4.      Choose Foods Wisely: Holiday foods such as gefilte fish and chopped liver or roasted ham and pork are not for all crowds.   Try to anticipate guests’ dietary and food preferences and make sure to have substitutes to satisfy individuals who are vegetarians, kosher, highly allergic or unfamiliar with certain dishes.  And don’t kill yourself cooking everything from scratch! Scour local gourmet food shops for prepared entrées, side dishes or desserts and make sure to put in your orders in advance!

Ladies are the new face in the premium spirits landscape. Nuvo Sparkling Liqueur, the pink bubbly and popular nightclub elixir from Paris, just signed on Eva Longoria as a spokesperson while the folks at Diageo, who have whipped up a Godiva® vodka blend to satisfy our chocolate cravings, are running how-to-commercials, transforming female Do it Yourselfers into mixology goddesses. So what are the best brands you need to know about? Here they are in no special order of taste or preference:

“My job is my life.” Sound familiar? So how do you handle the fact that the workplace is a less friendly place for singles? Take a minute to consider these facts: More than 25% of Americans work for an employer that offers family and domestic partner benefits; 51% percent of Fortune 500 companies offer family and domestic partner health benefits, as do 80% of the Fortune 50. (Human Rights Campaign. “State of the Workplace”: 2006).

Boiling an egg, steaming rice and baking a piece of chicken: These are just a few of the how-to principles of Cooking 101. If you’ve never learned the basics, the challenge of preparing a home-cooked meal for someone new may seem like Dinner Impossible. It’s important not to lose perspective or momentuml you’re not exactly competing for the title of The Next Food Network Star. Stay-at-home dates should be intimate as well as exciting and nothing measures up quite as memorably as a homemade dinner for two.

You either love to ski or you hate it because of the conditions: cold weather, long lines and uncontrollable travel delays. For those who fall within the latter category, there is something to be said about spring skiing, which gives a whole new meaning to March Madness. The days are longer, crowds are smaller and the sun is brighter. There is a certain rush you get zooming down a mountain when the frost isn’t nipping away at your toes.

Is your skin so chapped it crackles? Does your heart feel like it’s going to break from all the pressure? Are you sick and tired of waking up tired? It’s time you stop ignoring and start adoring yourself. The following list includes conditioning tips to help you renew yourself and start loving YOU better.

Snow, sleet and ice, day and night, and the weatherman says there’s no end to this winter in sight! If these frustrating and often brutal cold snaps throughout much of North America are numbing your bones and senses, you ought to consider defrosting your engine. So hang up those mittens and try heading to one of these warm-up winter spots.

Once again, marketers are desperate to feel the love this Valentine’s Day. If you are suffering from the holiday blues, remember that laughter is the best medicine. We scoured the net to give you the silliest, laugh-out-loud promotions. Read ‘em and weep with happy tears…

People get busy. Someone is sending you playful pokes one minute, and you find their profile has been deactivated the next time you log on to your account. Circumstances like this happen every day in cyberspace, in great part because the time spent there is muddled by the very things that make the technology such a wonder – anonymity, variety, abundance and immediacy.