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If you haven’t heard of pet insurance and/or you don’t have a pet, you may think it sounds crazy. I know I did! However, our veterinarian’s office had a brochure for VPI Pet Insurance, and after looking at the costs, we signed up for this when we first got our labradoodle, Abby. I am about to renew for the third time, as we have really found their services beneficial. They do not pay as high a percentage of overall costs as “people insurance,” but we have appreciated that we get some reimbursement for minor or routine things (shots, exams, etc.). Plus, we don’t have to worry so much when the unexpected injury comes up – for example, when our toddler threw a fast ball at Abby’s eye from about three feet away. VPI allows us to use any vet, so there was no problem when we had to take Abby to the emergency vet after that little fiasco.

When we first got the policy, some fellow pet owners were asking me if the reimbursements kept up with the policy costs, and I was wondering that myself, so I did a little comparison, and I thought I’d share it with you.

As you can see, we have never made our money back, but I also didn’t realize until 2008 that they covered flea medication and some other handy things (included with the preventative care rider). Costs vary by breed and age of the animal, but I have so far found the extra money (i.e. premium costs that we didn’t make back in reimbursement) to be well worth the peace of mind in the event that Abby has major medical issues at any point. If you should decide to get their insurance, make sure to tell them Krista Ehlers sent you… and I’ll try not to spend my $5 all in one place.

Popularity: 1% [?]

A friend just collected a bunch of goodies for her birthday, and there were a few which were new to me. Here is a list of my favorites, including the new ones from Katie (thank you!). They all offer freebies for your birthday – mostly just for signing up for their mailing list. Enjoy, and let me know if you have some to add! (happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…)

Alfy’s Pizza: Free mini pizza the month of your birthday
Baskin Robbins: Free scoop on your birthday
Cold Stone Creamery: Free “creation” on your birthday
Denny’s: Free kid’s meal for children under 10
Duke’s Chowder House: Register for frequent coupons, 2 free dinners, and a free dinner for your birthday.
Gordon Biersch: Free offer for your birthday (I think it was “buy one, get one free”)
Hollywood Video: Free rental on your birthday (valid for everyone on your account)
The Keg: Free prime rib dinner during your birthday month. (Fill in the form and check the bottom to receive special offers)
Old Spaghetti Factory: Free kid’s meal on their birthday
Qdoba: Get a free Qdoba card in their restaurant, then register it online. After every 10 meals, you get one free, and a free meal on your birthday, too. (TIP: My husband and I each keep a card registered, so we can both have birthday meals!)
Red Robin: Free burger on your birthday
The Ram: Join MVP club to get “buy one, get one free” coupon right away, then a free Mile High Mud Pie on your birthday
Starbucks: Free drink on your birthday. I have differing info on this: some say you have to have a gift card, register it, and put your birthday on there. Their site says you have to have a Gold Card. One person said you just tell them it’s your birthday. In any case, I added my b-day to the account profile on my existing card.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Location: Snoqualmie, WA

URL: http://www.salishlodge.com/

Price: $$$$

Summary: Expensive, but you’re in the lap of Northwest luxury!

We first went to Salish Lodge on our wedding night, and so far, we have gone back every year on our anniversary. We really love everything about this Northwest lodge – from the beautiful setting (overlooking Snoqualmie Falls), to the decor, excellent service, the relaxing spa, and the fantastic food. In fact, I hardly know where to begin extolling the virtues, so let me depart a bit from my normal “review” style and just tell you about a typical stay for us.

Look for deals: There is no denying that this lodges is on the upper range of costs, so we try to look for specials. We are part of their email mailing list, in which they offer great packages, but the best deal we’ve found over the years is the Costco gift certificate, which includes 1 night stay, breakfast and massages for two.

Arrive early: In order to really get the most out of our time and money, we always arrive early. Upon request, they can usually accommodate an early check-in, and if not, they will store our bags until the room is ready.

Pay the Resort Fee: There is a $15 resort fee – this used to be optional, but we still paid it. For this relatively small fee, you get free valet parking, but the real benefit is that you can use the spa pools as long as you like! (see below)

Hang out in the spa: We only have massages if we have bought a special “package deal,” but we always spend a long time relaxing in their spa, because they have a public area with two large jetted tubs, many comfortable chairs, a steam room, and a sauna. All of these can be used whether you are getting a spa service or not, so we take our reading materials and relax for hours together.

Enjoy the room: We always have a room overlooking the falls, often with a balcony. The rooms all come with a fireplace and jetted tub, and the tub has a window so that you can look out over the room. The rooms and lodge are all decorated in a contemporary hunting-lodge style, and they outfit the bed with fluffy pillows and comforters. By request, you can also try out their “pillow bar” – I like the lavendar-scented pillow filled with barley hulls.

Try the Country Breakfast: Salish has been in business since 1918, and they are famous for their 5-course farm breakfast. I think it’s impossible to finish, and you certainly won’t need lunch after! They start with a full coffee service: cream, whipped cream, chocolate shavings, sugar, and coffee that would taste great all by itself! That’s followed by fresh-squeezed juice, pastries, steel-cut oatmeal, and pancakes. Then, just when you feel like you need a bigger pair of pants, they bring out eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, country fried potatoes, and a biscuit with “honey from heaven”.

Check-out late: Yes, even though we came early, we always try to stay late, and they are so accommodating to us! We recommend this hotel in every way – it is a great romantic-hideaway with a perfect combination of outdoor activities (hiking, biking, rafting available) and luxury, and it’s only a short drive from Seattle. We have never had bad service here, even after all these visits, and the food has always been delicious.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Every business today seems to have a newsletter, so you may wonder: should I have one for my business? Good newsletters are a great way to market your business because you can provide free and valuable information to your customers, and thus foster good will and prove that you are knowledgeable in your field. However, you must keep in mind that your customers are getting bombarded with newsletters from every other company, too.

I recommend that you have a newsletter for your organization if you have something valuable to say. You can adjust the frequency of the newsletter so that every issue is relevant to your customers or clients. For example, if you feel like you have something newsworthy for your subscribers once a week, then have a weekly newsletter. If you have something of value every other month, then have a bi-monthly newsletter. Resist the temptation to just send something out in order to have your company name pop-up in people’s email inbox – that’s a fast way to lose your subscribers.

So, how do you make a good newsletter? Here are some thoughts:

1. Minimize images: Do not put a lot of images in your newsletter, since many email systems show images as a red “x” in the preview window. Instead, use images only for your company logo or when the image will help explain the article.
2. Write succinctly: Even if someone loves your newsletter, they don’t have a lot of time to read it. Use bold headings so that they can skim directly to the part that is most interesting to them, and don’t get overly wordy.
3. Add reader-friendly content: Remember that you are trying to write things your customers want to know about – newsletters which are purely self-promotional marketing pieces just drive people to hit the “delete” key.
   GOOD: ways they can save time or money, sales and coupons for your business, tips and tricks, or links to interesting posts from your forum or blog.
   BAD: announcing new employees at  your company or increased sales at your company.
4. Make your call to action: If you are attempting to market your product or solicit donations, make sure that you make a clear “call to action” – usually at the top and the bottom of the newsletter. You can also create a sense of urgency by adding a deadline.
   EXAMPLE: “Use coupon code ENDOFSUMMER by 8/31/09 to save 10% on your order.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

On a lighter note… We recently went to Anchorage, Alaska and we ended up switching hotels. It wasn’t any big fiasco – we were checking out anyway to go to Mt. McKinley Lodge, we just didn’t go back to the first hotel. It did make me think about my criteria for a good hotel, though, and since I post my reviews here, I thought it might be valuable to know what I look for.

1. Good natural light – can’t stand it when I feel like I’m in a cave.
2. Separate shampoo and conditioner – now that the airlines have cracked down on packing liquids, I use whatever the hotel provides, but I have to draw the line at the “2-in-1″ shamp-ditioner.
3. Cable with Versus and USA – we only watch two things on TV these days, and it stinks to miss the Tour de France because we are on a tour de Alaska…
4. Free breakfast – bonus points for something beyond dry pastries and red apples.
5. View of something besides the parking lot – it doesn’t have to be a fantastic panorama, just pleasant and lacking oil spots.
6. Suite with a door – no door = toddler won’t sleep = no fun. Enough said.
7. Free Wi-Fi – so many hotels offer this now, that I actually am a little offended when they want to charge me for it. Ironically, it seems to be the ritziest hotels that end up charging. Hmm…
8. Clean – this almost goes without saying, but I have seen some strange things in my day. (cherry pits on the bed, open soda in the bathrobe pocket, even broken glass stuck in the bathrobe!)
9. Good service – I don’t ask for perfection, but if something goes wrong, I expect courtesy and apologies.
10. Luxurious Decor – Paint and bed linens are relatively cheap, but classy design goes a long way to feeling like I am really living it up.

So, there you have it. Did I miss anything?

Popularity: unranked [?]

I got this recipe from a a great list of bread machine bread recipes, and we love it around here. The notes read that it’s pretty hot, but we find it to be mild – maybe this is because I used jalapenos from a jar. Makes fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches. Enjoy!

Jalapeno Cheese Bread

3/4 cup sour cream
1/8 cup water
1 egg
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated (4 oz.)
3 tablespoons fresh jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped (about 4 peppers)
1 1/2 teaspoons yeast

Wow … hot stuff!! Serve this coarsely textured, very spicy bread at your next cocktail party and watch it disappear. It’s great with a glass of wine or a cold beer, but its perfect partner is a frosty margarita! Place all ingredients in bread pan, select a light crust setting, and press “start”. After the baking cycle ends, remove bread from pan, place on cake rack, and allow to cool 1 hour before slicing.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Title: Sanity Secrets for Stressed-Out Women
Author: Sue Augustine
Summary: I judged it by the cover: a book recommending bubble baths had to have good stress-relief tips, and it did.

This book begins with the quote: “Some mornings it seems hardly worth the effort to take the cat off your face,” and I could tell it was the book for me! Sue Augustine approaches stress-reduction with practicality and a sense of humor, and I found many useful tips in this book. She certainly hit the old stand-bys (eat right, exercise…) which I usually find singularly unhelpful. That is, when I am stressed out, I don’t have time to exercise and cook, so I tend to do fast food and skip workouts. Thus, when I hear these recommendations, I just think, “Come on! Give me something I can use…”

However, her book is designed for people like you and I – people who may be so stressed, they can’t read an entire book: we need relief and we need it now! She organized the book around 25 “secrets” to reduce stress, with one chapter covering each secret. This way, you can skip right to the chapter that makes sense for you, whether it be “simplify your life” or “celebrate the joys of aging.” If a whole chapter feels like too much, skip to the end of the chapter and read the bulleted list of tips for that topic: you will still get the benefit. In addition, she wrote a number of sections called “the first resort,” in which she points out how to rely on your faith in God to reduce stress, and not as a last resort.

The last section of the book provided a new way to look at stress, and was very valuable. Augustine notes that stress is often caused by how we perceive circumstances, and describes a cycle of stress: (1) Event, (2) Thoughts about the event, (3) Self-talk, (4) Emotional response, and (5) Physical response (i.e. stress). Thus, we can interrupt the stress cycle at any point after the event occurs. She offers a formula called “CPR” – Circumstance + Perception = Result. If we challenge our automatic perceptions, manage how we talk to ourselves about events, and give our emotions only the appropriate amount of weight, we can actually reduce our stress even in the same circumstances that normally cause us problems. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

My husband and I just saw this play last night (opening night) at Taproot Theatre in Seattle, WA. We thoroughly enjoyed the program – even more than I expected! The play is based on a novel of the same name by Jules Verne, born in France in 1828. Verne, in some ways, was one of the first science fiction authors of our time, as the inventions he came up with in his imagination have become reality today.

“Around the World in 80 Days” is known as one of the most realistic of his plays, in that he does not feature these futuristic inventions. Rather, he features a wager: Phileas Fogg, a bit of a stick-in-the-mud who prides himself on precise estimations, bet that he could circumnavigate the world in 80 days. The play follows Phileas, as well as his French man-servant, Passepartout, around the world via steamship, rail, and various other modes of transportation employed on the spur of the moment.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the play was watching four actors and one actress play over 20 individual characters. In addition, they did not employ CGI, mechanics, or any other trickery. Rather, the players successfully used a few props and their ingenuity to give the play life. The play was humorous – almost slapstick, with a bit of Monty Python tossed into the mix. We both found it to be great comedy, and I felt inspired to go back and read the book. If you go, we can recommend Olive You, a casual Greek restaurant and Wild Mountain Cafe (get the fried chicken – yum!) for a great dinner. Let us know what you think!

Popularity: 8% [?]

When you are creating your master marketing plan, try to put yourself in your clients’ shoes: will this offend or insult them in any way? I recently had a lawn-care brochure stuck in our front door, and I couldn’t help but think it was a great example of “what not to do”. This company’s flyer displayed a list of common lawn problems, and the person placing the brochure would check off the items that seemed to apply to our lawn. (see below) When I read this, I was a litle miffed! Sure, my lawn has all these issues, but does this company really think they have inspired me to do business with them? No. In fact, I felt criticized and defensive. As a test, I left it casually on the counter for my husband to come across, and sure enough, he picked it up later that evening and commented on the lack of tact in this marketing plan.

If you provide a service, you are an expert in the service and your potential customers are not experts in that area. They know that already, otherwise why would they be reading your marketing materials? There is no need to point out their flaws, and you may risk alienating them if you do so. Rather, focus on helping them solve problems and point out the benefits of your services. For example, this company could have noted how their services would save me valuable time and give me a lawn I could enjoy on the weekends, rather than have to waste weekend hours weeding, fertilizing, thatching, etc. Another approach would be to change the wording above the checklist “We can cure these common lawn problems:”. This leaves the impression that everyone has these problems, but this company can provide the solution.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Location: Bellingham, WA

URL: www.thechrysalisinn.com

Price: $$

Summary: Great romantic hideaway close to home!

We happened across a lodging + spa package for this hotel in our local newspaper, and it was the perfect place for us to enjoy an early Valentine’s Day romantic getaway. The hotel is relatively new (under 10 years old) and attractively decorated in the “Northwest Chic” style – lots of exposed rafters and soothing neutral tones. The room was large and overlooked Bellingham Bay to the west, so we enjoyed a beautiful sunset from the spacious window seat. Each room also features a jetted tub that opens into the room, so you can actually enjoy the view from a bubble bath!

We both scheduled massages for the morning, and they were fantastic. We always appreciate a spa like this one: as a hotel guest, you are welcome to enjoy the spa’s lounging room and steam room, even if you are not scheduled for a spa service. We relaxed in the steam room and then the lounging area both the night before as well as the morning of our spa appointment. We were treated to heated neck pillows, a warm fire, a calming view of a stony brook, as well as delicious hot tea and spa snacks.

Their continential breakfast was excellent – fresh fruit and some hot entrees as well as cereal, oatmeal, juices, etc. The hotel is within easy walking distance of Bellingham’s Old Fairhaven, so we walked and shopped. We recommend Avenue Bread for fresh, natural sandwiches and home-baked desserts. We also enjoyed Village Books where we found an old favorite: Harold and the Purple Crayon, the 50th Anniversary Edition. (egad) Though we did not bring our labradoodle this time, both the hotel and the area are “dog friendly.”

Popularity: 13% [?]