There aren’t many advantages to a long commute to and from work. It’s the price you pay for living in the country and working in the city. Sure, you may be able to catch up on some podcasts and use your vehicle as a mobile office to some extent, but it doesn’t make the rush hour traffic any more entertaining. A long commute does have one advantage, however. That long trek enables you to shift gears from work to home and from home to work every day. That type of separation can be a key step to helping your work life balance.

The electric hand buzzer, the camera that shoots water when you go in for that special ‘close-up’ or convincing your kids it’s really Sunday when the calendar says Thursday: these are just a few of the tools available to you on the world’s most mischievous day of the year.

If you’re trying to eat healthy, you know that you need to eat more vegetables— but what kind? They’re not all created equal, after all. For some variety in your diet, why not try root vegetables? No, we don’t mean tree roots. Root vegetables include such family staples as carrots, potatoes, yams, and beets, but it doesn’t stop there. There’s a whole cornucopia of flavors grown beneath the ground:

When it comes to making positive changes in our lives, we’re often more likely to come up with reasons they can’t be done, rather than how to make them happen. But many times the only thing that's stopping us is ourselves. Try small changes and give them a chance. You might be surprised how easy they can insinuate themselves into your life and make things better.

There are some great traditions on Thanksgiving, like turkey and dressing, the Dallas Cowboys and the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade to name just a few. Along with these traditions, Thanksgiving is a day for giving thanks. It says so right in the name. We give thanks for all the blessings we’ve received during the years. We’re grateful to be warm and dry and to have great people to share those blessings with.

You probably remember that kid back in school with the weird haircut and the big glasses. You probably also remember they always seemed to have a book in their hand. They were the eggheads or the bookworms, reading everything from Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick to Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. When other kids were learning to read they were reading to learn.

“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.”

    ~ Roald Dahl

You get up. You get dressed. Whether it’s downtown or just down the hall, you go into the ‘office’ and get ready to start your day. You spend most of it solving problems, both your own and everyone else’s. At the end of the day, you go home (or back down the hallway) to get some well-earned rest.

The workload really isn’t that big. It just seems that way at the moment. Your clients really aren’t that demanding. It just feels that way right now. The stack of projects at your desk isn’t that huge. It just seems like Mount Everest this morning.

Maybe what you need isn’t necessarily a way to squeeze a few more productive minutes out of your day. Maybe what you need is a vacation.

We’ve all heard the expression about all work and no play making us a dull boy or girl. Sure, work is important, but it shouldn’t be the only thing we have going on in our lives. Like everything, there should be a comfortable equilibrium, and that’s what we’re going to talk about in our upcoming series on work-life balance.

The first part of the series is a fun topic— vacation! Everyone needs to get away now and again. Chances are you’ll remember those two weeks in Cancun a lot longer than you’ll recall the latest work project team you were on. Of course, if you are going to ‘go on holiday’ as the Brits say, you’ll want to start planning. While spontaneity is great sometimes, the general rule is that the more you plan something the more smoothly it will go. In other words, book your vacation NOW.

Winter is coming to an end. There’s a hint of a warm breeze and wait! Is that a crocus poking through the winter grass? Spring is finally here.  

You may be tempted to go full tilt at the first hint of a nice day, particularly if you’ve been cooped up all winter, but like a car engine your body needs to warm up first. 

Do you read ingredient labels? Polydimethylsiloxane, Propylene glycol, Azodicarbonamide, etc. The list goes on and on. You’re not sure exactly what they are, but it’s a pretty safe bet some of them shouldn't be part of a healthy diet. 

If you’re like many people who want to avoid eating things they can’t pronounce, here are 4 tips to help you live and eat better:

"As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December's bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same."   

                      ~ Donald E. Westlake

Ah, the holiday season. There’s a nip in the air. There are colors everywhere, from the sparkling lights in the windows of picturesque houses to the gaudy inflatable Santa your neighbor insists on putting on his front lawn every year. There is a sense of merriment and goodwill in the air as we spend time with friends and family and do our best to forgive the person who just took the last parking space at the mall.

You may be excited about coming in and getting some quality work done in the office, but that doesn’t mean your back is. Sure, you’ll cut through those sales spreadsheets and the monthly expense reports like a hot knife slicing through warm butter, but your back…?

Well, it will have to face the brutal gauntlet of your office chair and the angle of your desk, and that’s just for starters. Needless to say, the day probably won’t be a picnic for your wrists, neck and feet either. Fortunately, with a few simple ergonomic tricks, a productive day in the office doesn’t have to be a painful one.

Apple pie or pumpkin pie? Or both?

What will you and your family do on Thanksgiving Day?

Maybe you’ll spend some of it in the backyard while you deep fry that turkey. Maybe you’ll get up early so you can go pick up Aunt Edna from the airport. You could all gather in front of the TV to watch the parade down 34^th Street or sip a few after-dinner brews while you watch the big game. Perhaps you can always count on having to run to the store to get a couple extra cans of cranberry sauce, or Cousin Ernie hogging all the mashed potatoes.

“Freedom isn’t free.”

“Land of the free because of the brave.”

“Got Freedom?”

If you’re out grabbing your beer, hamburgers and charcoal in preparation for Memorial Day you’ve probably noticed some of these slogans. They appear on everything from beer cozies to T-shirts to flip-flops, and on a busy day you can see them in parking lots from Albuquerque to Zanesville. For the most part, we pass them on our way to buy and don’t give them any more thought than we might give an abandoned shopping cart.