Annie's Healthy Living Network

Annie’s Home Enlightenment Journal Green Dorm Room Series:Blog #1: Bedding and LaundryBlog #2: Electronics, SuppliesBlog #3: Toiletries and WaterBlog #4: Clean Air and CandlesBlog #5 of 5- Alarm Clocks, Feng Shui Your Desk and Other TipsDor...

Annie’s Home Enlightenment Journal Blog #1:  Lead  Going Green Helps Your Child Think - Blog #2 out of 5NONTOXIC CLEANINGOne of the easiest ways to reduce a child’s neurotoxic exposure at home is to switch exclusively to gre...

Annie’s Home Enlightenment JournalBlog #1 out of 5What parent doesn’t want the ideal learning environment for their child to flourish? It would break anyone’s heart to learn that there may be products in their home that are interferi...

In August and September, when fruit is ripe and fresh in the farmers’ market, my sister Carolyn makes a wonderful pie that you can easily adapt to whatever fruit looks the best. It is as delicious with juicy, ripe peaches as it is with blueberri...

What is your favorite single natural ingredient for moisturizing? As Cait and I have presented here before, herbalists often use one herb or ingredient for cosmetic "simples." I'd love to have us all share our best tips for moisturizing skin...

A college student and her roommate I know, often sleep through five (yes, 5) alarm clocks. How is such a thing possible? I guess if you go to bed too late too often, waking up at 7:30 is just too hard. What did they find that worked, short of a tornad...

Green Dorm Room SeriesBlog #1:  Bedding and Laundryhttp://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/146142Blog #2: Electronics, supplieshttp://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/146971Blog #3:  Toiletries and Waterhttp://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/1477...

Green Dorm Room SeriesBlog #1:  Bedding and Laundryhttp://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/146142Blog #2: Electronics, supplieshttp://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/146971Blog #4: Clean Air and Candles http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/149045Bl...

Green Dorm Room SeriesBlog #1:  Bedding and Laundryhttp://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/146142Blog #3:  Toiletries and Waterhttp://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/147756Blog #4: Clean Air and Candleshttp://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/1490...

The Green Dorm Room Blog #1 of 5 - Bedding and LaundryAnnie’s Home Enlightenment Journal DAY 1)  This is a scenario you definitely want to avoid: my friend’s son came home from after his first semester of college after his first ...

My new bamboo floor boards arrived for a side porch I am having winterized and they are remarkably beautiful. I chose the light blonde bamboo color. Brown bamboo is that which is carbonized and pressure heated so that its sugar compounds caramelize to...

This last weekend I made a long and hot road trip that entailed sixteen hours of driving on the highway and countless shorter trips once I had reached my destination. I took the trip to visit my daughter for parents’ weekend at the summer progra...

They say that spring moves up the east coast 15 miles a day. That seems about right from my experience. It isn’t until all the fruit trees are blossom where I live in upstate New York and I am in bliss from the season that I remember the dark si...

My local supermarket was very busy on Sunday afternoon, and with relief I found a short line at the checkout counter, just one man. The conveyor belt was piled high with his food. I started taking stock, to decide when to put up the divider and add my...

It's time to read the labels - food labels, that is. And, it is timeto skip gene modified (GM) soy and other engineered foods, especiallyif you are a woman in your child bearing years. New research has foundthat more than half of babies born to rats f...

There is some disturbing new news out about plastics:  Exposure to a small amount of polycarbonate plastic can increase a person’s risk of diabetes and insulin resistance, according to a new study on mice. The chemical of concern is bisphen...

Very intense winds blew through my area in upstate New York over the weekend, and thousands were left with no heat dependent upon electricity, while the temperatures plummeted to around 10 F. I was out of electricity for 20 hours.  Most of my tim...

Boundary issues come up a lot with toxics. Is it OK if another wears a perfume that you are so sensitive to that you have to quit your job because they won’t stop wearing it? Where are the boundaries of air?  Is it OK if a neighbor’s ...

Because I am very chemically sensitive I always have a watchful eye for chemicals in my environment, and in those of others; it is especially protective towards my family. Because of this, I knew better than to buy my daughter a “normal,” ...

My blog about parent's punishing kids for bad behavior when in fact the child was reacting to neurotoxic chemical exposure generated a lot of interest, so I've another story, this time about an adult woman I met about 25 years ago. I can't e...

Over the holidays I had lunch with a friend, Kate, and somehow the subject of “my story,” came up, that being my story of having been poisoned by pesticides, and having central nervous system damage that manifested as hyperactivity, inabil...

I have a terrible sense of impending disaster for our planet. I am afraid we will be left with so little of nature as we know it that I am reminded of Noah’s Ark, and wondering what we will keep.Greenhouse gas emissions increased by 2 percent la...

Harassed By a TeacherMy daughter is being taunted and harassed by a new band teacher at school. He’s accused her of lying to another teacher about something he said to her, a lie no high school kid I’ve ever known would imagine lying about...

The Radiance Of A Natural Holiday Season - How-ToBy Care2's Annie B. Bond and Cait Johnson.Annie has a special Christmas book she has carried with her for fifty years or so, with her name scrawled in a child's handwriting on the inside. It is about a ...

The following list is from Megatrends 2010:  Seven New Trends That Will Transform How You Work, Live and Invest,  by Patricia Aburdene (Hampton Roads, 2005)1.  The Power of Spirituality:  78% seek more spirit.2. The dawn of co...

I had a visit in dentist’s chair yesterday, and while there I asked him what ingredient was in the white resin-based composites and sealants used nowadays instead of mercury, and he said BIS-GMA. I came home and googled it, and sure enough, my f...

Nonoxynol-9 is a recognized hormone disrupter and known to cause disruptive effects to the endocrine system, including to reproduction.  It is a chemical that is in widespread use as a spermicide on condoms, and is found in contraceptive creams, ...

I’ve tried most routines for getting exercise over the years. Some have worked, most haven’t.  I’ve paid to be a member of the gym and not returned after the flu got me out of my routine; I’ve tried to walk every day; I&rs...

This gets personal.  It turns out that there were no safe levels on that grease-resistant food packaging we have all been exposed to, and it is toxic to the kidneys, liver, and blood, according to DuPont tests done on animals in the 70s.  It...

Jeez, are sunscreens why Viagra ads are so plentiful? Some sunscreen has been found to be so estrogenic that it alters male fish, affecting their sexual development and adult sexual functioning. The culprit in sunscreen, Oxybenzone, protects skin from...

Fully 75 percent of those surveyed on Care2 have become sick using commercial cleaning products. And 91 percent don’t think that the government protects them by ensuring the safety of cleaning chemicals, and 90 percent believe the commercial pro...

I’m coming off an impossibly busy time in my life,  with the queue of things that need to get done so long that it is hard for me to give myself permission to take any down time at all.  I expect we all have times like this, even ...

A friend I had dinner with last night told me that she had been in New York City recently, and took a cab driven by a man who she thought might be from Pakistan. She asked him if he was, and if he knew much about the the earthquake damage. He answered...

The golden colors of fall are infusing the landscape where I live, just as they have for my lifetime of living in the north eastern part of the U.S. The air is crisp, just like always, and my neighbors and I are all stacking wood and making preparatio...

When President Nixon was in full power I was a college student and a hippie in the liberal, carefree way my generation enjoyed at the time. My male friends had all escaped the draft for one reason or the other, to their profound benefit, and the Vietn...

This headline on CNN.com took my breath away."Exxon Mobil Corp. posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion Thursday, the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices. "I could rant for a long tim...

Sometimes something happens that makes you realize that change for the better can really truly happen, and it is worth taking a moment to express some gratitude for the change when it happens.I have written for years and years about the need for nonto...

The weather here this fall is odd where I live in the Northeast U.S., because there has yet to be a killer frost and it is almost November 1st; we can now also safely plant frost-free a few weeks earlier in the spring.  I expect Global warming is...

I asked this question in a poll given in Care2's The Healthy Home newletter (sign up for free at www.care2.com/newsletters) :Do you think that President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's corporate work in the oil business is contributing to...