7 Inexpensive Home Décor Ideas

Fruit Bowls

Fill a large, glass bowl with citrus fruit for a bright centerpiece that’s especially good for the dining room table. Use whatever is on sale—lemons, limes, oranges, or a mixture.

Placemats

We love these unique placements for your kids: Buy an inexpensive or secondhand picture book, then pull out the pages and laminate them using laminating paper you can find at office supply stores. They’re waterproof, original, and cheaper than store-bought placemats.

Framed Napkins

For an easy, inexpensive decoration that looks great in any room, frame cloth napkins. Use family heirlooms, or find some beautiful designs suitable for framing at stores like World Market, Pier 1, or Target. Place them in some square frames and hang them in a row.

Homemade Message Board

Need a place to write notes for your family? Make a cabinet door scribble-friendly by painting it in either blackboard or magnetic paint. That way, you and your kids can use chalk to write on the “blackboard” or attach notes with magnets. Alternatively, hang cork tiles for a handy tack-on message board.

Plastic Cup String Lanterns

Here’s a creative decorating project for kids and adults like: You’ll need string lights, plastic cups, and various art supplies. First, decorate the plastic cups with colored markers, paints, glitter, googly eyes, or any other fun embellishments you can find at a craft store. Then, poke one light bulb into the bottom of each cup, so the light illuminates the cup from the inside. You’ll have a beautiful string of lanterns to hang in the playroom, a kid’s bedroom, the living room, hallway, or along a staircase.

Olde Time Idea

Make apothecary-style jars by gluing dollar-store glasses on top of candlestick holders. Use them in the bathroom to hold supplies like cotton balls, or decorate an end table with a few different styles. They’ll look just as good as the expensive kind without costing you a lot.

Clock

An easy way to add custom knick-knacks to your home is to buy clock mechanisms from your hardware store. These do-it-yourself clocks are just the hands and the motor, and allow you to add them to household items, turning them into clocks. Add them to tins, plates, photos with a cardboard backing, or just about anything else...

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Do You Need a Non-Owner Auto Insurance Policy?

About 10% of U.S. drivers regularly rent or borrow cars and don’t own one of their own. If that’s your situation, you may still need the protection of a non-owner auto insurance policy. It gives you liability coverage when you drive a car that you don’t own or you’re a passenger in a car owned by someone else.

Keep reading to learn common situations when having a non-owner auto policy makes sense and can keep you safe.

6 Situations When You Need a Non-Owner Auto Insurance Policy

1. Renting a car. 
2. Borrowing a car. 
3. Using ride-sharing services. 
4. Using car-sharing services. 
5. Getting your driver’s license reinstated. 
6. Having a gap in insurance coverage.

Here’s the detail about these situations when you should consider having a non-owner auto insurance policy:

1. Renting a car.

When you rent a car, a non-owner auto insurance policy can protect you financially if you cause a crash. It typically costs less than purchasing coverage through the car rental company.

2. Borrowing a car.

If you often borrow a friend’s, neighbor’s, or relative’s car but aren’t named on the owner’s insurance policy, a non-owner policy makes sense for you, too. This is especially true if the owner of the car you borrow has a minimal amount of liability coverage.

Let’s say you cause a wreck while driving a borrowed car and are not named on the owner’s policy. You could be involved in a lawsuit and have to pay any amount not covered under the car owner’s policy.

However, a non-owner auto insurance policy does not cover damage you cause to a car you drive. It only covers damage to other cars, property, or injuries you cause to people who aren’t in a car you’re driving.

3. Using ride-sharing services.

In addition, you might want to look into a non-owner auto insurance policy if you often use services like Uber or Lyft. If you worry that a ride-hailing driver might not carry adequate coverage, it would protect you as a passenger.

4. Using car-sharing services.

Non-owner auto insurance also might be a wise investment if you don’t own a car but regularly drive cars from car-sharing services like car2go and Zipcar.

5. Getting your driver’s license reinstated.

Furthermore, you might need to buy a non-owner auto insurance policy if you don’t own a car but you’re trying to get your driver’s license reinstated. This might be the case after getting a conviction for...

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Failure to Launch Syndrome

Failure to launch: it may be a 2006 Matthew McConaughey movie given one star by Roger Ebert, but more often, it’s the growing phenomenon of young adults not making the transition to adulthood. 

In most Western countries, young adults are expected to leave the nest. And while they may need a finite amount of time to launch themselves, ultimately, the goal or everyone involved is to see the young adult fly on their own.

But when young adults stay at home, don’t search for a job or contribute financially, and begin to withdraw from the world, we have the foundation of failure to launch. Add unrealistic goals, blaming others for their situation, and a lack of motivation to change, and liftoff is almost sure to be grounded.

See also: How to Cut the Financial Cord with Adult Children

In the U.S., failure to launch is also known as Peter Pan syndrome, after the famous story of the boy who never grows up. In Japan, a more extreme but related condition is called hikikomori. Described as modern hermits, hikikomori generally withdraw from society before they hit their late twenties, and can remain in the bedroom equivalent of a remote mountaintop cave for years, if not decades.

No matter the culture or the label, failure to launch cases are mostly, but not all, young men. Numbers indicate the problem is increasing. Indeed, in 2014, over seven million American men ages 25-54 were neither working nor looking for work, up 25% from 10 years prior. And while the stereotype of a basement-dwelling man-child evokes labels of “loser,” “dropout,” or other unflattering descriptors, the phenomenon is more complicated than simplistic labels might indicate.

Why is this happening? Ask a dozen experts, and you’ll get a dozen answers: the economy, the number and kind of jobs available, an unwillingness to take on education debt that can’t be paid off by lower-level jobs, the decline of rites of passage to adulthood, or the falling frequency of marriage.

All these things may be keeping young adults at home, but the defining feature of failure to launch is foot dragging, delaying, stalling, or flat-out refusal to participate in life. While some young adults living at home are trying mightily to contribute financially or move out, Peter Pans have little intention of doing so.

I’ll leave reshaping the economy to others, but possible psychological reasons an adult child comes out of his room only to ask what’s for dinner? We can do that. Here are three reasons your Peter Pan may be retreating to Neverland:

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Reason #1: Pathological Perfectionism

Peter Pans can put on a show of confidence while feeling deeply...

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239 - Failure to Launch Syndrome

Failure to launch: it may be a 2006 Matthew McConaughey movie given one star by Roger Ebert, but more often, it’s the growing phenomenon of young adults not making the transition to adulthood. 

In most Western countries, young adults are expected to leave the nest. And while they may need a finite amount of time to launch themselves, ultimately, the goal or everyone involved is to see the young adult fly on their own.

But when young adults stay at home, don’t search for a job or contribute financially, and begin to withdraw from the world, we have the foundation of failure to launch. Add unrealistic goals, blaming others for their situation, and a lack of motivation to change, and liftoff is almost sure to be grounded.

See also: How to Cut the Financial Cord with Adult Children

In the U.S., failure to launch is also known as Peter Pan syndrome, after the famous story of the boy who never grows up. In Japan, a more extreme but related condition is called hikikomori. Described as modern hermits, hikikomori generally withdraw from society before they hit their late twenties, and can remain in the bedroom equivalent of a remote mountaintop cave for years, if not decades.

No matter the culture or the label, failure to launch cases are mostly, but not all, young men. Numbers indicate the problem is increasing. Indeed, in 2014, over seven million American men ages 25-54 were neither working nor looking for work, up 25% from 10 years prior. And while the stereotype of a basement-dwelling man-child evokes labels of “loser,” “dropout,” or other unflattering descriptors, the phenomenon is more complicated than simplistic labels might indicate.

Why is this happening? Ask a dozen experts, and you’ll get a dozen answers: the economy, the number and kind of jobs available, an unwillingness to take on education debt that can’t be paid off by lower-level jobs, the decline of rites of passage to adulthood, or the falling frequency of marriage.

All these things may be keeping young adults at home, but the defining feature of failure to launch is foot dragging, delaying, stalling, or flat-out refusal to participate in life. While some young adults living at home are trying mightily to contribute financially or move out, Peter Pans have little intention of doing so.

I’ll leave reshaping the economy to others, but possible psychological reasons an adult child comes out of his room only to ask what’s for dinner? We can do that. Here are three reasons your Peter Pan may be retreating to Neverland:

---

Reason #1: Pathological Perfectionism

Peter Pans can put on a show of confidence while feeling deeply...

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How You Can Benefit Year-Round from NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month is in November, and many people know about the event affectionately known as NaNoWriMo, but fewer people know about the year-round events the organization also sponsors, including Camp NaNoWriMo—a virtual writing camp where you share a "cabin" with a group of other writers who all support each other's writing goals. Camp NaNoWriMo runs in April and July, and it's for people who want to write anything, not just a novel.

In this interview, I talked with Grant Faulkner, the executive director of National Novel Writing Month, about how the program got started, the program's other initiatives, and what advice he has for aspiring novelists given that he's watched hundreds of thousands of them participate, struggle, and succeed in his programs.

Click the player above to hear the interview, or if you'd prefer to read, we also created a rough transcript.

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D-Day: The Tale of Two Brothers

Who were Charles and Elliot Dalton?  

Welcome to Season 3 of Unknown History: D-Day Stories. I'm your host, Giles Milton, and today we're talking about an extraordinary true story that took place on Juno Beach.

For those Unknown History listeners who’ve seen Steven Spielberg’s film, Saving Private Ryan, you’ll know that the plot turns on the story of three brothers killed in action while serving in the US army, with a fourth about to head to Normandy for the D-Day landings.

Spielberg’s story is fiction, but it could have been fact. There were many brothers serving on D-Day, creating huge anxiety for the worried families at home.

Among the more remarkable stories is that of Charles and Elliot Dalton, two Canadian brothers, who shared the misfortune of having to land in the first wave on Juno Beach. They were due to land together, shortly before 8 a.m. on the morning of D-Day. And as with everything on D-Day, their landings would not go as planned.

"You’re a phoney if you’re not afraid. The only thing that’s going to keep you going is that you’re afraid of being afraid."

Charles and Elliot were extremely close. Charles was 33-years-old and more than half a decade older than his sibling, but the age gap had done nothing to dampen the deep affection they had for one another—two grinning brothers with rugged faces and swept-back hair. Charles had flashing teeth and a winning smile. "The archetypal dashing young officer," said one under his command. "He really had a lot of style."

Elliot was more earnest and more youthful. He had followed in his brother’s footsteps by joining the same regiment in 1931. They were known by their men as Mark I and Mark II: each was held in equal regard.

The brothers were so close to each other, as they were to their mother, that Charles had begged his commanding officer to spare Elliot the initial assault. "Don’t send Elliot on the first wave," he said. "You know what it will do to our mother if we both die." But there was nothing the commanding officer could do. It had already been decided that both brothers would be among the first to storm the beach.

All brothers have a built-in spirit of rivalry and Charles and Elliot were no different: they had competed all their lives. Now, they were facing the greatest competition of all—to survive the run-in to the sea wall and then fight their way into Bernières-sur-Mer.

Elliot was the first to admit he was driven by fear. "You’re a phoney if you’re not afraid," he said to his men. "The only thing that’s going to keep you going is that you’re afraid of being afraid...

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Buying Your First House? 7 Tips for Millennials and Other Generations

Buying your first house is a big decision. Not only is it a major financial investment, but the location of your home determines your community, neighbors, and perhaps where your children go to school. Becoming a homeowner isn’t for everyone—but if it is one of your financial goals, I recommend that you begin preparing as far in advance as possible.

In this post, you’ll learn 7 key home-buying tips to get prepared, save money, and become a happy homeowner. Plus, I’ll cover some generational trends and challenges that Millennials, Gen Xers, Baby Boomers, and the Silent Gen may face when buying a home.

7 Tips for Buying Your First House

1. Know when to stop renting. 
2. Focus on building credit. 
3. Check into first-time home buyer programs. 
4. Estimate how much down payment money you’ll need. 
5. Save your down payment in the right place. 
6. Get preapproved for a mortgage. 
7. Be a savvy negotiator.

Generational Trends for Buying a Home

According to a National Association of Realtors study, 36% of home buyers are Millennials or Gen Y, who are age 37 or younger. And 65% of these buyers are first-timers who are also married couples. They’re increasingly buying single-family homes in the suburbs.

Gen X buyers, who range in age from 38 to 52, make up 26% of home buyers. The NAR report shows they are ethnically diverse, in their peak earning years, and purchase more expensive homes compared to other generations. They’re the most likely to choose homes based on convenience to work and the quality of school districts. 

Younger Boomers from age 53 to 62 make up 18% of home buyers. They typically move for a job or to downsize after their kids leave home. Older Boomers in the 63 to 71 age range make up 14% of home buyers. They’re more likely to move the longest distances for retirement, to downsize, or to be closer to family and friends.

Those age 72 to 92 are part of The Silent Generation and make up just 6% of home buyers. Most have already retired and have the lowest income compared to...

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An interview with Grant Faulkner

Should You Eat Fewer Eggs?

In last week’s Nutrition Diva podcast, I talked about the potential benefits of omega-3 eggs. Ironically, shortly before that episode was released, a new study came out that was widely covered in the media, finding that people who ate more than a few eggs a week had an increased risk of heart disease and death.

This headline wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows 20 years ago, when we firmly (but falsely) believed that eating foods that contained cholesterol would contribute to high blood cholesterol and heart disease risk.

But in 2016, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans officially removed cholesterol from the list of nutrients that we need to worry about limiting. This was based on an accumulating stack of epidemiological evidence finding no clear link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease risk.

In addition to these observational studies, there have also been controlled diet studies which are able to provide more reliable information about cause and effect. Most of these found that diets containing more cholesterol did not increase heart disease risk factors compared to similar diets that were lower in cholesterol.

All of this evidence ultimately led the USDA to take cholesterol off the list of nutrients of concern. This decision was not an impulsive one. In fact, many in the health and nutrition community felt that it took the USDA 10 or 20 years longer than it should have to let eggs and cholesterol off the hook.

When this latest study hit the newswire, dozens of concerned Nutrition Diva listeners reached out to me for comment. And I totally sympathize with those of you who feel jerked around. First eggs are bad. Then they’re fine. Now they’re bad again. So let me try to put this latest headline in perspective.

These findings weren’t actually about eggs. They were about cholesterol....

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6 Things You Should Know Before Buying a New Car

Researching Before—And After—You Go

The internet can be a great resource for buying a car, particularly a new one. Instead of relying on a salesman’s sketchy pitch, do your own online research on the pros and cons of each model. Go test-drive one to make sure you like it, but don’t buy it right then. Instead, go home and hunt around for the best price among dealers in your region. Even if the dealership offering the best price is located far away, you may still come out ahead by having them deliver the car to you.

Car Buying Without Negotiating

Hate negotiating? Try CarWoo.com. You enter the make, model, and options you’re looking for, and a network of local car dealers will bid for your business. You aren’t hassled by phone calls from the dealerships, so you can shop on your own schedule and negotiate with the dealers anonymously. It’s a great way to buy a new or used car!

Test-Drive at Night

If you're buying a car, make sure you test-drive it at night. Driving in the dark will give you an opportunity to make sure the car’s lights work and will draw your attention inward toward its dash, so that you take in all of its interior features and can decide whether or not you like them.

Getting a Loan

After gas, one of the biggest costs associated with having a car is the interest you pay on the loan. Before you go buy a car, get a loan in place first—the financing the car dealership will offer most likely won’t be as competitive. Know your credit rating, and check with your employer’s credit union or look online for deals on car loans. Here’s what else you should know about getting a car loan.

Consider a Manual Transmission

Go manual and save. If you’re buying a new car and can’t afford a hybrid, consider going with a stick shift rather than an automatic. Not only are manual cars often cheaper, manually changing gears saves energy because your car is using only as much energy as it needs to—it’s never in a higher gear than it should be. Being able to coast down hills also saves you tons. Not interested in a manual? Just make sure you stay away from these costly-to-maintain cars.

Know When to Shop

When you buy a car can have a big effect...

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How Much Should You Exercise While Pregnant?

The 2019 Canadian guideline for physical activity throughout pregnancy was recently published in the British Journal of Sports and Medicine—and it has some surprising recommendations for pregnant women.

To get into the nitty-gritty of the new guidelines, I recently talked to one of the authors, Dr. Margie Davenport. Margie is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta. Her graduate work focused on the use of prenatal exercise to promote cardiometabolic health in women diagnosed with, or at risk for, gestational diabetes.

Dr. Davenport developed target heart rate zones for pregnant women, which are included in the guidelines, and her postdoctoral fellowship investigated the impact of exercise on cerebrovascular function in older adults with a focus on post-menopausal women. So, as you can tell, she is no slouch when it comes to how exercise can benefit the human body.

During our chat, Margie outlined six recommendations that were formulated through an extensive systematic review, expert opinion, consultation with end-users (pregnant and postpartum women), and then balanced her research with the recommendations' feasibility, acceptability, costs, and equity.

In a nutshell, the main recommendations are that pregnant women should:

• perform at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week

• spread that exercise over at least three (hopefully more) days a week

• include a variety of aerobic and resistance-training activities

• and finally, there’s no bad time to start physical activity during pregnancy

There is no bad time to start physical activity during pregnancy.

Following these recommendations will reduce the risk of complications such as gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and pre-eclampsia by a surprising 40%, and reduces the risk of postnatal depression by a whopping 67%.

I will give you the highlights of the guidelines and a quick and dirty workout on the next page but to hear the info right from the researcher’s mouth, make sure you listen to the podcast using the audio player at the top of the page!

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6 Recommendations for Pregnant Women

1. All women without contraindication should be physically active throughout pregnancy.

2. Pregnant women should accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each week to...

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Can We Cure HIV?

An estimated 37 million people worldwide are living with HIV, with just under 2 million of those people having recently contracted the virus. In the United States, around 1.1 million people live with HIV, but as many as 15% (or roughly 1 in 7) of those infected do not know they carry the virus. Some groups bare more of the burden of the HIV risk than others, especially racial minorities and men who have sex with other men. 

HIV is considered rare in the US with less than 200,000 new infections per year. But for those living with HIV, treatment of the virus becomes a lifelong commitment to medication and maintenance because a reliable cure remains elusive. What makes HIV so hard to eradicate? And how close has science brought us to a cure?

What Is HIV?

The human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is a virus that targets the body’s immune system. Within a few weeks of contracting the virus, known as the acute infection stage, people typically experience what feels like a very bad case of the flu as the virus works hard to replicate itself throughout the body. Once this initial surge is over, HIV transitions into a clinical latency stage which means people carrying the virus can go for years without experiencing any symptoms at all.

If left untreated, however, HIV can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. This occurs once the immune system has become sufficiently damaged or has been weakened enough to allow the contraction of what are called opportunistic illnesses. 

HIV is found to have an extremely high mutation rate in the first 10 days of infection, meaning researchers looking for a cure are chasing down a moving target.

Why Is HIV So Hard to Cure?

The first cases of clinically-reported AIDS in the United States occurred in 1981 in Los Angeles. Since then, despite extensive study, we are still without a standard cure. HIV is particularly difficult to combat because it attacks the body’s immune system, the very system meant to fight off infections like HIV. The virus first hijacks a protein called CD4 found on the cells of our immune system to replicate itself and then eventually kills those cells off. Among those under attack are T cells, the cells typically tasked with seeking out and destroying cells infected with viruses or cancers. 

HIV is also be able to kill off immune system cells that it hasn’t even infected yet. The loss of those ...

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How to Critique a Colleague's Bad Decisions in 4 Steps

A couple of years ago, my tap-dancing, genius MIT mechanical engineer, New York musical theater actor, and accountabilibuddy Timmy and I started helping each other be more productive. You can read about that in my episode about protecting work/life balance. Timmy is on to a new adventure: he’s learning to program computers. The class he’s taken has put him on a group project, building the control software for a missile that will someday be used by a renegade group of zombie hunters to enslave what remains of the post-apocalyptic world of 2024. They added him to a project team that was already up and running. 

He’s thrilled! His new teammates are great people. They’ve started the project already. They’ve laid the groundwork. They’ve already programmed the foundation of the system and they’ve made a lot of mistakes. Their scripts don’t work. Their builds don’t build. They’ve simply created bad software. 

Timmy is pulling his hair out (which is a shame, because he has pretty much flawless hair, like a Peter Parker crossed with a teenage Clark Kent). He wants to call his team together and tell them, “It’s an honor to be part of your team. Unfortunately you’re all incompetent boobs. Your designs are wrong. Your scripts are broken. You have no idea what you’re doing.” Then, of course, he’ll tell them the right way to do everything. They’ll be so grateful that from then on they'll listen to everything he has to say and adopt all his ideas without challenging them.

They’ll also have him kidnapped, roll him naked in Oreo ice cream cake, and leave him tied to the top of a mound of Texas fire ants. They might even test out the missile on him. This would be a terrible waste of an otherwise scrumptious Oreo ice cream cake. There’s gotta be a better way.

And there is. When you want to give your co-workers feedback that their design sucks, do it in a way that has them thanking you for it. 

Giving Your Coworkers Constructive Feedback

1. Figure out why you are criticizing them
2. Ask questions to lead them to the mistakes
3. Let your colleague propose the solutions
4. Be prepared to learn

Let's dive deeper into each:

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1. Figure out why you are criticizing them

The first step to lovingly criticizing your loyal teammates is to...

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What Is a Schwa?

The 1987 movie “The Princess Bride,” directed by Rob Reiner, is the source of more catch phrases and funny lines than almost any other movie I can think of, but one of the silliest comes from a scene on a boat. The swordsman Inigo Montoya and his hulking comrade Fezzik pass the time by playing a rhyming game. Montoya offers a line, such as, “That Vizzini, he can fuss.” He’s talking about their irritable boss named Vizzini. Fezzik responds with, “I think he like to scream at us.” Vizzini is annoyed at the game, and tells them to quit, but they continue. Montoya says, “Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?” Fezzik answers, “If there are, we all be dead.” As the camera pans away from the boat, we can hear Vizzini getting angrier, barking out, “No more rhymes now. I mean it!” A second later, Fezzik comes back with, “Anybody want a peanut?”

I still laugh at that line. It’s just such a non-sequitur, and what makes it even funnier is that Fezzik is rhyming “mean it” with “peanut.” It’s such an obvious cheat to make the rhyme work―after all, “mean it” doesn’t rhyme with “peanut.” Or does it?

Just by looking at the spelling, you wouldn’t think so. The last syllable of “mean it” is spelled I-T, but the last syllable of “peanut” is spelled N-U-T. But if you say “mean it” and “peanut” quickly enough, the rhyme works. How is that possible?

Meet the Schwa

The answer is: the schwa. “Schwa” is the name for the nondescript, middle-of-the-road vowel that almost any other English vowel can turn into. It’s the vowel spelled with an A in “agree,” and with E in “faded.” It’s the vowel spelled with I in “rapid,” and with O in “salmon.” It’s spelled with a U in “bonus,” with a Y in “vinyl,” and with various combinations of vowel symbols in words such as “nation,” “famous,” and “ocean.” You don’t spread your lips wide to make it, the way you do with the vowel sound in “tree.” You don’t round your lips to make it, as you do with the vowel sound in “shoe.” You don’t even have to open your mouth very wide to say it, unlike the vowel sound in “ball”―or ironically, the one in the word “schwa” itself.  Instead, you just relax your face muscles, let gravity pull your jaw down a little bit, and turn on your voice: “uh.” 

This totally relaxed way of making a schwa is related to one other important fact about it in English: The schwa only occurs in unstressed syllables. Did you notice that the schwa sound in all...

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How Routines Will Improve Your Life

When people learn that I’m the mother of eight kids (all born within one decade), they either think I’m crazy or they wonder how could I possibly enjoy motherhood with that many kids so close in age.

I’ve been telling the same story now for the past 20 years and it still doesn’t get old. After nearly six years of infertility, we were blessed with a beautiful baby daughter through adoption. Exactly one year to the day later, I gave birth to our first son. The floodgates soon opened and I was the amazed mother of a brood of eight.

The most insane period of parenting I have ever experienced was the summer I had four kids under the age of three. Though I’m a sucker for newborns and was thrilled to have finally beat the infertility odds (with flying colors!) caring for an infant, a 12-month-old, a 2-yea-old, and a 3-year-old practically by myself was something I would never attempt again in this or any other lifetime. I’m a pretty patient and easy-going person by nature, but that summer was simply brutal, and I’ve never forgotten it.

As difficult as that stretch of parenting was for me, there was a silver lining—I learned the importance of creating daily routines. I’d always had routines when I was in college and again when I was a full-time career gal because of the many commitments and responsibilities that I had to meet on a regular basis. During my struggle with infertility, however, I promised myself that once I had the luxury of staying at home with my baby, I would ease up on all the structure in my life and try to relax and enjoy the carefree moments of whatever each day brought my way.

When my daughter was just three months old, I became pregnant through a fertility procedure.  Instead of enjoying those go-with-the-flow days with my new baby that I had longed for, I spent the next few months battling severe morning sickness. So much for relaxing and stepping away from routines—I did neither. Survival was the name of the game so I did whatever it took to care for my daughter and get through the days while I was so sick. Eventually, I finally felt better but then it was time to welcome my second baby and before I knew it, I had four kids in the blink of an eye.

I had waited a very long...

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How to Fix Dissatisfaction at Work: A Conversation with Adam Grant

Every one of us has felt disillusioned at work at some time or another. But sometimes that disillusionment drags on and on, slouching toward who knows where. According to a worldwide Gallup poll, only 15% of the world’s one billion full-time workers feel engaged at work. That means a whopping 85% of us are disengaged, disgruntled, or dissatisfied. How to turn this around? Who better to ask than organizational psychologist extraordinaire Adam Grant?

Adam Grant is an expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, and lead more generous and creative lives. As a popular TED speaker and the New York Times bestselling author of three books that have sold over a million copies, he has helped Google, the NBA, and the U.S. Army improve life at work. Adam has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for six straight years, and has been recognized as one of Fortune’s 40 under 40 and the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers. He’s also a former magician and junior Olympic springboard diver.

If that wasn’t enough, Adam recently started the second season of his excellent podcast WorkLife and I’m delighted to talk to him about it in today’s episode of Savvy Psychologist. The show takes you inside some of the world’s most unusual workplaces to discover the keys to better work. You’ll never see your job the same way again. Season Two launched a couple weeks ago, so check it out, subscribe, and I dare you not to binge-listen to catch up on all the great episodes.

Just click the player above to hear our conversation!

In this episode, you will learn:

• What disgruntlement at work really means and how to harness it for success

• The four options we have when you’re dissatisfied

• How to rally when we feel dissatisfied at work

• ...

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How a Semicolon Brought Two Writers Together

Jennifer Miller frequently writes for the "New York Times" style section and has also written novels, but for "Mr. Nice Guy," she teamed up with her husband, Jason Fiefer, who is the editor-in-chief of "Entrepreneur Magazine." The novel draws on both authors' extensive experience in the magazine world and has been described as “The Devil Wears Prada” meets “Sex in the City.”

In this interview, we talked about how the semicolon (of all things!) brought these two together, why they both love and overuse the colon, what it's like to work as a writing team, which parts of the novel are based on real excesses in the magazine industry and the authors' own writing travails, and more. 

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the player or by finding the podcast on any podcasting app, but if you prefer to read it, we also have a complete (rough) transcript.

 

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The Working Woman's Revolution of 1964

On February 8, 1964, an eighty-year-old segregationist congressman named Howard Smith stepped onto the floor of the House of Representatives and changed the lives of America’s working women forever.

It was the eighth and last day of debate on a bill that would become the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, and Smith had a proposed amendment to Title VII, the section dealing with equal employment opportunity. The current draft already prohibited discrimination because of race, color, religion, and national origin, but Smith, a Democrat from Virginia, wanted to add one more category. The clerk read Smith’s proposal aloud. “After the word ‘religion’ insert ‘sex’ on pages 68, 69, 70 and 71 of the bill.”

Smith played his “little amendment” for laughs, claiming to have been inspired by a letter he had received from a female constituent. She asked the government to “protect our spinster friends,” who were suffering from a shortage of eligible bachelors. Over guffaws from his virtually all-male audience, Smith concluded, “I read that letter just to illustrate that women have some real grievances and some real rights to be protected. I am serious about this thing.” Emanuel Celler of New York, the bill’s floor manager in the House, joined in the fun. “I can say as a result of forty-nine years of experience—and I celebrate my fiftieth wedding anniversary next year—that women, indeed, are not in the minority in my house,” he said. “I usually have the last two words, and those words are, ‘Yes, dear.’”

Several of the House’s twelve women representatives rose to try to silence the laughter and advocate seriously for the amendment. Martha Griffiths, Democrat of Michigan, was the one who finally succeeded. “I presume that if there had been any necessity to point out that women were a second-class sex,” she said, “the laughter would have proved it.” Griffiths (who supported the bill) made a shrewd appeal to the Civil Rights Act’s opponents, mainly Southern Democrats like Smith. By then, it looked inevitable that the law they hated had enough votes to pass. So she warned that without the sex provision, Title VII would afford more rights to black women than to white women. “A vote against this amendment today by a white man is a vote against his wife, or his widow, or his daughter, or his sister.”

Civil rights for women were, literally, a joke.

The session eventually dubbed “Ladies Day in the House” had the hallmarks of an impromptu stunt by Smith to try to sink the Civil Rights Act. Civil rights for African Americans might have been palatable to many white legislators now that the...

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How to Make the Most of Your Veggies

Munchable Fresh-Cut Veggies

If you’ll have crudités at your outdoor party, keep those cut veggies fresh and crunchy by storing them properly: Place damp paper towels over the vegetables and wrap everything in plastic wrap. Stick the wrapped veggies in the fridge until it’s time to serve. Carrots, broccoli, and peppers will stay bright and crisp for 12 hours.

Crisp Up Your Carrots

Limp carrots putting a crimp in your crudités tray? Get the crunch back by soaking them in a bowl of ice water for 20 minutes. They’ll be as good as new!

Make Use of Newspaper

It is always a good idea to line the crisper bins of your refrigerator with newspaper or a few paper towels to absorb excess moisture. Mold spores love moisture, but the paper will keep it away.

Lettuce Abuse?

To make sure iceberg lettuce lasts as long as possible, you should remove the innermost core before you store it. An easy (and admittedly fun) way to do this is to hit the lettuce against a hard surface and then twist the core out.

This Lettuce Is Toast

Your lettuce will last longer if you store it in a bag with a piece of nearly burnt toast. Yes, really! The toast will absorb moisture from the lettuce, making it last a long time. Check the toast daily, and replace it once it gets soggy.

Revive Limp Celery

Have you ever found it hard to use up an entire package of celery before it starts going all rubbery on you? To get the celery crispy again, place it in a bowl of ice water with a few slices of potato, then wait an hour. When you come back to it, it will be ready to use.

Shriveled Mushrooms? No Problem

They can still be sliced or chopped and used in cooking. You won’t be able to tell the difference!

Recipe for Frozen Mushrooms

To freeze mushrooms, wipe them off with a damp paper towel and slice them. Then sauté them in a small amount of butter of olive oil until they are almost done. Remove from the heat, allow them to cool, then place them in an airtight plastic bag in the freezer. They should keep for up to 10-12 months!

Water Your Asparagus!

To make asparagus last longer in the refrigerator, place the stem ends in a container of water, or wrap them in a wet...

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D-Day: The Men in the 'Suicide Wave'

Who was Taylor Fellers? And why were he and his men known as the “Suicide Wave”? Turns out they were the ones specially selected to be the very first to land on Omaha Beach.

Welcome to Season 3 of Unknown History: D-Day Stories. I'm your host, Giles Milton, and today we're talking about the most terrible—and controversial—landing to take place on D-Day.

The plight of the first wave of American troops to land on Omaha Beach has come to symbolize everything that is terrible about war.

If you’ve seen Steven Spielberg’s film, Saving Private Ryan, it's hard forget the sight of hundreds of young American soldiers being gunned down on the beach by heavily armed German defenders.

What happened to the first wave of soldiers to land on Omaha was indeed terrible, but there was a lot more to it than what you saw in the film. Here—brought to you by Unknown History—is the real story of what happened on Bloody Omaha between the hours of 6 and 7 in the morning of June 6, 1944.

Here is the real story of what happened on Bloody Omaha between the hours of 6 and 7 in the morning of June 6, 1944.

It begins not with an American, but with a Brit—a 23-year-old British sea captain named Jimmy Green. He had already spent a year escorting naval convoys through the treacherous seas of the North Atlantic and a further year working with the British commandos and the American Rangers.

Now, he was entrusted with ferrying the first wave of American troops to Omaha Beach. It was all part of the Anglo-American cooperation on D-Day that often gets overlooked.

Jimmy Green had been most impressed by the American Rangers, but he felt rather less confident when he met the young lads of A Company, 116^th Infantry—the ones due to be the very first on the beach.

---

They were, he said, “a friendly but shy bunch of fresh-faced country lads who must have felt at home in Ivybridge, Devon, where they had trained for the invasion."

He found them polite and kindly—a group of helpful young men who were used to running errands for the elderly in their home towns. But they were entirely lacking the warlike spirit of the Rangers.

They were a tightly-knit band who had trained together for more than a year...30 of them came from the same hometown of Bedford, Virginia.

Their leader was a clean-shaven young man named Taylor Fellers, a construction foreman in his previous life, who was the sort of community mainstay that could be found in any number of towns in the Blue Ridge foothills of Virginia.

Jimmy Green found him “a very serious, thoughtful officer who seemed a lot older...

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Grammar Girl Nice Guy Transcript

Are Financial Advisors Worth It? Insider Tips You Should Know

Whether you’re confused about how to handle money, got a cash windfall, or just want to know that you’re on track for a comfortable retirement, a financial advisor can help. But many people are confused about what advisors do and if they’re actually worth it.

While everyone’s situation is different, and not everyone needs a financial advisor, it’s important to understand the services these professionals provide. So, I turned to a fellow podcaster and former advisor for insider tips.

In my interview with Joe Saul-Sehy, creator and co-host of the popular Stacking Benjamins podcast, we discuss key points you should know about working with a financial advisor. As a 15-year industry veteran, Joe's shares many insightful and somewhat surprising tips.

Here are some of the topics we cover:

• What a financial advisor actually does for you
• Different types of advisors and fees they charge   
• Whether you’re a good candidate for working with a financial advisor   
• Key questions to ask a potential financial advisor
• What the reception area of a financial company tells you about a potential advisor
• Where to check the background of a financial advisor 
• Online sites to find a great financial advisor

[Listen to the interview using the embedded audio player or on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Spotify]

Get More Money Girl!

To connect on social media, you’ll find Money Girl on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Also, if you’re not already subscribed to the Money Girl podcast on Apple Podcasts or the Stitcher app, both are free and make sure that you’ll get each new weekly episode as soon as it’s published on the web. The show is also on the ...

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Are Omega-3 Eggs as Good as Eating Fish?

Nutrition Diva podcast listener Adele writes: “My husband is allergic to fish so he buys omega-3 eggs instead. Do you get the same benefits from eating omega-3 eggs as you would from eating fish?"

How Do They Make Omega-3 Eggs?

You’ve probably seen omega-3 enriched eggs at the grocery store. Perhaps you’ve wondered how they get the omega-3 into the eggs? It’s actually a pretty low tech method: They feed the hens flaxseed, which is high in omega-3 fatty acids. Just like you and me, hens that take in more omega-3s end up with more of these fatty acids in their tissues, and that applies to their eggs as well.

In terms of protein, both fish and eggs are high quality protein sources, although you’d have to eat about three eggs to get the same amount of protein as in a 3-ounce serving of salmon.  In terms of omega-3 fatty acids, there are two things to keep in mind. One is how much omega-3 you’re actually getting.

The oilier ocean fish (like salmon, mackerel, and sardines) tend to be higher in omega-3 while the milder fish and and shellfish are lower.

How Much Omega-3 Can You Get from Eggs? 

The amount of omega-3 in an enriched egg varies considerably from around 100 to 500 mg per egg. The most popular brand of omega-3 eggs claims just 125 mg of omega-3 per egg. By comparison, a 4-ounce serving of salmon (or just one tablespoon of flaxseed) is going to give you six or seven times as much omega-3 as a serving of omega-3 eggs. (I’m considering two large eggs to be a serving.)

Not all fish is quite as rich in omega-3 as salmon is. Generally, the oilier ocean fish (like salmon, mackerel, and sardines) tend to be higher in omega-3 while the milder fish and and shellfish are lower. A serving of grouper, flounder, or perch, for example will have about as much omega-3 as you’d get from a couple of omega-3 eggs. Shrimp, tilapia, and crab are even lower in omega-3s.

See Also: Can You Get Too Much Omega-3? 

What Kind of Omega-3 Do You Get in Eggs?

The other thing to bear in mind...

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The Working Woman's Revolution of 1984

On February 8, 1964, an eighty-year-old segregationist congressman named Howard Smith stepped onto the floor of the House of Representatives and changed the lives of America’s working women forever.

It was the eighth and last day of debate on a bill that would become the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, and Smith had a proposed amendment to Title VII, the section dealing with equal employment opportunity. The current draft already prohibited discrimination because of race, color, religion, and national origin, but Smith, a Democrat from Virginia, wanted to add one more category. The clerk read Smith’s proposal aloud. “After the word ‘religion’ insert ‘sex’ on pages 68, 69, 70 and 71 of the bill.”

Smith played his “little amendment” for laughs, claiming to have been inspired by a letter he had received from a female constituent. She asked the government to “protect our spinster friends,” who were suffering from a shortage of eligible bachelors. Over guffaws from his virtually all-male audience, Smith concluded, “I read that letter just to illustrate that women have some real grievances and some real rights to be protected. I am serious about this thing.” Emanuel Celler of New York, the bill’s floor manager in the House, joined in the fun. “I can say as a result of forty-nine years of experience—and I celebrate my fiftieth wedding anniversary next year—that women, indeed, are not in the minority in my house,” he said. “I usually have the last two words, and those words are, ‘Yes, dear.’”

Several of the House’s twelve women representatives rose to try to silence the laughter and advocate seriously for the amendment. Martha Griffiths, Democrat of Michigan, was the one who finally succeeded. “I presume that if there had been any necessity to point out that women were a second-class sex,” she said, “the laughter would have proved it.” Griffiths (who supported the bill) made a shrewd appeal to the Civil Rights Act’s opponents, mainly Southern Democrats like Smith. By then, it looked inevitable that the law they hated had enough votes to pass. So she warned that without the sex provision, Title VII would afford more rights to black women than to white women. “A vote against this amendment today by a white man is a vote against his wife, or his widow, or his daughter, or his sister.”

Civil rights for women were, literally, a joke.

The session eventually dubbed “Ladies Day in the House” had the hallmarks of an impromptu stunt by Smith to try to sink the Civil Rights Act. Civil rights for African Americans might have been palatable to many white legislators now that the...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Do Super Slow Resistance Training

Although this training style has been popping up more and more over the last few years, super slow resistance training was actually originally used by bodybuilders back in the 1960s. In fact, the benefits of performing an exercise with an extremely slow tempo can be traced to a Strength and Health magazine article written in 1962 by the late Bob Hoffman. The article stated that slow tempo movements were being used by the weightlifters of the York Barbell Club, a weightlifting team that won many international competitions and were breaking world records.

Back then, it was referred to as “muscle contraction with measured movement,” and involved lifting 10-seconds up and 10-seconds back down. Now, if you have ever tried to do a squat, a push-up, or an overhead press for 10 seconds in each direction, you know that this can require some pretty high levels of patience and mindfulness. It's also darn hard!

This can require some pretty high levels of patience and mindfulness and it's also darn hard!

As a matter of comparison, a traditional resistance training routine would typically take about 1-2 seconds to lift a weight, and perhaps slightly longer than that to lower that weight.

In a standard Nautilus training protocol, an athlete will perform eight to twelve repetitions (Westcott, 1999) with each repetition having a two-second concentric action, a one-second pause, and then a four-second eccentric action. So, the total time for this type of set would take about 55-85 seconds to complete. But, with the super slow protocol, doing only four to six repetitions, with a 10-second concentric phase followed by a 10-second eccentric phase, it would take only slightly longer for fewer reps.

In a paper from the early 1980s, researcher Ken Hutchins wrote about the super slow technique while he was leading a study that involved a group of elderly women who had osteoporosis. He believed this technique was safer for the participants than a regular lifting style. When they used the standard weightlifting protocol (two seconds up and four seconds down), Hutchins was concerned about the women's “erratic form” so he implemented the super slow lifting and the women in the study made dramatic gains in strength.

An interesting part of the newer versions of super slow resistance workouts is that rather than doing multiple sets for each body part, you just do one long set for each exercise. Each set is performed until muscle failure or until...

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How Does Insulin Work in Our Bodies?

The prevalence of diabetes, a condition related to the body’s inability to appropriately produce a hormone called insulin, has been steadily increasing worldwide over the last 30 years. According to the World Health Organization, over 422 million people worldwide are currently living with diabetes. An estimated 30.3 million of those people, or 9.4% of the population, are in the US. Also in the US, as many as one in four adults with diabetes don’t even know that they have it, and another 84 million people are pre-diabetic which often means they will be diabetic within five years without treatment. These numbers are higher in the American Indian, black, and Hispanic communities.

What is insulin and how do our bodies use it? What progress are scientists making toward regulating the hormone without insulin pumps or injections?

What is Insulin?

Hormones serve as chemical messengers, molecules that travel through our bloodstream to signal to our cells and organs how they should respond or act. They regulate a variety of activities in our bodies from basic needs like hunger to more complex responses like emotions. Our hormones are responsible for our metabolism, our growth, our reproduction, and even the release of other hormones.

Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that specifically regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates and thus the level of glucose or sugar in the blood. When we eat carbohydrates and other sugars, insulin enters the bloodstream and, much like a door-to-door salesperson, convinces muscle and fat cells to open up and take in some of that sugar to be stored as a future energy source.

High resolution imaging has shown that insulin does this job by binding to receptors on a cell’s surface which causes molecules known as GLUT4 to also congregate near the surface of the cell. These GLUT4 molecules then serve as transporters to guide the glucose into the cell.

However, cells can also convert that glucose into fat rather than using it for energy since the process of fat storage often requires less energy to accomplish. Taking in more glucose than your body requires, based on your activity level, will mean the extra glucose is sent to long-term fat storage....

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Don’t Get the Varsity Blues

Scandal!

We just love scandal! And today, it’s a college admissions scandal. As Harvard Law School professor Michael Sandel points out in his book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, money is increasingly letting rich people to use their wealth to buy things—like college admissions—that used to be obtainable with other currencies.

In the good old days, you could be poor, but if you studied hard or did well at sports, it could lead you to a top college. Now it seems that rich kids can bypass the accomplishment route and crowd out everyone else by using their money to game the system.

In the current scandal, aptly called Operation Varsity Blues (don't ever say that the government lacks a sense of humor), rich parents hired a consultant to falsify their kids’ records and test scores, and bribe college coaches to say the kids should be admitted on athletic grounds.

The result: rich kids getting into elite schools they aren’t qualified for. And the highly-qualified kids who don’t have the money to bribe their way in? Well, they don’t matter, do they? Because they’re not rich.

Get-It Done Guy Was NOT a Rich Kid...

This is a big deal for me; I take it personally. I grew up lower-middle-class. For a little while my family lived in a trailer where I had three cubic feet of space for all my worldly possessions. I moved out at 15 and supported myself—barely—by programming computers. There were days I couldn’t afford to eat. My friends all knew my situation. I found out decades later that they and their parents would conspire to invite me over for homework. And if dinner happened to be served during a study break, of course I was welcome to join.

I studied my butt off. I worked super hard. I took classes at a local community college to help meet unfinished high school graduation requirements. 

…Who Succeeded on Merit

And ultimately, I ended up going to MIT for my undergraduate degree and Harvard Business School for grad school. I needed a lot of financial aid, plus a semester off to earn more money.

And it changed my life. It was the American Dream: With hard work, I got into top schools where I could get an education to give me the skills for success. 

In today’s world, we have the American Dystopia: A lazy rich kid who can’t make the grade (literally!) can use their...

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Why We Have Both 'Color' and 'Colour'

Have you ever wondered why the British spell “color” with a “u” and Americans don’t? Or why the British spell “theater” with an “re” at the end and Americans spell it with an “er” at the end? We all know that these spelling differences exist, but not everyone knows why they exist. Today, we’re going to find out!

It turns out that Noah Webster of Webster’s dictionary fame is behind many, but not all, of the spelling differences between British and American English, and his reasons for making the changes were as much political and philosophical as linguistic. I was inspired to do this podcast by a book I just finished, called "The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture" by Joshua Kendall. I know many of you reading are not Americans, but I hope you will indulge me and end up finding this story as interesting as I do.

Early America

Noah Webster lived smack in the middle of the time when Americans were still trying to form a country and figure out who they were. To give you some perspective, the United States Constitution was ratified between the time Webster published his first spelling book and when he started working on his famous dictionary.

Americans were eager to break with Britain as fully as possible and weren’t even sure that English should be the primary language. Nearly 10% of the population spoke German, so some people suggested German should be our language. Others proposed Hebrew, and others thought we should call our language Columbian.

'Zee' Versus 'Zed'

Noah Webster's influence is why Americans call the final letter 'zee' instead of 'zed.'

Webster undertook his first big project—an American spelling book to replace the British book schools were using then—in part, to settle the matter and convince people that our language should be English, but American English. It was in this book that he took small steps to begin creating American spellings. It was also in the speller that he taught Americans to pronounce the name of the final letter of the alphabet as “zee” instead of “zed” as the British do.

Political Rationale for Spelling Reform

Webster is best known now as the dictionary writer, but in his time he was involved in politics and knew George Washington and Benjamin Franklin quite well. He regularly wrote political essays,...

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6 Tips to Fight Fatigue

Sleep and Exercise at the Right Times

Feeling tired all the time isn't necessarily about how much sleep you're getting, it can also be about when you're sleeping—as well as being active. The average adult needs 7-9 hours of sleep per night, but that's sometimes easier said than done. Being in bed by 10 p.m. and rising at 6 a.m. will follow your natural circadian rhythm, whereby your adrenal glands are at their highest output in the morning and their lowest output at midnight. Exercising in the morning rather than the evening will prevent your adrenal glands from kicking into high gear late in the day when they should be winding down instead.

See Also: Why Am I So Tired?

Eat Protein Instead of Sugar

You may be feeling fatigued because of the food you're eating. Food has a direct effect on your blood sugar levels, which in turn affect your body's insulin production. Short-term spikes in blood sugar can contribute to a feeling of exhaustion, and consistent blood sugar spikes over a period of several years can even contribute to diabetes and obesity! Aim to eat 90-120 grams of protein per day, spread evenly among meals and small snacks. Getting 30 grams of protein with breakfast, such as in a protein shake, egg white omelet, or turkey sausage is a great start to your day. Then, make sure you're eating protein lunch and dinner (a chicken breast or hamburger patty are each about 30 grams of protein). Consistent protein intake will also help stave off sugar cravings! If you feel tired in the middle of the day, sugar is actually one of the worst things you can eat. It messes with your blood sugar levels and gives you a sense of “false energy” that will only cause you to crash and burn.

Watch Your Coffee Intake

You probably don't want to hear this, but coffee may be making you more tired. Caffeine aggravates the adrenal glands, forcing them to work overtime even when they've already reached their limit. If you can...

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What Your Teen Wants You to Understand

Ever wish you could get inside your teenager's mind, especially on those days when they're super cranky and sullen for apparently no reason at all?  

At this point, four of my kids are in their twenties and four are in their teens. You'd think that after all these years of parenting, I would have figured out the secret to raising teens. But since they alter their moods as fast as a chameleon changes color, I am always seeking new ways to connect. I recently attended a local workshop on raising successful teens and walked away with a better understanding of what makes them tick.

I’m often asked what I consider to be the most difficult years in parenting—toddlers or teens.  In my experience, hands down, I can say that raising toddlers was far more exhausting and, in some cases, even painful (one summer I had four kids under the age of three) than dealing with teenagers. Call me crazy but I’d rather teach a child to drive rather than how to use the toilet!

See Also:  9 Crucial Life Skills to Teach Your Child

Raising teens is no picnic, but when you can think from their perspective, it does make living under the same roof much more tolerable. After listening to the different speakers at the workshop, as well as talking to other parents of teens, I got a better understanding of what frustrates my teens and how I can help.

So the next time you’re feeling like tearing your hair out from your teenager’s attitude, consider these four things he needs you to understand. 

See Also:  7 Ways to Help Build Your Child's Self-Esteem

Raising teens is no picnic, but when you can think from their perspective, it does make living under the same roof much more tolerable.

Be Available for Me

One of the speakers highly recommended The Available Parent: Expert Advice for Raising Successful and Resilient Tweens and Teens written by clinical psychologist, John Duffy...

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6 Lucky St. Patrick’s Day Hacks

Make your own luck by following these simple tips.

Shamrock Pepper Stamp

Making St. Patty’s Day decorations with the kids? To fashion a stamp in the shape of a shamrock, simply cut off the bottom of a bell pepper—voila! Dip the clover shape in green paint and stamp away!

Green Food

Bring some Irish spirit to the breakfast table by adding a few drops of green food coloring to pancake or waffle batter. Stir the coloring in gradually until you get the shade of green you want, and prepare as usual.

St. Patty’s Free Party Emporium

Yep, we said “free”! For adorable holiday decorations that you can print out at home, check out LivingLocurto.com/2012/03/st-patricks-free-printables. You’ll find festive signs, bottle wrappers, drink flags, cake toppers, cupcake wrappers, and more!

Bring a Little Irish Luck to Your Doorstep

Here’s another great holiday project for you and the kids: Turn a plain-old flowerpot into an adorable green leprechaun hat. In addition to a clay pot, get some green paint and a paintbrush, a large metal washer (for the buckle), sandpaper to sand down the washer, gold paint, thick black ribbon, and a hot glue gun. Paint the pot green and set it aside to dry. Sand the washer to make it smooth and ready for painting; paint it completely with gold paint. Once both the pot and washer are dry, use your hot glue gun to secure the black ribbon around the center of the pot. Glue the washer—or buckle—on top of the ribbon, and your leprechaun hat pot is ready to grow some shamrocks!

Luck Be a Rainbow Collage

There really is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! At the end of this rainbow, at least. You and the kids can make this simple rainbow collage in a snap—all you’ll need are paper plates, scissors, paints in all six colors of a rainbow, cotton balls, white glue, and gold glitter or sparkly paint. Slice a paper plate in half with your scissors, then paint the arches of a rainbow onto one half-circle. Dab a few cotton balls in glue and paste them along the bottom of each arch to form clouds. For the gold treasure, mix the glitter with a bit of glue to make a glittery paste, then paint gold coins near one end of the rainbow.

Corned Beef Cook...

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5 Creative Ways to Use Your Family Photos

Thanks to this high-tech, digital world we live in we’re able to instantly capture life’s moments with the simple click of our smartphones.

This makes photo taking easier, but before we know it our storage is at full capacity and instead of enjoying all these wonderful memories, we’re scrambling to download them to our computers or external hard drives where, unfortunately, they’ll probably sit for months or years.

Instead of letting your memories languish, select a few faves and turn them into works of art. Here are five ways to get creative with your forgotten photos:

Create a Video Montage

Use free software like Adobe Spark where you can put photos, video clips, and other special moments into a video montage. This is a great way to gather a collection of vacation, graduation, or birthday photos and create a trip down memory lane that you can share with members of your family.

Decoupage Your Memories

Another way to get creative with photos is to transfer them to blocks of wood which you can then display in your home. Kick it up a notch and transfer images to the surfaces of table tops such as a coffee table or nightstand, or even a wall in your home that is craving a makeover by using the incredible art of decoupage. Depending on how many photos you choose, this could take a bit more time to accomplish but the finished result will be well worth it.

Create a Clipboard Gallery

If you like to change out your artwork on a regular basis, you may feel the same about your photos. No need to keep the same selection for ages when you can easily switch them out with the clever use of clipboards. Pinterest has many ideas for using clipboards as the foundation of your gallery wall. Updating the photos is as simple as clipping the new one up.

Decorate Your Car

Many of us, parents in particular, spend lots of time behind the wheels of our car. Take advantage of customizable visor frames that you can easily clip to your sun visor. Each time you get ready to start your engine, you can catch a glimpse of your cutie patootie which will surely bring some positive energy into...

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4 Ways to Cope With Pain Using Stoicism

When people think of pain, they often think of (lower-case) stoicism, or having a stiff upper-lip.  However, ancient Stoic philosophy had a much more sophisticated approach to pain management than just “grin and bear it.”  In fact, it was the original inspiration for modern cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), which first appeared in the 1950s. CBT is currently the dominant evidence-based form of psychotherapy, and provides some surprisingly robust techniques for coping psychologically with chronic pain and illness.  

However, one of my favourite anecdotes about Stoicism and pain actually comes from an early 20th century psychotherapist called Paul Dubois.  Dubois used to assign his patients homework that involved reading the letters of the Stoic philosopher Seneca. Once Dubois was explaining to a young patient how Stoic philosophy could help him cope better with illness.  The man interrupted saying: “I understand, doctor; let me show you.”

And taking a pencil he drew a large black spot on a piece of paper. “This,” said he, “is the disease, in its most general sense, the physical trouble—rheumatism, toothache, what you will—moral trouble, sadness, discouragement, melancholy. If I acknowledge it by fixing my attention upon it, I already trace a circle to the periphery of the black spot, and it has become larger. If I affirm it with acerbity the spot is increased by a new circle. There I am, busied with my pain, hunting for means to get rid of it, and the spot only becomes larger. If I preoccupy myself with it, if I fear the consequences, if I see the future gloomily, I have doubled or trebled the original spot.” And, showing me the central point of the circle, the trouble reduced to its simplest expression, he said with a smile, “Should I not have done better to leave it as it was?”

The burden of physical pain is lightened when we are able to look at it objectively, without adding layers of fear.

Dubois adds:

“One exaggerates, imagines, anticipates affliction,” wrote Seneca. For a long time, I have told my discouraged patients and have repeated to myself, “Do not let us build a second...

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5 Ways Money May Be Costing Your Humanity

Money can’t buy you love, plus it turns out it can cost you your humanity. Research has only begun to delve into the impact money has on mindset, but what’s come up so far ain’t pretty. This week, we’ll investigate what falls by the wayside as the money rolls in, and—thankfully—how to hold on to the things money can’t buy.

Let’s start with what money costs us.

Cost #1: Courtesy. Ever heard this one? What’s the difference between a catfish and a BMW owner? One is a bottom-feeding scum sucker, and the other is a fish.

Unfortunately, BMW owners lived up to this reputation in a 2012 study carried out along a Northern California roadway. Over and over again, a researcher posing as a regular old pedestrian stood at a crosswalk, ready to cross the street as a car approached.

The good news is that eight out of ten cars stopped for the pedestrian and let him cross. But when the research team created a five-tiered system, with low-value “category 1” rusted-out beaters at the bottom and luxury “category 5” vehicles at the top, like BMWs, a pattern became clear. Of the category 1 vehicles, every single car stopped for the pedestrian. But of the category 5 vehicles, almost 50 percent blew through the crosswalk, leaving the hapless pedestrian in a cloud of exhaust.

Now, there hasn’t been a study yet about people who park their car across multiple spots, but I’m willing to bet you know the results already. (I’m getting dangerously close to the line of my zero-judgment promise here, I know.)

Cost #2: Empathy. A series of studies in the journal Psychological Science found that people of lower socioeconomic status were better able to read others’ expressions and emotions. In the study, participants were asked to self-identify their social class using a picture of a ladder with rungs labeled 1-10. The lowest rungs, they were told, represented “those who are the worst off, have the least education, least money, and least respected jobs or no job.” The highest rungs, by contrast, were “those who are the best off, have the most education, most money, and most respected jobs.”

Once the participants self-identified on the 1-10 ladder, they were asked to participate in a hypothetical job interview. The researcher interviewed two participants at a time, asking them standard questions like, “What are your greatest strengths and...

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Is Irish a Language?

Irish Came from Celtic

Irish is derived from Celtic, an ancient language spoken by an Indo-European people who flourished in central Europe between the 2nd millennium BC and the 1st century BC. They were said to be intrepid warriors, and by the 1st century BC, they had moved south into Italy; eastward, toward Turkey; and westward, into the British Isles. And when I say “moved,” I mean they sent raiding parties to take over new territory.

In the British Isles, the Celtic language morphed into Old Irish, spoken around AD 600 to 900; Middle Irish, spoken to around AD 1200, and then Modern Irish, spoken from then onward. Modern Irish is also known as “Irish Gaelic.” 

As Irish people moved into Scotland and to the Isle of Man (a tiny island between England and Ireland), they brought Irish with them, and two additional languages developed: Scottish Gaelic and Manx. These three tongues—really considered three variants on the same language—are referred to as the “Goidelic” branch of Celtic.

Manx began to die out in the 19th century, and the last native speaker died in 1974. Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic, however, continue to live on. 

Sort of. Let’s see what that means.

Irish Is the Official Language of Ireland, but English Dominates

Irish is the first official language of The Republic of Ireland; English is the second. Government documents are published in both languages, and the Irish version of the Constitution takes precedence. Street signs are written in both languages, and in public schools, Irish is a required course for a student’s first 13 of years of school. You even have to pass an exam on Irish to get into college.

However, in practice, English rules the land. It’s spoken by businesspeople, politicians, entertainers, shopkeepers, and regular folk. It’s what you hear on TV, on the radio, and on buses and trains. And although Irish is taught in public schools, school itself is conducted in English. In other words, Irish is essentially taught as a second language.  

In fact, there are only a few areas in Ireland where Irish is spoken as a first, or native language.  These small pockets are known as “Gaeltacht,” and they lie along the western coast of Ireland, in counties Kerry, Galway, and Donegal. 

And, guess what? Even if you visit Gaeltacht, you probably won’t hear people speaking Irish. Just like anywhere else, tourists stand out like a sore thumb. If you’re clearly not from Knocknagoshel or Gaoth Dobhair, you’ll be addressed in English.

Why Did Irish Die Out? 

If you’re wondering why Irish isn’t the dominant language in Ireland, you can chalk it up to the one–two punch of the Irish...

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What Is the Spring Equinox?

Wednesday, March 20, is the spring equinox in 2019. 

And that means what, exactly?

The spring equinox is one of two days during the year when day and night are about the same length. This happens when the earth rotates in such a way that the sun is lined up exactly with the equator. In that 24-hour period, the earth’s axis is tilted neither toward the sun, nor away from it. Everyone on the planet gets the same amount of sunshine, and the same amount of dark.

Equinox = Equal + Night

The word “equinox,” as you might guess, comes from two Latin words: “aequi-,” meaning “equal,” and “noct-,” meaning “night.” 

The root word “aequi-“ can be found in lots of similar words describing things of equal balance, like “equivalent,” “equidistant,” and “equitable.” “Noct-” can be found in several words evoking night: “nocturnal”; “noctambulate,” meaning to walk around at night; and the spooky “noctifer,” an obsolete word that refers to a bringer of night or darkness.  

I’m thinking of the Dementors from “Harry Potter” when I hear that word, or the Nazgūl from “The Lord of the Rings.” Scary.

Chaucer Used the Word 'Equinox'

We can find the word “equinox” used way back in the 1300s, when Chaucer wrote one of the first-ever technical manuals—a user’s guide to the astrolabe, an instrument that’s used to make astronomical measurements. 

Chaucer wrote of a “cercle” around the earth called the Equator. He noted that 

When the sun is at the start of Aries and Libra, the days and nights are of equal length. These signs (Aries and Libra) are called the equinoxes.

Why does Chaucer refer to these zodiac signs? Because as the Earth revolves around the sun, the sun seems to travel through all the thirteen constellations that make up the zodiac. (Really, we’re the ones moving; the sun isn’t “traveling” anywhere.) And on the day of the spring equinox, the sun looks like it’s starting to move through the constellation Aries. For that reason, the spring equinox is also called “the first point of Aries.” The fall equinox, in turn, is known as the “first point of Libra.” 

Don’t Capitalize Terms Like 'Spring Equinox' and 'Fall Equinox'

And the names of all these significant astronomical days are all lowercase. You don’t capitalize terms like “fall equinox” and “summer solstice.” The solstices, by the way, are the...

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