Tag Archives: quitting smoking

Make Camping Easy: The Camping Box

I’d like to share a brilliant idea that I got from a friend. I’m implementing it in my own home over the next couple of months. It’s the idea of the camping box. You see, I can’t stand packing. It is one of the things that I despise most in the world. Before every vacation, I spend at least a week dreading the packing and a day foully irritable while I’m actually doing it. It’s not that I’m not organized. I have packing lists. I have most of the things that we need. However, my lists simply serve to remind … Continue reading →

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Kittymas!

I celebrated my two year anniversary at the cats-only boarding facility just two weeks ago. The time has definitely flown by! My anniversary comes right in the middle of our busiest season: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. We had nearly fifty guests for Turkey Day, and are expecting just over fifty guests for Christmas! That’s still a low number, compared to the sixty-five we had my very first holiday season at the boarding facility. But what a way to learn the job! I had plenty of coworkers around for questions and help, and plenty of cats to work with — … Continue reading →

Is Christmas Perfection Costing You Money?

The whole “Christmas is getting too commercial” mantra has been going on for a while. everyone seems to admit that it is true, but very few do anything to change the way that they consume during the holidays. Related to the commercial issue is the perfection issue. So many of us dream of the perfect Christmas with all of the right trimmings. Instead of homemade ornaments, popcorn, cranberries, gingerbread and paper chains, we have to have glittery ornaments that are color coordinated in silver and blue or gold and burgundy. Instead of a few candles in the window or a … Continue reading →

How to Include Your (Soon-to-be-Born) Baby at Christmas

There are lots of fun ways to include your soon-to-be born baby at Christmas. Who cares if they don’t know what is going on? For the mother-to-be, this “first” Christmas is just as special as all the Christmases to come. Christmas can almost begin to feel like a baby shower for a pregnant woman. Family members may have gifts for the new baby, such as clothes or toys, and will enjoy watching the new mother open them “for the baby.” Hanging a stocking for the expected baby is a cute way to give small gifts like teething rings, pacifiers or … Continue reading →

Festive Food Garlands

The idea of making festive Christmas garlands out of food is nothing new. In the Victorian era, when the Christmas tree first came into fashion, folks hung all sorts of things on the tree and around the home to celebrate Christmas, and food was no exception. Today, though, we have a wealth of new “materials” available to us for festive food garlands. I’ll share some of the basic traditional food garland ideas, along with some new more modern takes. Orange and Apple Garland This garland not only looks good, it smells good too! The orange and apple garland gives you … Continue reading →

Secondhand Smoke and Pets

There’s a lot of evidence out there that secondhand smoke is bad for you. It can cause issues with fertility, your heart, your lungs, and more. But it’s not just people who are in danger — secondhand smoke is also bad for your pets. When you inhale secondhand smoke, you’re getting all the bad stuff that’s in cigarettes… without the benefit of the cigarette’s filter. The same goes for your pets! Their lungs are in danger from the same stuff, for the same reason. But there’s a secondary danger with pets and secondhand smoke. Many animals groom themselves — and … Continue reading →

Turkeys: “We’re Going to Disneyland!”

Thanksgiving is an all-American tradition, full of family, turkey, cranberry sauce, parades, floats, and the blissful tryptophan-induced nap we all sink into at the end of the evening. New traditions are added to the holiday all the time, such as the Presidential Turkey Pardon. Since 2005 another all-American tradition has been added: a trip to Disneyland. When President Obama pardons two turkeys today the birds will then fly to Disneyland in California to serve as honorary Grand Marshals of the Disney Thanksgiving Day Parade. Afterward they will retire to the Big Thunder Ranch in Disneyland’s Frontierland. Some claim the presidential … Continue reading →

Great American Smokeout 2009: Measuring Success

I read a very interesting thing on the American Cancer Society website about quitting smoking and how you measure success. Many people look at the success rates of a particular quitting smoking program before they decide whether or not to try it. But the ACS points out a few problems with that. For one thing: not all programs define success in the same way. Some may measure a “success” as a person not smoking for six months, while another may call reaching the one year mark a “success”. So before you even start, you need to figure out how YOU … Continue reading →

The “Live” Christmas Tree

I thought that Libby did a great job laying out all of the pros and the cons in the real versus fake Christmas tree debate and how these choices relate to green living. But there was another choice that many people don’t know about, and I wanted to talk a little bit about that today in my post. The third option when it comes to Christmas trees is to select a live tree. A live tree is a real, grown tree that comes with its root ball in tact. The tree is not killed to become decoration. Rather, it can … Continue reading →

Freezing Holiday Food: Potatoes

Your freezer can be one of your best friends when it comes to preparing holiday food. You can make and freeze dishes and deserts ahead of time to cut down on the hectic holiday food preparation and cooking. You can also freeze leftovers in order to reduce waste. Finally, you can prepare extra meals that will be easy to eat during the holiday rush. Some foods do freeze better than others, and there are some other considerations to make when freezing foods, such as whether or not to freeze them cooked or uncooked, whether to alter your spices, when par-baking … Continue reading →