Home and Family

When your house is a mess and you feel too overwhelmed to clean, take a breath.You're not lazy -- you're busy, and everyone knows that cleaning kind of stinks sometimes, especially when you'd rather relax after a long week. Instead of looking at your house as one enormous chore waiting to be accomplished, start small. Make your bed. Marathon cleaning is the worst way to … [Read more...] about Facing the mess: First, make your bed

For a short time in the year 1004, it was the talk of Venice. An aristocrat's foreign bride, offending all the guests at the wedding feast without saying a single word.How did she do it? She ate with a fork, of course.Maria Argyropoulina meant no offense -- forks were commonplace back home in Constantinople. But according to Scientific American, the local clergy in Venice still … [Read more...] about The fork: A brief history

The urge for self-improvement is strong at the start of a new year. It's a time for looking back to see what kind of person we have been and a time for looking forward and visualizing ourselves as the person we want to be.Here we come to a big question: Is the urge for change more powerful than the drive to fall back on what is comfortable to you? At first, change seems … [Read more...] about New Year’s resolutions: How to put change ahead of comfort

Shoveling snow is a job for an athlete, even though people tend to think it is a routine activity that anyone can do.In fact, shoveling snow takes a huge toll on the heart and back. One shovel of wet snow weights 16 pounds. If you shovel 12 loads a minute, then in 10 minutes, you've moved 2,000 pounds, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical … [Read more...] about Read this before you shovel snow