As a fitness instructor I help senior citizens stay active in their daily lives with exercise, stretches and sometimes laughter. My brother helps senior citizens when their daily activity has become too difficult to handle. We have both seen, too often, how difficult life can become for senior citizens who loose their ability to stay active or take care of themselves, as they grow older.

Sometimes, when daily activity has become too painful or too difficult to handle something as simple as innovative clothing designed to make life easier can make a huge difference in a person’s life. Fortunately, Discover the uses of Adaptive clothing, by Rewards4life, shows us the benefits of adaptive clothing, clothing made for individuals with specific needs (young or old). The article is informative, well written and organized. The introduction draws you in with words like "dignity," "pride," "stress and pain free". Even the pictures are attractive and heartwarming.

The rest of the page offers helpful information, situations and issues in which using adaptive clothing would make life easier and more dignified for the people that wear them, as well as the caregivers who must look after them. For example, we learn why adaptive clothing with a zipper in the back would help keep a patient with Dementia from disrobing or undressing himself in public. We learn why adaptive clothing with Velcro would be more suitable for someone who has joint pain and cannot button, zip, or tie her clothes because of this pain.

I would like to see more heart-warming pictures added to it as well as more pictures of the adaptive clothing up close. A video of the clothing in use would also be helpful. As with any article I would like to see green alternatives, such as organic adaptive clothing. Besides that, the entire work serves a good purpose, to inform the public of products that can make difficult living not as difficult and a lot more freeing. Thumbs up!

You can give it a thumbs up too, leave feedback and share the link to it with family and friends.

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My mom is a hoarder. This doesn’t make my mother a bad person. This isn’t the case at all. My mother is one of the most wonderful people I know. Her delightful soul can bring joy to any room at any moment if she wishes. Her flaw, her problem is collecting, buying and saving everything.

My mother’s hoarding is usually kept to a room or two, as well as a few closets in the house. Oh! and she keeps the shed in the backyard filled with potential art projects. My mother is a very artistic person with a lot of great ideas. She just never has enough time to follow through. Her hoarding is not nearly as bad as the extreme hoarders shown on TV, but it is a problem, a problem she has been embarrassed about for years. She wasn't always a hoarder.

My siblings and I are all afraid of becoming hoarders too. Growing up in a hoarding environment we have difficultly distinguishing the difference between frugality and hoarding. You see, my mother taught us to appreciate everything, how to be grateful for what we have and how to recognize a good deal when we come across a good deal, but mix that in with a few emotional issues and the concept can get a little blurred. There is being frugal and grateful and then there is not letting go of anything. There has to be a limit to what we own. Right?! This is easier said than done.

I have siblings that wont keep anything for too long out of fear of turning into hoarders themselves. Then there is me. I pride myself in my ecofrugality. I will recycle everything I can, reuse it, donate it or trade it in for something else. In the process of reusing, donating or trading, there is a bit…okay, a lot of “collecting" that needs to be done. The line between hoarder and ecofrugality can sometimes get covered by the toppling mess. So, when I came across MeltedRachel’s, How to Live Without Stuff and Why You Should, I was inspired, welcomed, understood, advised and intrigued by her lens.

Let’s begin with the first picture in the lens. What a great introductory picture! It sums up the emotions of isolation and the misunderstanding of hoarding in a nutshell. The quote, "99% of everything we buy ends up in the trash 6 months later," really brings the point across about our need to just buy things without the thought of where it will end up later. Then MeltedRachel posts a picture of a garbage truck in a landfill. Score! As a wannabe environmentalist this really tugs at my heart.

The Hug-E gram is just hilarious. I am lucky enough to have real hugs in my life. If I wasn't would I buy something like this? I don't think so. "You are a true hoarder if…you buy ten Hug-E grams," would look great on a zazzle t-shirt. Who would buy the t-shirt? MeltedRachel follows all of the above with her personal reasoning behind hoarding and then gives good advice for ways to “unhoard" oneself, followed by pictures of extreme hoarding homes and videos about compulsive hoarders.

This eye opening lens has a lot of potential to make a difference in a hoarder's life. I would love to see MeltedRachel use the page break module and a little bit more HTML in her lens to give it a cleaner and more organized look, but other than that I recommend all hoarders, potential hoarders or loved ones of a hoarder to visit the page. Vote for it. Leave feedback and share the lens link with family and friends.

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A couple of years ago, when I was still a newbie to Squidoo, I noticed a lens called How to Reuse Paper Rolls. I found it so useful I added it to my favorites. Time and time again I have gone back to this lens to look for toilet roll crafts I can share with my kids.

Yes, I am one of those people that just can’t throw the toilet rolls away. I save them for projects like the ones on this lens or I give them to my kid's teachers when they ask for donations like these to do crafts in their classrooms. Right now I have another bag full of Seventh Generation rolls to eco-craft with (I have a family of five so this happens) and my most recent use for some of these rolls was seedling pots. Which reminds me I need to water them…

So how useful is this lens and why do I like it? To start, the corny YouTube Video at the top of the lens is a perfect fit for this lens and it does bring up a good question, “What do you do with toilet paper rolls?” The rest of the YouTube videos on the lens are also a great fit for this lens and I love, really love, the toilet paper roll ornament idea on the last video. What a clever idea!

The next thing I noticed was the clever household tips for extending the vacuum cleaner with a paper towel roll and for keeping electrical cords organized. These tips are as eye opening, simple and practical as the first two. I am grateful for the crafty links that follow too. As a parent of three kids that love art, this is most useful.

I’m not at all surprised that this page has made Lens of the Day and more. If I had the power I would give it five green thumbs for being so Ecolicious. Even most of the products advertised on the page relate to the recycling theme.

The only thing I would like to see changed on this page is the introduction. It is not as fun, strange or unique as the rest of the lens. I’d like to see it improved to measure up to the rest of the lens, but besides that this lens is practical, eco-friendly and parent-friendly. We need more lenses like it. Hats off to a_willow for putting together all these great ideas into one place.

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Image Credit: Necessity by kittytrishia