Living Fair

Resourcefulness and Resources for Petowners

Maybe election coverage and the verbal judo between Hilary and Barack is on your mind. Maybe who wins the Democratic nomination takes a backseat to how the national economy is doing and your ever dwindling monthly budget. Today, the Fed Chairman, Bernanke, told the House Financial Services Committee, "The economic situation has become distinctly less favorable” since the summer. No disrespect implied however, it's not too hard to see why. A cripplingly expensive war, oil prices at upwards of $3 a gallon, further inflationary pressures, slow job growth, a severe mortgage lending crisis and a credit crunch--it's time to get the Mr. Fix-it's in fast.  Over the span of just eight days in January, the Fed slashed rates by 1.25 percentage points — the biggest one-month reduction in a quarter century. Economists and Wall Street investors predict the Fed will cut rates again at its next meeting on March 18. As interest rates continue to fall to inspire investment, we're all more cautious. We should be. 

Like you, I like finding a good deal. I'm reading Pennysaver more than I used to and I save money where and when I can. Take my dogs. They're like my children. I adore them.  I've been searching for high quality monthly flea repellent and heart worm medicine on sale and never can find it. My vet sells it for far far more than I can pay for it--big markup there.  If you own a dog, you know. It's very, very expensive stuff.  My Laborfair.com dogwalker, smart, sassy and in-the-know girl that she is, told me about a mobile low cost vaccination clinic for pets. This past weekend, I gave it a try. Every weekend, VIP Petcare Services travels in a van to popular pet stores throughout the Bay Area and gives affordable vaccinations and GREAT discounts on heartworm tests and popular medications. ICheck out their website for a complete list of clinic locations. I saved $50 on a full year's supply of Frontline and Heartguard--- and got a FREE heartworm test for....

Don Pablo Picasso      and  Don Diego Rivera.

Laborfair's team mascots and all-around office comedians.

It's a good deal. Here's to petcare that's fair! Jenna

Hairnet's for Trees. I've been there.

Holiday season, wreaths on the door, way too much recycled Christmas music on the radio--it’s that time of year again-run for your life! I'm always feeling out of time or out of money this time of year--that's one of the biggest reasons we created Laborfair--find affordable, quality help fast! Last Christmas, determined to save time, my partner imposed a perfectly measured NET of Christmas lights on our evergreen beauty rather than taking the time to make hoop-skirts of color in his own tribute to creative, organized chaos.  He's an artist, he makes me gorgeous jewelry and beautiful wood sculptures, so this was a travesty. The result? Seen from distance, the tree was pure perfection, lights distributed in perfect equilibrium. If you have ever hung holiday lights on anything, perfect equilibrium is unattainable. It looked bizarre. Up close, an abomination. Wrapped in a straight jacket hairnet of lights, she was confined and unhappy. I protested audibly and we both laughed hard at ourselves. 

How can our lives be so hectic we can’t enjoy the creative process of lighting the holiday tree? It felt definitely incongruous with childhood memories of an evening spent untangling green electrical cords, changing burnt out bulbs and re-positioning lopsided lights all warm inside from Applejack and Dark Rum eggnog. Thankfully, the net returned to its cardboard box and went back to Walgreens. 

Perfection has a place--but not in my life.  I enjoy the "good enough" that yields memories and wonder.This year, I have coordinated holiday clean-up and pack-up through Laborfair. I'll save the time in the aftermath.

At Laborfair, we are true believers that “DIY” is overrated, except when it comes to creativity and self-expression.

Peace. Be well. Be Merry.

 

 

Bottled Water and Going Green

I’m happy and grateful for the earth. In this season and age of plenty, the popular expression “reduce, reuse, recycle” has never made more sense. If we want a world where our grandchildren don’t have to live in a plastic bubble, filtering every environmental pollutant through a fire hose of sanitized oxygen, we better make “going green” a personal and a public necessity. I’m not a huge fan of California’s current governor, but I am supportive of his environmental policies—advocating for solar technologies, reducing fuel emissions, more widespread applications for bio-fuels and all around aggressive strategies to reduce our dependence on oil, domestic or foreign. As we think about easy steps to go green in our houses, what about going green with our personal choices? I’m not talking about organic food, more algae-based Omega 3 supplements instead of fish based ones, or the holy grail of health, drinking more water. No one’s against drinking more water and less Coca-cola except maybe kids. It’s our universal love of bottled water that concerns me. In 2005, Americans alone drank some 37 billion bottles of water, despite the well known fact that in most parts of the country, public tap water is not only perfectly drinkable but also more tightly regulated that its bottled counterpart. Our public water systems disclose the quality of their water while most bottlers refuse to do the same. Only 10% or so of these bottles are currently recycled—imagine 33.3 billion bottles in a landfill in the US alone.

Add that manufacturing plastic bottles for bottled water creates an astounding amount of pollution in the packaging, transport, and refrigeration-- an annual equivalent of 1.5 billion barrels of oil, according to Food & Water Watch. In an effort to cut costs (have you seen the price of gas these days?) and live my beliefs, I changed my approach to consuming water. Here’s what I did. I bought a Brita Water filter so I was on the absolute safe side around lead and mercury content. I poured the filtered tap water into a funky grey Nalprene bottle I purchased at Walgreens for $5.99. These nifty, lightweight and dishwasher safe bottles are not just for hitchhikers and athletes anymore. I carry it around with me at work and monitor both my daily water intake and the cash I’m saving. My goal is to buy a gorgeous personalized metal water container, like the Boy Scouts used to use with all the money I save. Hippie chic—yep, that’s right. Pull that one out at a meeting with the big boys in the pressed suits. So here’s my rant--just don’t buy bottled water, stick to drinking filtered tap and wine in glass, recyclable bottles, of course. Interested in how corporations are bottling tap water and selling it as from "the source", check out www.thinkoutsidethebottle.org.

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Originally uploaded by jenna_raby