The low-stress, high-fun way to entertain, shop, decorate and indulge your way to domestic nirvana. What is domestic bliss? It's bringing the office party home just because you have fresh mint and a secret mojito recipe. It's making your houseguest feel like he's at the Ritz even when he's crashing on your sofa. It's retreating home after a harried day and taking solace in a perfectly placed flea market find. Home is the new hot spot and inDomestic Bliss, London's favorite young style expert makes all your nesting fantasies come true. This blueprint for domestic bliss will work whether your posse is coming to your castle or you're planning an evening for one. With wit and savoir faire, Konig shows how to: Mix family hand-me-downs and new treasures Tackle clutter with simple solutions Turn your world around even when you feel fat, lonely and hate all your clothes and furniture. Domestic Blissis about creating moments of perfection in an otherwise chaotic world.

Rosemarie Jarski, known for her many books highlighting the wit of the ages, offers up the perfect how-to guide, illuminating the darkest corner of the household with all those things our mothers never taught us. Domestic Bliss is Rosemarie's own unique and characteristically witty handbook that fills the gap left by the generation before us. The essential skills of how to keep your house from falling down around your ears are not taught in school, and our parents were so busy earning a living they had no time to pass on the wisdom the world sees as 'common sense'. Well, common sense is not so common as is commonly supposed. This hands-on, down-to-earth guide focuses on those household problems and challenges you are most likely to encounter in real life: how to cure a dripping tap, combat condensation, and unblock a sink. You'll also get to grips with a power drill, a plumb line, and a paintbrush. And find the answers to Life's little frustrations, like how to remove sticky labels, open supermarket plastic bags, and fit a duvet-cover onto a duvet without being swallowed. Many home references tell you how to do something, without telling you why. Rosemarie, though, asks 'What is the point of a detailed explanation of how to bleed a radiator if you have no idea why it's necessary?' This guide is different because it takes the time to tell you why a particular technique is needed or beneficial, giving you the background and Explaining the point of it all. Domestic Bliss is also different because it's a manual for all ages and sexes. We all have laundry to sort, stains to remove, dishes to wash, and heaven knows the essential techniques don't differ whether it's your boxer shorts or his. With clear and mercifully jargon-free directions, Ms Jarski offers more than tips and nudges, holding our hand through the process of putting up drywall, shining our shoes, braiding our hair and creating a beautiful table for a dinner party. Step-by step instructions are enhanced, wherever necessary, by line drawings, so you can see at a glance what to do. Rosemarie's indispensable manual helps us with: Getting Organized, Home Laundry, Sewing, Cleaning, Interior Design, Painting & Decorating, Home Matters, D.I.Y, Food & Drink, Style & Grooming, Scarves & Ties, Home Office, Leisure Time, House Plants & Flowers, Entertaining, Gifts & Wrapping, Christmas, Packing a Suitcase, Conversion Charts. Domestic Bliss is your guide to daily living, offering a thorough grounding in the practical skills everyone should know how to do. The aim is to demystify and simplify. Where other household manuals leave you feeling daunted and inadequate, this guide instills you with the confidence and enthusiasm to get stuck in and have a go as you sweep, shine, and stitch your way towards Domestic Bliss.

Why are Americans so bad at marriage? It's certainly not for lack of trying. By the early 21st century Americans were spending billions on marriage and family counseling, seeking advice and guidance from some 50,000 experts. And yet, the divorce rate suggests that all of this therapeutic intervention isn't making couples happier or marriages more durable. Quite the contrary, Ian Dowbiggin tells us in this thought-provoking book: the "caring industry" is part of the problem. Under the influence of therapeutic reformers, marital and familial dynamics in this country have shifted from mores and commitment to love and companionship. This movement toward a "me marriage," as the New York Times has termed it, with its attendant soaring expectations and acute dissatisfactions, is rooted as much in the twists and turns of 20th-century history as it is in the realities in the hearts and minds of modern Americans, Dowbiggin argues; and his book reveals how effectively those changes have been encouraged and orchestrated by a small but resourceful group of social reformers with ties to eugenics, birth control, population control, and sex education. In The Search for Domestic Bliss, Dowbiggin delves into the stories of the usual suspects in the founding of the therapeutic gospel, exposing little known aspects of their influence and misunderstood features of their work. Here we learn, for instance, that Betty Friedan did not after all discover "the problem that knows no name"--the widespread unhappiness of women in mid-century America; and that, like Friedan, one of the pioneers of marriage counseling was an open admirer of Stalin's Russia. The book also explores the long overlooked impact of sex researchers Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson on the development of marriage and family counseling; and considers the under-appreciated contributions to the marriage counseling movement of social reformer and activist Emily Mudd. Through these and other reform-minded Americans, Dowbiggin traces the concerted and deliberate way in which the old order of looking to family and community for guidance gave way to seeking guidance from marriage and family counseling professionals. Such a transformation, as this book makes clear, has been a key part of a major revolution in the way Americans think about their inner selves and their relations with friends, family, and community members--a revolution in which once deeply private concerns have been redefined as grave matters of public mental health.

From a duo of USA Today Bestselling authors comes another sexy second chance romantic comedy STANDALONE. People like to see the womanizing jerk fall…the one who takes the number, but never calls? The guy who beds and never weds? Everyone wants to see that guy fall in love, right? Pfft. Sounds like a script straight out of one of the box office movies my clients make. Get your head out of the clouds because in real life the arrogant player doesn’t fall head over heels for the feisty brunette. Unless the feisty brunette met him years before he’d perfected his cool demeanor. Unless she carved a spot out of his heart that never fully healed. Our first meeting kick started my heart. Fourteen years later, our reunion was less heart and more kick. Turns out Quinn is just as hot and bothered to see me as I am her and I have the head injury to prove it.

The Rebel Housewife Rules is a whole new set of rules for today's housewives. The book contains 38 short chapters--four pages each--because that is about all that a mom can read locked in the bathroom with a three-year-old while the dog vomits outside the door. Each chapter: Exposes a myth about being a housewife: "Compared to an outside career, taking care of a house and family--and myself--will be a breeze." Reveals the reality behind the myth: "My husband comes home to a disheveled wife, a disaster of a house, and laundry all over the stairs." Lays down a new rule: "Your day will never go as planned." And offers a rule Rx, a prescription for real domestic happiness: "Be proud of your most important accomplishments every day." Following the often hilarious adventures and advice of Rebel Housewives Sherri Caldwell and Vicki Todd, readers learn to be themselves, get what they want, and love in new and deeper ways. Sherri and Vicki share their hard-won wisdom in this "survivors' guide" to momhood, housecleaning, budgets, self-care, and love after kids and babies. Bottom line? Happiness is more important than passing the white-glove test. In The Rebel Housewife Rules, the recently engaged, new brides, or long-married wives find the courage to live by the greatest housewife rule of all: "Live, Love, and Laugh, one day at a time, baby."

If you're tired of staring at the same mess every day, but struggling to find the time and willpower to clean it, you probably have a very good reason: anxiety, fatigue, depression, ADHD, or lack of support. Designed by therapist KC Davis, this revolutionary method of cleaning and organizing helps end the stress-mess cycle. After KC Davis gave birth to her second child, she didn't fold a single piece of laundry for seven months. Between postpartum depression and ADHD, she felt numb and overwhelmed. She regained her sanity--and the functionality of her home--after one life-changing realization: You don't work for your home; your home works for you. In other words, messiness is not a moral failing. A new sense of calm washed over her as she let go of the shame-based messaging that interpreted a pile of dirty laundry as "I can never keep up" and a chaotic kitchen as "I'm a bad mother." Instead, she looked at unwashed clothes and thought, "I am alive," and at stacks of dishes and thought, "I cooked my family dinner three nights in a row." Building on this foundation of self-compassion, KC devised the powerful practical approach that has exploded in popularity through her TikTok account, @domesticblisters. The secret is to stop following perfectionist rules that don't make sense for you--like folding clothes that don't wrinkle anyway, or thinking that every room has to be clean at the same time--and to find creative solutions that accommodate your needs, pet peeves, daily rhythms, and attention span. Inside, you'll learn exactly how to customize your approach and rebuild your relationship with your home, including: -How to stop seeing care tasks as a reflection of your worth, but rather as kindnesses to your future self -How to use calming rituals to keep you from feeling overwhelmed when you look at a big mess -How to stagger tasks that are easy to procrastinate throughout the week and month -How to quickly transform a room from messy to fully functional through the "5 Things" tidying method, and other shortcuts requiring minimal energy Read this book to make home feel like a sanctuary again: where you can move with ease, where guilt, self-criticism, and endless checklists have no place, and where you always have permission to rest, even when things aren't finished.