I like to sneak some good stuff in baked goods and make a heart healthy treat. Below are some easy substitutions that you can use in your normal recipes as well as links to some healthy recipes for you to try. Once you try them you may be hooked.

Instead of Butter

Palm and coconut oil has saturated fat, and depending who you talk to is bad or good for you. The American Heart Association and the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation say we should avoid them. Not all fat is bad. Some healthy fats are olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, non-hydrogenated margarine, and avocados. All of which are used in vegan cooking.

The easiest substitute for butter is non-hydrogenated margarine. I use Earth Balance brand and you'll see it asked for by name in many vegan recipes. Earth Balance does contain palm fruit oil which has less saturated fat than palm kernel oil, but is about the same as regular butter. You can easily use olive oil in your baked goods instead. You may need to add a little extra flour to make up for the extra moisture. You may find a few recipes that are fat free and use applesauce instead of oil.

* Peanut butter cookies made with olive oil
* Breakfast Oatmeal Cookie with olive oil
* Blueberry Oat Bars with applesauce
* Chocolate cake with Avocado Frosting

Instead of Cow's Milk

This is the easiest substitute of all. You don't need to change your recipe, just use the same amount of a "veggie" milk. I use unsweetened vanilla almond milk most of the time, but if a thicker texture is needed try soy or even oat milk. To make a buttermilk substitute just add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to 1 cup of soy (or rice, oat, almond, etc.) milk.

Instead of Cream Cheese, Yogurt or Sour Cream

Pick up a few containers of shelf stable silken tofu. They last for about a year, so check expiration dates before you put them into your cart. Puree it in a food processor or blender until it is smooth. You can add some vanilla and maybe a tablespoon of sweetener if your recipe doesn't already call for it. There are vegan products that mimic cream cheese and sour cream in your grocer's refrigerated section, but it just as easy to make something yourself. Plus it's cheaper!

* Tofu Sour Cream recipe
* Tofu Cream Cheese recipe
* No cook Tofu Yogurt recipe

Instead of Whole Eggs

If you aren't a vegan you can substitute egg whites for whole eggs, but let's get more creative. There are actually many depression era recipes that didn't call for any eggs due to shortages. There are egg substitutes that you can buy in a powder form in health food stores (or make yourself), but you can use more ordinary items too. The more you try them out you'll see which ones fit better into your recipe.

Each of these would replace one egg in a recipe:

1. 1 tablespoon of ground flax seeds mixed with 3 tablespoons water - this will be thick and gooey
2. 1/2 large mashed banana
3. 2 tablespoons corn starch blended with liquid ingredients
4. 1/4 cup blended tofu

* Chocolate Depression Cake - uses baking soda and vinegar to rise
* Banana Oatmeal Cookies - uses ground chia or flax seeds
* Nikki's Healthy Cookies - uses banana instead of egg

Don't Forget the Fiber

Consuming more fiber is recommended for heart health. Don't miss the opportunity to add it into cookies, muffins, and brownies. Everyone has a story about switching whole wheat flour for white. And I hate to say, but they aren't all pretty. Your chance of success goes up when you use whole wheat pastry flour instead of regular whole wheat flour. It's made with soft white wheat and milled finer. If you can't find it you can try putting regular whole wheat flour in the food processor.

You can also use white whole wheat flour. It sounds like a contradiction, but it's still a whole grain product. The color is different because of the type of wheat that it's milled from. Oat bran or rolled oats, regular or chopped in a food processor, can be substituted for part of the flour in a recipe.

* Carrot Oatmeal Cookies with whole wheat flour
* Banana Coffee cake with whole wheat flour

So, it would make sense that when my computer recently ran out of antivirus protection and promptly picked up the first malware that came on to it, I jumped through the roof, right?

I didn’t.

I spend a total of thirteen hours fixing the problem, and I didn’t lose my poop once. Even though thoughts about how I would be without the Internet ran through my head.

Looking back, I did some basic things that anyone saner than me probably does when faced with a stressful situation. Just in case I’m not the only one who could use suggestions for the next case of malware, or whatever, read on…

1. Research your options. The first thing I did was find out what the malware I was infected with was, and how it was typically removed. I found out what not to do, what I could do without any help from someone more technically-minded, and how much it would cost me to have a technician do it for me.

This gave me a whole picture, so I could choose between options A, B or C, and feel confident that I was making the right decision, for the right reason – not just out of panic.

2. Ask yourself, “What’s the worse that can happen?” In my case, I worried that the malware might cause some of my personal information, such as bank account or website passwords, available. I also worried that I wouldn’t be able to remove the malware, and the laptop I use for work would practically unusable without a costly hard-drive sweep.

3. Figure out alternatives. Once I’d pictured the worst-case scenario, I could picture the potential results: I could go back to using my slower desktop – it would just mean losing the ability to work wireless or do any major design work; I could take my laptop to a store, where technicians could scrub it and reinstall everything from scratch; I could look around at new laptops, since I don’t really love mine, anyway, and upgrade within a few months.

4. Solve the problem as passively as possible. Discovering a post by a famous computer techie really helped me because it gave simple, step-by-step instructions for manually removing the malware’s components from my system after using a (free!) recommended anti-spy/malware program. While the program was installing, updating, scanning and scrubbing, I chose to do something else.

5. Distract yourself. While I was passively solving the issue, I took a project that I’ve put way on the backburner, and brought it out. I could walk away from the project for short periods, when I needed to hit ‘ok’ on the computer, and I got a lovely, shabby-chic turquoise fruit stand out of it.

Do you have any suggestions for keeping your cool in a combustible situation?

About the Author Terra (aka Zoeyjane) is a single mom to a crazed nymph of a preschooler in Vancouver. After rocking at making rich people more money, selling them shiny shoes and helping them deal with their unimpressed clients, something made her think parenthood might come easy. She’s since learned her lesson, with a lot of time outs along the way. When she’s not trying to get the yelling to stop and ignoring the jumping of a child high on agave syrup, she works from home as a freelance writer and small business consultant, blogs on various sites and remains active in social media. Profile | Her Main Site | Follow Her on Twitter

There's so much more to the practice however.

Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese art, which translates to "wind and water" – two of the main energies of life. The practice sought to study a person’s quality of life and surroundings to see how their Qi, (pronounced Chee), which is the life energy or life force was being affected.

Ariel Joseph Towne (www.thefengshuiguy.com), a Feng Shui Master from Los Angeles, consults and teaches others a Body/Mind/Spirit approach to the practice, approaching situations in a holistic manner.

"Feng Shui is more than just aesthetic changes to your home, it's important to look at a space and see how it makes you feel first," said Ariel in a phone interview. "The good news is people are already practicing feng shui, whether they realize it or not. Most people are very aware on some level of how their space is affecting them. When you walk into a room, you know immediately if it feels like home, if it’s neutral or if you need to get out of there right away."

The first step to practicing feng shui is to know and accept that there is much more than just the five senses. Be, or become, aware of your space, and what about it feels 'off', if anything does. Ariel's basic rule of thumb is, don't break what isn't broken. "If your space feels great, and life is good, then don't go reading a feng shui book that will make you think something is wrong or that you’ve got to change something."

Take a moment and identify very clearly what isn't working for you in your space, and put some consciousness into it. Think about whether you’re uncomfortable in a space because you've been unconscious about putting things down simply because you don't know where else to put it. Become aware of your actions in relation to your stuff.

There are three things that you can put into practice immediately if you’re interested in getting started with feng shui.

• Declutter. Take a look around your rooms, one at a time, and see which items are no longer serving you. Ask yourself, have I used this in the past year? If not, recycle the item, give it to someone who can use it or take it to a thrift store.
• Think about the purpose of the room. Depending on what you’ve put into it and how consciously you’ve done so, the exact purpose of the room can be unclear. For example, the bedroom should be about sleep and sex, and instead, it can get filled with other purposes. If you’re working at cross-purposes, the primary purpose never gets fulfilled.
• See what you can find out about the history of the room. Were there fights; did someone die? What kind of energy was there before you entered? Depending on the energy and history of the place, wiping the slate and space clean with a blessing – either from a priest, shaman, or even a do-it-yourself smudging or meditation can make a difference.

These are all important steps to beginning a journey with Feng Shui. Picking up some of the specific books on the subject can only cause confusion and sometimes feeling of insecurity or incompetence when you think you’re doing everything wrong. Instead, Ariel recommends beginning with books like Move your Stuff, Change your Life by Karen Carter, or One Year to an Organized Life by Regina Leeds.

Ariel has several resources on his own website, including some radio spots from Sirius, and there is a long history of his "The Feng Shui Guy" videos on Soul Garden. Ariel also has a show in production with the SyFy network, scheduled to air later this summer or in early fall.

So, what are you waiting for? Start decluttering and get started down your own Feng Shui path!

About the Author ColleenCoplick is a jack of many trades. You'll find her orchestrating thelatest social media campaign and teaching ROI and the keys ofmeasurement as she goes, as well as enjoying the travel scene. She is awriter, aspiring novelist, plot & character ninja. Want more? Email her at colleen@missmanifesto.com Her Main Site | Follow Her on Twitter

We’ve all got one and sometimes, a little sweeping up is necessary. Life’s been tough, busy or tragic, and we’ve lost the way that we used to be, maybe even as far back as in childhood: light-hearted, curious, empathic and enthusiastic. It’s okay to be tired, or to have come out of the other side of adversity feeling like you’ve lost something – we all do at some point.

But if you recognize that you’re missing your former spark, the essence of you that made you so very unique from the moment of your first breath, it might be time to do a little soul scrubbing. Why not use this time, with spring coming and home organization on the brain, to make some changes and rebirth your spirit?

Question yourself

Are you happy? Why not? Having a job and a family and a roof over your head aren’t the automatic requirements for happiness, as almost anyone can tell you. Consider whether your career is going in the direction you want it to, if you’re happy with how your family runs and treats each other and if you’re not living the life that you want to be.

Ponder deeply what your ideal looks like - your home, work, and time with family and friends. What steps could be taken, so that you get closer to ideal, to blissful?

Look around you

We’ve all had at least one friend or loved ones that sapped us, whether it was emotionally, financially or of time. For your soul’s sake, you need to decide if this relationship has a place in your life, continuing as it is, if it can be mended, or if you should end it.

We’ve also usually had occasion to be the person who took more than they gave. Realize this. If you care about this person, you’ll find a way to reduce your use of them, while increasing your giving toward them.

NEXT PAGE -- Love >>

Love yourself

How do we show others that we love them? We think of them while we’re at the grocery store and buy their favourite cereal, or read the Cat in the Hat for the five thousandth time to our children, and we ask them how their day was. We encourage them to be happy, to pursue interests that inform and excite them, and we congratulate them.

We tell loved ones all the time how special they are to us, through words and actions, and we tend to omit a very important person: ourselves.

Self-acceptance, celebration of accomplishments and encouragement aren’t off-limits to us, just because we’re the ones usually handing it out. Taking pride in something we did well, or choosing to take a class on a subject that we’re excited about is very important – in fact, if you’re always dumbing down your accomplishments and avoiding your own parade, how will you teach your children to take pride in what they’ve done? If you’re always the least important person in a room, how will anyone ever treat you differently?

Celebrate yourself, find a passion, spend time getting to know you and become your own best friend.

Seek out new surroundings and revisit old ones

Finding a quiet place where your thoughts become clearer is paramount to feeling cleansed, renewed and refreshed. Look for hiking trails and get a babysitter for a few hours, then sweat with only your mind as company; visit a farmer’s market, reveling in the colour and effort that went into the nourishing foods before you; weed and plant at your own home or a community garden; visit your church or synagogue. There’s a million ways and places to get out of your own head by getting into it.

What it’s all about

If you’re unhappy, and your soul feels sapped, you can’t be the best you that you want to be. You might find yourself fighting with family and loved ones, lacking energy that you can never quite recover, or feeling as if life has taken you for a ride and you want to get off. Worst, you may end up depressed and feeling like you’re drowning.

Examining what needs to change about your life and habits, taking baby (or giant) steps to change, and finding things that both fulfill you and instill you can fill you with new breath, reviving your soul.

About the Author Terra (aka Zoeyjane) is a single mom to a crazed nymph of a preschooler in Vancouver. After rocking at making rich people more money, selling them shiny shoes and helping them deal with their unimpressed clients, something made her think parenthood might come easy. She’s since learned her lesson, with a lot of time outs along the way. When she’s not trying to get the yelling to stop and ignoring the jumping of a child high on agave syrup, she works from home as a freelance writer and small business consultant, blogs on various sites and remains active in social media. Profile | Her Main Site | Follow Her on Twitter

Since our heart is at the core of our physical and mental wellbeing, it is important for us to keep it running smoothly. While we all know that cardiovascular activity and a balanced diet are important factors in maintaining a strong heart, there are some other behaviours that – although we may not realize it – contribute to a happy and healthy heart.

Here are just a few:

Give Thanks

When we’re teaching our kids to be polite, thankful and caring, we’re also giving them tools to keep their heart healthy! It has been said that when we express gratitude, kindness or nurture positive thoughts our bodies release oxytocin. Oxytocin relaxes the nervous system, reduces stress hormones and lowers blood pressure, all key factors that play into a well-functioning heart.

Pick-Me-Up Playlist

We all have a playlist for those times that we need a little pick-me-up, the kind of music that put a skip back into your step. As it turns out, listening to the tunes that make you happy might not be simply good for your soul. According to a study done at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, it’s good for the heart too. The positive feelings have “a healthy effect on blood vessel function” which, in turn, promotes vascular health.

Deep Breaths

When our kids are freaking out, throwing a tantrum, or angry at a sibling for stealing their toy, by telling them to take a few deep breaths we not only ease the drama, we’re also helping their hearts. Deep, conscious breathing has been proven to reduce the effects of stress and anxiety in the body, reduce blood pressure and lower the heart rate, all of which contribute to the wellbeing of the heart.

Get into the Garden

While it’s been cited as a meditative practice and a hobby that truly gives back, most of us don’t associate a pair of gardening gloves and a trowel with the heart health. But as Canada’s gardening expert Mark Cullen says, “Gardening is an excellent way to get some physical activity, relieve stress, lower blood pressure and provide us with bountiful vegetables, which are all good for the heart.”

Close Companions

Whether it’s family or friends, choosing whom we spend our time with can affect our heart health. A study conducted by Nicholas A. Christakis (a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School in Boston) and James Fowler (a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego) concluded that, “people’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected.” In other words, happiness seems to be contagious. And when we are happy and content, we are likely to make healthier choices, we have more energy, and we are able to deal with stress much more effectively. When combined, these benefits of happiness are fabulous tools for helping the heart stay strong.

So, the next time you’re saying grace at the dinner table, listening to your favourite tunes, taking a few deep breaths, planting your tomatoes or spending quality time with your close girlfriends, know that you, your family and your friends are contributing to the health and happiness of each other’s heart.

About the Author Annabel Fitzsimmons is a mother of two, a writer, a yoga and Pilates teacher, and the founder of www.clearspaceonline.com. ClearSpace Online is an online studio that offers tools and resources to live an inspired and balanced life through: yoga, Pilates, meditation, relaxation and guided journaling podcasts; articles on health, diet, fitness and wellness; the ClearSpace blog, and ClearSpace Interview series. Annabel started ClearSpace to encourage people to reconnect with what makes them truly happy. Annabel also muses on taking yoga off the mat and into motherhood in herMeditatingMummy Blog. Her Profile | Her Main Site | Follow Her on Twitter