Archives of How-to

Bloom: Arrange flowers like the professionals

By Jennifer Goodman Fresh flowers can help any place feel like home. Want to treat yourself and teach yourself a new hobby? Go out and gather some flowers, put those babies in a vase, and enjoy the beauty of the bloom.  Of course, we can’t stop there. Arranging flowers takes skill, creativity and a little […]
4 weeks ago

Eating Together: Lisa Essmyer

I love nourishing people with food that not only tastes good but also looks good and is good for you! I want to make food with all of the nutrition, color and flavor — that is my ultimate goal. Cooking for people is one of the ways I show people I care about them. There’s […]
4 weeks ago

Eating Together: Maria Wade

When I was a young child of seven years, I learned cooking from my mother. We would make Miranda (snacks) to take to various places like construction sites and to the river where there were lots of people swimming or washing their clothes and sell them so we could make money for our family. This […]
4 weeks ago

Eating Together: Stephenie Gardiner

With baking, I love that I can take some pretty normal, sometimes bland, things, put them together, and out comes something so mouthwateringly tasty! It’s always fun to have those “use what I have” days and see what I can come up with. I also love that most life is done around food and drink. […]
4 weeks ago

Eating Together: Mary Gentry

Cooking feeds your mouth as well as your soul. I learned to cook at an early age while helping my mom cook for our family, and it’s a never-ending journey, always learning something new. This is a generational recipe. It was always served during family gatherings. It could be served hot or cold, or for […]
4 weeks ago

Eating Together: Belle Schott

Time and life get away from us; cooking brings us to the present. Mindfulness is easy when all of your senses are on — feeling the texture, seeing a medley of color, hearing the sizzle, tasting the contrast of sweet and savory, smelling the dish come to life. Feeling flour fall between your hands is […]
4 weeks ago

Art for You: Cyanotype

What is a cyanotype? The cyanotype is a photographic printing process that uses the chemicals ferric ammonium citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate as well as potassium ferricyanide and water to develop and fix an image to a page. The chemicals are sensitive to UVA radiation, and when exposed to sunlight, reveal a monochrome, cyan-blue color […]
4 weeks ago

meet along the way: Autumn Abernathy

This story first appeared in the May 2021 issue of “The Best Years (TBY).” Autumn Abernathy of Jackson was experiencing abnormal headaches, numbness and tingling, and none of the doctors she saw about it could tell her why. Her counselor  suggested she take up an activity she loved to do as a child. Abernathy liked […]
6 months ago

Starting a Business: 7 Tips from Laurie Everett

Interested in starting a business? We sat down with Laurie Everett, owner of Annie Laurie’s, the Indie House, Mother Earth and The Downtown Guesthouse, to talk about being a business owner. Here is some of the wisdom she passed along: 1.Purchase mixed-use properties. Living on the second floor of my shop means I only have one mortgage and set of […]
8 months ago

Have Your Cake

It’s beautiful and expensive, and you don’t want to mess it up. Yep, we’re talking about the time-honored tradition of the wedding cake and how to cut it. Here, we show you the traditional way to cut a tiered circle cake so you can be ready to say yes the next time someone asks you […]
1 year ago