Tifmurray

If you've never made chimichurri sauce before, you really must—it's so good! It is a classic sauce and certainly not my own invention. I've made a few different versions, and I am always amazed how much flavor it adds to any dish. It's especially great on steak. So I thought why not try some marinated tempeh steaks. 

You could serve this over some steamed rice or alongside a salad. Even if you're on the fence about tempeh, I still would recommend giving this recipe a try as it's pretty delicious and super filling. 

Tempeh Steaks with Chimichurri Sauce, serves two
Sauce recipe adapted from Epicurious

For the tempeh:
8 oz. tempeh
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon molasses
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne

For the chimichurri sauce:
1/3 cup parsley
2 tablespoons cilantro
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 clove of garlic
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil

Cut the tempeh into flanks or cubes. In a small bowl or drinking glass, stir together the soy sauce, molasses, liquid smoke, apple cider vinegar, cumin, and cayenne. Pour a little of the sauce in the bottom of a small baking dish or an oven safe bowl. Add the tempeh. Pour the remaining sauce over the tempeh. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours, flipping the tempeh once in the middle of the marinate time. 

Bake the tempeh in the same dish, covered with aluminum foil, at 350°F for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 18 to 20 minutes.

To make the sauce, you'll need a food processor or good blender. To the processor add the parsley, cilantro, lemon juice, garlic, red pepper, cumin, and salt. Pulse until well combined. With the processor running (if possible), slowly add the olive oil. 

Drizzle the sauce over the tempeh steaks and serve with your side of choice. Enjoy — happy healthy dinner to you! xo. Emma

Credits // Author and Photography: Emma Chapman. Photos edited with A Beautiful Mess actions. 

Target is prepping for their next collaboration to launch and it’s bound to be massive hit, much like their epic Missoni collection. Marimekko for Target drops April 17th featuring over 200 pieces of home decor items, furniture, along with apparel and accessories for both women and girls. The theme centers around summertime and carrying that feeling all year long. Take a look at some of our favorite Marimekko x Target decor items… we hope to snag some before they get snapped up.

1. Salad Plates 2. Hurricane Lantern – Traktori Print 3. Umbrella 8’x6′ – Kukkatori Print 4. Adult Bicycle – Kukkatori Print 5. Body Board – Mansikkavuoret & Koppelo Print 6. Oversized Beach Tote – Albatrossi Print 7. Kitchen Towels – Kukkatori & Appelsiini Print 8. Deck Chair – Koppelo Print 9. Beach Towel – Kaivo Print 10. Carafe Drinkware Set – Lokki Print 11. Bean Bag – Appelsiini Print 12. Napkins – Multi Print

The weather outside Milan, Italy was gloomy, but the mood inside was downright party-like at this year’s 46th annual MIDO Milan Eyewear Show 2016. At the invitation of the Italian Trade Commission, Design Milk was invited this year to experience what turned out to be an overwhelming surprise in scope and scale, a trade event dedicated to eyewear in every form and fashionable imaginable. For three days, the world of eyeglasses and sunglasses converged in Milan to celebrate the spectacle of spectacles with design in focus.

52,000 visitors from around the globe convened into a multitude of halls showcasing the latest in eyeglasses, sunglasses, eyewear storage, and fabrication devices used by those within the industry, with the fashionable attendees themselves part of the show’s party-like atmosphere.

Boutique brands showcased their wares inside sections designated for more daring and innovative debuts, and it was there where we discovered the majority of our favorite designs on display. Innovative use of ecologically sourced materials of unexpected nature, hinge-less looping forms, the application of marble and chainlink metal onto the face of sunglasses, and intricately 3D printed designs all helped expand our vocabulary and appreciation for eyewear.

Designers from Italy (the center of the eyewear universe), other European nations, Asia, and the Americas unveiled new eyeglasses and sunglasses in carefully curated and decorated exhibition booths that would not have looked out of place at CES in size and detail, ranging from global licensing giants to single-person operation brands. It’s not an exaggeration to say MIDO was on par with any consumer electronics, automotive, or fashion trade event I’ve attended in the past.

In hindsight, I didn’t really know what to expect from my first MIDO. My expectations were modest, imagining a typical trade event with a sedate atmosphere. How wrong I was. The Italians take their eyewear – and the business surrounding it – very seriously. Equally so, those at the show seemed to recognize an unspoken appreciation for “business before pleasure…but pleasurably so”, with a palpable celebratory vibe amongst exhibitors and attendees alike. MIDO turned out to be one of the most exciting and design inspiring design shows we’ve attended, attributable to the international attendees, the festive exhibits, the fashionable people, and of course, the endless amount of eyewear on display. This year’s MIDO theme was advertised as “Never Ending Wonder” and it’s fair to say the show lived up to this promise.

Below are a dozen favorite innovative designs from MIDO Milan Eyewear Show 2016:

NUIIT Eyewear Prototype

pq by Ron Arad

Morà Marble

Gamine Saint Martin

iWoodoo Fred Mix

Masahiromaruyama 2side

Wonderland Mojave

Fakoshima x Manish Arora Sunglasses

Retrosuperfuture Tuttolente

Rolf Spectacles

Naoned Eyewear Dôn Seaweed Glasses

K3 Cage Sunglasses

Over the years, Jonathan Adler has developed quite the family of furniture collections, each with their own distinct look at feel. The company follows the craft approach when it comes to design – meaning, they sculpt prototypes in their Soho pottery studio before building full-scale models of each piece in their workshop. They also travel near and far looking for just the right materials to complete each piece. The designs span styles, from modern to mid-century to futuristic, to name a few, with something for just about everyone. Take a look at some of our favorite pieces.

With warm honey finishes, these organic-shaped storage pieces in the Antibes collection veer towards warm modernism and are topped off with geometric nailhead patterns.

Antibes Four-Door Console

Antibes Side Table

Caracas Six-Light Chandelier

The Caracas collection works with spheres, rods, and cones to create luxe and dynamic lighting and furniture options.

Caracas 16-Light Chandelier

Ultra Side Table in Rose Gold and Carrara Marble

Merging masculine and feminine, the Ultra collection hints at the futuristic with their sleek use of metals, like rose gold, and glossy Carrara marble.

Ultra Cocktail Table in Rose Gold and Carrara Marble

Ultra Dining Table in Rose Gold and Carrara Marble

Ultra Chandelier

Maxime Daybed

The Maxime collection features details of bent brass and the brand’s signature arrow sabots, which result in bold pieces that feel light and airy.

Maxime Dining Chair

Maxime Dining Chair

Jacques Pendant in Clear Lucite and Brushed Brass

Polished metal corners and lucite frames make up the Jacques collection adding a luxe statement while feeling weightless and transparent.

Jacques Pendant in Clear Lucite and Brushed Brass

Jacques Pendant in Smoke Lucite and Polished Nickel

Mrs. Godfrey Sofa

Godfrey’s mid-century feel is the result of a swooping frame and button details placed on the side.

Malibu Sectional

Malibu offers deep, comfortable seating with clean lines and simple brushed brass legs.

Talitha Credenza

With a glam nickel-plated metal exterior that’s then hand-stamped with the pattern, the Talitha collection gives the feel of silver leaf while also being extremely durable.

See all of the new pieces on jonathanadler.com.

Masquespacio usually spends their time designing for other people, but then, it was time to do it for themselves. The innovative Spanish agency decided it was time to redesign their own studio in Valencia, as well as their brand identity. Known for their use of bright colors and decorative elements, they pulled out all the stops for their own renovation and image revamp.

The interior features a multitude of colors, which were chosen because they were the trendy colors from various projects. They’ll continue to play with colors based on trends of the particular time. They wanted to elevate the design so it wouldn’t just be a place to work – they wanted a warm environment with decorative elements that encouraged creativity.

Contrasting materials and finishes live harmoniously amongst the vivid color palette, which is softened by the incorporation of plants.

Their recently designed Toadstool collection is featured in the waiting room.

The design began with the studio’s brand image which focused on the word ‘Mas’ (the first three letters in their name), which means ‘more’ in English. The ‘S’ is split, dividing each of the two different parts of each graphic application. The division is meant to show the value offered by them in each of their projects.

Interior photos by Bruno Almela.
Branding photos by Luis Beltran.

RE.BIN wants to steer you away from traditional, unsightly recycling bins and use stylish, yet equally as functional alternatives. Made of 100% recycled plastic, these reusable bins have a minimalist look, much like a paper grocery bag.

The bins are 12.75” x 8.75” x 17.5” and look good on display in the kitchen or you can hide it away as it fits inside a normal-sized kitchen cabinet. The bin doesn’t require liners, but users can line it with paper bags from the grocery store to grab on the way out.

RE.BIN comes in black or white, and is meant to be displayed. You can support RE.BIN on Kickstarter here.

Happy National Cherry month, friends!  Wayfair asked me to join in their Cherry Sweet Campaign with my favorite cherry-focused recipe.  

This is one of my go-to recipes for dessert when we’re having friends over and even for breakfast.  Wait, breakfast?  Yes, it’s so healthy that you can definitely eat it for breakfast….just maybe leave off the ice cream.  

You guys know we’re pretty weird eaters with our dairy and gluten allergies. Cooking and baking have become one of my favorite hobbies in these last few years and eating has always been my favorite hobby!  When all of these allergies came our way a few years ago, I knew I had to find delicious recipes that fit our requirements or I might go into a food-deprived depression.  Many of you have asked for some of the recipes I’ve mentioned in the past, so I thought this was a great opportunity to share one that I can’t get enough of.

I like recipes that are healthy, incredibly simple, and taste like you’re really cheating when you’re not.  This cherry crisp fits the bill, y’all.  I’ve made several different versions of fruit crisps over the years that were paleo.  Paleo guarantees that it’s gluten and dairy free, so those are great recipes for us to try.  I’ve tweaked my crisp recipe to include more topping than some I’ve found.  I love that extra crisp and sweetness on top.  I also use coconut oil instead of the other types of oil some call for.  To me, this makes all the difference.  I love using coconut oil in baking wherever I can because it adds such a sweetness and richness.  Plus, it’s a super food, so win-win.

You can make this recipe with any fruit.  Blueberry has been my favorite until I tried it with cherries.  I used frozen organic Dark Sweet Cherries from Whole Foods.  I love that you can use frozen fruit with this recipe because it’s so much easier to make it whenever you like (plus, it’s usually cheaper).  A lot of cherry pie or cobbler recipes call for tart cherries.  I don’t add any sugar to the fruit, so I went with these dark sweet cherries for a little added sweetness.  But trust me, you will not miss the extra sugar. 

Gluten-free, Dairy-free Cherry Crisp

Ingredients:

4 cups dark sweet cherries

3/4 cup almond meal

1 1/4 cup old fashioned oats

1/3 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup coconut oil

Pinch of salt

Directions:

1.  Place frozen dark sweet cherries in the bottom of an 8×8″ baking dish.  

2. Combine almond meal, oats, and salt in a separate bowl.  Stir in maple syrup.

3. Melt the coconut oil in a pan and then poor into mixture.  Stir to combine.

4. Spoon the crisp topping over the cherries.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes (until top browns).

6. Top with vanilla ice cream while still warm (trust me).  We use So Delicious Coconut Milk ice cream from Whole Foods.

I had a big heaping bowl of this with ice cream yesterday when it came out of the oven.  And I may have eaten another one this morning sans ice cream.  Enjoy friends and Happy Cherry Month!  And a big thanks to Wayfair for putting on this fun series.

The post Gluten-free, Dairy-free Cherry Crisp appeared first on thewhitebuffalostylingco.com.

i’ve been wanting to plant a little vegetable garden here at the new house, but haven’t been able to find just the right spot. until i decided on these galvanized troughs i found on amazon. i’d been looking for these for a while after seeing something similar in stable cafe’s herb garden in san francisco, but i guess it hadn’t occurred to me that amazon would have such an item. they come in a variety of sizes, but i chose two at 4.5′ x 2′ (the 98 gallon size at just $150). i wanted to plant the garden close to the kitchen for easy access and since it’s all paved or stones, the galvanized troughs were the perfect solution because they could be placed on top of the stone pavers. they’d be a great solution for a lot of small spaces. oh, but one annoyance warning: they come with these big ugly stickers on them, so i used goo-gone and some boiling hot water and scraped them off with a knife. why stickers, why!?

these tanks are meant to be used on farms as animal feeding or water troughs but lots of people use them for garden and vegetable beds and i love the way they look. we drilled holes in the bottom and added gravel for good drainage and then loaded them with some really good organic soil. we added a ton of water and mixed up the soil to get lots of aeration in there. and then we hit the local nursery — my favorite here in L.A. is sunset nursery because they have a great variety of good quality, organic plants, and they are super helpful. i got lettuces, kale, argula, carrots, tomatoes, zuchhini, cucumbers and a bunch of herbs. then i labeled everything with these copper plant stakes. so cute, right?

i can’t tell you how happy it makes me and how satisfying it feels to grow something that i can actually eat. wish me luck! and if you’re looking for a vegetable bed idea, try this out!

spring is here and with it blooms are everywhere. the tree down the street from me is on fire, and in japan cherry and plum blossoms are exploding. high desert flowers are in bloom too. i couldn’t help but notice and be enamored by these lovely blooms in full swing images all over my pinterest feed so i thought you might enjoy seeing them, too. a trip to japan is high on my list so i think i’d best make it spring time — i wouldn’t want to miss the trees in Hanami Yama Park in Fukushima city (above) — just unbelievably beautiful!

• photo credits in order: exerciced style; a flanio; dylan m howell photography; sara k byrne on VSCO; skeletales; satoshi h; foxes & feathers; mowielicious; top dreamer; hannes runelöv; paul hiller photography.

Today’s post is sponsored by The Home Depot, but all creativity and opinions are my own.

It’s spring y’all! Or like it was for all of winter here in Texas. Then it was super cold over Spring Break. I don’t even care because Easter is next week, so let’s get all pastel-y and Spring-ish. I partnered with The Home Depot and some incredible bloggers to put our own spin on a wooden door mat as part of their DIY Workshops.

I went to Home Depot with both kids in tow because I’m crazy I was so ready to add a little spring along with some organization to our garage. I was thinking maybe it might kick me into high gear for the season like the Christmas wreath trio did.

I got 8 – 36″ x 2″ x 2″ Square End Balusters which I had a Home Depot employee cut in half for me. Great option for those of you short on time or terrified of power tools. You can still pull this project off easily! This gave me sixteen 18″ square end balusters.

Pick up a spool of 1/4″ x 50′ Sisal rope along with paint, stain, and poly of your liking. Mine is Rust-oleum Ocean Mist. I wanted a mint and natural wood look for my wooden mat. Something that screams Spring. Start your garden. Go do some yard work. All of those things.

I needed to sand down the rough ends from the cuts. Make sure to get some sandpaper too!

The square end balusters had a nice blonde wood tone to them, so I decided not to stain them. I brushed on two clear coats of polyurethane to protect the wood on 8 of them while I spray painted the other 8 wood slats.

Once the wood was dry (about 24 hours), I measured 1″ on each end of the blusters and marked them.

Use a 3/8″ drill bit to drill holes in the blusters at each end where its marked. Make sure to center the bit on the bluster at that 1″ mark.

Cut the sisal rope to 80″ long. Thread it through the hole in the bluster and tie a knot on each side. Continue threading the blusters and tying between each. I did each side simultaneously.

Ta-da! It’s that simple! I went ahead and put rain boots on it because they are so bulky for indoors. Plus you don’t want to wear them inside after you’ve been in the rain. Also I already confessed this whole area was a spring theme with the mint and natural wood door mat what says spring more than rain boots on a mint door mat??

The Home Depot is hosting a DIY Workshop to make one of these wooden door mat at all of their locations.

You can register here.

The Home Depot offers Workshops at all of their locations for all ages and experience levels that gives you step by step instruction to complete the project and learn some new DIY skills along the way. There are three types of Workshops offered – Do-It-Yourself (DIY), Do-It-Herself (DIH) and Kids. Check out a local workshop to learn more.

I also made the HELLO peg board a few years ago. I got the peg board from The Home Depot…and I had them cut it for me there! It finally has a home and conveniently goes with my new wooden doormat.

Go check out these other incredible wooden door mats from these amazing bloggers!

That’s My Letter  /  The Bold Abode  /  Ciburbanity  /  Brooklyn Limestone

House of Wood  /  Shades of Blue Interiors  /  Place of My Taste  /  Bower Power Blog

Making Home Base  /  Build Basic  /  Sawdust 2 Stitches  /  My Love 2 Create

Her Toolbelt  /  Addicted 2 DIY  /  Fix This Build That  /  Glued N Screwed

Build It, Craft It, Love It  /  DIY Huntress  /  Sawdust To Sequins  /  Remodelando La Casa

The Batchelor Way  /  The Kim Six Fix  /  Heathered Nest  /  Creatively Living

The post Home Depot DIY Workshop: Wooden Door Mat appeared first on Wills Casa.

Late on the night of November 13, 2015, Salah Abdeslam stood alone on an empty street corner in Montrouge, a suburb in the south of Paris, frantically calling home. A few miles away, nine of his friends and accomplices, including his brother, Brahim, had recently finished firing assault rifles into throngs of innocent civilians, and blowing themselves up at restaurants and a concert hall. But Abdeslam, a 26-year-old native of Brussels, hadn’t gone through with his part of the plot. Instead, he discarded his suicide vest in a trash heap, and, using a fresh SIM card, begged a friend to come pick him up.

The two men who arrived a few hours later—Mohammed Amri, 27, and Hamza Attou, 21—were surprised, they would later claim, by what they encountered. Abdeslam seemed anxious and sullen, and he spoke few words as they drove him the 200 miles across the border into Belgium, dropping him off in the early hours of November 14 at a metro station in the Brussels neighborhood of Laeken. He offered no hint of what had occurred just hours earlier. Later that day, during police sweeps of the neighborhood, Amri and Attou were arrested. They told authorities they’d had no idea about the plot and no clue where Abdeslam could be found.

In the terror attacks that have ripped across Western Europe in recent years, a certain menacing figure has cropped up time and again: the violent Islamic extremist, often of North African origin, who spent time with the Islamic State in Syria and returned home bent on wreaking havoc on his European homeland. These are the hallmarks of the modern terrorist, of the murderous suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside a soccer stadium and restaurants in Paris. This figure is likely to emerge again, in the investigation of those who, most recently, detonated their charges inside the main international airport and a metro station in Brussels.

But when I spent time late last year in Molenbeek—the neighborhood of Brussels where many of these homegrown terrorists grew up and lived, and where Abdeslam was finally captured last week after four months on the run—I kept hearing about the two men who drove through the night to ferry Abdeslam back from Paris.

“That could have been me,” a young resident told me one day, rather nonchalantly. It was a cool evening a few weeks after the Paris attacks, and the tension that had descended over Molenbeek—brought on by the oppressive presence of heavily armed police and camera-laden reporters—was beginning to lift. The resident, who I agreed not to name in my reporting, didn’t mean that he literally could have been the one who drove home Abdeslam that night—he was not friendly with the wanted terrorist. But he could relate to the situation the drivers found themselves in. Growing up in the neighborhood, he too had had his run-ins with the law, in his capacity as a drug courier and car thief. He could easily picture a time when he might have received a call in the middle of the night from someone like Abdeslam—who was known in the community primarily as a drug hustler and bartender—and told to drive out and pick him up, no questions asked. Amri and Attou, their lawyers told me, had never been to Syria, and were not radicalized—they were, it seems, just petty criminals. People like that, the resident said, were everywhere to be found.

“That’s how it works in the neighborhoods,” Delphine Paci, a defense attorney in Brussels, told me later. “These are people from small delinquencies in the neighborhoods who will help the big boss without always knowing what they are doing, or that they are helping terrorists.” (I quoted her to this effect in an article that was published in December by BuzzFeed News.)

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s attacks, this is worth keeping in mind. The homegrown terrorist threat in Belgium, as well as in France, is no doubt driven by the craven machinations of the powerful and well-funded Islamic State. Its key operators are the psychopaths who fit the standard profile of a religiously motivated zealot: homicidal, suicidal, nihilistic.

But for every one of these people, there are many more who play crucial roles along the way in a kind of terrorism gray area. These are often people who share few or none of these radical qualities. They never went to Syria. They have no abiding relationship with Islam. Their only evident qualifications are their capacity for drinking and drug use, their ability to acquire illicit goods, and their indifference to the law and those who might enforce it. They are radical, one might say, but not necessarily radicalized. 

Look closely and, again and again, there they are. The suspected weapons trafficker who met with the wife of Amedy Coulibaly, shortly before Coulibaly shot up a kosher supermarket in Paris following the attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo—but the alleged trafficker was later cleared of any direct involvement. The “old friend” of the Charlie Hebdo ring who suspiciously turned up at a house in eastern Belgium hours before it was raided by counter-terrorism police last January—then jumped out a window to escape being killed rather than joining the others in fighting to the death. The two men—Amri and Attou—who drove Abdeslam to the metro station in Belgium that night in November; the third man who picked him up from there and took him on to a cafe.

It should be clear by now that the terrorism problem in a place like Belgium ought to be viewed as the extension of criminal networks, not ones solely related to ISIS. The lawyers who defend people accused of terrorism plots are not experts in international law—they are the same criminal attorneys who defended their clients years earlier on charges of drug dealing or petty theft. The local journalists who have the best sources on the investigations are not those who cover intelligence matters—they are the ones who cover the courts.

For those familiar with these suspects, the answer to the scourge of homegrown terrorism in Europe is not to be found in more abstract notions of defeating radical jihadist ideology, or in militarized responses. It is to be found in the basic tools of routine police work: learning the ins and outs of a tightly knit neighborhood where dozens of people could lend support to a plot, and only a few of whom would know, or care, that it was terrorism.

So far, that has not been the preferred response from top officials and politicians. French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday reiterated what he proclaimed after the November attacks—that Europe is “at war” with terrorism. In the U.S., the Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump suggested that torturing Abdeslam might have prevented the attack, while his chief opponent, Ted Cruz, called for police in America to “secure and patrol” Muslim neighborhoods. In response to the November Paris attacks, France launched strikes against ISIS targets in Syria, and security forces there and in Belgium engaged in dramatic shootouts with suspects. Troubled neighborhoods in both countries were put on lockdown and given the war zone treatment. But “going to war” didn’t solve the problem, and it never will. A holistic approach is necessary for restive areas like Molenbeek, where only police work and some hope of economic advancement will help reduce the appeal of criminality, as well as its more dangerous cousin. 

Salah Abdeslam may have been one of those hardened terrorists, bent on suicide until his vest malfunctioned. Or he may instead have been one of those gray-area guys. Like Amri and Attou, he had never gone to Syria, and no one I met in Molenbeek recalled him as being particularly devout or ideological. But he came to know the other plotters through the seedy bar he ran with his brother, and through his previous stints in prison. On that night in Paris, it’s quite possible that he suddenly realized the depth of what he’d gotten himself into, recoiled at the brutality of the violence around him, and bailed.

{via Kind of Style}

I remember my first panic attack much like someone would remember their first kiss; with both sheer terror and fear of the unknown. B and I were 23, freshly married and were in the middle of changing jobs and moving 6 hours south. Because we didn’t have any extra cash flow we had to be very strategic with our paychecks — one job had to start the minute our other one ended. Since B got a new job, we were going from two salaries to one salary for a temporary but undefined amount of time. We were only starting to feel the effects of the oncoming stress; what could possibly be more stressful than finding a place to live 500 miles away with two weeks until move-in day. Without the help of the internet.  The town we were moving to was less than 25,000 people, so the supply of rentals was low to begin with and the medium of demand was drive around until you saw a rent sign.  For the second weekend in a row, we looked for two days and had come up with nothing. We had no more options than when we started. And so on the way back, two defeated newly weds drove in silence, completely unsure of our immediate future.

And that’s when it hit. Out of nowhere, I could feel myself starting to drown. I sat there in slight shock of what I was feeling, trying to keep my cool in front of my new husband. I could feel my chest starting to get tight and my first thought was heart attack. I couldn’t breathe and I knew I had to get out of the car. I finally choked out ‘pull over!’ and my sweet but terrified husband pulled over as fast as he could at a roadside stop. Once I was finally able to catch my breathe, I realized that my mascara was everywhere and my husband looked like he had seen a ghost. It had felt like a split second that this happened, but it had been at least 20 minutes. What the hell was that, I thought as I got back into the car and tried to pull myself together. I would wonder what happened for the next two years as I would have these little attacks at random times, seemingly out of nowhere. I would wake up at 5 am with an attack, or one would hit me in the middle of the day. My anxiety monster had awoken.

I actually didn’t realize what was going on with me until I heard a podcast with a woman talking about dealing with anxiety and panic attacks. It started to make sense. After researching, I realized I wasn’t having heart issues but panic attacks. And for the next 6 years I would take a journey of many panic attacks and sleepless nights to understand and to learn how to deal with my anxiety.

Within the last two years I’ve really learned how to deal with my anxiety instead of ignore it or let it explode. A few of these I’ve picked up either from health professionals, a counselor, friends, books and practices I have found work for me.

1. Ground yourself.

A few years ago went to the doctor for depression and one of my favorite pieces of advice my doctor gave me was to ‘ground myself’ when I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. This simply means to plant your feet firmly (but don’t lock your knees) and focus on feeling connected to the ground while breathing slowly and deeply. This physical motion sends a signal to your brain of security and support. It’s still something I remind myself daily when I can feel my head start to spin.

2. Focus on your breathing.

Another piece of advice I’ve heard from many professionals is to focus on your breathing. This is also helpful if I’m ever feeling nervous, stressed or anxious. There are many moments when I begin to focus on my breathing and I realize I’ve been holding my breath or breathing sporadically. If I take very deep breathes (count to 10 in, count to 10 out), I immediately feel calmer and more aware. This helps me remember to focus on what I can control, not what I can not.

3. Identify the source of the anxiety.

My husband, bless his soul, has seen pretty much every single panic attack I’ve ever had. But in the last few years, he started to calmly ask — where is this coming from? What truth is this grounded in? A lot of times, while I can’t control when anxiety hits or why, I can figure out where it came from. If you can identify what you were doing when your anxiety hits, a lot of times you can figure out where those feelings are coming from and this helps. Identifying your fears or anxieties helps confront them and figure them out. Control what you can, let go of what you can not.

4. Positive self talk.

This is such an important tool for me with anxiety. I have a great imagination that can really work against me at times and before I know it my anxiety has created monsters that simply do not exist. Learning how to talk to myself positively and identifying the truth is so helpful in dealing with anxiety. Negativity breeds negativity and while I’m not always Susie Sunshine, thinking in positive terms helps me curb my anxiety-ridden worry habits.

5. Know your limits.

This one is a hard one to conquer, but if you can become more aware of where your anxiety starts, you can understand your stopping point. I don’t say this so that you become a hermit and stay inside to remove yourself from all the stress and anxiety of the world, but to say that you can handle a lot more than you think. Knowing your limit just means you know when to fold them. For me, I lead a pretty stressful life, running two businesses, so I know that Sunday’s are my day. I clean, I grocery shop and I take it easy. If I don’t take a Sunday off, guess what? The next week falls apart. I know my limit and it’s 6 days a week of work. 7 days and my knot starts to fringe.

6. Find your peace.

My peace is a bath tub. When we moved into our new house, I realized that I’m very good at taking baths. It’s a skill I’m very proud of, specializing in bubbles. If I’m ever feeling overwhelmed or stressed or anything, a bath can take those feelings away and I can calm down or conquer, depending on what it is I need to do next. For others it could be running, yoga, talking with a friend, reading a book, playing a game on your phone, watching HGTV, meditation or prayer, listening to music — anything! Whatever brings you peace, whatever brings you back to a calm place, that is your peace. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, a bath certainly isn’t grand or sacred, it just has to help.

And I wouldn’t consider this a tool you can use, but turning 30 has helped tremendously with my anxiety. Something about your 20s kind of makes you spin with anxiety, but now I know that even if the worst thing happens — life goes on and that’s a very good thing. As always with any mental health issue, do not ignore it. Please seek help because there is always hope and always help.

The post 6 Tips on Handling Anxiety appeared first on Kendi Everyday.

this is just the freshest home decor i’ve seen in a while. featured on swedish design site my home this apartment in Gothenburg has a unique color palette — deep greens and bright orange, which for reasons i can’t quite explain always makes me think of my childhood tv dinner’s carrots & peas combo — but in this case, is just smashing. the large, bright rooms feel so inviting and perfect for entertaining. a very creative couple inhabits the space, which is pretty apparent — Sara works as a project manager in interior design for public spaces and Christoffer is a carpenter. very handy, indeed. they’ve done a smashing makeover. for the full tour and interview with sources, visit my home.

• photography by Sofi Sykfont for my home.

Here’s a new one: skip the marshmallow and coat puffed rice cereal (and salty peanuts) in peanut butter instead. The idea comes from the brilliant sweets masters behind Baked – it’s in the cookbook Baked Elements, which I browsed in my cinnamon bun research. The instant I read the recipe, I knew I had to try these delicious things, which they term “Good Morning Sunshine Bars.”

The method consists of simmering sugar and corn syrup together, then adding peanut butter, salty peanuts, and crunchy rice cereal. The result is a pan of sticky, crunchy sweet stuff that you can cut into perfectly textured, not-too-sweet little candy bars. The name in Baked, good morning sunshine, comes from the fact that you could technically eat these for breakfast (cereal: check. peanut butter: check).

I didn’t, though I think a bite or two could complete an unsatisfying breakfast. I packed the bars up into a bakery box and presented them as a hostess gift. I didn’t even sneak a few on the way there.

Front Design partnered with Eco Wallpaper on a collection of wallpapers that look three-dimensional. The designs feature pencil drawings that reveal light and shadows on a plain white background giving the illusion of depth.

The designers were inspired by wallpaper they’d cut up and how it gave a three-dimensional texture when layered on the wall. To get the final designs, they took pencil to paper and drew each pattern to give it the feel of actual cut paper.

Since so many people paint their rooms white to keep the space light, they designed the collection to show people you can use wallpaper and still get the same brightness you would if you’d simply painted it white.

Alcarol is serious about bringing together organic materials and giving it new life. Whether it’s the “skin” of the Dolomite mountains or timber from the Venetian lagoon, each piece in their collection capture a single moment in the life cycle of these natural materials. They might look familiar due to their Marble Ways tables.

With Bricola, oak logs from the Venetian lagoon are naturally ‘seasoned’ by shipworms, creating a series of circular holes on the outside. However, the interior of the logs remain untouched, leaving a striking contrast between life and decay. They then use transparent resin in between the oak logs to create the solid surface of each piece.

Dolomyth gives nod to the Dolomites, a complex mountain range in Italy. The collection utilizes stone from the mountains, which have undergone years of geomorphological evolution and natural weathering, to create a set of stools that resemble rocks being submerged under water.

FishEye is another set of stools that mimic the historical pools in the canals of Venice. Like Bricola, the wood from the canals have also undergone their share of shipworms leaving their trace. However, in FishEye, alcarol filled the empty holes of the wood with resin, to make the wood look like what it once was.

Lastly, Undergrowth features recovered moss and lichen from the Dolomite mountains and preserves them in a console table and set of stools. Varying degrees of decay result in a gradient of vibrant green and brown that decorates the pieces.

I need more time. Everyone could use more money, and sure, I could use more help but more than anything I really need more time. With two tiny, needy, unpredictable children and a demanding career, I’ve come to realize that my time is the one thing of which I am SUPER protective of. Luckily, Silicon Valley and all their VC backers know that I’m not alone, and the inundation of time saving apps has filled our phones, to the point where grocery shopping seems like a nostalgic event – especially in LA where traffic makes a quick trip for a gallon of milk a 3 hour situation. So I’ve made a list of all the time saving apps that I’ve used – sometimes I even call them my diva apps because a few of them have to do with beauty needs. Most of these are luxuries, but they are good to have in your arsenal when you look at your week and realize you barely have time to brush your teeth, let alone your hair.

Handy.com – It’s a handyman and cleaning service with vetted dudes and ladies. I’ve used this once for an electrician/tv mounting and he was great and will continue to book him. It was $60/hour which ain’t nothing, but electricians are way more expensive so it was a really good option. He mounted my TV (hooked it all up) and hung drapery hardware and drapes in 3 hours. It’s like hiring a husband without the marital argument. But we also use them for our office cleaning every two weeks!

Taskrabbit – Taskrabbit and Handy are probably in competition, but I use them for different things. I use Taskrabbit to clean the leaves on my tree (I’m not kidding, each one has to be wiped off individually because it has a stupid virus), put together furniture, and move furniture around my house. I found my go-to dude from Taskrabbit, and now I just book him directly. Everyone is a different price, ranging from $25 – $60 an hour based on experience and the task. They will do literally ANYTHING – put together Ikea furniture, paint, pick up your rugs for cleaning, grocery shop, run random errands . . . anything. 

Thumbtack. This service has everything from photographers to private yoga instructors to contractors to life coaches. I haven’t used it but I know people that do and they love it.

Porch – Porch is more about experts in a home service. I’ve used it to find a good window washer, gardening services, and to get quotes from contractors. Yes, even I find it EXTREMELY hard to find the right contractor and am constantly trying out new people. 

Blow Me – Calm down, it’s just a blow out (of the hair). I’ve done this now twice, right after I had Elliot when I felt so schlubby and ugly (as you do when you are spending 49 hours a day in pajamas and only showering every third day), but I couldn’t really leave the house because I was breastfeeding. So some dude/chick comes to your house and blows your hair out. It’s not as good as Dry Bar, but it’s at your house and sometimes you just need someone else to brush your hair in your own home – words of a true basic bitch, right there.

Saucey – Booze/wine/mixers on demand. I think that the warehouse is located near me because it takes like 20 minutes from order to delivery (I’m sure it’s not the same everywhere). It’s more expensive than the stores, but you are paying for convenience. It’s perfect for those dinner parties where you see your stash dwindling, or those lazy Sundays with friends, when no one is volunteering to go to the store. 

Washio – Now, I haven’t used this one yet because I’m too lazy to even collate all my dry-cleaning into one bag, and instead I opt to wear the same clothes over and over and over, BUT I hear this is wonderful. We are redoing our laundry room in the next few weeks, so while it’s under construction we’ll be using this app, I’m sure. My friends that use it love it, and if it stays successful it will make going to the dry cleaner obsolete – which is not good for dry cleaners, but might be good for moms.

Instacart – Grocery delivery within a couple hours. I do this everyday. It’s rather financially irresponsible because it is more expensive than going to the store. But taking those two kids to the store is almost impossible, and using my free time to do that seems absolutely ludicrous. The pluses are that you get your groceries delivered from anywhere you want (Whole Foods, Ralphs, Costco), the minuses are that sometimes you think you ordered 3 carrots when instead you ordered 30 pounds of carrots. Or often it’s hard to find “chicken” at Whole Foods on the site, even though they obviously carry it. Despite all that, it is what we’ve chosen to do because I hate grocery shopping with a mad passion and between work and those kids, this is the only way I can keep fresh food in the house so we aren’t ordering take out every night.  

Soothe.com – Massage on demand. I’ve done this now three or four times. There is something weird about it, I’m not going to lie. You feel both bougie and dirty at the same time, but sometimes you just want someone to pet you with oil in your own home. Two of my three massages have been decent but not amazing. But I keep coming back because the service is so convenient and it’s the same cost as a spa, although much more expensive than going to your local Thai massage joint. All in all, sometimes on a Friday night (again if you have kids and didn’t book a sitter) it’s the perfect treat. I did those mostly when I was pregnant, while everyone else was at happy hour and it did give me something to look forward to at the end of a long week. 

Amazon Prime Now – It’s only on your phone and it means you can get many things to you within hours – at least in LA. It’s crazy fast and easy. I couldn’t find an image of it (it took me forever to realize it’s JUST on your phone). 

Postmates – Restaurant delivery. I think they do other things too, but mostly we order take out through them. When we first moved from New York to LA we were horrified at the lack of takeout. Seven years later we finally don’t need to leave our own home to eat bad Chinese. 

Door Dash – More restaurant delivery, very similar to Postmates, but often they do have different restaurants in their arsenal. 

Care – While most of our sitters are through word of mouth, every now and again we’ve been stumped. Care.com vets the nannies, sitters, and mother helpers. You interview them, and we stick around the first time with them, but then we have a new sitter to call on when The Bachelor invites us back for the “Women Tell All” episode. 

Doctor On Demand – I’ve done a couple sponsored posts with them because it’s a service that I really like. We use it once a month (and no, I don’t get it for free), for random little things that are more serious than a Google search, and less serious than immediately going to a doctor. Read this and this post to see how and why we’ve used it.

So what am I missing out on? When you look at this whole list together, it looks as though we rarely need to leave our homes, or that we don’t do anything for ourselves anymore, but I think that the world (Silicon Valley) is responding to our basic need to not be oppressed by minutiae of day to day living – especially in a city that takes FOREVER to run 1 errand. So while we can’t outsource every single annoying thing in our lives, it’s good to know that we have more options so we can spend more time with our kids and friends and less time waiting in line for a parking spot at Trader Joes.

***feature image by Stephanie Todoro

The post My 13 Favorite Time Saving Apps appeared first on Emily Henderson.

i like his art. that’s all.