The TCW Archives

Owner Brenda De Leon What I do:  I own a landscaping & garden care company. We service Dutchess, Putnam, & Westchester Counties.  How it began:  I spent 10 years managing a high-end construction firm and learned everything from building a home to landscaping. At the same time, I freelanced as a consultant and helped small contractors start their own enterprises. Many flourished and are still in business today. I also became fascinated with the numerous health benefits that a well-designed landscape can bring to a homeowner. I love spending time in nature. It’s soothing, therapeutic and healthy, and with proper planning, anyone can have the same environment in their own backyard.  Always having an entrepreneurial spirit, and my love for the outdoors, in 2007 I felt it was time. I started a company with a vision to focus on its employees because I strongly believe that happy employees are more productive on the field and ...

by Felicia Hodges Remember the teacher whose upper arms swung from side to side as she wrote word problems on the board? Perhaps when you were younger, you wondered how something like that could happen to an upper arm. But now it’s less of a mystery because your arms are starting to jiggle a bit, too. Luckily, flabby upper arms don’t have to be a permanent condition. Even if you’re busy, you can tone those upper arms in as little as a few minutes a day. (No – seriously!) ​ Finding a Routine According to Bernadette Montana, a National Academy of Sports Medicine-certified personal trainer from Orange County who lost 60 lbs. over a decade ago,  finding an exercise routine  that works for you is one of the most important ways to help establish a routine. “If you join a gym and can’t find time to get there, it doesn’t really do you much good. The same is true if you develop a time-consuming routine if you don’t have a lot of time to spare,” she says. "Re...

By Dana Muwwakkil Fans of Bridget Jones rejoice: Renee’ Zellweger is back as Bridget and is as quirky and clever as ever. While society would label the 43-year-old career girl with no love life as a “tragic spinster,” Ms. Jones is living her best life. But while friends have each moved on and started families of their own, Bridget is attending music festivals, being a major boss at work and looking quite fabulous. Like the previous two films, Bridget is caught up in a love triangle but this time it’s even more complicated. Because of some casual sex and ancient condoms, she finds herself with child but isn't sure who the father is. One potential papa is the always-poised Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). Unfortunately, playboy Daniel Cleaver (charmingly portrayed by Hugh Grant) has been oddly killed off in an airplane accident. (If you're a fan of the book series, its Mark who dies – but either storyline is sad.) The second maybe baby daddy is Jack (the charismatic Patr...

Picking Up the Pieces Everything old can be made new again. Or at least it can be made different. Such is the premise of Unshattered – a nonprofit social enterprise where women who are winning their battle against addiction make handbags and other products out of repurposed items and other materials. Having completed the recovery program at the Walter Hoving Home - a Garrison residential rehabilitation center for women overcoming alcoholism, drug and other addictions - the women of Unshattered use high-quality, donated materials to make beautifully useful products, and express themselves creatively. The organization’s mission is to help the women find a path forward to economic independence and sustained sobriety, which is done by helping them gain skills as bag designers, seamstresses, salespeople, production and office managers, and design specialists to prepare for their futures. Proceeds form the sales of the products funnel back into Hoving Home programs. ...

Helping Hands Baby, it's cold outside - but just imagine how much colder it would be if you had no home in which to seek shelter from the elements. For too many, that is a stark reality – but that’s also where  HONOR  comes in.  Since 1974, HONOR – Helping Others Needing Our Resources – has been offering temporary housing, food, counseling services and more for Orange County's most needy residents. Located in Middletown, their housing programs serve approximately 3,000 men, women and children annually and another 24,000 people are helped through HONOR’s food pantries, street outreach, after-care services and help line. Guests are provided three nutritionally balanced meals each day, along with transportation and counseling to help them to become self-sufficient. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days each year, HONOR serves with compassion, respect and, of course, honor. The Genealogy Connection Looking for help connect the dots on you...

by Jennifer Warren Phoebe Miller knew the answer was in finding a home. Where that was and what it looked like were roughly sketched in her mind and the details remained a mystery – which was o.k. A few years before Miller experienced two devastating losses: Her father's passing and a divorce. The primary caregiver to her dad and a partner for 15 years, she had been immersed in building a life for other people that had suddenly vanished in the blink of an eye. Phoebe Miller And with that evaporation came an unexpected crossroads. A former professional dancer who had taught Pilates classes, Miller had recently developed a passion for instructing yoga from a place of understanding of people's varying backgrounds and experiences. Through the transition, she was certain of a couple things. "I wanted to travel as well as continue on the path of teaching yoga," Miller says. "There was a lot of deconstruction in my life and I just wasn't sure of...