"Sleep? For who?" you may say. Our culture seems to value lack of sleep, from parents of newborns to stressful work and family lives, travel and running nonstop from morning to night. All of us are doing too much. "Down time? who needs it!"

Turns out we all need sleep. A lot of it. And few of us get enough. You need more than six hours of tossing and turning, but a full 7 to 9 hours of high quality, restful and restorative sleep.

A lack of sleep affects so much of our lives, making us age ourselves by "looking tired" to feeling grumpy and unable to focus. Many of us are so accustomed to running on lack of sleep that we've forgotten how good we can feel.

Jennifer Adams, owner of Jennifer Adams Design Group and Jennifer Adams Home, outlined her suggestions for improving sleep on her recent segment on Better TV. Besides improving your overall health, mood and outlook on life, quality sleep can help people control their weight and improve family life. It's important for everyone, not just the kids!

And, besides allowing enough time for a good night's sleep, an easy way to improve the quality of the sleep you get is with comfortable bedding. If your bed is comfortable and your sheets are soft and smooth, you may be a lot more relaxed and will sleep better.

Jennifer also announced her new "Slumber" bedding line at Jennifer Adams Home, inspired by all her viewers on Better TV. Many viewers said they love how soft and comfortable the Eternal Sheet Sets are, but they are expensive! So Jennifer created the Slumber line, which is made from the same buttery soft fabric, but with simpler stitching details. Check out JAH for Baby, too!

The Slumber line is still durable and luxurious, it's just more affordable. And they come in four colors. Check them out at Jennifer Adams Home!

Also, as a special gift for Better viewers, watch Jennifer's segment for a promo code that will allow you to save 15 percent on the Slumber line! Offer is limited, and it will end soon. So hurry. See the website for all the details.

Give yourself the gift of great sleep!

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Adams Home.

Counting down! Yay! I'm all excited, I have the whole family coming over. This year I vowed to comfortably seat the 10 or 12 people who will be showing up.

Which means I need to move the tiny little table out of my dining room and opt for something bigger.

Instead of cobbling together card tables, tipsy TV trays and whatever, or eat in the living room I'll use two office-style folding tables, 30 inches wide x 72 inches long.

I'll push them together and use a HUGE table cloth -- I have a large white 300 thread count percale one, king size, should be perfect ; ) and, who will ever know. It'll be the first time I will have ever ironed a bed sheet!

Finally we'll have room forall the food AND a big centerpiece. And, wouldn't you know it, just in time to give me some great ideas, our own Jennifer Adams, owner of Jennifer AdamsDesign Group and Jennifer AdamsHome, aired yet another holiday segment on Better TV, on "Holiday Tabletop Decor!" Check it out.

Jennifer is using inexpensive garlands, sparkles, tree ornaments and snowflakes, pretty hurricane lanterns with candles inside (perfect for keeping the flames off the garlands and the wax off the table!), ribbons and pine cones.

For each setting, Jennifer is using a sparkly placemat over the table cloth and a gold charger, which is a big decorative plate that goes underneath the dinner plate. Chargers are a great way to add seasonal color and drama to your regular dishes. Then, she folds the napkins and uses a pretty seasonal napkin ring, cleverly tossing the extras onto the garlands in the center of the table to help tie everything together!

And, if that's not enough inspiration for you, Better Homes and Gardens' online newsletter just issued an article, too. Check out "Simple Christmas Centerpieces" online, along with countless other holiday topics. You may need to be a member to view it all, but the handy tips and ideas are worth the time to sign up.

I'll be setting everything up a couple of days before, to make sure it's all working and is as pretty as it can be and I can just concentrate on having fun and cooking that day.

Happy Holidays everyone!

--Elaine Bothe

Images are courtesy of Better TV.

The holidays are definitely here... And, your budget is shrinking as fast as your to-do list is growing. Last-minute, your family is on their way. You want to pull together some quick, charming but cheap decorations to make your house feel welcoming. But how?

Our own Jennifer Adams, owner of Jennifer Adams Design Group and Jennifer Adams Home put together a fabulous list for us!

Jennifer appears regularly on Better TV. Here she is in a new segment for "Home for the Holidays" that aired recently. Check out the video for easy holiday decorating ideas throughout your house.

Just some of her handy tips for festive holiday touches include:

--Filling decorative bowls with sparkly ornaments

--Create a welcoming entry by mixing candles, ribbon, and pine boughs

--Decorate your powder bath with ribbons and bells cleverly attached to the light fixtures and towel holders!

And, here are some additional tips to keep it all on the cheap.

--Use trimmings from your tree, so you don't need to buy any extras. Or, if you have evergreens or holly growing in your own yard, use those!

--Recycle pretty ribbon and trims from the presents and cards you receive for use next year.

--Buy red and metallic ribbons in the off season, from craft and fabric stores.

--Purchase metallic spray paint from hardware stores, not high-end crafts places! You'll also get larger containers.

--Keep your eyes out at garage and estate sales next summer, there are usually plenty of ornaments, and, in July, no one cares!

--Wait until the very last minute or after Christmas to purchase fake greenery, metallic ribbons, ornaments, lights, etc. on sale. Just put it away with the rest of your Christmas ornaments and you'll be all set... for next year!

Happy Holidays to all!

-Elaine Bothe

Images courtesy of Better TV.

My mom bought a wreath for me this year! Usually I'm not a wreath person, out of sheer laziness mostly, but I do like them. This one in particular is a very pretty one, a fresh one with real greens from Land's End. I did not know they did holiday decor, but I was impressed with its qquality.

The wreath even came with a hanger. With the weather seal, I didn't end up using it on my door but I rigged up some office supplies and attached it to my door knocker. It looks like I planned it, but I didn't really...

Looking at my front door with this very pretty wreath on it is now I'm noticing how ratty it looks. The door, not the wreath.

Funny I hadn't really seen it that way. The front door is supposed to be the welcoming first impression of your whole house. At my house we usually use the kitchen door, and so do most of our friends so rarely do we even open the front door. I find soggy phone directories and stuff attached to the door knob that's been there for who knows how long.

The finish is peeling on the door and the color is fading. The door knob is dusty and dirty and the light is full of dead bugs. OK, so what, you might ask. Did you clean it up? No I did not. I had some other stuff to do. Later that day, I read a fun article by Bob Tedeschi that appeared in The New York Times, "Sprucing Up Your Front Door," published on line on November 30, 2011.

I think I have the same kind of house blindness he describes-- what you get when you've lived someplace for a while, you may have had a lot of work done on the house, but you get on with living. The little leftover stuff becomes invisible and you just live with it... the broken hinge on the cabinet, the missed spot that you never touched up after repainting, etc.

Tedeschi also has some great tips and fun anecdotes about fixing up his front door, when that project trickles to the top of the list, I'm sure they'll come in handy. Until then, I'll just conveniently ignore it!

Until next time!

--Elaine Bothe

Photo courtesy of Land's End.

This year I made the switch. After years of digging broken glass bulbs out of the garden, finicky wiring, temperamental timers and miles of extension cords, I replaced my old incandescent C-9 Christmas lights with brand new LED ones.

C9 is the largest easily available size, traditionally shaped, perfect for outdoors on your house. C7, C5 and C3 are smaller sizes. There are also minis, round G sizes, icicle styles, chasing styles and hundreds of ornament shapes. You can easily go nuts thinking about the possibilities.

And I'm so happy I made the switch! We live near a famous holiday street in Portland. So we try to support the arts and light up our house too, though we are not tempted to outdo

Peacock Lane (shown above). But it's fun to come home to a lit house during the holidays.

Though the new LED lights, which I purchased at Home Depot this year, are individually not quite as bright as traditional incandescents, the faceted "strawberry" plastic bulbs create a pretty sparkly effect. And the bulbs are much closer together, just 6-9 inches, so I have many more lights on my house. The effect is different than the old-fashioned kind, but I think just as pretty, if not prettier.

The best benefit is that the LEDs use much less electricity. Instead of linking just three incandescent strings, cobbled together on separate extension cords, I was able to link all the lights on my house on only one extension cord, to one timer plugged into one outlet. All my lights, cords and timers are rated for outdoor use. Make sure yours are too.

So now all the lights go on and turn off at the same time! Before, I could never get the timers set up alike, so half the house would turn on, then, later, the other half would. And I don't have sloppy cords going out from under my garage door any more.

If you're thinking of replacing your old incandescent strings with new LED strings, keep in mind that the LED packaging usually label the number of bulbs, not the length of the string. I ended up needing a lot more than I thought I would. I found some handy 100-light strings on a plastic spool, which will reduce tangled messes later.

Until next time!

-Elaine Bothe

Photo of Peacock Lane is by Rob Finch, and is courtesy of OregonLive.com, the online arm of The Oregonian newspaper. See the article "LED Lights Surge in Popularity, Styles, Performance" by Kym Pokorny for additional information.

Also see the article "Everyone loves Peacock Lane during the holiday. But what about living there?" by Tom Hallman Jr., also on Oregonlive.com.

Photos of bulbs are courtesy of Home Depot.

For more information about Peacock Lane, visit their website!

Over the past few years, I’ve had to deal with occasional breakouts. During that time, I’ve tried a number of different cleansers, soaps and serums. But it wasn’t until my most recent experiment with black soap that I found results. Not only does the black soap heal my breakouts, but it illuminates my skin in a way that other cleansers do not.

Black soap is not really soap at all. It’s made from the ashes of different African plants like plantain peels and cocoa pods along with natural oils. Most of the versions including the brand that I use are made with Shea butter also. The soap is, in fact, black and smells like the ashes it’s made from. It’s so potent, that you’re only supposed to use it once a week.

Benefits of the soap range from helping with breakouts on the face, shoulders and back, to improving skin irritations like rashes and shampooing hair.

The version that I like is from Shea Terra Organics and is all organic and comes in bar and a powder form that you add water to. The ingredients are shipped directly from Africa and then packaged in the United States.

If you decide to give it a try, definitely look at the ingredients list on the black soap you're considering to make sure it the real thing that contains ashes from African plants, and not just regular soap that is dyed.

- Tara Daudani

Photo credit: SheaTerraOrganics.com