Lifestyle

By Janelle Sorensen, Chief Communications Officer, Healthy Child Healthy World Expert Opinion courtesy of Healthy Child Healthy World Healthy Child Healthy World receives a lot of...

By Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World Where do we go when we die? How can we find mercy, forgiveness and love? There is no turning back the clock. Time does not wait for those who are waiting to find answers in their lives. But time does stand still for hours in Malick's fifth feature, The Tree of Life starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and Sean Penn. It premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Palme d'Or before being released in the United States. "The Tree of Life"A superbly conceived but somewhat stilted family drama rich in Christianity's emotional tapestries and the upheavals and uncertainties of life, reveals Brad Pitt who plays father to three sons, one being Sean Penn, brilliantly portrayed in his youth by Hunter McCracken.

By Lush Huxley, Editorial Assistant Beth Nielsen Chapman is one such songwriter who has succeeded in the competitive field of modern music. You may not have heard of her, but her resume is stacked (as they say). She’s written for the likes of Willie Nelson, Elton John, and Mary Carpenter, and performed with country crooners Emmylou Harris and Bonnie Raitt. Remember the Faith Hill song “This Kiss?” Yeah, she wrote that too. Beth’s very well respected and established among the songwriting community in Nashville, TN, where she makes her home. Her story is an unconventional one. In the 70s, Beth was being lauded among record company big shots as one of the songwriting world’s up-and-comers. Around 1979, her song “If I’d Only Known” appeared next to Bob Dylan’s “Slow Train” in the “Singles to Watch” section of industry magazines across the country. However, when her record failed to meet the expectations of the label, the big money people pulled the plug on her publishing deal. Perceiving her musical career as virtually terminated, Chapman entered a new chapter of her life as domesticated mother and housewife. But the songwriting bug stayed with her.

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate. Jill Salisbury, founder of Chicago based el: Environmental Language, formally educated and trained as an Interior Designer, has found her true calling and passion in the design and manufacturing of furniture. Ten plus years ago, while working as an interior designer, she began learning about the benefits of sustainability but wasn’t able to find furnishings that were stylish and had any kind of environmental initiative. “There wasn’t anything available and I felt the Interior Design community needed to have what I call the Eco-Chic Alternative where you can have style with environmental integrity and promote a healthy indoor air quality for your clients.”

Introduction by Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Christian Frere and I met by chance...

Steve Jobs might find a way to cut to the core of a major human rights issue impacting the health of children who get their daily dose of vitamins from eating apples. You can write to him sjobs@apple.com and let him know he's got to get on this issue ASAP.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World FDA confirms Listeria outbreak is linked to cantaloupe...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder Healthy Child Healthy World "Architect James Chuda's Green Home has been called the "Fabergé egg" of...

From the incomparable Seth Godin You rock This is deceptive. You don't rock all the time. No one does. No one is a rock star, superstar, world-changing...

By Basil Vernon, LuxEco Editorial Assistant As we all know it, summer finally came to an ended, and going back to school was in the wind. For some students the end of summer means leaving the nest and venturing off to new lives in college. Going green in a college environment not only makes life a little more comfortable, it also allows for trends to be set for a mass group of people to follow, which ultimately impacts the ecosystem on a grander scale. Here are some green friendly products that are essential to a college students life. Before moving on to your campus, you made a good choice by stopping at your local Target and picked the Schwinn Gateway City Bike. This bike is unique in that it is made out of 93% recyclable material. Honestly, having a bike on campus makes a great impact, it gets you to class on time, takes you into town with ease, and its an amazing way to exercise. At the end of the day a bikes’ main contribution are is gas emissions, and not paying the cost of having a car oncampus.

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate As I wind down for the year I find myself thinking about a book called The Home Within Us and how much that says about my design philosophy. Everything I approach as a designer lies first and foremost in the feeling of comfort, well being, creating a place of safety and sanctuary. Problem solving, space planning, furniture and color selection comes later but it is driven by these things.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World LuxEcoLiving's founders Nancy and James Chuda with Journey   It's...

By Penelope Jagessar Chaffer, LuxEco Advocate and producer of Toxic Baby When Nancy and Jim Chuda founders of LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World graciously suggested hosting a screening for Toxic Baby, I was thrilled yet curious. The select audience would be comprised of a group of young people, the demographic mostly female and only one who was a mom. It was the first viewing to a group of people who were not scientists, environmental advocates, or those involved in film and television. How would it play out?

Forrest Gump may have been on to something when he compared life to chocolates. You really never know what you’re gonna get in a box of chocolates, do you? The truth behind chocolate is more bitter than sweet. The Ivory Coast produces 40% of the world's chocolate, and it just so happens to also be notorious for this little thing called child slavery. Children, both local and from other third world countries, are sold to farms in this area where they are physically abused while working in risky and inhumane conditions. Some children are sold into the trade by parents who are tricked into believing their children will have better lives at the farm. Others are trafficked, stolen from their families, lured by the promise of…chocolate. In these farms they are forced to work 60 hour weeks with little or no food (depending on their performance on the field). These children lose their fundamental human rights when they enter these farms and “modern” society turns a blind eye to the atrocities. Every time we buy a box of chocolate that is not fair trade stamped, we (often unknowingly) endorse child slavery.

“As a group, it's our intention with this album to create songs with a message of compassion and hope,” said Newton-John. “They are for anyone facing a time of challenge in their life, whether it is grieving a loss - or on the journey to health and recovery.”

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World  Gainey Winery Santa Ynez California It was truly a gift of nature! Standing...

By Wendy Ross Kaplan a LuxEcoLiving Advocate and contributor You pack your 12-year old a lunch, go through the last minute parent-love/instruction exercise, hug, wave,...

By Jessica Borges, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant I recently moved into a new apartment, and with that came a massive scrub down of both old digs and new. My roommates and I spent hours cleaning the old place after moving everything out, but the products we used were hardly eco or health-friendly. When scrubbing the Comet-filled bathroom tub, the smell was so overwhelming that I nearly passed out. While cleaning bathrooms isn’t normally an enjoyable task, it doesn't have to be one that puts people’s health and safety at risk.

I’m a white hipster in his late twenties with a strong political opinion suffering from depression. You know, the antichrist. I’ve spent a good deal of my life finding ways to deal with my depression.

By Christopher Gavigan, CEO and Executive Director of Healthy Child Healthy World and LuxEco Advocate Interview Conducted By Nancy Chuda, Founder of LuxEco Living and...

If you had to choose a favorite company in which to use your bucket wish list ...this would be the one! Travel and Leisure has voted Red Carnation Hotel properties into thirteen different categories, including three No. 1 placements. And I can share why.

Think Fresh Horman's Best Pickles for Mother's Day

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. Since Father’s Day is this weekend, I thought that it would be a great...

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Whole Foods Market is a forward-thinking grocery chain that has broken down barriers and paved the way for progress in the green movement. In addition to its organic standards for food and non-food products, and its existing recycling infrastructure, Whole Foods is now starting a wine cork recycling system. The popular grocery franchise will implement this new program at all of its 292 stores across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. It all started when I updated my Facebook status this past week. Bernadette Bowman thinks that children should be carded at Starbucks. This bold statement after witnessing an nine-year old boy, who I honestly mistook as a “little person” speaking in tongues, spouting the following in rapid-fire speed: “Venti half-white-mocha-half-caff-vanilla, easy ice, with 3 shots, pour affogato (this means: to drown) with extra whip, and caramel drizzle frappuccino.” Parents, it’s three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon: DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE??

Introduction by Nancy Chuda Founder of LuxEcoLiving and Editor in Chief and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World I am proud to say that my charity, Healthy Child Healthy World, earned early recognition when I was a journalist and reporter for ABC news. Our first grant was an Apple computer. The irony in all this is that we lost Steve to cancer. He was a hero. A person with a rare intelligence. Steve Job's brain was wired for success. He had a synaptic response to create just about everything Apple. We lost a legend but we gained a universe that in its totality has created a new religion: Interconnectedness. Life goes on for Apple and I will be true to the core.

Travels with Journey The Cliffs Resort is a 5 star Doggie Haven Hotel It's a classic experience! The book, Eloise at the Plaza, the story about...

By Nancy and James Chuda founder of LuxEcoLiving and co-founders of Healthy Child Healthy World The Best Cheese in the World Series LuxEcoLiving caught these cheese...

Journey left his heart in San Francisco and was thrilled to be invited back to the one and only Fairmont Hotel. This time our boy wonder got to stay in the Tower Suite named after the Spreckels family. What a treat!

By Laurie David, Author, Producer and LuxEco Advocate After 50 days of watching BP's pathetic failure to stop the oil from gushing and hearing stories...

rstBrands offers a variety of sustainable handmade outdoor furniture and utilizes one of the most important sun shields in the development of their products. The patented Sunbrella fabrics who I might add made environmental responsibility a priority decades before the "green" movement.

For 20 years, Lauren Vidal remains true to the uniqueness of its creations and gives the contemporary woman her own image, focusing on overlays creating purely light styles punctuated by unstructured volumes.

By Amanda Nisenson, Opera Singer and LuxEco Advocate The night before I was born, my mother was reading an article about Beverly Sills, (May 25, 1929 – July 2, 2007) the famous opera singer who performed for huge audiences around the world. My Great Aunt used to brag about how she knew Beverly Sills growing up in Brooklyn, and how much she enjoyed being friends with “Bubbles,” as Ms. Sills was called then. The article continued to explain that this nickname was given to her because she was born with Bubbles in her mouth. The next day, June 17th was the day that I came into the world, and to my mother’s great surprise, I was born with Bubbles in my mouth. She could not believe the coincidence, and announced to the doctor that I would become a singer! Years later, shortly before Beverly Sills died, my mother had the great fortune to meet the legendary singer, and actually got the opportunity to ask in person, if she did indeed know my Great Aunt. After a questionable pause, Ms. Sills burst out laughing in recollection of this zany character from her childhood.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Get outdoors and enjoy the breeze it's good for you   I...

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Needless to say, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has devastated the United States’...