If you don’t know how to prepare yourself and your home for the first 72 hours after a disaster, you should visit 72hours.org. 72 Hours is a website run by the City of San Francisco but offers valuable planning tips that would be useful to anyone.

There are two main areas to the site.  The first area is How To Prepare. This area teaches you to create an emergency plan, and what you’ll need ready and waiting for you to get through the first 72 hours after the disaster strikes. For each of the different topics discussed there are helpful tips included on how to help make your home safer on a day to day basis. The different topics include home safety, children, seniors & the disabled,  pets, utilities, food, water, first aid, go bag, phone, volunteer, training and community. I never realized how helpful it could be to have an out of state emergency contact in case of a natural disaster. The suggestion there that I want to do in our home is to create a “go bag” for all of the members of our home.

The second area of the site is the What To Do If section. This area instructs you on what to do in certain types of potentially disastrous situations.  The different topics included here are earthquake, storm/flooding, terror, contagious disease, transit safety, evacuation, fire, no power, tsunamis, sirens and shelter in place. I found the evacuation tips very helpful.

I found this site to be a very valuable resource that anyone could benefit from visiting. Are you and your home ready if a natural disaster strikes? Would you be able to get through the first 72 hours? Check out 72Hours.org and see if you’re ready. Let me know which idea you found most helpful.

Most households drink milk of one type or another. In our area we have a couple of companies that offer home delivery of milk. At first I thought it would be too expensive. But when I saw down and figured it out, getting milk delivered to our home saves us both time and money.

My boys both drink milk. Until a few months ago it never failed, at least once a week we’d run out of milk before I needed to go to the grocery store again. Then either I’d have to get in the car and go to the store or I’d have to ask hubby to stop at the store on his way home from work to pick some up. Yes, the direct price of the milk delivered to your home will cost a little bit more than the direct price of the milk you can buy yourself in the store. But.

Now I’m not making extra trips to the store, wasting gas and time, to buy a gallon of milk. The convenience of opening my front door at 4am every Tuesday and bringing in my fresh milk is unbelievable. I feel absolutely spoiled when I bring it in the house. No more getting dressed on a lazy weekend morning to get more milk. No more stopping in a rush on my way home. No more calling hubby to have him stop. No more stopping in the middle of cooking something because you don’t have enough (or any) of the milk that the recipe calls for. It’s daily life the way it should be.
If home delivery of milk is available in your area, check it out. It’s worth it!

I never knew until I started researching it how many uses baking soda has. We always had one in the refrigerator to absorb odors, but that was about it. I know that some products are made with it, including detergents and toothpastes. But I never realized how many uses baking soda alone has. Here are some of the ways you can use it in the kitchen.
Produce wash – Put a little baking soda on sponge, scrub produce, rinse
Meat tenderizer – rub meat in it, put in frig for a couple of hours, wash, cook.
Fish odor – Remove odor by soaking fish in 1 qt water and 2 tbsp baking soda in frig.
Cooking – a pinch of baking soda reduces acidity
Clean poultry – rub on to loosen any remaining hair or feathers
Scrambled eggs – Add 1-2 tsp to scrambled eggs for fluffy eggs

Never having been on a cruise before, I didn’t know what to expect concerning food. Like everyone else, I’d heard different stories about quality, quantity and what’s included. We had some of the best food we’ve ever had onboard the Disney Wonder. On Disney, everything is included except alcohol. One one deck there are a number of quick serve food counters including Pinocchio’s Pizzeria, Goofy’s Galley and Pluto’s Dog House. Also located on this deck are unlimited hot and cold beverages including coffee, tea, water, milk, juice and soda. The Wonder has five restaurants – Animator’s Palate, Triton, Parrot Cay, Lumiere’s and Palo. Animator’s Palate and Palo only offer dinner. There is also the Beach Blanket Buffet, which offers buffet breakfast and lunch.

Breakfasts are held at Parrot Cay every day, and Triton and Lumiere on certain days. I really enjoy a good breakfast buffet, and both Parrot Cay and Beach Blanket Buffer offer one.

Our dinner schedule rotated between Animator’s Palate, Lumiere’s and Triton. We ate at Animator’s Palate, Lumiere’s and Triton one night each. Being as our party was so large, we only sat with our own family at dinners. We also ate one night at Palo, which is a more elegant meal and environment and requires reservations. If you go there, dress nicely and make sure you eat the chocolate souffle, it’s out of this world!

Disney celebrates special occasions with pleasure. We celebrated three birthdays while on our cruise. My brother, my father and my oldest son all have birthdays within two weeks of each other in November. On our first night there each of them received a personalized birthday dessert while eating dinner at Animator’s Palate. On another night a birthday cake was served. My hubby and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary that year, and Disney acknowledged it several times. At our dinner at Palo we received a cake, as well as at our dinner at  Animator’s Palate.

Special needs dining was not a problem for us. My younger son has celiac disease, which is an intolerance to gluten (modified food starch, wheat, rye, barley to name a few). The staff was more than happy to prepare him special foods when needed. One morning they made him gluten free pancakes. At dinner he received gluten free bread and rolls.

Disney assigns tables a personal server, and that server will travel with you each night through the different restaurants. The only restaurant they won’t travel to is Palo. Our server was Gusti, and he was so friendly. He was super friendly, intuitive and quick to remember our preferences. At the end of the cruise we wanted to bring him home with us. He went out of his way to make sure we got everything we wanted and needed and that we were fed, full and happy. He showed extra care for my youngest son, who has Down Syndrome. At Parrot Cay he took my baby to do the conga dance around the dining room.

The dining dude in charge, I don’t recall if he was called the head server or the dining captain or the maitre d’, was great. He was Gusti’s boss, and he was in charge of all servers. He made a point to find our huge party every night and check in.My Mom loves lobster and none was on any menus. She inquired if there were any certain Disney cruises that they offered lobster on, he told her no not at that point. The next dinner my Mom and the rest of the table were served lobster.

Room service is available all of the time, and it was good too. My older son liked ordering a chicken noodle soup and cookies in the middle of the night. I liked having coffee delivered early when I was trying to catch the sunrise.

I’m sure I missed writing something, so if there’s something you want to know just leave a comment.

I’m sure most of you have been to a convenience store. I’m not a huge fan of convenience stores, but occasionally they are, well, convenient. One of themost popular convenience stores in my area, if not the most popular, is Wawa.

Wawa convenience stores are only located in the Northeastern US, in Eastern Pennsylvania, Central & Southern New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and part of Virginia. There are 570 stores as of August 2007, with 236 of them located in New Jersey. Most Wawa’s are open around the clock, and a number of them are now selling gasoline. Every Wawa has coffee, and their is actually very good. My favorite is the French Vanilla Cappuccino. They also have deli/sandwich counters that offer sandwiches, soups and cold cuts. Their soups are always hot and each variety that I have had is very tasty.

If you’re ever in New Jersey and are in need of a coffee or quick bite for the road, this is a pretty safe bet. Happy traveling!