By this time of year, when the garden is devoid of flowers, the florist shop is not the only source of plant material to put in an attractive vase. Cuttings from a potted plant purchased at your local supermarket or corner store can take their place.
MONEY WELL SPENT | Is Canada a nation of flosser wannabes? You would think so if you glanced at the December 31 Huffington Post “picture gallery” piece that ran under the bold headline “New Year’s Resolutions 2012: The Top Resolutions For Canadians.” Read more
FREE & FABULOUS | I’ve been trying on a quasi-casual level to lose “those last five pounds” for the last five years, but haven’t been able to. Now I know why and what to do about it, thanks to Fitday.com. Fitday, for the uninitiated—and there are still one or two of us out there—is a free, superbly organized weight loss website that allows its five million members to easily set a weight loss goal that will trigger an action plan that includes daily food consumption and physical activity requirements.
All of this is great, of course, but the best thing about Fitday in my view, and in the view of Innovative Fitness trainer Josh Allen who introduced me to the program, is the way it tracks the nutrient values in the foods you consume—and nutrient values, as I’m coming to learn, are at the root of my problem.
DIRT CHEAP & VERY COOL | Isn’t it ironic that, with legions of rabid snappers out there pointing and shooting their digital phone cameras at everything moving and otherwise, the automatic photobooth, the last bastion of easily accessible print photo strips, is enjoying a renaissance? Rented-by-the-hour photobooths are the currently hot commodity at private parties, corporate functions and wedding receptions, and people are increasingly snapping up shots at the 25 freestanding “photomats” in public locations dotted around Metro Vancouver. Read more
SALE ALERT | This is hardly the time to suggest that you rush out and buy stocking stuffers with another 354 shopping days left until Christmas, but we’ve decided to do a little pre-Christmas shopping at Eddie Bauer this week because they’re having a sale on our all-time favourite Christmas stocking gift, the Sweater Stone and we plan to stock up. If you’ve ever put one of these tools to work, you’ll know why we’re excited; if you haven’t, you might want to listen up. Read more
MUST SEE B.C. | Most of us, consciously or not, keep a running record of places we must absolutely see before our particular shot clock runs out. Chances are many of these destinations are the same: Paris, Prague, Katmandu. Probably not Brackendale, B.C. Exoticism requires distance, or so we imagine, and Brackendale is way too close to home to offer anything surprising or remotely unfamiliar.
But what if you could experience something extraordinary close by Vancouver in Brackendale, something exotic that people from other places make an effort to see—wouldn’t you want to experience it too, particularly if it were free? Read more
CLEAN SMARTER | Have you ever noticed there are two kinds of house dirty? The first is surface dirty. This is what most of us deal with on a weekly basis, doing the dusting, vacuuming and general tidying that keep our homes looking presentable.
The second is deep down dirty. This kind of dirty creeps up on you while you’re religiously attending to the surfaces. Deep down dirty is the leather sofa that never gets conditioned, or the back of the insides of bottom kitchen cupboards that become magnets for grunge, or the dust and gunk that gathers on baseboards behind bedroom dressers that seldom if ever get moved.
Deep down dirty can make even a tidy house feel unclean. Read more