White. “But that’s not how my brain works. I’m lost on page three.” Dana blogs at A Slob Comes Clean, chronicling her successes and failures with her self-described “deslobification process.” In the beginning she used the name “Nony” (short for aNONYmous), because she was sharing her deep, dark, slob secret. Now she has truly come clean—with not only her real name but the strategies she has developed, tested, and proved in her own home. She has learned what it takes to bring a home out of Disaster Status, which habits make the biggest and most lasting impact, and how to keep clutter under control.In How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, Dana explains that cleaning your house is not a onetime project but a series of ongoing premade decisions. Her reality-based cleaning and organizing techniques debunk the biggest housekeeping fantasies and help readers learn what really works. Chapter titles includeMy First Step: Giving Up on the FantasyThe Worst Thing About the Best WayJust Tell Me What to DoConquering LaundryGet Dinner on the TablePutting an End to the Never-Ending Weekly Cleaning TasksDon’t Get OrganizedHow to Declutter Without Making a Bigger MessFighting the Perceived Value BattleBut Will It Last?With a huge helping of empathy and humor, Dana provides a step-by-step process with strategies for getting rid of enormous amounts of stuff in as little time (and with as little emotional drama) as possible.

    We are in the midst of a massive cultural shift away from consumerism and toward a vibrant and very active counter-movement that has been thriving on the outskirts for quite some time — do-it-yourself-ers who make frugal, homemade living hip are challenging the notion that true wealth has anything to do with money. In Making It, Coyne and Knutzen, who are at the forefront of this movement, provide readers with all the tools they need for this radical shift in home economics.The projects range from simple to ambitious and include activities done in the home, in the garden, and out in the streets. With step-by-step instructions for a wide range of projects—from growing food in an apartment and building a ninety-nine-cent solar oven to creating safe, effective laundry soap for pennies a gallon and fishing in urban waterways Making It will be the go-to source for post-consumer living activities that are fun, inexpensive, and eminently doable. Within hours of buying this book, readers will be able to start transitioning into a creative, sustainable mode of living that is not just a temporary fad but a cultural revolution.

    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. As recent special issues of Vanity Fair, Time, Newsweek, and other major publications have demonstrated, going green is an idea whose time has come. Whether addressing big-picture topics like renewable energy, or offering simple suggestions for everyday living, this complete lifestyle guide shows that healthier choices don't mean a radical or complicated life change--it is, after all, easy to be green.

    

    It's about what you gain. When you remove the things that don't matter to you, you are free to focus on only the things that are meaningful to you. Imagine your home, your time, your finances, and your belongings all filling you with positive energy and helping you achieve your dreams. It can happen, and Organized Simplicity can show you how. Inside you'll find: A simple, ten-day plan that shows you step-by-step how to organize every room in your home Ideas for creating a family purpose statement to help you identify what to keep and what to remove from your life Templates for a home management notebook to help you effectively and efficiently take care of daily, weekly and monthly tasks Recipes for non-toxic household cleaners and natural toiletry items including toothpaste, deodorant and shampoo Start living a more organized, intentional life today.

    Style and minimalism blogger Anuschka Rees presents a fascinatingly strategic, prescriptive approach to identifying, refining, and expressing personal style and building the ideal wardrobe to match it, with style and shopping strategies that women can use every day. Including beautiful full-color fashion photography, infographics, and activities, The Curated Closet is a useful guide covering everything women need to know to fully realize their individual style and create their perfect functional and beautiful wardrobe.

     Do you ever feel overwhelmed, instead of overjoyed, by all your possessions? Do you secretly wish a gale force wind would blow the clutter from your home? If so, it's time to simplify your life! The Joy of Less is a fun, lighthearted guide to minimalist living. Part One provides an inspirational pep talk on the joys and rewards of paring down. Part Two presents the STREAMLINE method: ten easy steps to rid your house of clutter. Part Three goes room by room, outlining specific ways to tackle each one. Part Four helps you trim your to-do list and free up your time, and explains how saving space in your closets can save the planet. Ready to sweep away the clutter? Just open this book, and you'll be on your way to a simpler, more streamlined, and more serene life.

    Through poignant and humorous stories, she inspires us to get rid of the "life plaque" we've allowed to build-up there.That junk drawer (you know that drawer) in the kitchen? Empty it! Those old regrets? Throw 'em out! That make-up from your "old" look? Toss it! That relationship that depresses you? Dump it! Once you've hit fifty-you'll be surprised how easy it is to get there-and once you've thrown out that too-tight belt and too-small view of yourself, you'll be ready to step out into the clearing and into the next, and greatest, segment of your life.

    We feel the weight and burden of our clutter, and we tire of cleaning and managing and organizing.   While excess consumption leads to bigger houses, faster cars, fancier technology, and cluttered homes, it never brings happiness. Rather, it results in a desire for more. It redirects our God-given passions to things that can never fulfill. And it distracts us from the very life we wish we were living.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.    In The More of Less, Joshua Becker, helps you….   •          recognize the life-giving benefits of owning less •          realize how all the stuff you own is keeping you from pursuing your dreams •          craft a personal, practical approach to decluttering your home and life •          experience the joys of generosity •          learn why the best part of minimalism isn’t a clean house, it’s a full life   The beauty of minimalism isn’t in what it takes away. It’s in what it gives.

    But sometimes, this emotional attachment to our belongings can spiral out of control and culminate into a condition called compulsive hoarding. From hobbyists and collectors to pack rats and compulsive shoppers—it is close to impossible for hoarders to relinquish their precious objects, even if it means that stuff takes over their lives and their homes. According to psychologist Dr. Robin Zasio, our fascination with hoarding stems from the fact that most of us fall somewhere on the hoarding continuum. Even though it may not regularly interfere with our everyday lives, to some degree or another, many of us hoard. The Hoarder In You provides practical advice for decluttering and organizing, including how to tame the emotional pull of acquiring additional things, make order out of chaos by getting a handle on clutter, and create an organizational system that reduces stress and anxiety. Dr. Zasio also shares some of the most serious cases of hoarding that she’s encountered, and explains how we can learn from these extreme examples—no matter where we are on the hoarding continuum.

    The Home Edit mentality is all about embracing your life--whether you're a busy mom, a roommate living with three, or someone who's always traveling for work. You just need to know how to set up a system that works for you.In the next phase of the home organizing craze, Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin go beyond the pantry and bookshelf to show you how to contain the chaos in all aspects of your life from office space to traveling bags to pet supplies and holiday storage. Take quizzes and get to know your organizing style, tailor it to your family's lifestyle, and lead the low-guilt life as you apply more genius ideas to every aspect of your life.Clea and Joanna are here to remind you that "it's okay to own things" (we all do!) in the quest for pretty and smart spaces. With The Home Edit Life, you'll be corralling phone cords, archiving old photos, packing your suitcase like a pro, and arranging your phone apps by color in no time.

    Shrink-wrapped vegies, disposable coffee cups, clothes and electronics designed to be upgraded every year: we are surrounded by stuff that we often use once and then throw away. Each year Australian households produce enough rubbish to fill a three-bedroom home, including thousands of dollars worth of food and an ever-increasing amount of plastic, which takes hundreds of years to break down and often ends up in our oceans or our food chain. But what to do about such a huge problem? Is it just the price we pay for the conveniences of modern life? What if it were possible to have it both ways – to live a modern life with less waste? That’s where Erin Rhoads, aka The Rogue Ginger, comes in. Erin went from eating plastic-packaged takeaway while shopping online for fast fashion, to becoming one of Australia’s most popular eco-bloggers. Erin knows that small changes can have a big impact. In Waste Notshe shares everything she’s learnt from her own funny, inspiring – and far-from-perfect – journey to living with less waste.

    Karen Logan, an environmentalist with years of experience developing and selling her own line of eco-friendly cleaning products, reveals the secret of using simple, ordinary ingredients—like baking soda, vinegar, soap, lemon juice, and salt—to make safe, inexpensive cleaners.For instance, did you know: -Olive oil is not only good as a salad dressing, but also as a furniture polish. -Plain club soda works great as a window cleaner. -You can make your copper-bottomed pots sparkle with just lemon juice and salt. -Ordinary liquid soap and water will clean up those ants marching through your kitchen.

    Choosing fabrics, cleaning china, keeping the piano in tune, making a good fire, folding a fitted sheet, setting the dining room table, keeping surfaces free of food pathogens, watering plants, removing stains -- Home Comforts addresses the meanings as well as the methods of hands -- on housekeeping to help you manage everyday chores, find creative solutions to modern domestic dilemmas, and enhance the experience of life at home.Further topics include: Making up a bed with hospital corners, Expert recommendations for safe food storage, Reading care labels (and sometimes carefully disregarding them), Keeping your home free of dust mites and other allergens, Home safety and security, A summary of laws applicable to the home, including privacy, accident liability, contracts, and domestic employees and more in this practical, good-humored, historic, philosophical, even romantic, guidebook to the art of household management.--back cover

    We tweet while we drive, we talk while we text, and we surf the Internet until we fall asleep. We are essentially plugged in and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Rather than mastering technology, we have allowed technology to master us. We are an exhausted nation. No one has enough time, everyone feels stressed out, and our kids spend more hours staring at a screen each week than they do playing outside. It's time to simplify our lives, make faith and family the focal point, and recapture the lost art of simple living. Building on the basic principles of Amish life, Nancy Sleeth shows readers how making conscious choices to limit (and in some cases eliminate) technology's hold on our lives and getting back to basics can help us lead calmer, more focused, less harried lives that result in stronger, deeper relationships with our families, friends, and God.