Green your hotel

With the new year approaching in a matter of hours, I have been dreaming about all my vacations to take in 2009. With the thought of vacations, leads to the thought of hotel rooms...yuck. However, I digress from my point. Here are a few tips to keep in mind to make your stay a little friendlier to the Earth:

1. Unplug lamps, blow dryers, mini-fridge, coffee maker, etc. Appliances drain electricity even when they are not on. This small step really can make a difference.

2. Keep your showers short to reduce water consumption. The average US shower head spits out 2.5 gallons of water a minute. A fifteen minute shower uses nearly 40 gallons of water.

3. When you leave your hotel room, turn off the AC, heating, lights and any other electrical devices. Well, maybe don't turn the AC/heating off, just turn it up/down.

3. Reuse your sheets and towels during your stay.

4.“Do Not Disturb” Even when you do try to be environmentally-conscious, sometimes the hotel staff doesn’t quite understand and still gives you new towels, turns up the heat, etc. Placing the “Do Not Disturb” sign out will ensure the staff stops destroying the Earth in your room. It also makes sure that the staff doesn't touch your toothbrush. Gross.

6. Adjust the thermostat. Just like home, a small adjustment makes a big difference.

7. Bring your own toiletries. One small reusable shampoo bottle for every trip creates less waste than using the hotel samples every time. Plus, you use your shampoo, not the cheap hotel stuff, and that's just win-win.

8. Leave the freebies. There is no reason for another pen. Keep it in the room. This goes for pads of paper, soaps, and Bibles too.

9.Give your hotel feedback. Express your appreciation of current practices and encourage more with specific ideas.

Don't forget to pack your sleep sack and wipe down every surface (including the remote and light switches) when you arrive just for stranger's germs and overall freakiness.

Clooney Watch 09

On January 5th crews will start production on a new movie to be filmed in St. Louis. The new movie will star....my George.
Clooney will be in town over the next 5 months. I am begging you all to help me out. I will wash your floors, walk your dog, I will baby-sit your children. I just need every opportunity to meet this man.
I am planning to scour the city for the next 5 months. I will be spending a lot of time at The Four Seasons (I am sure this is where he will stay, but I taking volunteers to stake out The Ritz and the Chase.) and the airport (that is where some of the filming will take place). I am asking you to forward any leads, any sightings, any discarded food pieces to me. Any tidbit of information is invaluable.
Does anyone know a union member of Studio Mechanics Local 493? This is my best lead as of today. This union will do most of the filming and therefore will know locations and times.
I have been in love with George since his first Facts of Life episode aired in 1985. I just need one picture. Or maybe 200 pictures.
Thank you all for your help.

Thanks to NY

I finally got NY pictures developed...


Rockefeller Center

This is how New Yorkers watch the parade...on ladders.

Snoopy, a parade favorite.

Smurf's, this is about all we saw of the parade. We left after that.

The snowflakes on Saks 5th Avenue.

Lots of tents, cameras, and bleachers set up in front of Macy's the day before the parade.

Me & Chuck at Rock Center.

What I did over Christmas Vacation pt 1

Again, I will post pictures and spellcheck when the page is functional.

For Christmas I was off from Friday December 19th-the 21st. The first half was spent buying the majority of my Christmas presents in 8 degree weather. After I got home and allowed my body to thaw, I spent the evenings wrapping everything in my pauper's christmas themed wrapping paper this year.

On Tuesday, I painted my kitchen "Baby Seal Black." After the third try I am happy with my choice. Even if I wasn't happy with the choice, this one was going to stick no matter what. I was not spending another dime on paint. I got lucky.

I spent a lot of time listening to NPR. Besides, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" I love "Fresh Air" and "Talk of the Nation." I listened to them everyday! Then Christmas Eve came and "Talk" gave me my Christmas present, Michael Pollan was a guest.

If you are not familiar with Pollan (even thought this is my third mention of him, here's a brief summary: Michael Pollan, professor at UC Berkeley, wrote "The Omnivore's Dilemna" which inspired "King Corn." He also wrote "In Defense of Food" and he is my hero. He has a casualness and friendliness in his voice that never sounds preachy or elitist. I wish I could be like that.

Here is some of Pollan's advice: If you can't pronounce it, don't eat it. Don't eat anything that contains more than 5 ingredients (when you buy it; it's ok to create something on your own). Only eat what your great great grandmother would have eaten. In other words: no high-fructose corn syrup. Stay away from highly processed food.

I read. It was nice to have the time to enjy a book and not steal 10 minutes here and there. I am about halfway through "Water For Elephants." Good book. Interesting. Hopefully I will finish it this week and won't be disappointed with some lame "Lovely Bones" ending.

That led me up to Christmas Eve. I will post later on holiday festivities.

Cheap and Healthy

OK, home computer is working.

First of all, I am sorry for the hiatus. I was on Christmas break. I am also sorry for the boring font, no pics, and possible spelling errors. I am not sure if there is a problem with my blog page from my end or blogger's end, but bear with me, I will post the appropriate graphics soon and spellcheck too.

Health magazine came out with their top ten healthiest grocery stores in the US. Lucky for us, Albertson's made the list. I know you are questioning me because Albertson's are not in StL. I have good news for you, Albertson's cheaper brother is in the neighborhood...Shop N Save.

Albertson's received the shared title largely due to their organic house brand food, Wild Harvest. Health magazines says Wild Harvest is typically 15% less than name-brand organics. Since Albertsons and Shop N Save are all under the same happy grocery family banner, SNS also carries the Wild Harvest line. I have tried and few things and it is tasty.

I recommend their three berry granola.

Christmas Wrapping

This year I am making a real effort to be environmentally-conscious in my wrapping. Wrapping presents are probably my favorite part of Christmas. Around Thanksgiving, I start spying the different papers on the market. Pier One, Target, and especially, The Container Store always carry festive assortments. After careful research and a gut instinct, I buy my ensemble for the year. The wrapping I choose is not over the top or obnoxious, just a couple of coordinating papers and matching wide ribbons. I do not buy all pine cones, bells or anything else to adorn the gift, just paper and ribbon. Name tags aren't even on the gift. I thought since I was minimal in my wrapping the Earth would forgive me for being gratuitous. Well, not this year. The guilt has approached and surrounded my house.

For the past couple of weeks I have been researching alternative gift-wrapping options. Don't bother people, the alternatives are weak and few. Besides being environmentally conscious, my second priority for this project was spend less. Stamping and painting my own was out of the question. I salvaged a large roll of printing paper, but it is too thick to wrap nicely. I also did not want to spend the entire day moving furniture to create an assembly line of stamping and painting. Trust me, if I spent that much time on the paper, you all would never be allowed to open the gift. I would be way too emotionally involved in the paper to just throw it in the recycle bin. For your sake, I nixed that idea.

My next idea was newspaper but not the comics. I like the black and white of the paper. I could still put a nice bow or ribbon. Plus, I saw an idea of adding a strip of wrapping paper around the package for an extra splash of color. I think I found my answer.

Last night I collected my supplies to wrap some gifts. I had the Sunday paper, ribbon and paper from Christmas past, tape, scissors, etc. Here are some life lessons I have learned about newspaper wrapping paper.

1. When you hand out the gifts, make sure you also hand them a wet reusable washcloth. My fingertips were black. I know it's to be expected, but seriously, this was ridiculous. Have they recently changed newspaper ink? I will not be wearing my white pants for Christmas.

2. You may want to befriend someone who reads a newspaper in a foreign language. There are many tragedies in our world and the newspaper likes to report all of it. The economy, Blagojevich, war, terrorism, there's even some Cholera outbreak. These headlines do not make for festive wrapping. Even the movie section (Zack and Miri Make a Porno) was no hope. At least with a foreign language newspaper, you don't know that your paper says, "10 mauled by bear."

3. The two-page spread of the newspaper is too small to wrap anything of a decent size. You end up piecing a separate sheet to the bottom, using additional tape and getting your fingers dirtier.

4. The black and white of newspaper is really dull drab gray. All my gifts look a smudgy, dirty and bleak. They look sad. It looks like Christmas at Tiny Tim's.

I tried to take a picture of them with my phone, but I can't send a picture to email with my new phone (but I could with the old one). New technology is a pain. I will take a picture with my camera, but I don't know when you will ever see it. I will try to make a real effort. The picture attached is pretty accurate though.

Here are a few gifts under my tree. God Bless us, every one.

Welcome Lotus

My dear friend and fellow blogger, Denae, welcomed Lotus Katzoff to the world yesterday.

Lotus shares her birthday with Emily Dickinson, Susan Dey of The Partridge Family (and LA Law), and most importantly, teenage hearthrob Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling).

Congratulations Ben, Denae, and Taj!

If you are a guy, apparently this is what you think about if you hear Lotus...