PETS

The following was found posted very low on a refrigerator door.

Dear Dogs and Cats:
The dishes with the paw prints are yours and contain your food.
The other dishes are mine and contain my food.. Placing a paw print in the middle of my plate and food does not stake a claim for it becoming your food and dish, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Racing me to the bottom is not the object. Tripping me doesn't help because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort, however. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other, stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out on the other end to maximize space is nothing but sarcasm..

For the last time, there is no secret exit from the bathroom! If, by some miracle, I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge in an attempt to open the door. I must exit through the same door I entered.
Also, I have been using the bathroom for years - canine/feline attendance is not required.

The proper order for kissing is: Kiss me first, then go smell the other dog or cat's butt. I cannot stress this enough.

Finally, in fairness, dear pets, I have posted the following message on the front door:


TO ALL NON-PET OWNERS WHO VISIT AND LIKE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT OUR PETS:

(1) They live here. You don't.
(2) If you don't want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. That's why they call it 'fur'-niture.
(3) I like my pets a lot better than I like most people.
(4) To you, they are animals. To me, they are adopted sons/daughters who are short, hairy, walk on all fours and don't speak clearly.
Remember, dogs and cats are better than kids because they:

(1) eat less,
(2) don't ask for money all the time,
(3) are easier to train,
(4) normally come when called,
(5) never ask to drive the car,
(6) don't smoke or drink,
(7) don't want to wear your clothes,
(8) don't have to buy the latest fashions,
(9) don't need a gazillion dollars for college and
(10) if they get pregnant, you can sell their children

(author unknown)

Hawaiian Airlines offer Harvest Fantastic Fall Fares – U.S. Mainland just $288*

Aloha,

Fall is a great time for reflection–to contemplate the events of the previous year and prepare for the coming months. And what better place to reflect than the beautiful beaches of Hawaii? With smaller crowds and great room rates, you’ll soon find out what other savvy travelers already know – fall is a great time to go:

Fares to the Islands are starting at $288* RT; now is the perfect time to book a relaxing escape. Prepare to let the blue-green waves of the Pacific set your mind at ease as you and your family prepare for another trip around the sun.

Book: August 26 - August 31, 2010
Travel: August 23 - November 18, 2010

go to (copy and paste into your browser): http://www.hawaiianair.com/specialoffers/pages/Discover-Hawaii-Flights.aspx/?pid=Fall-Al-Islands-pos1_20100816

eat organic, locally grown foods

Not only do organic, locally grown foods generally taste better, but they often have higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals. But the advantages don't stop there. Local farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA) groups provide food choices that haven't been shipped from thousands of miles away, so less gas and pollution goes into getting you your meals. Look for local farmers' markets and CSA's in your local paper or on the internet. Bon appetite!

National Geographic

If there's going to be sufficient water to meet everyone's needs--and those of rivers and fish and birds we're going to need to shrink our footprints and share Earth's water more equitably.

This post is part of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative.

By now, most of us probably turn off the tap while brushing our teeth. If we've lived through a drought maybe we've shaved a couple minutes off our showers, and even ripped out some thirsty turf grass and planted drought-tolerant shrubs.

What more can we do to conserve water?
As it turns out, quite a lot.
The stuff of life is just plain thirsty. Embedded in that hamburger is perhaps 630 gallons of water--most of it going to grow the corn to feed the cow. And that cotton T-shirt probably gulped some 760 gallons between field and factory. The mobility of our lives takes water, too--about 13 gallons of H2O for every gallon of gasoline at the pump.
Added all up, the average American lifestyle demands nearly 2,000 gallons a day--about twice the global average. If there's going to be sufficient water to meet everyone's needs--and those of rivers and fish and birds and mussels, too--we're going to need to shrink our footprints and share Earth's finite water more equitably.
Saving water at home--indoors and outdoors--is an important place to start, because it helps protect your drinking water source. But on average, home water use makes up only 5% of the average American's daily water footprint. Diet--at 55 percent--accounts for the lion's share, followed by electricity use and transportation at 35 percent. Purchases of clothes, computers, magazines and other consumer goods make up the remaining 5 percent.

Tip from Dr. Weil - Going Green

Pull the plug.

Even if they are not in use, common household appliances and electronics such as microwaves, computers, DVD players and televisions use power when simply plugged in. This not only increases your electric bill but increases overall energy consumption - a television that is plugged in but not turned on can consume as much as 20 watts per hour. Help curb your energy consumption: unplug items you rarely use, once portable devices are charged up unplug the charger from the outlet, and use electronics only as needed.

A simple step to a healthier planet!

Miscellaneous Recycling Facts

An estimated 80,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using enough aluminum foil to cover over 50 acres of space -- that's almost 40 football fields. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.

Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute!

A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

Motor oil never wears out, it just gets dirty. Oil can be recycled, re-refined and used again, reducing our reliance on imported oil.

On average, each one of us produces 4.4 pounds of solid waste each day. This adds up to almost a ton of trash per person, per year.

A typical family consumes 182 gallons of soda, 29 gallons of juice, 104 gallons of milk, and 26 gallons of bottled water a year. That's a lot of containers -- make sure they're recycled!
These recycling facts have been compiled from various sources including the National Recycling Coalition, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Earth911.org. While I make every effort to provide accurate information, I make no warranty or guarantee that the facts presented here are exact. We welcome all polite corrections to our information.

Please also feel free to contact us if you have additional recycling facts to share.

Links to our web site are always welcome. Feel free to use any information listed on our site for your own not for profit educational purposes. A link to our site as your source is appreciated.

For even more information and additional recycling facts, you can visit
http://www.nrc-recycle.org

Sage advice from Dr. Weil:

For most of the United States, and especially in the desert states, there is only so much water to go around. You can help lower your water bills and conserve water for future use with this one, simple step: Turn off the faucet when you brush your teeth. This can save hundreds of gallons per month, with no sacrifice required. A simple step to a healthier planet!

Solid Waste and Landfills

About one-third of an average dump is made up of packaging material!
Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that can be composted.
The U.S. is the #1 trash-producing country in the world at 1,609 pounds per person per year. This means that 5% of the world's people generate 40% of the world's waste.
The highest point in Hamilton County, Ohio (near Cincinnati) is "Mount Rumpke." It is actually a mountain of trash at the Rumpke sanitary landfill towering 1045 ft. above sea level.
The US population discards each year 16,000,000,000 diapers, 1,600,000,000 pens, 2,000,000,000 razor blades, 220,000,000 car tires, and enough aluminum to rebuild the US commercial air fleet four times over.
Out of every $10 spent buying things, $1 (10%) goes for packaging that is thrown away. Packaging represents about 65% of household trash.
On average, it costs $30 per ton to recycle trash, $50 to send it to the landfill, and $65 to $75 to incinerate it.

Glass Recycling Facts

Every month, we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper. All of these jars are recyclable!

The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours or a compact fluorescent bulb for 20 hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.

A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -- and even longer if it's in the landfill.

Mining and transporting raw materials for glass produces about 385 pounds of waste for every ton of glass that is made. If recycled glass is substituted for half of the raw materials, the waste is cut by more than 80%.

Plastic Recycling Facts

Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!
Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year!
Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.
Americans throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam coffee cups every year.

Paper Recycling Facts

To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.

Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees.

If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year!

If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25,000,000 trees a year.

If you had a 15-year-old tree and made it into paper grocery bags, you'd get about 700 of them. A busy supermarket could use all of them in under an hour! This means in one year, one supermarket can go through over 6 million paper bags! Imagine how many supermarkets there are just in the United States!!!

The average American uses seven trees a year in paper, wood, and other products made from trees. This amounts to about 2,000,000,000 trees per year!

The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years.

Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.

Americans use 85,000,000 tons of paper a year; about 680 pounds per person.

The average household throws away 13,000 separate pieces of paper each year. Most is packaging and junk mail.

In 1993, U.S. paper recovery saved more than 90,000,000 cubic yards of landfill space.

Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution!

The 17 trees saved (above) can absorb a total of 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Burning that same ton of paper would create 1500 pounds of carbon dioxide.

The construction costs of a paper mill designed to use waste paper is 50 to 80% less than the cost of a mill using new pulp.

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Recycling - Aluminum

Aluminum Recycling Facts
1. A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf as a new can, in as little as 60 days. That's closed loop recycling at its finest!
2. Used aluminum beverage cans are the most recycled item in the U.S., but other types of aluminum, such as siding, gutters, car components, storm window frames, and lawn furniture can also be recycled.
3. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours -- or the equivalent of a half a gallon of gasoline.
4. More aluminum goes into beverage cans than any other product.
5. Because so many of them are recycled, aluminum cans account for less than 1% of the total U.S. waste stream, according to EPA estimates.
6. An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!
7. There is no limit to the amount of times an aluminum can be recycled.
8. We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum soda cans every year.
9. At one time, aluminum was more valuable than gold!
10. A 60-watt light bulb can be run for over a day on the amount of energy saved by recycling 1 pound of steel. In one year in the United States, the recycling of steel saves enough energy to heat and light 18,000,000 homes!