Susan Wilson Solovic.  Featuring interviews with daring, powerhouse women like Gayle Martz, President & CEO, Sherpa’s Pet Trading Company, and Taryn Rose of Taryn Rose International, Solovic offers frank advice and hard-won lessons including:
-Taking emotions out of the workplace.
-Make business decisions based on what is best for the company, not on your personal feelings.
-Thinking big and bold.
-Believe that you can be successful and be willing to announce your intentions to the world.
-Managing for growth.
-Hire the right people and discover the best ways to keep them.
-Never being afraid to take a chance.
-Boost profits by taking financial risks.

Inspiring and unflinching, The Girls’ Guide to Building a Million-Dollar Business shows women that not only do they have the power to earn more money and control their financial destinies – they deserve to.

For a limited time, receive a one year subscription to Healing Lifestyles and Spas Magazine with any $75.00 purchase at Supernatural Botanicals, www.SupernaturalBotanicals.com   Click here for offer details:  http://supernaturalbotanicals.com/SpecialOfferHealingLifestylesandSpaMagazine.html