COMMUNITY
City of Riverside Christmas Tree Collection
The holidays are a time of giving, so give something back to the environment by recycling your old Christmas tree.
For City of Riverside residents, Christmas tree collection will begin the day after Christmas and continue for three (3) weeks.
* Collection will take place on the same day as your normal trash pick up.
* Remove the tree stand and all decorations.
* Cut your Christmas tree into 4-foot sections.
* Regular Christmas trees will be collected with your greenwaste.
Please place the tree NEXT to the greenwaste container.
* Flocked Christmas trees cannot be recycled.
These trees will be collected with your regular trash.
Place sections of a flocked tree inside your brown container.
For more information, please call (951) 826-5311.
Happy Recycling!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
New Year’s Eve is here! Have you thought about how wonderful 2010 can be for your family, friends, and strangers? Resolutions are a New Year’s tradition. Start a realistic list and make at least one promise with a loved one to do something out of the ordinary.
FAMILY RESOLUTIONS:
Agree to disagree. Learn to cooperate and compromise. Put yourself in your loved one’s shoes, and truly try to understand how they are feeling and why they are reacting the way they are. Think before you speak or react. If all else fails, make believe the person you are hard on is a stranger, we often treat strangers kinder than our loved ones. Try not to hold a grudge, and don’t allow it to upset the other aspects of your relationship.
COMMUNITY RESOLUTIONS:
Volunteer somewhere you feel you could make a difference. It could be a hospital, nursing home, church daycare, literacy programs, meals on wheels or your local SPCA. You’ll know what feels right. There are volunteer opportunities everywhere. Check the Internet, local newspapers, and charities in your area.
PERSONAL RESOLUTIONS:
Plan to exercise for 10 minutes everyday. Stretching is great for circulation, walking around the block is great for your heart. Not anything strenuous, just something to get the joints moving. Dancing and yoga are also good for your overall well being.
Read a daily devotion, mantra, or quote to enlighten your spirit. Keep a daily journal of best thing that happened today or one thing per day that you are thankful for. Meditate, pray or focus on something beautiful in nature. Any of these suggestions will do wonders to nurture your inner spirit and will also help relieve stress.
FINANCIAL RESOLUTIONS:
Budget, spend less, and have more. Plan meals, shopping trips and make a list. Stick to the list and do not buy anything except what is on the list. Plan monthly allowances for birthday and special occasion gifts. Start putting money from coupon savings, bottle returns, or loose change in a jar for next year’s holidays. Have a yard sale and put those proceeds away as well. Cut down on your heating bills by wearing layers of clothing. Walk to the corner store instead of driving. Shop at thrift stores, rummage sales and garage sales for clothing, garden ornaments, and household decor.
But most of all, think positive, love and be loved…. and live every moment to its fullest! HAPPY NEW YEAR to YOU!!!!
–Tara and April
MERRY CHRISTMAS from our houses to yours!!
We wish everyone a wonderful holiday!!!
– Tara, April and Brooklynn
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Today is a day of giving thanks, even though every day should be reserved for giving thanks and expressing gratitude in general. Tara and I are grateful for our family, friends and clients! To be able to live in the neighborhood where we work is also a blessing. From helping families purchase their very first home, to helping families sell a current home and move to their next life chapter are accomplishments we are grateful to have been given the chance to perform.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, including the men and women serving in the military around the world!
Our blessings,
Tara and April
* VETERANS DAY *
Fifty-five years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued America’s first Veterans Day Proclamation. In it, President Eisenhower called on all Americans to “solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”
In 2009, we continue to honor those brave Americans who have served our nation in uniform; some 48 million men and women whose service spans our history — from the War for Independence to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Our Veterans Day observance has evolved over the years. Our nation’s custom of observing the end of World War I in 1918 at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month became a legal holiday known as Armistice Day in 1938. In recognition of military service members’ sacrifices in World War II and Korea, the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day so that, as President Eisenhower said, “a grateful nation might pay appropriate homage to the veterans of all its wars who have contributed so much to the preservation of this nation.”
This year on Veterans Day 2009, we honor not only those who fought in our nation’s wars, but all who took that solemn oath to ”support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies” as members of America’s armed forces.
Of course, we remember and honor the more than 1.1 million patriots who have died while in military service to America. We must never forget them, or the 24 million other American veterans who passed on since their service. But the beauty of Veterans Day is that we take the time to remember and thank those who have defended us, or stood ready to do so, while they are still with us.
And more than 23 million veterans are still here with us. Three-fourths of them served during time of war; all of them served and all deserve our gratitude!!