thrifty huge mirror transformation {with annie sloan paint!!}

Have you ever walked into a thrift store, had something from across the room immediately catch your eye, and it took every fiber of your being to restrain yourself from sprinting to it? :P

That's what happened when I saw this mirror. :)

Since we are trying to pay off our house this year, I haven't bought much in the way of decor in the last few months, but I knew this was one item that was worth the $19.99 price tag! :)

I knew what I would do with it as soon as I got home: paint it bright turquoise green! :) {you know me... I have a history of painting thrift store mirrors aqua, heheh.}

I used Annie Sloan's chalk paint in "florence"{pricey, but goes soooo far!} to transform it in one coat:

I didn't need any primer thanks to the consistency of chalk paint, and I haven't waxed it or distressed it yet because I can't decide if I want to. :) I liked the chalk paint because it is very vibrant and coated well, but I think you could totally get a similar effect with regular paint and more coats. 

I'm estimating that I used about $5-$6 worth of paint, which means I got a huge funky turquoise green mirror for less than $30! I think it would have run between $75-$150 at Hobby Lobby or Home Goods. 

Saving that kind of money makes for an exciting day around here. :)

Thrift store shopping is like treasure hunting, I tell you. :) You never know what you'll find!

Have you ever used Annie Sloan's chalk paint? Verdict?

Don't you love cheap mirrors too?

One of my first Valentine's presents as a married girl was this mirror for $100 at Hobby Lobby. I think it may be one of the few mirrors we've paid full price for {along with this one}.

How Do You Spiritually Heal From An Abortion?

Abortion is one of those controversial subjects that most people have an opinion about. Either they would or they wouldn't. But it's not until you find yourself in the unfortunate situation where you have to decide, where you have to take your current situation and make a decision. The numbers are staggering worldwide the amount of women who have had an abortion. And it's such a closed subject that undoubtedly countless women suffer greatly for many years to come.

Abortion is even responsible for higher than average suicide rates in woman 6 months after having one, and women who have had an abortion also suffer greater odds of having breast cancer. So much unacknowledged, unhealed pain. Abortion is not one of those subjects you share even in the same way as you would talk about having a miscarriage. There's a lot of shame with abortion, a lot of guilt.

It's such a layered issue that it's not clear cut in how you go about healing it. Abortion solves one problem but creates many more. There is a silenced grief with having an abortion, after all a woman chose it, so why feel hurt over something you chose? One of the many journeys of healing that some women go on is to take a spiritual approach to healing their abortion. This is not a cop-out, a way to avoid feelings; because by now most women have felt about as bad as anyone could feel.

Abortion is not just a physical issue. It's also a soul issue. Some women are lead on a path of discovery that takes them to a deeper soul level of understanding about why the abortion doesn't seem to want to let them go emotionally. There is a deeper learning and growth that shows them more about themselves and why they had this experience of abortion to learn their life lessons through.

Social Media for the Professionals of Health Care

Most of the physicians use facebook, text messages and social networking sites to share their experiences

The phenomenon of social media is rising day by day which potentially impacts on the physicians. Generally, it is useful to think for the professionals of health care industry in 3 domains;

Social Media for the Professionals of Health Care

·        Practice to public

·        Peer to peer

·        Physician to patient

The domain of practice to publicis all about marketing and exposing the medical practice of the physicians to the public. There are a number of ways to use Twitter, Facebook and others to gain the visibility of professionals.

The domain of peer to peeris about letting the colleagues know about the practice which is not so dissimilar to the methods of practice-to-public. If the peer to peer communication is about the particular patients, then a protected platform requires to be established to interchange the Protected Health Information (PHI).

The interaction of patient to patient impacts on HIPAA. The online interaction which involves the PHI is required to be on a protected platform, not on regular networking sites.

Role in EHR system

Physicians and EHR developers all are continuously looking for different ways to improve the experience of engaging patients, using the software, and helping health IT to play a central role in improving the delivery and quality of care.

While healthcare organizations are using social media for branding and marketing purposes. They have been reasonably reluctant to post on Facebook and place Tweets at the similar level of importance. But lots of people share the personal details of their routine lives with their network of acquaintances and friends. 

Effective usage in health care marketing

The health care professionals and organizations are using the social media to get connected with the providers and consumers and to inform the development of the product. An effective strategy can be used to complete the goals of health care in some areas i.e. sharing of information, clinical outcomes, innovation speed and communication.

Establishment of policy

Establishing the policy will help to protect you against the privacy, security or ethics breaks by your customers or employees. You should also offer the education of staff. Outreach and training are essential to assure that the staff is completely comprehend and able to carry out the policy.

Consideration of starting

Social media can be used to improve the branding, marketing, recruitment, customer services and relation. However education for yourself must be done first which is allowable.

Internally recruitment of social media managers

Allocate the responsibilities among staff is Internet savvy and is excited about using the social media in healthcare to give the advantage of your organization. Try to keep the content current and accurate.

Health care professionals must know about social media

The medical professionals must have to involve and to avoid the embarrassing interactions which can affect the both institute and professionals.

Sharing of useful information

The primary goal in social media is to educate that means you should have to share the information which the people find useful.

Collectively working

There are lots of people who are active and successful on the social media. They are interested in setting up a Facebook page and blogging etc. For this purpose they have to contact with the communication and marketing experts.

Online reviews

Normally, patient experience impacts online reviews more than the quality of the patient care. The perfect way to avoid negative online posts is to assure that the patients are feeling better for their experience.

Usage of common sense

You must be careful about posting the content which could be offensive. There is no way to know in which sense your message will be taken. Let your perception be your director; if it appears like a bad idea, it possibly is.

homemaking hack: spreadable whipped honey

Do you ever keep honey until it gets all grainy and crystallized at the bottom? No one likes to eat it like that at our house. We sometimes warm it up to make it gooey again, but usually by the time it crystallizes it just sits even longer in our pantry.

I read somewhere {so long ago I couldn't find it} that you can whip honey. I looked up creamed/whipped honey this week, and it turns out that the official way to make it is a totally different process than what I did, but I decided to experiment anyway and see what my chunky honey would turn out like if I whipped it in my mixer without adding anything else. 

So this is kind of my cheater version of whipped honey. :)

Here's the before:

And here it is after several minutes {5 minutes or more} of whipping on high. You can just turn on your mixer and go do some laundry. :)

Keep mixing until most of the crystals have dissolved...at least 10 minutes or more. If you are patient, you can see just how creamy it will get.

I was surprised that the texture completely changed from hard crunchy crystals to a light, spreadable honey. There were still some crystals left in mine {probably because I was impatient and stopped too soon}, but it was so cool to just see how creamy it became and how thinly the honey spread- it's the perfect texture for spreading on a sandwich. And it was way better than the original super-crystallized version! :)

It also seemed to make the honey stretch- I didn't use much to whip, but what little I did went pretty far! I saved the rest in the fridge for the kids to put on their almond butter sandwiches. :)

Here is another recipe I found later after I did mine that calls for 1/2 portion of liquid/regular honey, and 1/2 portion crystallized honey. I didn't have regular honey to add to mine, so you could try either one! You might have even fewer crystals in your honey if you do half new and half old.

I'm always amazed when the internet shows me new ways to use what I already have! ;) We are so blessed to have all of this crazy information. And really, we're blessed to even have honey sitting in our pantry, aren't we? :)


Have you ever tried whipping old honey? 


Ever bought the real creamed version from a beekeeper?

Favorite honey recipe? :)