Heeeeere kitty-kitty. You know that clay cat litter we’ve poured in your box for what seems like forever and a day? We’re finally giving it the heave-ho once and for all. Oh, sure you know why. All those chemicals. All that tracking throughout the house. All those airborne ...read more
A spoonful of sugar may help the medicine go down while making dessert all the more appealing, but spices deserve the real credit for being true culinary superstars capable of imparting basic raw ingredients such as vegetables, grains and meat with a riot of crowd-pleasing ...read more
Unless we tuck crisp five dollar bills underneath our own pillows for old time sake, the greatest gift we can get in the dental department is an affordable six month annual checkup with a complementary mini oral hygiene kit thrown in for good measure. An even greater blessing is ...read more
One of the greatest girlie rites of passage can be found within a bottle of nail polish. Upon painting that first swipe of color all the way down the length of a finger nail, we become instantly connected to the transformational power of primping and preening. In terms of ...read more
If you take a cold, hard look at the statistics on junk mail, the very act of opening unwanted mailbox deliveries chews up 8 full months of the typical human life span. As if that’s not bad enough, 4.3 million of the 5.6 million tons of annual unsolicited correspondence sent to ...read more
Sometimes, it can all seem so overwhelming – you know, embracing an eco-friendly lifestyle. The process by which we recycle plain old paper, metal and glass has pretty much been a no brainer for decades now, but plastic? Aw jeeze... where to begin? Plastic used to be plastic… ...read more
Read any good books lately? Perhaps that’s a question best left for the children in your life to answer. The next time your sweet little ones place the back of their hands on their foreheads while moaning and whining about how there’s nothing to do – expressing how they could ...read more
Considering our country’s economic position in the last several years, it almost seems like our civic duty to buy something new as often as we can… and shopping bags have been there with us throughout the good times and the bad, enabling us to tote home our shiny new booty ...read more
Thanks to the modern convenience of ice makers built right into our deluxe Energy Star refrigerators, once entirely indispensable ice cube trays have now gone the way of cassette tapes and pagers. Not that any of us are in danger of losing an appreciation for ice anytime soon, ...read more
Plastic: Once the go-to-material for butterfingers and the accident-prone, quickly soared into superstar status, filling every nook and cranny of our lives with virtually shatter-proof, undeniably durable, candy-colored lifestyle staples. From cool invention to cultural ...read more
When you’re already buying what seems like the best quality hydration product on the market, what more can possibly be done to restore your skin’s topography to its formerly supple and resilient glory? That’s easy – just become alabelsleuth. Whip out your magnifying glass and ...read more
Chemical free beauty items… you mean the stuff with ingredients that Mother Nature would approve of? Well, that’s definitely a huge step upfrom some of the offerings sold at the corner drug store, but natural skin care products can still raise an eyebrow and occasionally make ...read more
Am I hallucinating or does my hair look like straw? That moment of reckoning hits all of us right between the eyes. After subjecting our locks to years of chemicalcoloring agents, hot styling tools and hair care products with ingredients that are literally unpronounceable, there ...read more
Mmm-hmmm… everybody knows that when you’re trying to shed excess weight, the first thing that’s gotta go are the potatoes and bread, so nice try. Way to sell a headline. All this time I’ve been diligently cutting the carbohydrates out of my diet so I can finally see that needle ...read more
With their bright, wide-eyed innocence and willingness to deliver their special brand of slobbery affection for no particular reason, it’s easy to understand why wet nosed, winged and scaled companions of all species, sizes and breeds tend to effortlessly wrap their little paws ...read more
Splitting headache got you down? What about that post-dinner gastrointestinal explosion going on in your stomach? We've all been there and it's definitely not fun. But, thanks to the modern miracles of laboratory science, none of us have to endure the discomfort of the most ...read more
While growing up, I was somehow convinced that the limp, anemic-looking bean sprouts that sloshed out of a Chung King chow mein can were once live, writhing worms. Although this correlation was clearly a figment of my active childhood imagination, I nevertheless cried a river of ...read more
Kid in a candy store? For some, the epitome of a full-on sugar rush can be experienced the moment that we peruse our ever-growing makeup collection. Pondering the exact color palate that will effectively capture ever-changing moods is kind of like nibbling through a deluxe ...read more
Back in the day when none of us knew any better, Spam -- in all of its mottled, chunky-textured, shelf-stable glory -- seemed like a relatively harmless, utterly convenient and seriously budget friendly foodstuff, and for all intents and purposes, it actually was. There’s no ...read more
Does your garden continue mocking you with an unfathomable volume of ripe-n-ready eats despite having but one mouth and stomach to your credit? When you’ve reached your limit of creative zucchini bread recipes and you’re positively sick and tired of noshing on one-ingredient ...read more
Ever try to go one day without chucking a used paper towel or the plastic wrap covering your last portion of spaghetti and meatballs directly into the garbage can? It’s easier said than done. Loving the earth is one thing, but draping soaped up-rinsed out yet still ...read more
Deep down, perhaps it's everyone's secret dream to enjoy positively glowing skin, but sometimes an innocent little UV-saturated nap can make all the difference between being a golden girl or an all-out barbequed babe. But that's what lotion is for, right? Instead of reaching for ...read more
What a relief that nuts have been officially cleared of their high-fat dietary stigma! Back in the day, we were led to believe that consuming them in their raw, roasted, chopped and pureed forms was a recipe for waistline disaster, which made indulging in a peanut butter and ...read more
Isn't it great when you're standing in line and you notice that more people than not are carrying their own reusable bags? Unless you forgot yours... in which case, you just feel guilty. If you're still toting around those snoozeville bags that always seem to deteriorate or ...read more
Electronic readers are officially taking the world by storm, and while the technology is really very cool, is that hunk of plastic really going to keep you warm at night? Not a chance (um… unless you give it such a workout that the battery overheats). Bibliophiles claim that the ...read more
Perhaps you’re not a big fan of the red wine blend that you coughed up five whole smackers for (thanks, Trader Joes!)… or you just found out that you’re pregnant… or your sole vice in life plagues you with terrible wine-induced migrane headaches (um… some sacrifices are worth ...read more
Been to the farmers market lately? Then it’s probably safe to say that you’ve been busy chopping and prepping your heart out while making all sorts of 5-a-day veggie delights (your doctor would certainly approve). After all the peeling, removing of stems, scooping of seeds and ...read more
For a long length of material designed to secure various types of garments around the waist, the humble belt has been a veritable wardrobe workhorse from biblical, Grecian and Roman times all the way to modern day society. A modesty savior for tubby-bellied fellows as well as ...read more
With two main ingredients – pureed chick peas and sesame seeds (also known as garbanzos and tahini, respectively) – a magical union of flavor and texture is created, rendering this Mediterranean staple both satisfying and downright tasty. Once the lemon juice, garlic and ...read more
A bar of soap used to be a relatively uncomplicated affair, designed solely to purge our bodies of dirt, oils, dead skin cells and other particulates that manifested throughout the course of a typical work day. Somewhere along the line, however, manufacturers began realizing ...read more
Can you really blame inquisitive and hungry neighborhood residents for sizing up your garden and perhaps sampling a few particularly enticing tomatoes or peppers? If given the chance to enjoy a fresh from the vine meal with little or no struggle, you’d probably leap at the ...read more
Some people are magnetically drawn to the savory-salty delight of a wide open potato chip bag, happily crunching away like squirrels that stockpile nuts for the winter months. For others, their weakness can be found directly in the tooth – the sweet tooth, that is – with today’s ...read more
Plastic in my lotion? Naah…impossible. Well, that’s just it – we’ve learned to trust our favorite brands, but it seems that we’ve given them far too much leeway because they continue cramming a whole bunch of funky business into products that, on the surface, seem totally ...read more
For all of the time we may end up applying magical potions and secret lotions to our ever-hopeful and eternally moisturized epidermal layers, the inevitable fine lines, dry skin, uneven pigmentation, wrinkles and crow’s feet will still somehow manage to rear their collectively ...read more
Are your green thumbs showing the early but inevitable signs of garden warrior frustration? You know, when you start realizing that despite your ever-escalating insect-fighting vigilance, somehow there are always hundreds of additional crummy little leaf munchers and stem ...read more
Now that we’re all spending more time in our yards grazing under the summer sun, let’s talk about how grass fits into this more enlightened, eco-friendly equation. A lush, living emerald carpet surrounding one’s homestead may be inarguably easy on the eyes and cooling on bare ...read more
Doesn't lounging around in a hammock while gazing for hours on end at the dreamy turquoise-painted ocean of an unspoiled tropical island sound realllllly good right about now (especially with an ever-replenished beverage in hand)? It's the kind of half-daydream, half-goal that ...read more
Glossy fashion ads, movie billboards and magazine covers feature our cultural icons at their very best – with seemingly flawless skin, enviably toned bodies and most importantly, superstar, high-wattage smiles – because it’s easy on the eyes and the entire powerhouse package ...read more
Many of us tremble in the presence of red hot chili peppers, Anthony Kiedis included, but Scoville-unit intimidation really shouldn’t prevent us from throwing caution to the wind and chomping down. Whether you’re triple-dog-dared by an apparently iron-stomached arch enemy or you ...read more
If you look at photos of the ocean-bound, conventionally manufactured plastic circulating our global gyres (otherwise known as the 'great garbage patch' and – gulp – there are quite a lot of them out there), we’ve already done a crazy amount of damage to our natural environment. ...read more
Despite what you may be imagining, this isn’t another cookie-cutter article about the importance of dropping glass bottles, metal cans, plastic containers and old newspapers into your curbside collection bins – good ol' recycling. It’s awesome that you do that week after week – ...read more
Quenching your thirst without reaching for a $1.00 bottle of filtered (ahem… municipal) water at your neighborhood convenience store isn’t exactly rocket science. In order to entirely avoid one-time use plastic containers, all you really have to do is saddle up to the sink and ...read more
It’s hard to fathom just how beneficial and versatile beets really are given their admittedly crummy taste when commercially manufactured and plunked into supermarket-friendly steel cans. If your well-intentioned parents paired Sunday night meatloaves and random roasted chickens ...read more
Fresh produce that is entirely free of pesticides and other funky business is hard to come by these days, and even if you plunk down the big bucks for organic versions, it’s still possible that your cucumber could be hiding a deep, dark, creepy-crawly secret. Perhaps that’s one ...read more
Savoring a delicious morsel of chocolatey goodness can bestow the bod with a rush of endorphins capable of reviving a less-than-perky attention span – plus let’s not forget that modern science has officially praised the cacao bean’s nutritional profile, meaning that we all ...read more
Since the majority of us have access to curbside pickup, recycling has actually become pretty darn easy. Yet, we seem to be locked in a holding pattern, with 25 percent of the population chucking it all into landfill. Do we really need a carrot dangling from a stick in order to ...read more
Everything old is new again, except in the case of riding a bicycle because it never really went out of style in the first place – many of us simply just forgot how cool it is to hit the road with the wind coaxing you along every step of the way. We can probably chalk up our ...read more
Fire good, real good – just ask the person in charge of your family’s barbeque grill. It doesn’t really matter if their preferred flame thrower is a cute little Hibachi grill or a 24 carat gold bling-a-ling beast, either. Gleefully char-grilling assorted edibles cave-man style ...read more
Spending a lot more time in your garden now that things are heating up outside? I hear ya. Working the earth for that mid-summer tomato and zucchini payload is well worth the dirty fingernails, but one of the greatest pleasures in life can actually be enjoyed simply just by ...read more
Tired of well-intentioned loved ones wagging their fingers at you regarding your less-than-enthusiastic vegetable intake? As unfair as it may seem, corn and potatoes aren’t exactly helping you to earn a nutritional gold star, so you may want to rethink your strategy. For anyone ...read more