If you are thinking about updating your dining room, powder room or kitchen to prepare for the laughter and warmth of the upcoming holidays, now is the perfect time to start your project. Here is my top 10 list of high impact spruce-ups for holiday entertaining.

1. Update your powder room with a new mirror, lighting, paint color, or wallpaper for a quick and easy make over. Here is one of my favorite wall coverings.

 

Angela Adams eco-friendly wall covering

2. Change your kitchen counters and install a new sink and faucet. Think about adding a hot water dispenser and filter for instant hot chocolate or tea.
3. Install under and over cabinet lighting on dimmers for dramatic ambiance.

4. Enhance your views, both inside and outside, with custom-designed window treatments in your dining room and family room. Trends are moving toward simpler and sleeker styles with understated hardware.


5. Rearrange your furniture, rugs, and accessories and add decorative pillows that express your personality like these eco-throw pillows by Anna Sova.

Anna Sova eco-throw pillows

6. Change your wall colors with updated shades for fall.

7. Replace your dining room chandelier, reupholster your dining room chairs and purchase a neutral textured rug to create a more relaxed space.

8. Be voted the most fabulous host by adding special touches to your guest bedroom and bathroom. Update your bedside lamps with new three-way bulb lighting for reading, add an iPod docking station, a carafe and glass, a vase for fresh flowers, a guest book for special memories of the visit and crisp new bed linens and draperies. Stock the guest bathroom with special bath salts, aromatherapy scents and fluffy new towels.

9. Hardwood is the ever-popular flooring choice for dining rooms, so consider a fabulous new floor to show off your new rug.

10. Add a small wet bar in a space close to your entertaining areas with a fabulous Sub-Zero Wine refrigerator with drawers for soft drinks and mixers, a warming drawer for snacks and a small dishwasher for convenience.

Sherry Burton Ways is a Port of Harlem staff writer and founding principal designer of Kreative Ways & Solutions, LLC

The one thing you cannot do with a bad haircut is uncut it, so you just have to wait for it to grow out before you can fix it. That is how expert gardener Carol Chernega views the art and science of pruning a shrub. If you trim it the wrong way, you’re only compounding your problems, but learning the right way is not nearly as difficult as going to cosmetology school.

Know What You’re Pruning - - Before you make your first cut, look carefully at your garden and identify what you are going to be pruning. Use the Internet to identify them if you do not already know. You want to learn how the shrub should look so you can prune it to maintain that natural shape.

• Cut Back to the Branch -- Always cut back to a bud or branching point. Never leave a long stub. A stub will not only look ugly, but it will also invite insects and disease that could cause long term problems.

• Cut the Dead Weight First - Before you cut anything else, cut out the dead or broken branches. Sometimes removing a dead branch will leave a big gap, so by doing them first, you will be able to tailor the rest of your pruning to compensate for that gap.

• Crossing Over - After you eliminate the dead branches, next you want to target crossing branches or branches that are likely to cross in the future. Once they start rubbing against each other, they will leave a wound that will invite insects and disease, so you want to eliminate that threat.

• Cut With the Flow -- Finally, cut out all branches that are not going in the natural direction of the plant. This is good for the health of the plant, as well as the look of your garden

Chernega, producer and star of the DVD Pruning Shrubs with Your Personal Gardener

 

Private Brothas host social and networking events for business professionals as an alternative to the club scene in Metropolitan Washington, D.C. They will host their first annual RAIFORD Award Gala with the following honorees:

• Reggie Ray - Education
• Rayceen Pendarvias - Community Impact
• Michael Wills - Medical Services
• Maurice Thompson - Community Impact

Yarde Noir will host the awards gala. Rahim Briggs of the Alsura Organization will serve as guest speaker. The event will include performances by Jobari Parker-Namdar and Jasmine Blue.

The RAIFORD Award honors individuals who have nurtured our youth and helped build and kept our communities strong and safe. The RAIFORD Award will also present a scholarship for tuition assistance to students currently enrolled in an institution of higher education.

The events takes place at The Double Tree Hotel, 1515 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20005, Sunday, August 14, 2011 from 7pm-10pm. Tickets are $40.00.

It is believed that Nat Turner led the only successful slave revolt in American history 180 years ago August 22, 1831 in Virginia. The aftermath left more than 50 whites and hundreds of Blacks dead. Turner was convicted and executed.

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The August 2011 release of The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part One: The Witnesses is the first of two novels by Sharon Ewell Foster to change and challenge what America knows about Nat Turner.

"What I found puts everything we believe about Nat Turner and what happened in the uprising in question. Burdened with the truth, I feel a responsibility to share what I found both good and bad. We've been laboring under a 180-year-old lie. This is an American story and the truth needs to be told. We are all witnesses. Nat Turner deserves his day in court," said Foster.

 

It is great that your friends thank you for forwarding them Snippets, but it would be even greater if you would encourage them to sign up for Snippets - Snippets is free!

 

I am a heart attack survivor and I am now trying to get the word out about the world's leading killer, cardiovascular disease. I was able to recover, rehab, then run a marathon. Half the heart attack victims this year won't survive. My friends and I are trying to change these outcomes by getting people to change lifestyles NOW!

 

Read a full except of Johnson’s experience in the print issue of Port of Harlem.

Visit Johnson's

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