With job security down and gas prices up, it seems more people than ever are opting for a staycation – finding fun and relaxation at home. If you have even a little money to spend on your summer entertainment, why not spend it sprucing up your own yard to make your staycation even more enjoyable?

With the right plants and conservation practices, you can easily create an inviting place for birds, nature, and your family with minimal cost and effort. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) and the Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) offer a free Backyard Conservation booklet that showcases simple backyard conservation practices. These include simple ideas for terracing, tree planting, composting, mulching, wildlife habitat, wetlands, ponds and water conservation.

If you have a larger yard and time to work in it, designing a garden is a natural way to escape for awhile. It’s always best to work with what you have, so depending on the native plants and existing landscaping in your yard, you may choose to plant a woodland landscape, a butterfly garden or a xeriscape garden. All of these garden types are generally easy to plant and maintain and are likely to use plants already existing in your yard.

Patios offer similar benefits to decks, but are made of stone, brick, patio pavers or concrete. If you decide to add a box garden or planters to your patio, plan to locate them in areas that receive consistent sunlight. A small fountain can also add a peaceful feel to your patio or deck and obscure noises from neighbors in an urban area.

As for me, I’m off to spend some time relaxing and watching birds in my backyard!  While I’m there, post a comment about how you escape to your own backyard!

St. Patrick’s Day may be over, but it seems like everyone around me is still going green – environmentally green, that is.

I’ve always been concerned with historical preservation, an interest I carry over to many of my handbags. So, it seems natural for me to find ways to preserve the environment as well. With Spring Break and summer travel on the horizon, I’ve been looking for ways to make my trips a bit greener.

Planet Green has some excellent ideas for making Spring Break and summer travel green and easy. With a little bit of planning, you can reduce the environmental impact of your vacation by packing less, using green products, renting a greener hybrid car and eating locally grown foods.

If you are planning a fairly traditional spring break or summer vacation, you can do your part and buy green sunscreen, green clothing, green tents and even organic cocktails. If you are traveling, try choosing a green city such as New York or San Francisco that offers environmentally friendly entertainment.

A trip to San Francisco can include using public transportation, eating organic and vegan foods and visiting state and national parks.

Like San Francisco, New York offers public transportation and green restaurants. It also has several certified environmentally hotels, including the Benjamin that was renovated and Ecotel certified in 1999.

Many other U.S. cities, including Denver, Dallas, Fort Meyers, Detroit and Philadelphia have environmentally sound offerings for residents and tourists who want to have some fun while staying green.

If you want to take it a step farther – or greener, as the case may be – you could join a growing group of people who are planning alternative Spring Breaks and summer vacations during which they volunteer either at home or abroad rather than consuming and polluting.

Depending on your time and your pocketbook, a green vacation could be volunteering at your local food bank, building homes for Habitat for Humanity, painting houses on a Navajo reservation or planting trees in Mexico.

I’m still in the planning and dreaming stages, but wherever I go on my next vacation I want it to be green.

Since St. Patty’s Day is this month I thought I’d get together a list of some of the best pubs in America so we can all celebrate!

When thinking about the Irish in America, what better place to start out than Boston, with a pub on every corner and a leprechaun on its basketball team’s logo? It’s certainly hard to choose, but I’ve been told the best of the best in Boston is Doyle’s Café on Washington street. Doyle’s has hosted local Irish politicians for more than a century.

New York City is another bastion of Irish heritage. In a city the size of New York it may take more than one pub. Stop in at Paddy Reilly’s Music on the weekend for some Celtic rock and a pint of Guinness. If you’re looking to celebrate amidst a bit of history, check out McSorley’s Old Ale House, which just celebrated it’s 155^th birthday. New York City hosts annual St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl, so if you’re in the city for St. Patty’s day be sure to check it out!

In Chicago, where everyone is Irish on March 17, Emmitt’s Irish Pub and Eatery is the place to see and be seen. Featured in movies including ‘Backdraft’, ‘Uncle Buck’, ‘Ocean’s 11’ and ‘Ocean’s 12.’ Emmitt’s has overcome it’s location’s sordid past to become the most popular Irish pub in the windy city.

And Irish pubs aren’t a commodity limited to the East Coast. The Dubliner in San Francisco is a good old fashioned pub with friendly barkeeps and good Irish coffee and ale. It’s also one of the few places in the Bay Area that sells the West Coast’s Irish newspaper the Irish Herald.

Down south at McGuire’s Irish Pub in Pensacola, Florida, Irishmen of all nationalities sign dollar bills and pin them to the ceiling in tribute to Molly, the waitress who pinned her first $1 tip to the back of the bar. McGuire’s is housed in an old firehouse and boasts a turn of the century New York City aura.

I’ve also been checking out St. Patrick’s Day events across the nation so I‘ll have somewhere to wear all that green. Every pub in the world, of course, will be celebrating with Irish music, dancing and beer and most large cities are having parades.

Here in Denver, Colorado, we’ll kick off the holiday the Saturday before with the biggest St. Patrick’s Day parade west of the Mississippi with more than 200 floats and 10,000 marchers. The parade features floats, marchers, step-dancers, bands and bagpipes.

Wonder which U.S. city has the largest parade in the nation? It’s New York City, where the city’s Irish population shows it’s pride by marching up 5^th Street clan by clan. Every year the archbishop of New York reviews the all-marcher parade from the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade has been around since Irishmen living in New York organized it in 1762 – fourteen years before the Declaration of Independence was signed! Of course, with New York City’s huge Irish population, one parade just isn’t enough – more than 15 boroughs, including Queens and Brooklyn, host their own parades.

If St. Patty‘s Day ever catches me in the deep south I‘ll head to New Orleans, Louisiana – the city that has a parade for everything. The Irish Channel St. Patrick’s Day Committee expects this year‘s St. Patrick‘s Day Parade to be the largest it’s ever had. In New Orleans, parade participants start with a special Mass, then march up Magazine street dressed in formal attire. What could be better than well-dressed Irishmen for a St. Patty’s Day bash?

Though the parades are the public display of Irish spirit in the U.S., the parades are just the beginning. It all ends in a pub full of Irishmen and lovers of all things Irish wearing and honoring Ireland’s patron saint with drink and song.

So, when I visit a place I look for out of the way places that will bring back or create memories that will last a lifetime.  And hopefully inspire me to make a new bag!  When I’m not traveling, I spend a lot of time daydreaming about where I’d like to go.

This month, I’m thinking about visiting Missouri, with it’s beautiful scenery and fascinating history. You can learn why Charles Lindberg named his plane “The Spirit of St. Louis” and all about the 1904 World’s Fair at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis.

Every visit to Missouri, of course, must include a trip to see the Gateway Arch. I like to sit and look at this magnificent wonder, which is the tallest national monument in the U.S. And a trip to the top, via tram, gives you a view like no other of the Show Me State.

Once, I’ve learned a little history and checked out the most popular tourist attraction. (Did you know that about 1 million people visit the top of the Arch each year?) I like to find some natural wonders. It’s not hard in Missouri, with the Ozark Mountains and lush foliage. But, to see the best plants in the state, I visit the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. This year, the garden, the nation’s oldest botanical garden in continuous operation, celebrates is sesquicentennial anniversary. In addition to being an oasis in the city of St. Louis, the National Historic Landmark is a center for research and science education.

Another site I’d like to see in Missouri is a little off the beaten path and outside the big city. The Ralph Foster Museum in Point Lookout, Missouri is known locally as “the Smithsonian of the Ozarks.” This unique museum boasts novelties of Ozark culture such as the 1921 Oldsmobile truck used in the original Beverly Hillbillies TV series and a display of wood stumps from local trees.

There’s so much to do and see in Missouri, I’ll have to find time to do it all!

Have a nice trip.  Or a nice time thinking about where you’d like to go!