By Caroline Inge

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably noticed that it's Breast Cancer Awareness month. There has probably been a Race for the Cure 5K race in your area. You may have seen NFL players sporting pink accents to their uniforms or a giant pink ribbon on your sports team's field. If you weren't aware -- hey, guess what, it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

The color pink is popping up all over the place, even in the world of home design!

I was chatting with a friend about house work this week. She has just returned to work after maternity leave and her stepson just began the schoolyear. Keeping up her house while adjusting to this new schedule has her feeling pretty overwhelmed. Under the misconception that I am some great housekeeper -- I am most certainly not! -- she asked for some advice. Here are my tips for faking a clean house -- you just need 30 minutes to do it.

On a recent family beach trip my sister-in-law, Amanda, newly committed to the Green movement, surprised my mom, sisters, and I with a great gift -- water bottles! Not just any water bottle, not the desperately in need of hydration, college student's, hippie sticker bedecked, Nalgene, not a dinky 12 pack of Dasani, but a chic-ly re-used Pellegrino bottle.

Spring officially arrives in 4 days! Could you be more excited to say good-bye to the winter blahs, and the dust bunnies that have been hibernating in your corners. Why is it that the sunlight has a way of showcasing those floating dust particles drifting through the air? I don't exactly know the why, but I do know that it's really gross. Ie, you actually breathe that dirt directly into your lungs.

So get to the cleaning! We put together a spring cleaning guide to help you beat winter's grimy build up.

There is also a refresher on household basics and cleaning. It covers everything you should already know by now, but may have missed and are too embarrassed to ask about now. For instance, there is a right way to clean up broken glass and fold a fitted sheet -- I didn't know that one either.

Photo from Good Housekeeping, via Modern Eco-Homes.com

If you're out shopping for products, lookout to for Good Housekeeping's new Green Seal of Approval. There are internet whispers that the legendary product testers are taking on green product testing too with full details to come in their April issue. In the meantime, check out our green product recommendations. Do you have any spring cleaning rituals? Let me know!