It is a deeply ironic tragedy, but sometimes people in the most polluted areas know very little about what is going on in the groundwater. I grew up in a farming community, but none of us knew about water pollution until it was too late. It wasn’t one of those places that you hear about, the cities where half the population is born with serious birth defects and most kids don’t live past the age of five. The effects were subtle and they took a long time to notice. That is why it took us so long to do anything about the water pollution.

I am sure that some of the big farms on the edge of town knew something about water runoff pollution. After all, they were the main culprits and they were the ones using huge amounts of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. By the time we found out about it, our kids had been exposed to it for years. A water quality laboratory came into town one day, tested the groundwater and found out that our aquifer was hopelessly contaminated. There was arsenic, lead, trace sewage, various pesticides and countless other environmental pollutants. If you have never been in the position of knowing that your water is polluted, you can not imagine what it is like. Water pollution problems are really devastating. Suddenly, you can’t even trust the water you drink or the food you eat. It really shakes your confidence in your own safety.

Most of the people in town had to pay for expensive water filtration, that wasn’t enough. Water pollution from fertilizers can be easily filtered out, but trace element pollution is a lot more difficult. Although we knew our water quality was better, no one was saying exactly how much better. Was it safe to drink, or would it still cause our children to develop developmental disabilities and learning problems?

Rather than sit back and watch the government do nothing, we got involved in clean water activism. We may be  a very rural town, somewhat isolated from the rest of the world, but we are not passive people. We care deeply about our community and we wanted to see it protected from the effects of environmental pollution. Although it took awhile, we made sure that the big polluters paid for cleanup of the aquifers. These days, we don’t have to worry about water pollution anymore. We’ve made sure that you can’t get away with polluting our water!

Water is essential for our bodies. It is important that we keep hydrated to keep our bodies healthy. It is recommended that we drink so much water a day to give our bodies exactly what they need. Water helps to clear our skin and to keep it looking great. We need at minimum eight cups of water a day.  Tap water just doesn’t taste that great sometimes. It’s not at the right temperature or taste that we want it at. There are lots of bottled water brands to help solve this problem and to help everyone find a brand that they like.

Some people don’t like the taste of water, since they find it so bland. They know that they need to drink it, but it just doesn’t seem appealing. Aquafina is one of the bottled water brands that eliminate this problem. They have come out with flavored water that only has 5 calories per bottle. Now people can enjoy the great taste of juice with the benefits of healthy water. They are getting the best of both worlds. Aquafina also put out carbonated flavored water to appeal to those who love soda, but still want to be healthy. They have a line of vitamin water too to help keep the world hydrated and healthy. Even if you dread the thought of drinking water, you’ll find one you like if you choose Aquafina.

The choices don’t stop there though. Some of the popular ones are Disani, Evian, Poland Springs and Perrier. Whatever your taste, there are bottled water brands to fit you. They are fun to try out the different tastes of filtering and purifying so you can see which one feels the purest to you.

Instead of picking up a cola to buy, you are better off getting a bottle of flavored water or some other sort of bottled water brands. When you are buying lunch consider saving some unwanted calories from entering your body by washing your meal down with water. Then you can carry around what you didn’t finish at lunch so you can quench your thirst later on in the day. Soda gets flat and tastes unappealing after a while, but water will always be refreshing.

There are so many choices it is tough to see why people still drink soda when it is so bad for them. These new flavors of water with carbonation and vitamins make it seem like the best choice. Just switching from soda to bottled water can save thousands of calories a year and can result in lots of weight loss. There simply is no excuse to not drink water each and every day.

I can’t even remember how many morning after college parties, I would wake up to find empty beer bottles scattered throughout the house or apartment. Sometimes, there would even be a few leftover party goers who had had too much to drink and were passed out in the midst of the beer bottles. The parties always seemed like great fun until it was time to clean up the following morning. I don’t miss those days.

Now, years after those college days, I still find myself cleaning up beer bottles the next morning if my husband had the guys over the previous night. Why in the world guys cannot clean up their own messes is beyond me. How hard is it to put the empty beer bottles into the recycling bin? I constantly remind my husband that when he takes the time to line the beer bottles up on the counter, he is only inches away from the recycling bin. He just doesn’t seem to get it. Maybe he likes to watch me cleaning up the beer bottles. I purposely avoided cleaning up for an entire weekend one time just to see if he would take the time to do it himself. After two days of living amongst this mess, I caved in and cleaned. I had to resist the urge to throw those beer bottles at him.

One New Year’s Eve, a group of us were having a very in depth conversation over many empty beer bottles and I asked why in the world they would choose such an ugly dark color to make the bottles. One of our friends actually had an answer to my random question. He informed me the glass of the beer bottles are a dark color so that the light doesn’t spoil the beer inside of them. While that actually made perfect sense to me, I still think that the dark colored glass could be a better color than the standard brown. Heineken has nice dark green bottles, as does Yuengling Lager. I think that green should be the standard color for beer bottles from now on. Of course, no matter what color the beer bottles would be, it wouldn’t make it any more fun to clean up after parties.

My personal favorite is when you’re assuming that all of the scattered beer bottles are empty and you find one that just happens to still have a few sips left in it. It is always when I’m carrying those bottles at an awkward angle that I find the one that still has some liquid left in it that splashes on me. There’s just nothing like cleaning up beer bottles. No matter what color they are.

When we were kids we had many chores that we were responsible for around the house. My mom worked, so every morning during the summer she would leave a note detailing the tasks that we were to accomplish during the day. This list usually involved tasks such as dust the living room, vacuum the stairs, clean your bedrooms and put away the laundry. And every day my mother would return home to find our tasks neatly accomplished.

So, now today, as a parent, I am in a quandary when I ask my son to make his bed and he bursts into tears and stomps his feet and acts like I’ve asked him to remove his eye teeth. The other night he wanted a bowl full of ice cream after dinner. We were all gathered in the living room watching a television program when he made his request. My husband told him to go ahead, and went to resume watching TV. With a huff our son stomped to the kitchen and said, “Fine, I’ll just have cookies!!” My husband and I glanced at each other baffled at his outburst.

My husband called him back and asked what all the fuss was about. Our son angrily told us that spooning out his own ice cream was too hard for him, basically acting like we were the worst parents ever!! My husband pushed the issue, seeing that our nine year old son was getting just a little too lazy. He insisted that he get the ice cream himself and stop acting so hard. With great reluctance and protest, our son of course managed the task ALL BY HIMSELF, but not without kicking up a huge fuss and nearly bursting into tears. I told him that had I pulled a fit like that when I was a kid, I would be sent to bed with no dessert at all and I wouldn’t even hear the word ice cream for at least a month!

After that display of ingratitude and laziness, my husband and I decided to do something about this problem. In the past I had created a chore chart for our son, with the agreement that he would receive an allowance based on his completion of the chores. Our son took one look at that chore chart and let out a wail, determined that the tasks were too many and too demanding and that was the end of that. With this latest episode, my husband and I realized that it was time to try again.

I pulled out the old chore chart and began working on revisions to better reflect our son’s age and level of ability. In the meantime, my husband signed him up for a flyer delivery route. Our son has had the route now for about a month. My husband still has to regularly accompany him and assist him with the route. We can’t imagine sending him on his own - he’d end up crying with his head stuck in a snowdrift! I haven’t been pushing too hard in regard to the chore chart, because I want to see how much money can be a motivator for our son, or whether more drastic measures need to be taken. My husband plans to let him do the flyer delivery route on his own by the end of the second month. I’m still a little leery of him going by himself, even though it’s a pretty safe and quiet neighborhood. On the one hand we want him to take the responsibility and learn to work hard, on the other I have horror stories of little boys going missing running through my head.

I will likely continue working on the chore chart and I plan to implement it in the near future. Our little girl is four now. Interestingly, she loves doing chores and I can see her taking on responsibility more quickly than her older brother. As parents, it’s difficult to figure out where to draw the line between thinking your kid is plain lazy, and being sure that we’ve instilled proper self esteem and confidence in our kids. In the end, we need to produce highly functional individuals who can survive in our fast paced world. I’m hoping our chore chart will be one step in the right direction.

I work in a daycare, so things can get pretty nasty and messy. Especially around snack time.  The whole place turns to chaos with spilled orange juice and punch, spit out cheese crackers, soggy sandwiches with jelly oozing, and all other manner of toddler detritus finding it’s way on the floor. It requires constant vigilance just to keep the place from getting totally out of control and cleaning it up is a nightmare. On top of that, we have to always maintain a certain appearance of order so that the parents know that their kids are being well taken care of. If only they knew what pandemonium goes on inside.

Last year, we bought a carpet cleaning machine, which really helped. Before the carpet cleaning machine, one of us was always down on his or her hands and needs with a cloth and cleaning spray, rubbing at the latest mess on the carpet, and trying to clean it up. No matter how much we cleaned the carpet would soon get spots and we’d have to call a carpet cleaning service to professionally clean it, which was no cheap matter.

Now that we have our carpet cleaning machine, we worry less about it. We have to get things initially mopped up to stop them from penetrating too deeply into the fabric of the carpet.  After that, we can go on with the kids and worry about it later. At night we’ll take the carpet cleaning machine and deep clean the mess.  Which doesn’t take very long, since the carpet cleaner is always kept in a closet just off of the main play room, from where it can be easily rolled out. Additionally, once every week we use the carpet cleaning machine to thoroughly clean up all of the carpets. We work much less hard and the place is much cleaner than ever before.

The carpet cleaning machine does have some problems. One is that it is very noisy, almost deafening. It was a cheaper model, but cheap means near $800, which is still quite a bit for a business of our size. And there is the wiring. It is an old building with sub-standard wiring, a fact that isn’t really that much of a problem normally, since all the wiring powers is basically the lighting and a refrigerator. But when we use the carpet cleaning machine, it often throws the breaker which can be very inconvenient.

There are more kinds of air freshener than you might realize. An air freshener is not just a little pine shaped stick of smelly wood which you hang up in your car.  Like all things, it has evolved to give you more options than ever before. If you want an air freshener for your office, you might get one of the automatic dispenser types. These plug into the wall and are filled with scented oil. They usually have either a heating element that heats the scented oil and causes it to float off into the air or else they have a mister that slowly sprays it out.

One of the most classic types of air freshener is the potpourri. This is a decorative bundle of different scented herbs and pieces of wood and bark, which you can put in your house to give it a warm, refreshing smell. And they look so great, earthy and crafty, that you’ll want to have one of these air fresheners in every room just to make your house smell and look lovely.

There is always the spray air freshener and this is the first one most people think of when they hear the term. These are to get rid of a bad smell, you just spray a generous dose of this aerosol air freshener into the room with the smell and it goes right away.  So many people keep these sprays in their bathrooms, as you might imagine!

Another popular kind of air freshener is the scented candle, which provides a warm glow as well as a pretty light when lit. It has scented oil embedded inside, which always gives a slight pleasant smell. When you burn it, the heat makes the scent waft into the air. These come in all kinds of fruity flavors – pumpkin, strawberry, blueberry, vanilla and the list goes on and on.

Similar to these, you can get an air freshener lamp. Basically, this is a small candle with a little glass or metal cup above it. You just put in the scented oil of your choice into the cup and light the candle, causing it to waft into the room. This has the advantage that you can use basically any kind of scented oil you chose, whatever fits your mood. Unfortunately, it has a live flame which can be dangerous if you have children around, but also can have a pleasant decorative effect.

When you think of pest control, you are probably imagining hunting down that annoying housefly and swatting it with the nearest available weapon.  Actually, pest control refers to a whole lot more.  The sign that shows a dead cockroach on that truck you see with all the sprayers is not telling the full truth.  This industry is about pest control or management not eradication.  The idea behind pest control is to keep the numbers of the little critters to a comfortable few.  If that is not possible, the job is to at least to keep them away from us.

The current structure of pest control is much more complex when taken with the modern idea of manageable numbers or distribution management.  And it is not about coming up with a stronger pesticide or finding a way to apply it directly to their home base.  Managing the numbers is still a throw back to pest elimination through whatever means necessary, but now much more emphasis is put on eliminating them without eliminating us.  This is accomplished through such exotic methods as implementing bug ‘birth control’ and getting bigger, friendlier creepy crawlies to take out the less desirables.  There is also the idea that you are somehow to blame and we should not take it out on our fellow planetary inhabitants.  Take ants for instance.  We all know there are always going to be more of them than there are of us.

Taking them down one at a time with a hammer as they crawl across the floor heading towards your food supply is not going to work.  So, we need to employ professional pest managers.  These people no longer come out smelling like vile chemicals, but with something resembling organizational charts.  You cannot eliminate the ants.  You need to keep them out of your house.  If you cannot do that, steer them away from the kitchen.  If they breach that line of defense, protect the cookie jar at all costs.  If all else fails, consider changing from chocolate chip to a recipe that is less attractive to ants.

They call this “redefining and redesigning management systems that meet the demands of preventative management”.  Now that is real 21st century pest control.  But if you have ever had the local ant colony seeking a drier place to set up shop when three days of rain has turned their outside environment soggy, you know this kind of management might not be successful.  Your kitchen cabinets are fortresses that can always be breeched.  The experts are not going to desert you.  They will lead you through the design and management of systems that meet real needs.

This approach requires clarification of priorities, values, resource conservation and increased production.  In other words, if you can’t beat them, join them.  How bad can a cookie taste with a couple of ants anyway?  Besides, whacking a poor defenseless any with a hammer is barbarian.  Some us using prefer the ‘big toe’.

Honda is a great car company. There cars are as known for their reliability as Plymouths are for their terrible transmissions. Now there is a Honda for the environmentally conscious or just fuel thrifty, one that will save you money on gas even if it costs a little bit more to purchase. This car is the 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid.

This almost brand new 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid already has a good record. It was in 2005, voted the best car of the year by car and driver and that was far from the only award it received. A 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid is a new type of car developed only in the past couple years. How it works is that it has a small internal combustion gas engine in the front, smaller than other cars. This engine builds up electricity to power electric motors. These motors can accelerate the car more efficiently than can a normal car powered by only a gas engine. This is because normally to accelerate it takes a lot of gas but on a 2006 Honda Hybrid, the gas engine doesn’t have to run the hard when accelerating. The electric motors power the car off the energy already stored up by the engine when braking or at idle and as a result substantially less gas is used.

Some 2006 Honda Civic Hybrids can get as much as 40 or 50 miles per gallon, or even more. This is more than twice the mileage of many cars on the roads today! And with the rising prices of gasoline, although you have to pay a pretty penny or two for a new Honda hybrid, it quickly saves you so much money.

For someone like me, this is the ideal car. As a traveling salesman, I can easily rack up hundreds of miles a week on my car and sometimes more.  Traveling between California and Oregon, I have to drive through mountains which, for a normal car does just awful things for your mileage. But on my 2006 Honda Hybrid, it’s nothing. The electric engines handle the acceleration and deceleration with a barely noticeable increase in mileage. What they have to expend on the uphill, they easily make up on the downhill part of the trip.

I love my 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid car. It’s much better than the gas guzzle I used to have. It was a 1973 Cadillac which, I know, is a much more stylish car, but you reach a point in your life where style isn’t the only important thing. Now, I’m trying to save some money and this 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid performs so much better on the road besides.

Are you looking for a great way to reduce the clutter in your closets and to reclaim some of your storage space?  If so, then you should consider donating any clothes that you don’t wear anymore.  Doing so benefits both you and the charity that you choose, so you’ll actually be motivated to donate as much as possible.  Before running off to your closets to fill several trash bags full of your old clothes, here are some clothing donation guidelines you should consider.

First of all, the items you donate are going to be worn by other people.  So they should be clean, in fairly good condition, and free from holes, rips, or tears.  Be sure to inspect each piece before you put it into the donation pile.  Any items that don’t make the cut should simply be thrown away.

Second, you should call around to make sure that your clothing donation would be welcome.  Many people are mistakenly under the impression that churches and charities will accept any amount of clothes at anytime.  They then show up at the organization unannounced and expect to be able to unload several bags of clothes on unsuspecting volunteers.  It’s important to be aware that not all charities operate in this fashion.  While they certainly appreciate the generosity behind your clothing donation, they might not be equipped to handle it at the time.  There could be storage problems or other logistical issues that you haven’t thought about.  So if you don’t phone ahead and get approval for your clothing donation, don’t be surprised or offended if it’s not accepted.  Of course if there is a 24-hour drop box on the premises, then that means that you can simply put your clothing donations in there at any time without having to ask for permission first.

Third, if it’s at all possible, you should do a bit of research into the charity that you intend your clothing donation to benefit.  The reason you should do so is that not all charities spend their money in the same way.  Some places have higher overhead costs, which means that fewer resources actually end up helping underprivileged people.  When you donate clothes, charities will do one of two things.  They will either distribute the clothes to the needy through homeless shelters and the like, or they will sell the clothes in a second-hand retail setting.  If they sell the clothes, then you’ll definitely want to know how much of the money is earmarked for charitable purposes and how much is used for salaries and so forth.

Clothing donations are a wonderful, easy way to help your favorite church or charity.  I encourage you to follow these guidelines before doing so in order to ensure that the experience is as beneficial as possible to all of the parties involved.

Clean air, healthy living and a long life are just some of the chief concerns of humans worldwide. Especially in our cities, the effects of industrialization, increased vehicular traffic and general climatic conditions have made finding clean air an almost impossible task. Air conditioners have proven useful, but only to the extent of keeping the temperature around us comfortable. They have been unable to enhance the basic quality of the air we breathe.  Governmental agencies like the Environment Protection Agency have officially declared that poor indoor air quality is the number one cause of increasing numbers of asthma sufferers. Nearly one third of all Americans suffer from asthma or allergic diseases, the causes of which can be directly attributed to the above mentioned poor air quality.

But do we have any control over the air we breathe? Do we have the wherewithal to remove the pollution, dust and irritants in the air to make it fresh and wholesome again? Of course we do! With the technology that has come to be known and adopted in every home. With a technology called an air purifier. Most American homes have started using air purifiers to control and regulate the quality of indoor air and the results are already showing in the increased health and vitality of most families.

Air purifiers have been a discovery that has put the freshness back into our lungs and once again, given us the option of breathing in clean, healthy air. There are hundreds of air purifiers available in the market. They work on a wide range of air purification techniques and processes, but they all have one objective in mind.  That of removing several kinds of pollutants, allegiants and irritants! This was the first thing I looked for when I brought my air purifier as I wanted to use it to keep my house free of these in addition to purifying the air. But I had a rather difficult time choosing the right air purifier as there are specific air purifiers for various elements like dust, pollen, animal shedding, tobacco smoke and even mold and mildew. I wanted an air purifier comprehensively germs, pollution and other general conditions while giving me clean and wholesome air.

Most technologies used in air purifiers like carbon filters, HEPA, ionic lamp and ozone filter, do this. They comprehensively remove most contaminants in the indoor air in houses and living areas. But probably more important for a prospective buyer, are details like the area in which an air purifier will be used, the efficiency of the air purification filter, the noise level and warranty and replacement details. The size of the area where the purifier is likely to be used is of especial importance.  Using a small volume air purifier in a large room could not only decrease the efficiency of the air purifier, but also result in over burdening the filtration system.  It will cause excessive production of nitrogen oxide, especially in ozone filter air purifiers.  This can prove harmful for human consumption. When you shopping for an air purifier, do keep these details in mind.