Household

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Supplementing Your Health

Supplements_Walmart_20100329_LAH_1219Do you take vitamin pills? How about herbal supplements or cures?

There’s so much hype about the benefits of this or that bottle of pills, it’s hard to know what actually helps and what is a waste of money. I was so glad to find this source of scientifically vetted information. This website isn’t trying to sell anything. Rather, it presents “just the facts, ma’am.”

Information is Beautiful summarizes information, then presents the data graphically. The site’s various graphs are works of art; you won’t find a single pie chart. If you’re curious about the underlying sources, simply click on the link at the bottom of the page.

Since I was interested in the value of nutritional supplements and herbal cures, I navigated to the page titled “Snake Oil? Scientific evidence for popular health supplements….” It was just what I was looking for. Continue reading →

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Living Responsibly

Social justice. Healthy lifestyles. Environmental stewardship. Sometimes it’s awfully hard to pull it all together….

My phone alarm chirps, waking me from dreams of tropical beaches complete with coconut palms, perfect waves, and a bathing suit figure. It’s morning, six o’clock. Time to get out of bed and start another day of responsible living.

I reach over to turn off the electric blanket. Yes, it’s electric. Is that environmentally correct? It uses electricity, and we’re trying to conserve. Yet, we’re able to keep the house cooler, turning the heat off at night even in the middle of winter. Surely that saves more energy than my blanket uses.

Dragging myself out of bed, I stumble towards the shower. The water feels wonderful, but I don’t want to take too long—that hot water is a precious, limited resource. I reach for the soap and shampoo. Wait—were they tested on animals? I’d better read the label. Should I use a disposable razor? All that plastic will end up in the landfill. Maybe I should just opt for hairy legs.

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Saving Energy: Computers

I was recently criticized by a conservation-minded friend for leaving my computer on all the time. As I consider myself a fairly passionate environmentalist (at least in some areas), I took her concern seriously, and did some research. That is, I asked Pete, who is very knowledgeable in these things. Here’s a summary of what I learned.

I leave my computer on for a number of reasons. For one, other people need access to it even when I’m gone. That may or may not be true for you, too. Plus, my back-up software runs every night.  Gotta have that! (When do you do your backups?)

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Free Birthday Stuff

I confidently predict that every one of you will have a birthday some time during the next year. Let me be the first to wish you a very happy day.

A large number of businesses offer you free stuff on your birthday, ranging from ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery (or  most other ice cream chains) to free movie rentals at Hollywood Video. Some of my favorites include Red Robin, Noodles & Co., and Souper Salad, in addition to the aforementioned Cold Stone. (Did you know some Cold Stone stores have no-sugar-added Cake Batter now? This flavor will also be present in heaven, I’m sure.)  I was particularly impressed that Benihana will send you a coupon worth $30 for a free birthday dinner—I just wish our closest Benihana was less than an hour away.

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Tradition!

I still cringe when I remember the year my parents decided to mess with family tradition. We’d always had a real Christmas tree, illuminated with those large, old-fashioned lights (now considered the height of retro-fashion!) and hung with lead-filled crinkled “icicles” (long banned by the EPA). But the year I turned ten, my mother decided it was time to update our decorations.

She and my dad went to our local Christmas tree lot, picked out a tall misshapen tree, and had it flocked. Spray-on flocking was quite the rage in the mid-60’s. (At least they stuck with white “snow” rather than opting for the very trendy blue, lavender or pink.) Hauled home in our pick-up, the tree went into our high-ceilinged living room. There it was spotlighted with a floodlight. Finally, gold balls were nestled in the fluffy white branches—tiny ornaments at the very top, giant shiny spheres on the sturdy branches at the base. I’m sure the tree was beautiful, with its avant-garde shape and mono-thematic decorations. I, for one, hated it.

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Christmas Presents

In our culture, Christmas has turned into the biggest shopping spree and gift fest of the year. When most people think about Christmas, they think about presents. While gift-giving isn’t mandatory, it is an expectation in most families. Given that fact, how can exchanging gifts honor God?

Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than receive.” When I was a child, I would have disagreed, but now that I’m the primary gift-chooser in our family, I find that I get really excited about finding the perfect present for someone I love. I get even more excited watching them open the wrapping. We honor God in our giving when we give with a cheerful heart.

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Planning for the Holidays

The Christmas decorations have been up in the stores for months, ads are playing on TV, and a suffocating feeling of being overwhelmed is beginning to engulf me. I feel like Scrooge. It’s not that I’m against Christmas—far from it—but I’m very much fed up with the commercialized substitute our culture feeds us. It makes me want to crawl under a rock and stay there until January.

Every year I rebel against spending money we don’t have, baking things I shouldn’t eat, and the self-imposed pressure to decorate the house—knowing I’ll have to put it all away again a few weeks later. Yet I eventually find myself doing all those things anyway.

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We’re Expecting Houseguests!

The calendar says November, Thanksgiving is two weeks away, and Christmas isn’t far behind. For years you’ve extended invitations to everyone in your family, and no one has come to visit. But this year…. Your sister just announced that she and her husband are bringing their eight kids. Five minutes later your in-laws called to say they’re finally free this year. Your other sister found out everyone was coming, and didn’t want to miss the excitement. And by the way, can she bring her (humongous) dog? And her boyfriend?

At first you were excited about having a family reunion… but now reality is setting in. Where will you put them all? How will you help them feel welcome?

Pete and I once successfully hosted twelve family members (in addition to our nuclear family of four) in our three-bedroom house… for an entire week. (Five more people stayed with a neighbor, but ate with us.) It would easy now that our kids are grown and on their own—we have two dedicated guest rooms plus another bed in my home office. But we used to live in an area where housing prices were very high, and houses were very small. Where did we put our overnight guests then?

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Cheapest Fill-ups for Your Gas Tank

Your gas tank is sitting on empty, and it’s time to fill ’er up on your way to work. But with prices changing daily, which local gas station has the cheapest gas today?

Bgasbuddy_logoefore you hop in the car, check out GasBuddy.com. It’s a simple website that lists many (unfortunately not all) of your local gas stations, and gives the current prices. You can search by city, state, or zip code. As I write this in early October, our local prices range from $2.03 to $2.45/gallon. Considering we usually put around 12 gallons into our Subaru’s tank (we try not to let it get too low), that’s a potential savings of over $5—nothing to sneeze at.

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How to Grow a Houseplant—Potting

A pet bird has a cage and a gecko has a terrarium. Plants need a special places to live too.

You have a lot of latitude in choosing a container for your plant. Consider not only made-for-plants pots, but other bowls, cans, and even shoes. However, there are a few requisites.

Drainage is paramount. If your chosen pot doesn’t have a drain hole, add one.

Size matters too. The larger the container, the longer it can go between waterings. Larger containers are also more stable. And large containers provide plenty of root space. However, you need to match the container size to the plant that will occupy it.

Another consideration is container shape. I once had a lovely pot that was smaller at the top than in the middle. It looked great—until it was time to move my plant to a bigger home. Then I realized there was no way to extract the roots without damaging them.

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