Planning your dream wedding? Making it perfect can become a nightmare of details. For your altar ego, a few tips:

Planning
Make your plans for the big day with un-bridaled creativity. Start by hitting up this weekend’s Wedding Expo at the Hawaii Convention Center , where hundreds of local vendors are all in one place. You can get an up-close look at samples of countless invitations, cakes, dresses, and photos.

For more ideas, head to the Wedding Café at Manoa... Read more »

10 ways to green-up your life on Earth Day (and every day) – the day we remember we’re not the only ones living on an island – our planet is one, too.

1 – Bottled Water Be Gone
700 years. That’s a plastic water bottle’s landfill life. Add the energy used to ship it to our islands – home to some of the world’s best tasting, cleanest, non-fluoridated tap water – and it’s a no-brainer to switch to Sigg Reusable Water bottles, made from sturdy aluminum with a non-leaching plastic liner (unlike No. 7 Nalgenes), in 144... Read more »

What? Forgot it was May Day tomorrow? No more flowers at your house? Neighbors raided your plumeria trees? Oh, but need to make lei still yet?

Search around your yard (or your neighbor’s – but be better and ask first) for these unusual, oldie-but-goodie lei making materials. Then grab your needle and get to work.

Hair Will Do
No, not your hair, but Pele’s hair, also called hinahina or Spanish moss. Be sure to leave some where it hangs, and take enough to braid or double twist, and knot together.

French Braid
... Read more »

It’s not quite New Year’s, but you’re already working on a 2008 green resolution. Plastic grocery bags have been replaced by reusable ones, gifts are wrapped in magazine paper, and that gas-guzzling SUV? Now it’s a hybrid, baby.

You thought you were ahead until you found out you had to move.

But just one phone call and soon full-service, licensed and insured Malama Moving Company arrives to pack up your “keeps” in free recycled boxes, and whisks them away in a biodiesel-powered truck.

They deliver your “donate” pile to Honolulu’s The Green House, where... Read more »

You survived the holiday rush – barely. The midnight run to the self-ship machine at the post office, furious online shopping between meetings, and the Christmas morning pit-stop at Safeway made you resolve to be more organized in 2008.

Step one: outsource some of those chores and errands to Windward Go Girls, a new personal assistant service run by sisters Maria Sedillo and Nita Sasser.

Call them for help with any kind of errand or concierge-type task, from grocery shopping to hitting the bank and post office to giving you a ride to and from the airport. They’ll even pick up or deliver... Read more »

Your thighs aren’t the only thing that’s gotten jiggly lately. That diet of gossip blogs and fashion magazines – with the occasional romance novel – has your mind turning to mush, too.

Isn’t it time you traded in the trashy tabloids for more grown-up reading material? Spice up your life between the covers with a little help from these two bookish sites.

Paperspine.com

Like a Netflix for books, Paperspine lets you create a list of books you want to read, and prioritize them in the order you want them shipped. Your books are mailed to you... Read more »