Recently I was hired to be a guest speaker in Farmington, Connecticut, to talk about my signature style of creating casual luxury. I was joined by Lisa, my candle line business partner, and we were off to meet the ladies and enjoy a meal with them; my presentation was for after dinner. We left Westport around 5:00pm and as the sun set I noticed how difficult it was getting for me to read the street signs. Recently I also noticed I was having some difficulties reading the text on my iPhone. “Oh no!” I yell to Lisa, “It’s happening!” “What?” she replied. “My eyes are going, and it feels as if it happened overnight!” Turning 40 this year I had been told, “Just wait: once you’ve hit forty you’ll be needing readers,” but driving glasses—what gives?
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I had the privilege of working with some talented people in the wedding industry of New England when working on a Wedding Trends of 2010 package.

Even with the biggest trend being people having to downsize expenses in their weddings, I was surprised to find how elegant and “expensive” a wedding can look, just by paying attention to the details.

First, the hospitality of taping with the general manager at Aquaturf, Tim Needham in Connecticut was wonderful. I also want to give a shout out to the photo booth companies that helped provide booths, Photobooth Planet and Connecticut Photo Booth rentals. Plus the beautiful cake and cupcake designs by Lisa at Cakes Unlimited. Everything was outstanding.

Next, we met up with Deborah Dempsey from A Gala Affair and was blown away by the beautiful themes and trends she provided to show people. The space she chose (Saltwater Farm Vineyard in Stongington, CT) was the perfect location for any event, not just weddings. She went above and beyond what we needed to visually show a story to us of how lovely a wedding can be when paying attention to the details.

If you are inspired by any of the trends in this story, click on these links to find out more information.

Luna Bazaar

American Furniture Rental

Rentals Unlimited

Stonington Design and Paperie

Sweet Fern Soap

Cloth Connection

Every February across the country, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. That said, with all this love in the air my heart skips a beat just thinking about just how lucky I am to have both people that I love and ones who love me back.

Truth be told, the word “love” has become so commercialized and overused in the past several years that we often loose sight of the real meaning of love. I know even I throw around the word in meaningless ways. Have you ever said: “I love those shoes”, “I would love to have a new handbag”, “I love that Gucci dress”, or for you guys out there “I love football”, “I love the Saints”. We all do our part to wear out the word’s true meaning.

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CONGRATULATIONS to the following winners of our Daily Sheet Giveaway that was featured on BETTER during the Holiday Season!

Dec. 15: Crystal Dewey, Ashtabula, OH
Dec. 16th: Abby Shine, Miamisburg, OH
Dec. 17th: Mark Whitmire, Atlanta, GA
Dec. 18th: Carol Mitchell, Vancouver, WA
Dec. 21st: Becky Johnston, Marietta, SC
Dec. 22nd: Laurice Trowbridge, Lake Havasu City, AZ
Dec. 23rd: Julia Secketa, Metairie, LA
Dec. 24th: Dabry Schultz, Issaquah, WA
Dec. 25th: Elizabeth Taylor, Virginia Beach, VA

To view our products, please visit us at www.JenniferAdamsHome.com. We are now featuring exquisitely soft bed sheets, and stay tuned for our entire bed system that will be available for purchase soon!

Enjoy!
Jennifer Adams

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Jennifer Adams Home, our long awaited line of home products!

Our initial release is our luxurious line of designer bedding! After years of research to develop the best sleeping experience, our sheets are buttery soft, luxuriously smooth, eco friendly and wrinkle resistant. No ironing required! You are guaranteed a great night sleep, and might even wake up feeling a little spoiled!

Now you can have the best of the best without the lavish price. Available only on our website, and for a limited time, we are offering an introductory Holiday Special on gift certificates guaranteed to arrive by Christmas. Give yourself the gift of a little luxury along with indulging your loved ones!

Check out our website JenniferAdamsHome.com for the launch today! Visit now for more information and watch for additional innovative products in the coming months.

Yes, its true, the holiday season has officially begun here at Rosebrook Gardens, and now that I’m ready I somehow feel as if I’m forgetting something. Perhaps it’s because Halloween was not even over when the boxes were removed from the attic and Violet got her first glimpse what I’d be adding designing and creating a lot to wonder at! That said, the garlands have been hung, the Elves have been released and the holiday glitz has been displayed throughout the house.

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As I entered my office today preparing to write my blog, my precious little schnauzer followed me into the room and immediately jumped onto my lap, licking my face and nibbling my nose. As if she doesn’t get enough cuddling and loving by the many people who come and take her away for long drives, shopping trips and walks in the park. It’s only when they return that I’m asked, “Oh Mar, how are you doing today?” Good God, Miss Violet has become more popular than I. Okay, I know her schedule is not as tight as mine, but really. This little miniature schnauzer that’s turning eleven months in November brings so many people, including me, such great joy and happiness. But today she has brought me inspiration as she begins to slobber me with wet and wonderful kisses. Read more

You wouldn’t expect a book on military life to talk so much about lawnmowers. But that’s exactly the kind of thing Alesia Holliday includes in her book “Email to the Front” an autobiographical tale of life in a military family. And it makes sense if you think about it. After all, along with the rockets and planes and ships and guns there’s a family back home struggling with everyday life. The dishes still need to be done, the kids still need to be fed, and the lawn still needs to be mowed.
I loved this book and knew as soon as I read it, I had to do a Better TV segment on the woman behind it. (You can watch it here.) Her strength and humor amongst the scariest situations—sometimes not even knowing if her husband were dead or alive—really impressed me. Military spouses are the cornerstones of our military and should be treated with as much respect, in my opinion, as the military themselves.
If you have a military family near you, Alesia suggests you volunteer to help them out when their spouses are deployed. And not just the “Oh can I do anything?” kind of help that’s so easily dismissed. Show up with a lawnmower or casserole. Offer to baby-sit the kids for a few hours so Mom can go to the grocery store. Remember, with husbands away, military moms are basically single parents, trying to handle all of the family duties on their own. And with their nomad lifestyle—moving from base to base every few years—they’re often far away from the family and close friends that would normally step in and help.
As for Alesia, she tells me Judd headed off for another six month overseas deployment yesterday. But she’s got her adorable kids and her rescue pugs and a new paranormal romance novel – Atlantis Unleashed — hitting bookstores this week to keep her occupied! Oh, and of course, that pesky lawnmower…
You can check out Alesia’s website and her new Atlantis paranormal romances here.
Marianne

I just got home from my kindergartner’s end of year music performance and I couldn’t help but fight back the tears.  I kept wondering “why?”  Why do I feel like crying when I watch my little one grow and blossom?  Is it pride?  Is it that times going by “too fast”?  Or maybe even that I am growing older…and I need to come to terms with that?  Personally, I don’t think time has gone by too quickly.  I have felt every last morsel of her 6 years of life.  I do think, however, that five years to adults is going from 30-years-old to 35.  Not too much different.  But, for children, five years is going from a nursing infant to this little girl dancing around the stage and singing “Love is Something if You Give it Away”.  So, in the end I think I know why I wanted to cry.  It’s the fact that no matter how hard we try, life moves on.  It is up to us to slow down the pace of life so that we may enjoy our children, our relationships, our life.  If only I can learn to capture moments in time and make them feel like they are happening for a little longer.   Sing it again for me, Emily.  I want to hear it again.

Did you see the awesome kick-off Scholastic did to launch their annual summer reading challenge? We were there and caught all the action on tape. Man, those kids really know their books! And it was great to see them so excited about reading! (And we won’t even mention that victory dance by Better correspondent Ereka Vetrini.
Studies show kids who don’t read four or more books a summer suffer when they get back to school. So getting your kid involved in a program like this is a great way to keep ‘em smart and busy all summer long.
Here are some tips from Scholastic to get your child excited about reading this summer:
* Let them pick their own books. Let’s face it, kids are always being told in school what they HAVE to read. How about finding out what they WANT to read.
* Let them stay up late. Give them a half hour extra before bedtime–as long as they spend it reading!
* Start a family book club. The family who reads together, stays together. Read the same books as your kids and then when you go on a family outing to the beach or park, you’ll have something to talk about.
* Start a neighborhood book club. Get everyone in the neighborhood reading and then get the kids over for snacks and a book discussion. They’ll have fun talking to their peers about what they just read.
* Let them write their own books! They don’t always have to read what someone else wrote.  Get them to write their own stories and then read them over together. Anything from a family history to a pure fantasy. It’ll get their minds working.
* Join the Scholastic Summer Challenge. Go to www.scholastic.com/summerreading and sign your child up to join in. There are games, prizes, and a whole lot of competition that will keep reading challenging–as well as fun–all summer long.
With these simple ideas you can instill a love of reading in your child that will hopefully last a lifetime.
Marianne