Hello folks👋, its been a long time coming, but here I am. Over the past two months I've travelled around different countries. And every time I go to a new place, I find that fact and fancy look alike. I visualize the feeling of accomplishment. And I feel like I've reached the summit of Mt. Everest. The pure exhaustion experienced after the long travel is not so relevant anymore. It doesn't faze me anymore after months of globe🌍 trotting.  It made me realize that life is a journey, often not easy so we gotta keep wearing our oxygen masks. I know that my journey sometimes has breathtaking views. Fresh air, peace, love, joy and happiness. But I've also hit a place in my journey that had my feet planted in the mud. Each attempt to move forward proved to be more difficult than the last but I still kept moving towards my goal.  Life has forced me to slow down and smell the roses. The path of our journey has such beauty along the way. All of the detours distract us from the beauty of the climb.

Until I post again, Peace King signing off!
Adiós!

A little life update for #GabbyPacksLight...

Lighting makes all the difference in how we experience a room. Image: Terracotta Design Build

  For so many of us, lighting is an afterthought in our interiors. This happens when you think of it as a utilitarian detail of the room, rather than something that adds aesthetic value. When it’s done right, lighting is the unsung element that brings your design to the next level.

Our ultimate lighting guide gives you all the info you need to effortlessly light every room in your home. Read our tips and keep them close at hand. You never know when you may need to tweak the existing lighting in your home or to build a new layout from scratch.

There’s more than one type of lighting out there. Image: Nina Farmer Interiors

Know your options

One of the most common lighting mistakes people make is assuming that one type of lighting — especially dreaded overheads — will suffice when putting a room together. Interior designers will be the first to tell you that sentiment couldn’t be further from the truth.

In reality, lighting works best when it’s used in layers. There are three main types of indoor lighting to consider and, ideally, each room will include all of them. They are:

• Ambient: Also known as general lighting, ambient light fills the majority of the room and allows you to move around safely. It usually comes from recessed lighting, track lighting or wall-mounted fixtures.
• Accent: Accent lighting is used to highlight a particular focal point, such as a piece of wall art. Picture lights, wall-mounted-fixtures or track lighting are common, and dimmers are often used on these features to provide mood lighting.
• Task: As the name suggests, task lights are used to assist you in completing a particular function. This could be anything from desk lamps to pendant lights that hang over a kitchen island.

Each room has its own ideal lighting layout. Image: Capital Building

Let the room dictate the layout

Now that you know what your different lighting options are, it’s time to decide how — and where — to place your light sources in each room. While this is ultimately a matter of personal preference, there are some standard layouts that work well.

If you’re unsure where to start, use these room-by-room guides as a source of inspiration:

• Entryway: Start with a dramatic pendant light or chandelier overhead. Then, supplement with either a table or floor lamp.
• Living room: This is a good place to use track or recessed lighting throughout. If your room has a main seating area, use a larger, overhead fixture to center it. Place floor lamps where needed to light shadowy corners. Finally, if you have a buffet or other large furniture piece, you may want to consider adding a table lamp.
• Dining room: The dining room is the easiest room to light. Your main source should come from a large, pendant light or chandelier that’s centered over the dining table. If there are additional dark corners, you can use a floor or table lamp to supplement.
• Kitchen: Kitchen lighting is complex. You may want to start with some recessed lighting. Focal areas like the kitchen island and dining table should have overhead pendants or chandeliers. Work areas benefit from the addition of under-cabinet lighting. Plus, you could add specific task sources at the sink and stove.
• Bedroom: Ideally, bedrooms have a main, overhead light source and table lamps on nightstands or dressers.
• Bathroom: Recessed lighting is common. You could also add task lights around a mirror or, for a dramatic touch, an overhead source above the tub.
• Office: Start with recessed lighting or a main, overhead source. Be sure to add table or floor lamps in dark corners or by seating areas. Finally, be sure to use a desk lamp in your main work area.

  This is not quite what I think of when I think of a commuter vehicle. It is the end of the world🌍, or at least it feels like it. The word apocalypse comes up frequently during conversation whether its because of global politics, environmental issues or economic uncertainty.
America🇺🇸 is haunted by the idea of of its own demise, but there are so e people who relish the idea.
A national movement is cropping up where Mad Max enthusiasts play out the fall of man or what comes after

Wasteland weekend event

   Wasteland weekend, an annual event in the Californian dessert that draws thousands of people from all over the world. But new post apocalyptic parties are popping up across the country. These parties are created by those who never want Wasteland to end.

Ares and her husband Spud

Ares hasn't just Wastelanded her clothes👚, she has wastelanded her life. Three years ago, she moved out to the middle of the desert to a home with no address with her husband Spud. She met Spud at a Wasteland event.
Connie inquired more about Wasteland weekeed from Ares. This is what she had to say "Watstelanders are a surprising mix of individuals, you have the crew, they live off grid with the midset of Who would I want to be at the end of the world."
  You can be the beat version of yourself or you can be someone entirely different. When the world ends, you can reinvent yourself and that's what exactly Ares and her husband💏 Spud have done.
Connie wanted to experience the end of the world for herself so she travelled✈ all the way to Alabama. 

A post apocalyptic site in Alabama

 She is in a post apocalyptic site. Middle of nowhere seems like a good place like any.
Aftermath is kicking off at a farm rather than a Mad Max metropolis, this is more like a family👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 reunion.


                        
 Aftermath was started by a group of friends hoping to live their end of days a bit closer to home.
It is a full immersion event which means, the point is to feel like you are in another world.
Without the constrains of society, this is a place to experiment, meet new people and try something new.
I don't know if it feels like the world will end tomorrow but this guys seems to have figured it out already.
Doomsday plan, fast friends and the best way to escape:- a stiff drink. Even I know that😄.
It is easy to be disillusioned by the state of the world and there is a certain kind of relief that comes from leaving it behind and just dancing👯 and drinking🍺 with friends.
The next day, Connie wakes up at 9.30 AM and to her surprise, almost everyone is gone. She packs all her belongings and bids the few remaining individuals goodbye. 
                        
If these guys are right, when the world ends, value won't be measured in dollars. Things that are dirty, destroyed, and discarded will find new life and purpose and maybe so can people.

Check out the video on YouTube

   This is Harajuku, a street in Tokyo Japan🇯🇵. In a country🗾 known for conformity this is where you come to stand out.
Here in Harajuku, style is defined by defying the norms but a new look is challenging one of Japan's deepest taboos:- Depression😟 and mental illness. The style is called Yami Kawaii (かわいいかわいい) it means sick cute
Can fashion break the silence that surrounds an epidemic?
What exactly is yami kawaii and what exactly does it mean?

Kuuwa. An artiste and an influencer with with 50k followers on Instagram

  To find out, Connie Wang tracks Kuuwa an artiste and an influencer with more than 50k followers on instagram. "Yami Kawaii is generally pastel colors and is kind of soft and has darker elements like black or motifs such as medical themes or grotesque themes are included as well."

Reunited relatives leave the Marriott Coral Springs Hotel on Wednesday night following a deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Washington Post photo by Matt McClain

Author: Lisa Hamp
  If you survive a mass shooting, life changes quickly. For me, at Virginia Tech almost 11 years ago, it changed the instant I heard the gun shots.

And when I heard the news Wednesday about the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the feelings that I had during and after Virginia Tech came back instantly.

There have been hundreds and hundreds of other mass shootings since that one, and already 17 earlier school shootings this year, as documented by the nonprofit group Everytown for Gun Safety. The physically uninjured survivors of all these shootings are often considered the lucky ones. And we are lucky — very lucky. But that doesn't mean that life after a shooting is easy or normal. It's not. We have struggles and a recovery journey that can't be seen, only felt.

On our campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, my classmates and I built a barricade to prevent the shooter from entering. Bullets went through our door, and the shooter tried to enter, but we were able to keep him out until law enforcement arrived. When the gunman opened fire, within seconds, my body went into fight-or-flight mode. The shots ended, but my brain kept wondering: When is it safe? Are the police here yet? Is the shooter in custody? Is the shooter dead?

This is what's in store now for the survivors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

Before the shooting, I didn't think much about my safety at the grocery store, or at church or the movie theater. When a mass shooting occurred, I'd hear about it in the news and think about my personal safety for a day or two, but then it left my mind. (Then again, 11 years ago, mass shootings were less deadly.) But after the Virginia Tech shooting, I thought about safety everywhere I went. I overanalyzed which seat to choose at the movies or church based on my best escape plan. My eyes scanned everyone around looking for unusual behavior. My ears could hear a pin drop.

[Alaska survivors of Las Vegas mass shooting move forward with the help of friendship]

I remained in a fight-or-flight state for months. I always wanted to know: When will it be safe again? Or really, when will I feel safe again? Within seconds, the feeling of safety I'd always known was stripped away, replaced with fear, sadness, loneliness and self-doubt. Figuring out how to deal with these feelings while regaining a sense of safety, without pushing everyone and everything away — it's challenging, to say the least.

I had a tremendous fear it would happen again. People would tell me it wouldn't, but I thought, they don't know that. Because unfortunately, in our country right now, there is no guarantee that it won't happen again. I eventually regained a sense of public safety. It just took time, and counseling.

I hear way too often, "A mass shooting won't happen to me. Not at my school, and not in my community." That's what I thought, too, before it happened at Virginia Tech. But the truth is that it is always somebody's school and somebody's community. And somebody's loved ones.

When the media covers a shooting, the reporting tends to focus on the numbers the shooters killed or hurt. Las Vegas concert: 58 killed and more than 500 injured. Sutherland Springs Church, Texas: 26 killed and 20 injured. Rancho Tehama Elementary School, California: five killed and 18 injured. Marshall County High School, Kentucky: two killed and 18 injured. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: 17 killed and 15 injured. So far.

But these shootings also affect more than just the families and friends who lost loved ones and the victims who were shot. I wasn't shot, but I was affected for years. I was in denial that I needed help because I had no physical wounds or scars. Physically uninjured survivors don't always get the resources they need. It feels very selfish to ask for resources when others were killed or wounded, but the truth is, we need them, too.

By now, there are also thousands of physically uninjured survivors, as well as law enforcement officers and medics who responded to these events. These people may think for a long time that they weren't affected because the media doesn't mention them. They may have escaped gun wounds, but the mental wounds run deep. They walk wounded for months, sometimes years, before realizing the impact the shooting had on them.

It's a long road to recovery for everyone. When is enough enough?

Hamp survived the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and is now an advocate for school safety

Better Home and Gardens just released the results of a national survey asking two distinct sets of homeowners what they want to change in their home for 2018. The 10th annual Home Factor survey polled two groups about home improvements they’d like to carry out this year: “luxury” homeowners who make more than $125,000 a year and “mass” homeowners who make less than $125,000 a year.

They found that these two groups may not have the same money to spend, but they have the same priorities when it comes to upgrading their homes. Amy Panos, Home Editor at Better Homes and Gardens said, “Regardless of their income, homeowners care about creating an inviting home that has useful, upgraded spaces for family and friends to enjoy.”

Here are the top 6 home improvements that are a priority for 2018:
1. Painting rooms

Caliente is Benjamin Moore’s Color of the Year for 2018. Image: Benjamin Moore

Painting a room is one of the fastest and least expensive ways to give a room a makeover. It’s also a great DIY project that can often be tackled over a weekend. The best part about this type of project is that homeowners can take a bigger risk with color and paint over it if they don’t like it.

2. Replacing flooring

Wood flooring is the top choice in floors for homeowners and potential buyers. Image: TK Interiors

This is not only high on the priority list, but a smart move. Upgrading to hardwood flooring can add up to “2.5% to the home’s sale price,” according to Realtor.com.

3. Bathroom remodel

When remodeling a bathroom, try to create a spa-like environment with a combination of textures and finishes. Image: Racing Green Construction

According to a report published by the National Association of Realtors, a complete kitchen renovation, a kitchen upgrade and a bathroom renovation topped the list of projects that add value to the resale price of a home.

4. Kitchen remodel

Contemporary coastal kitchen design is a favorite among families. Image: Chelsea Lauren Interiors

A modern, functional kitchen is one of the top features homeowners look for. But it’s important to not go overboard on the upgrades, since, according to U.S. News, a minor kitchen remodel will recoup 80 percent of its cost, while a major mid-range kitchen remodel has a 65 percent return on investment.
5. Decorating with furniture and accessories

The right furniture and accessories add a unique and polished look to a room. Image: Studio Envie

The right furniture and accessories bring new life to any room. If your budget is limited, focus on buying the highest quality main furniture piece in the room and then bargain hunt for the rest of the accents. For example, when redecorating the living room, splurge on the sofa — you’ll spend lots of time sitting on it and get creative with the accessorizing.
6. Adding a separate laundry room

Style and function are both possible with a well-designed laundry room. Be sure to add plenty of storage and a countertop area for folding. Image: Studio Envie

A separate, well-organized laundry room can not only make life easier, it makes the regular task of doing laundry a pleasure. Depending on the amount of space you have, a separate laundry space can be as simple as converting a closet to plumbing out a whole designated laundry room.

What’s difference between the two groups?

If the two sets of homeowners agree on the same projects, what are the differences? The luxury homeowner set is willing to pay more for quality pieces and hire contractors to do more of the renovations than the mass set. Interestingly, mass homeowners want to focus on the pricier kitchen and bath remodels while the luxury homeowners want to paint or redecorate the home with furniture and accessories.

What are you planning on upgrading this year?