A new new years resolution

Posted on March 5, 2008
Filed Under Health, Information | 5 Comments

In January I mentioned an eHow.com article that listed five tips to help you keep your New Years resolutions. Tip number five was to begin in spring so I thought I would talk about my newest new years resolution.

As of Saturday March 1st I have been a vegetarian. Today is the beginning of day five, and I have to admit the temptation is much less than I had feared. The major temptation is not a craving for meat in my experiance but the convience of food that has meat in it. I am only at the beginning of this journey, but so far I have found a couple of things that have helped me.

No fast food breakfasts: I know that there are probably a few fast food places that have a meat free breakfast option. However for the most part fast food breakfast is a no go for the vegetarian. This is a tough one because if you were like me, you got into the unhealthy habit of getting a fast food breakfast because it is so convenient. You are in a rush and you leave the house with the knowledge that you can pick something up on the way. I have had to slow down and actually fix something at home. If you are in a rush you can fix something that you can take with you. This morning I will probably have peanut butter on toast and take it with me. I have also been told that there are a number of vegetarian friendly breakfast options you can buy at your grocery store.

Find a few trusted lunch restaurants: If you can’t pack your lunch every day and you can’t afford going to a fancy restaurant for lunch, find a few places that you can eat. For me there are two sub sandwich shops that have multiple vegetarian friendly options. There is also a California mission style burrito place that has a lovely bean and rice burrito that I like to eat at. Worse case scenario and you are going to eat at a fast food place, the taco restaurant will usually offer any beef dish with beans instead and probably have a bean/rice burrito option fairly cheaply on the menu. Know the places you won’t have a problem eating and plan on them if you can’t take the time for a healthier lunch.



Reward yourself: Sometimes it is nice to go to a nice restaurant. Reward yourself, there are plenty of very tasty options at Japanese and Indian restaurants that you will probably enjoy more than finding the one or two vegetarian friendly options available at the chain restaurants.

Find a group of vegetarian peers: My mother went veggie over a year ago and my brother went veggie in January. Find someone who has made the switch, they will often have good advice and suggestions. They might tell you about restaurants you didn’t know about and can probably share some tasty veggie friendly recipes.

Do you have any tips for becoming vegetarian? Please share them with the rest of us.

More uses for binder clips

Posted on March 4, 2008
Filed Under DIY, Organizaition, Small Office, Work | Leave a Comment

Two months ago we looked at using binder clips to hack your filing cabinet. Today the blog unclutter.com has a post on using binder clips as a substitute for a tickler file. The post can be summarized with this strait foward quote:

I printed labels on my labelmaker that read “To Do,” “To File,” and “To Pay,” placed them on the binder clips, and hung the clips on sleek aluminum pushpins on the inside of my coat closet door. The papers are out of sight when I want them to be, but serve as a visual reminder for all my “to dos” each time I open my closet door. The size of the clip also creates a limit to how long I can put off the inevitable.

If you want to read the whole article yourself you can find it at:
http://unclutterer.com/2008/02/25/
reader-suggestion-staying-organized-with-binder-clips/


Firefox shortcuts

Posted on March 4, 2008
Filed Under Internet, Software | 4 Comments

I saw a conversation on Lifehacker today that made me realize that not everyone knows about this quick little shortcut to get to a couple of popular websites.

In the address bar type the letter “g” and hit enter, you will be taken directly to gmail. Typing the letter “a” takes you to the wikipedia entry for a. The way this works, from what I understand, is that the address bar will take you to the top result the same if you go to google.com and click the “I’m feeling lucky” search button.

Play around with this and if you find any fun short cuts be sure to leave them in the comments.


Tax Rebate info

Posted on February 18, 2008
Filed Under DIY, Information, News, Tax | 1 Comment

I know some people are probably going to be curious about the stimulas payments signed into U.S. law last week. How much are you going to get and how does it work. You can read more on how it works at the IRS website and you can use your 2007 tax return to figure you check with the program below.

Turn your cardboard VDay candy box into a photo frame

Posted on February 15, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments

ljcblog has a neat little how to on turning an empty Valentine’s day candy box into a sweet photo frame. Looks like all you need is some scissors, some glue a photo and an empty heart shaped candy box.

I would suggest putting photos of your sweetie int he box - especially if they got you the chocolates to begin with. Your cats and dogs would work just as well though I suppose.



You can read the full tuturial at:
http://www.ljcfyi.com/2008/02/i-am-really-excited-about-this-project.html

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