Andy's Idea Factory

I can't take credit for these, going around in a mass email, but they're sure worth sharing!! (Thanks Mom!) H ull strawberries easily using a straw.   Rubbing a walnut over scratches in your furniture will disguise dings and scrapes.  Rubbing a walnut over scratches in your furniture will disguise dings and scrapes. Remove crayon masterpieces from your TV or computer screen with WD40. Stop cut apples browning in your child’s lunch box by securing with a rubber band. Overhaul your linen cupboard, store bed linen sets inside one of their own pillowcases and there will be no more hunting through piles for a match. Pump up the volume by placing your iPhone & iPod in a bowl.  The concave shape amplifies the music. Re-use a wet-wipes container to store plastic bags. Add this item to your beach bag.  Baby powder gets sand off your skin easily, who knew?! Attach a Velcro strip to the wall to store soft toys. Use wire to make a space...

This past month I've been lucky to help a dear friend start up her new practice of Ayurvedic Medicine, and it stirred the wheels of writing again to share the steps we took, in case you have something new you want to promote and generate income with, with little-to-no startup.  After our first session together on December 1st, we summarized what Tracy needed... She already had a space rented, a name for the business, and a nice shiny new degree to be proud of. So what she needed next was: A logo. A website. And blog. Some photos. An emailing system. And of course, a Facebook page. Now it was time to start checking things off the list! We started with everyone's favorite, GoDaddy, and secured her website's name:  www.wholehealingayurveda.com .  Three years of hosting and one email, check. Then we went to my favorite, Weebly, and started her free website design.  If you want an easy operating system with preset designs and settings, Weebly the way to go....

After 2.5 years on a strict gluten-free diet and showing only marginal improvement to my skin condition of psoriasis, (although pain free from psoriatic arthritis), my naturopathic doctor has recommended the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). I had grown frustrated with the worsening allergic reactions I was having to several new foods, and went in for a checkup about two months ago, seeing both my naturopath and a new acupuncturist.  For me this reaction is severe joint pain and swelling on my right side, and I am so sensitive to gluten that now anything made in a factory with gluten - as well as all "inflammatory" foods such as soy and the "nightshades" family now - gives me this reaction. Both docs agreed I should go off the nightshades, refined sugars, and soy, and add some acupuncture, Chinese herbs and natural remedies (aloe juice, apple cider vinegar, and more) to my daily rituals to enduce some intestinal healing.  Since then I have seen a 50% reduction i...

Even though I'm a good baker and love to be in the kitchen, I still love the ease of a ready-made gluten free kit.  Many of my friends who want to go gluten-free complain about the high costs of buying several different types of flours, starches, along with xanthum gum, and they're right, it's a pain in the butt to keep up. Half the time I go into my cupboard, it seemed like I was missing one of the four key ingredients.  So over the past year I've been taste-testing some goodies around the country and have some to share for those who have recently decided to go off wheat/gluten, or for those who, like me, get tired of making everything from scratch. When the temps drop, I love to start baking again, and these mixes have made it into my cabinet, and will surely repeat themselves soon! Purely Elizabeth Apple Spice Muffin Mix Whole Foods I'm not vegan, so I went with the egg over the applesauce and went with the coconut oil over the veggie oil. Truly delicious ...

Recently I made the jump to HDR photography because a new real estate job required it.  For a few years now I've been impressed by the HDR results I've seen from my peers but haven't had the reason, other than hobby, to make the leap myself.  But once you do, it's hard to go back. Combining the light and dark exposures of a single image, HDR can capture both sunrise and sunset in the same image, that is if you have the patience for it.  Many pros think it's cheating, but as someone who grew up with the cumbersomeness (and failures) of shooting with film and the darkroom, I wouldn't label any new technology as cheating. High dynamic range imaging (HDRI or HDR ) is a technique that brings together the lightest and darkest exposures of an image into balance with computer processing through special programs.   If Ansel Adams were around, he'd be eating this system up, as it takes the time of burning and dodging images out of your "darkroom" schedule ...

Upon taking position as Zero Waste Coordinator for the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council , as of today I have made a commitment to not only help Steamboat become the first Zero Waste resort town in Colorado, but to also begin tracking my own waste, my family's waste, and the waste, consumption, and impact of my fellow humans around me, wherever I may go, whenever possible. I currently travel frequently for work because I am coordinating a huge training project for Amtrak trains, educating 8000 employees on better handling customers with disabilities . My work with this travel market over the last five years has led me into much research and study of travel and impact of and on travelers and our planet, great experience which I hope to bring into the world of sustainability and our impact on our precious planet. Yesterday while traveling back from Miami to Steamboat, I thought to begin my mission of tracking in this new capacity. To start, I always travel with my own drin...

I love my Droid for its apps, no question. I check Market every few weeks, as new apps are coming in all the time.  Some apps have stayed on my phone, some come and go.  If you got a new Android-based phone for the holidays or new year, start loading it up!  Most come with a large SD card (mine is 16gb) and many apps can be stored on the card.  The apps that I seem to only use once or twice, especially the ones that are larger than 5mb, I usually wind up removing.  Apps that access large directories (like cookbook apps) can also use up too much space, so go into Settings, Applications, and Manage Applications to drop some when it's time to make room for more.  Because of this ADD-mentality I have for apps, I typically only download the free ones- another great Droid feature, free! Apps I can't live without: Advanced Task Killer - there are several versions of this and I've tried three, but it was one of the first things the Verizon rep told me ...