Ravings of...

usagov:

Benefits of the National Parks Pass:

• It’s valid for a full year from month of purchase.
• You can bring three other adults age 16 or older per vehicle with your pass.

Buy your pass.

Here’s where I’d go with my pass:

Rocky Mountain National Park - Especially if you can go after Labor Day

Yosemite - I’ve never been!

Yellowstone

Acadia

Unfortunately, my summer is full of new projects for work and work travel. 

We did just buy train tickets for a weekend in Chicago, though.  The girls love staying at the Palmer House and walking along the lake front.  We’re planning on a weekend in one of Missouri’s state parks, too. 

nutritionista:

I spent all weekend moving to a new house in a new city (45 minutes away from my old city), and I’m beyond exhausted. But more than anything, I wanted to cook in MY kitchen. I wanted to break in the space with a fabulous-but-simple recipe, and I found the perfect one from (where else?) Real…

Melissa had been making this for a couple of years. It’s one of my absolute favorite meals.

Chicken thighs are a well kept secret of good, inexpensive cooking.

For an extra dose of fiber and flavor, add some garbanzo beans to the spinach as it wilts.

Despite their enormous popularity and widespread use, public libraries have rarely been well funded. Librarian Robert Reagan offers one reason: “Everybody loves libraries, but mostly they are mute about it.” Libraries “are plagued by the image that we are nice, but not essential” one librarian complained to the Washington Post. People will defend their libraries, but only when the lights are about to go out.

Now, the lights are beginning to go out. U.S. mayors facing budget shortfalls report that library budgets are one of the first items on the chopping block. Some 19 states cut funding for public libraries last year. More than half of the reductions were greater than 10 percent. Meanwhile, operating costs—electricity, maintenance, materials—are going up. The result is that even when operating budgets remain constant, something—books or computers or service hours—has to give.

These budget cuts are coming just as library use is soaring. Economic hard times encourage people to borrow DVDs, books, and newspapers rather than buy them, and to use public computer terminals for job searches. Library usage is increasing by 15-30 percent while budgets are being cut by 10-15 percent.

This is truly a case of penny wise and pound foolish. By any cost-benefit calculus, dollars spent on public libraries are a wise investment.