City fixes water shortage by removing lawns
Natural Resource News Note:

Los Angeles is removing residents’ lawns and installing water-efficient gardens in an attempt to conserve water. At the residents’ request, the city will send a crew to dig up the grass and replace it with mulch and native CA plants—all at no cost to the homeowners. The pilot program is funded by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which pays about $500 for each relandscaped yard.

LA residents Tim and Kelley Reischauer had their lawn removed. “The kids were kind of bummed,” Mr. Reischauer told the Wall Street Journal. But “most of the neighbors are very complimentary.”

LA’s program is one of several aimed at changing people’s ideas about how a front yard should look. Lush green lawns are hard for many people to part with. Some homeowners associations have strict landscaping requirements that contribute to the problem.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority has banned grass lawns entirely. In San Antonio, Texas, the watering restrictions are aggressively enforced by “water police.”

Nationwide, landscape watering accounts for about 57% of all residential water use. According to a report prepared by ConSol, CA has the 15th highest per capita public water consumption in the country. A 2009 state law requires all water suppliers to reduce water consumption per capita 20% by 2020.

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A local landscaper has created initial plans for a memorial park, to be built honoring Norton’s fallen soldiers, which selectmen reviewed on Dec. 6.

Stephen Amort, who owns Lee Amort Associates in Norton, stepped up to volunteer his time and created the blueprints for the memorial. He has worked over 40 years in the landscaping industry, once as a sub-contractor for Harvard University in Cambridge.

Born and raised in Boston, Amort has lived in Norton since 1989 and served in the United States Army from 1966 through 1972. He is a Vietnam Veteran.

“I’m very honored to do this,” Amort said of helping out.

He was recommended by one of his customers to the Gold Star Committee.

The committee was formed to install a park honoring Master Sgt. Gregory R. Trent, 38, of Norton who died Aug. 8 in Bethesda, Md., from wounds suffered July 31 in Baktabad, Afghanistan.

After discussion, it was decided that the memorial would be for all military men and women who have served from Norton as well as Trent.

The new park will be located on West Main Street near CVS and the National Grid substation. It will sit 60 to 100 feet back from the main road, said selectmen Vice Chairman Robert Kimball who also serves on the Norton Gold Star Committee.

“I took a look at the plot and was given ideas as far as what they wanted to accomplish,” Amort said.

He came up with a manicured layout that includes a flagpole, benches, trees and bushes where citizens can come and reflect. A focal point will be a specific memorial for Trent who inspired the park.

“I’m very proud to be able to do this,” Amort said.

Kimball said the committee hopes to have the memorial fully completed by next Memorial Day, May 2013.

“We have a great group of people trying to make it happen,” Kimball said.

Last week selectmen approved the establishment of the Norton Gold Star Gift Account, in order to collect donations that will go towards the design, construction and maintenance of the park.

Donations can be made out to “Norton Gold Star Gift Account” and mailed to Norton Town Hall, 70 East Main Street, Norton, MA 02766.

“We’re very excited about getting this project started and hope to be done by springtime,” Kimball said.

The paved bricks form a walking border around the garden.

The paths meet in the center where they form a reading circle for students and teachers.

Kelley said the paths make the garden more accessible, especially for people with diabilities.

The garden got its first boost at the end of summer in 2011 when organizers were awarded a $4,000 grant from Kane County’s Fit Kids program.

That money was used to buy 15 fruit trees which are still growing and taking root.

Kelley said fruit was beginning to grow this summer and students made smoothies with the fruits that are represented in the orchards.

Last year, the garden produced 170 pumpkins and gourd which were then sold during a fundraising event called the Pumpkin Festival.

This year, Kelley said a squash bug infestation completely decimated the garden’s pumpkin crop.

In addition, the drought made growing other crops very difficult.

“We lost crops early, but then we watered like crazy,” Kelley said.

She said the corn still grew fine.

By contrast, farmers in the Midwest this year reported that growing corn was extremely difficult because of the drought but they had a bumper crop of pumpkins.

Kelley said organizers were still able to host the Pumpkin Festival using pumpkins bought outside the garden.

In addition, organizers also raised money through the Wine, Cheese and Trees fundraiser.

Proceeds were split with the city’s committee that’s dedicate to repopulating the community’s tree canopy after the recent emerald ash borer infestation.

On that committee is Geneva resident Jay Womack, of WRD Environmental, who also designed the Edible Schoolyard at WAS.

Ron Zeman, principal at WAS, said the future path of the garden is still being decided by the school community but there are a few ideas.

Although most of the growing season is in the summer when students are out of school, Zeman said there are root vegetables that grow during the fall that have short harvest times.

He said gardening can be incorporated into the students’ curriculum teaching how photosynthesis and chlorophyll work.

Zeman said he was skeptical of the garden concept when Jen Kelley first brought it to him because of the scope of the project and potential costs.

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Find all the stories from Staff Writers Brian Barber and Kevin Canfield about city government in Tulsa.

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First impressions are important.

But unfortunately, the first area of Tulsa that many visitors see after arriving at the airport is the litter-strewn, unkempt stretch of Interstate 244 to downtown.

“That’s not good at all,” Mayor Dewey Bartlett said. “We want our city to have a clean, welcoming feeling.”

The city’s Beautification Task Force, established earlier this year by the mayor and City Council, has recommended a targeted effort to improve the aesthetics along the six-mile highway section.

“The airport really is our gateway,” said Ken Busby, chairman of the task force, which wants Tulsa to reclaim its title as “America’s Most Beautiful City.”

“Of course, there are a lot of beautiful areas of Tulsa for people to see if they get out and explore, but we really should try to put our best foot forward from the moment they enter the city.”

Among the group’s ideas is having more frequent litter collection, removing the battered chain-link fencing along the highway that traps debris and garbage in favor of natural barriers like tree lines and adding some low-maintenance landscaping.

Joe Howell, a landscape architect who serves on the task force, created a rendering that shows what it would look like to transform the sloped banks that are in some areas into terrace walls with greenery.

“We don’t want to go overboard,” Busby said. “But there are simple things that could be done to make the area more attractive.”

City leaders plan to sit down with Oklahoma Department of Transportation officials to discuss possibilities.

The highway and its rights-of-way and maintenance are, for the most part, controlled by the state.

“I know budgets are stretched thin,” Bartlett said. “But I’m sure there are some partnerships that could be entered into that would improve things.”

When there have been major events happening in Tulsa, such as the NCAA Tournament, PGA Championship and U.S. Open golf tournament in recent years, special cleanups for the I-244 corridor have been organized, the mayor noted.

“Wouldn’t it be great to have it looking nice all the time?” he asked.

ODOT spokeswoman Kenna Mitchell said having such a conversation with Tulsa officials is welcomed.

Litter crews are dispatched once a month unless there’s something in the highway that would prompt an immediate response, she said.

The stretch of I-244 is in the department’s eight-year capital plan for millions of dollars to be spent repairing the structurally deficient bridges and improving the pavement condition.

No money is allocated to improve the look of the rights-of-ways, she said.

“Due to our backlog, we are really focused on the actual roadway to protect the traveling public,” Mitchell said.

The construction has postponed some aesthetic projects along I-244 by the Tulsa Beautification Foundation.

Years ago, the organization added some plantings at the airport terminals and entrances.

It wanted to continue its efforts by painting the bridges, staining the on and off ramps and making other cosmetic improvements within the corridor, program officer Josh Miller said.

“But it just didn’t make sense for us to do anything that’s just going to be undone by the construction,” he said. “We’ll look at it again down the road.”

The foundation would be willing to participate in discussions with the city and ODOT about partnerships, Miller said.

“There’s definitely a need there,” he said, “and it’s in an area that we are particularly interested in.”

Original Print Headline: I-244 eyed for beautification

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Brian Barber 918-581-8322

brian.barber@tulsaworld.com

by Mary Pat Haddock
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Ridgway’s Streetscape Committee offered two meeting times on Monday for local business owners to give their feedback on the project. Committee members heard drastically different comments from the participating business owners in the two meetings, due, at least in part, to employing two very different strategies in facilitating the two meetings. The committee will recommend to Ridgway Town Council that the plan be further studied and revised.

To begin the first meeting, Mayor John Clark briefly gave background on the history of Streetscape; explaining that the initiative began in 2005 to “fix up the town in the name of economic development.” Business owners who wished to speak were then given two minutes each to state whether they were for Streetscape as it stood, against it entirely, or for it with some changes. Speakers were encouraged to give reasoning for their stances.
After three business owners offered the same perspective—their businesses could not survive another tax increase in this time of recession—committee co-chair Paula James asked the committee and the participants if she could share information about how Streetscape would affect everyone’s taxes. Loud voices, unanimous in their response, told James she could speak at the end, this was the time for the committee to listen, not talk.
Speaker after speaker told the committee they were firmly against the plan because they could not possibly afford it. Audibly struggling to keep their voices even, business owners who paid the cost of their own sidewalk repairs and landscaping asked why they should now pay those same costs for other businesses. Many of Ridgway’s business owners do not live in town and therefore cannot vote in the event the Streetscape project proceeds to a bond election; the majority of this group voiced their objection to being taxed without representation.
One speaker who did support Streetscape, Wyatt Gubelmann, emphasized the current low loan rates and called the plan “a big step in the right direction.” However, Greg Doudt’s comments were more representative of the group’s overall sentiments. Doudt, owner of San Juan Liquors, said, “I am totally against spending that kind of money in this kind of economy. I think that’s half the problem we have with our country right now, is that we’re spending money that we don’t have.”
Kate Leonard, of Kate’s Place, asked what would happen to the parking in front of her restaurant. Other objections to the plan included a concern that paving the streets would hurt Ridgway’s branding, that the plan focused too much on beautification and that it seemed urban.
When all business owners had been given their two minutes, James presented the tax information she had been given by the Ouray County tax assessor. The assessor projected that due to a decline in market values of Ridgway real property over the last two years, property taxes are likely to go down in 2014 and 2015 by 16-20 percent. James argued that a Streetscape bond and mill levy would not result in businesses paying more in taxes than they currently do, because overall taxes will decrease much more than they will increase because of a Streetscape bond.
Mayor Clark informed the group that $2.5 million of the project’s $3.5 million cost is designated for infrastructure, the one area all agreed needed some form of improvement. Some owners questioned how revenues from the 0.6 percent sales tax enacted in 2006 had been spent. Town Manager Jen Coates told the Plaindealer that by the end of 2012, $665,000 will have been collected and $443,000 spent, and the fund balance will be about $222,000. Thus far, $161,400 was spent on design and engineered drawings in 2006-08. The engineering project was put out to bid and no local companies submitted a bid. Since 2008, the balance of the $443,000 has been spent on sidewalks on North and South Amelia, the crosswalk at Amelia and Highway 62, Clinton Street signage, a sidewalk at Cora Street and Highway 62 and the sidewalk from downtown to the 4H Center.
James’ and Clark’s explanations were too little too late to win over any of the attending business owners at the first meeting. It ended with one business owner telling the committee it was alright to just start over.
For the second meeting, committee members established a more authoritative role as meeting facilitators. Clark included an explanation of streetscape’s emphasis on infrastructure in his initial comments. James took the floor to explain her tax outlook before the business members spoke. This dissemination of information appeared highly effective, as the second meeting brought forth many more comments aimed in the spirit of compromise than the first.
Ideas suggested in the second meeting included privatizing elements of the plan, scaling back the beautification aspect of the plan, reaching out to local contractors to get a more Ridgway specific landscaping concept, using eco-friendly material on roads instead of pavement, installing narrower sidewalks than the proposed 16’ sidewalks and delaying the realigning of Railroad Street. The necessity of establishing a functioning drainage system to avoid having dangerous icy areas throughout town in the winter was brought up by several speakers as a reason to pursue infrastructure improvements.
Dan Zaugg, a landscape contractor, said, “I think there is talent right here in this row that could do much as far as taking our branding and working it towards specifying and tweaking the design where it actually fits Ridgway a little bit better.”
The committee met Tuesday evening and agreed to present a recommendation to Ridgway Town Council that further study is needed. The recommendation was to be made at a workshop on Dec. 5. The committee’s report said it would like to refine the plan “by paying more attention to parking, cost/financing, signage, and other improvements.” The committee foresees getting more input from residents and presenting an improved plan to council for consideration of a bond election in fall 2013 or spring 2014.

Garden decor accessories to the decor of a yard using different components, birdfeeders, decorations, yard seats and chairs, artificial features and flower vases as well as vegetation that can help make landscapes look beautiful and attractive. The more uncommon and exclusive these household goods, the more attractive your garden turns out to be. Classy household goods organized attentively in an outdoor emphasize the beauty of the flowers and vegetation.

Consequently, there are many garden components that can bring out different garden designs and provide an expression of the owner’s personality. Just about any equipment can be added to give an outdoor an exclusive identity. Vintage compotes, garden thermometers, table top urns, France wire decorations, sun soldiers, indoor plant holders, decorative weathervanes, uncommon ceramic, cultural things, and outdoor antiques–the choices available are endless.

Whether using an expert gardener’s know-how or a starter’s passion, components for your garden can outcome in a hugely attractive garden. While small plots can be do-it-yourself projects, bigger landscapes may call for more expert attention. Experienced growers can be employed professionals to manage to a bigger plot that could use a little bit of landscape designs. Landscaping ads levels to an outdoor create it more interesting. Depending on the available space, choosing and growing certain vegetation is important so that your garden always has some flowers. Large landscapes need more physical labor in the form of ground preservatives for maintenance, lawn cutting, trimming of vegetation, treating of bug sprays, etc. Using expert services in such instances can ensure a healthy and neat garden all year.

Garden design ideas help to protect up the drawbacks by protecting them up with resourcefulness. The unpleasant type can be developed to look like it’s been developed that way by intelligently planning the places. Some amount of actual execute is required, but that’s the price one has to pay to make something so amazing and amazing.
Sloping lawn is a perfect example of how to use lawn design ideas. Using the lawn design ideas extensive rock activities can be developed out making it look like its aspect of the scenery. The activities could cause into a little sit out with a regular or maybe even a play area for the children with a sand pit in one area. Lawn can be set out on the hill to prevent floor crack down. The lawn needs no extra maintenance other than the schedule reducing and irrigating. Some flourishing plants can be placed along the activities like an advantage. In situation you feel you cannot serious so much time for looking after flourishing plants, then low maintenance organic ferns and other such plants can be placed.
A sloping lawn the lawn design ideas can give some ideas as to how to place lighting to make highest possible impact. Such sloping scenery is the most perfect place for activities and family activities.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/garden-decor-accessories-garden-design-ideas-6343889.html

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Garden decor accessories , Garden design ideas

It was Black Friday that drew throngs to big-box stores, but it’s a more traditional green event that attracted a crowd to a destination off the beaten path.

At Bainbridge Gardens, the day after Thanksgiving marked the seasonal opening of the workshop where customers have come for two decades to create their own holiday wreaths. Some folks bring their own greens from home, but the nursery provides three varieties of cedar plus other fresh-cut greenery for wreath-makers to select from.

And at Olalla Valley Vineyard and Winery — a South Kitsap locale far from the Black Friday frenzy — it was the first day of Christmas at the Winery.

While downtown associations in Bainbridge Island, Gig Harbor and other communities promote Christmas shopping at local merchants, homegrown businesses away from the Main Street bustle also try to entice holiday season customers.

Visitors can enjoy free wine tastings (with a donation for Peninsula Food Bank) in Olalla Valley’s stylish and cozy tasting room proprietors Joe and Konnie Serka built.

There are also precut Christmas trees and wreaths for sale, with proceeds donated to South Kitsap Helpline. The Serkas help the food banks in both Gig Harbor and Port Orchard since their winery is midway between the towns.

And of course, there’s the wine, made in the Croatian style Joe learned from his father, an emigrant who settled with other fishermen in Gig Harbor. Olalla Valley produces several vintages, and visitors who want a gift basket can choose from Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Viognier, Pinot Gris, Merlot and — if there’s some available after proper aging — a hearty red called Golubok made from grapes of Russian origin. Another specialty is fruit wines made with apples and berries grown on their land.

“Everything you drink here, we grow here,” says Joe Serka, the affable winemaker with a long ponytail as white as Santa’s beard.

This is the fourth year the couple, who both retired from telephone company jobs in 2006, has hosted Christmas at the Winery. They also have a dining room above the tasting room that can host catered events for up to 42 guests.

They’ve grown grapes and made wine to drink at home since the late 1980s, but the expansion to a small commercial enterprise began several years ago. Today, the Serkas have 3 acres planted with grapes and Ollala Valley Winery produces about 1,200 bottles a year.

They are open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday until Christmas, plus Dec. 27 through Jan. 2.

Chris Harui, longtime proprietor of Bainbridge Gardens, looks forward to the groups that come in during the holidays for the shared fun of making personalized wreaths.

“It’s a good tradition,” she says. “We get booked up the day after Thanksgiving.”

Visitors can reserve two-hour slots to use the nursery’s 16 crimping machines for free, and staff demonstrate how to use them. Wreath frames are sold in a variety of shapes besides the traditional round, and customers purchase greenery, bows, ribbons and an array of decorations a la carte.

The most popular greens are three types of cedar — incense, cone and Port Orford red — but they’ve had people come in with their own greens from home, Harui says.

“People used to bring in roadkill after a big storm,” when strong winds left downed branches on the ground. “They’d come with a big bough and say ‘here’s my greens.’”

For wreath-makers and other holiday shoppers, Bainbridge Gardens also has a large gift shop that’s filled with lavish decorative displays designed by Harui’s daughter, Donna, who helps her run the business. The New Rose Café also stays open through the holidays, offering lunch, baked goods and hot drinks.

Harui and her late husband moved their family business — originally a florist shop in Winslow — to its Miller Road location on the island’s west side in 1989. She says it’s a challenge to draw holiday shoppers to a non-downtown location, especially a nursery and garden center that people may not think of as a wintertime business.

“Some of my own friends don’t know we’re open during Christmas,” Harui says.

Valley Nursery in Poulsbo is likewise focused on staying on the radar of holiday shoppers. This is the fourth year the business will host one-hour holiday workshops for designing and making wreaths, cranberry centerpieces or a “kissing ball.” The workshops on Dec. 1 and 8 are limited to eight people and cost $35 per person, which includes all needed materials.

Kathy Lins, the shop manager and gift buyer at Valley Nursery, says their business strives to offer unique holiday ideas.

“We have to be different, that’s the whole goal,” she says.

Their business is one of the last places customers can buy pre-cut Christmas trees and get them flocked, which produces a snow-covered look. Valley Nursery also offers living trees, and Lins said they have some customers who’ve been buying one every year for long enough to have a grove of them planted at home.

One of their biggest holiday draws is a large open-air (but covered in case of rain) display of deluxe Christmas wreaths, and no two of the creations made on-site are decorated the same.

And of course, there are loads of traditional poinsettias on hand, which are still a perennial favorite even though supermarkets and other big chain stores sell them as well.

For shoppers with a rugged outdoorsman on their gift list, Valley Nursery carries Grundéns apparel and foul weather gear, which Lins notes is worn by Alaskan fishermen on the reality TV show “The Deadliest Catch.”

The nursery gift shop has lots of critter-themed ornaments and decorations (owls are a popular choice), and a holiday tree of birds.

“There’s a phenomenal amount of women who collect birds,” Lins says.

Whether it’s birds for your tree, a wreath for your door or wind chimes to hang in the garden, Valley Nursery offers a “holiday happy hour” daily from 3-5 p.m. through Dec. 23. Customers receive 25 percent off any one item.

At Bremerton City Nursery, owner Theresa Dreaney says they limit their advertising mostly to a customer e-mail list. They also use Facebook posts to let customers know about specials such as an arrival of Jacob hellebores, a winter-blooming perennial that can “come inside for the Christmas season then be planted outside.”

The nursery, which also operates a landscaping business, has a selection of hand-decorated wreaths and fresh-cut Christmas trees from a local farm. There’s a small gift shop and The Coffee Spigot espresso stand as well.

Dreaney says the nursery’s main seasonal event is an after-hours holiday social from 5-8 p.m. on Dec. 7. It’s open to the public and is a good time for “visiting with friends and neighbors.”

As soon as the holidays are over, she says, “January comes and we’re already getting our stuff for spring ready.”

Prize drawings, other promotions entice holiday shoppers

Typical of the shop local campaigns is the Passport to the Holidays organized by the Bainbridge Island Downtown Association. A purchase of $10 or more at any of the 49 participating businesses gets a shopper’s passport stamped, and anyone who collects 24 stamps is entered in a drawing (on Jan. 2) to win one of four $1,200 shopping sprees, comprised of $25 gift certificates from every participating business.

“It’s a great way to track where people are shopping and spending their money,” Downtown Association executive director Andie Mackin says.

The Gig Harbor Historic Waterfront Association’s promotion is similarly designed to get people to shop at downtown stores, though no purchase is required for entry in a prize drawing.

Instead, businesses participating in the “Where’s Santa’s Cookie Plate?” scavenger hunt will hide a special Santa’s cookie plate in their business throughout the Dec. 7-9 weekend of the town’s Candlelight Christmas in the Harbor. Each person who finds it receives a ticket for a drawing for a $500 holiday waterfront shopping spree.

There also will be holiday hayrides with Santa that weekend provided by Miracle Ranch, with loading in front of Timberland Bank. Businesses will be open for extended hours and offering shopping specials.

Through Dec. 24, visitors can vote for the People’s Choice winner in the Deck the Harbor storefront decorating contest. Awards will be presented to the business judged to be the best in each of the following categories:

• Best painted windows
• Best storefront (can include doorways, foyers, courtyards)
• Best window display
• Best use of candlelight theme
• Best representation of business

The People’s Choice Award will be presented the week after Christmas.

 

In the constellation of Toronto’s public spaces, the string of forlorn parkettes extending along the midtown rail corridor have long had a decidedly back-of-beyond feel – a few desultory playgrounds, community gardens and dusty parking lots situated in the shadow of a major hydro corridor.

Residents know that the strip, which abuts a partially gentrified west-end neighbourhood, is so far off the radar that contractors use it to dump construction debris. “It just appears at night where our kids are going to play the next morning,” mused Evan Castel, co-chair of the Davenport Neighbourhood Association, as he strolled one morning through a park located close to several auto body shops and a bike store famous for its espresso machine. “Neglect breeds neglect.”

Most residents’ groups would respond to such incidents with neighbourhood watch programs or a push for new playground equipment.

But Mr. Castel and urban designer Helena Grdadolnik have set their sights higher, launching an ambitious international design competition meant to generate visions of an extended linear park that swoops south from Earlscourt Park and runs east to the Bridgman Transformer Station, located where Davenport Avenue ducks under the railway tracks.

The goal – a contiguous cycling and pedestrian corridor – is an especially challenging assignment because the route is frequently interrupted by difficult-to-cross arterials, retaining walls, and the TTC’s sprawling Hillcrest yard. It also abuts a busy rail corridor used both by freight trains and urban adventurers.

Their project, dubbed “The Green Line,” is a deliberate attempt to replicate the success of other post-industrial linear parks such as the West Toronto Railpath, an award-winning space that runs along the Georgetown South corridor, and New York’s High Line, a once crumbling elevated rail spur that was converted into an electrifying park that weaves through Manhattan’s red-hot west-side warehouse district. Both projects trace back to local ideas competitions.

The Green Line traverses a dense, diverse urban landscape of row houses, aging warehouses, hidden artists’ studios, condos, theatres and a community college. The area is also in the throes of a substantial transition. South of the tracks, the city is trying to figure out how to respond to development pressure on Dupont.

Ms. Grdadolnik, a Workshop Architecture associate director who once managed an international design contest for the alleyways in Vancouver’s Gastown, hopes that this “ideas competition” will attract entries from all over the world. “Some will be unbuildable and some will be really realistic,” she predicted.

“Give us an Amsterdam perspective, give us a Cairo perspective,” added Mr. Castel. “You don’t have to be here to help with this vision.”

(Submissions are due by early February, with the winners announced in May. The plans of all the finalists will be posted publicly in one of the parkettes along the route and published in the spring issue of Spacing Magazine.)

The genesis of the competition plan was a small city landscaping project, completed earlier this year, to remove a fence and shrubs from the corner of a parkette near Shaw Street that had become a well-concealed hang-out for drug dealers. “Suddenly people realized there was a tree here, and benches,” said Mr. Castel.

As residents worked on this little upgrade, they realized the city had no overarching plan for connecting these spaces, even though many cyclists and pedestrians now use them as an alternative east-west route. While the city has been financing similar small projects elsewhere along the Green Line, there’s no sense of coherence, nor any attempt to build a continuous route, said Mr. Castel.

While such exercises often get bogged down in plodding public consultation processes, Ms. Grdadolnik sees the Green Line contest as a way to spark the public’s imagination and persuade the city to develop a master plan to guide future open-space investments. “If you have a plan,” she said, “at least you can be strategic.”

John Lorinc is a senior editor at Spacing Magazine.

John Lorinc is a senior editor at Spacing Magazine.

Load a limo with food, clothing and toys in Whitby

Editor’s note: Jen is a married mother of two and the author of the book “Spending the Holidays with People I Want to Punch in the Throat” and the blog People I Want to Punch in the Throat. Laugh at her on Facebook and Twitter.

I don’t know what it is about the Christmas holidays that brings out the overachieving moms.

As soon as “Silver Bells” starts playing on the radio, that bar (made from a homemade candy cane recipe they found on Pinterest, I’m sure) starts rising and I am done trying to get over it. I’m quite happy languishing down here sipping my instant hot cocoa and eating my store-bought cookies while buying presents online so I don’t have to fight the crowds of holiday shoppers mainlining Christmas Blend coffee and jacked-up on freaking holiday cheer.     

It used to be, a decent looking tree and a wreath on your door was enough to be festive. Now I’m expected to hire a company to come and hang lights (perfectly) on the peaks of my roof and wrap my trees in glowing wonderment. I’m supposed to line my front walkway with luminaries and live greenery and fill my porch with oversized beautifully wrapped boxes.   

These moms will never tell you that your décor is lacking, they’ll just drop hints like, “My landscaping company does a fabulous job with outdoor lights. Would you like their number, Jen?” or “Your porch is simply perfect for a set of topiaries I saw the other day. I can send you the link if you’d like. Do you follow me on Instagram? I have tons of ideas there.”

Guilt-free: It’s a wrap: Re-gifters rarely caught

No, no, no. I am perfectly happy with my pitiful lights haphazardly strung through my bushes and the same wreath on my door that has hung there every season for eight years. The only person who gets close enough to see its flaws is the UPS guy and he’s never complained.

I think what bugs me the most is that these moms will tell you that they’re not raising the bar, they are just trying to make your life easier with their ah-may-zing ideas. For instance, isn’t it so much easier on Christmas morning to dole out presents when everyone has their own individual wrapping paper? No. No, it’s really not.

Related: The year’s worst toys? Depends on your taste

Let me ask you: Is reading a gift tag that hard? Did we really need to simplify that process? Because I think reading the tag is a lot easier than wrapping everyone’s gifts in their own special paper. I can just imagine when I’m wrapping presents and I’m surrounded by three different rolls of paper and suddenly I get confused and think to myself, Wait a minute. Is Gomer the snowman paper or the Santa paper? Crap. Now I need to open one and check. Great. Now I’ve made double the work for myself. 

Cookie exchanges don’t make my life easier. Hostesses like to tell you that you’ll be baking 15 dozen cookies this season anyway, so why not just pop over and share your adorable creations with a crowd of women who would love to judge them? As if I need more judgment in my life?

Besides, I would never bake so many cookies if I wasn’t invited to so many cookie exchanges. Plus, don’t even get me started on the pressure to make my cookie presentation “wow” the judges. Ugh.

Frosting envy: 13 wicked ways to celebrate National Cookie Day

I definitely don’t need a list of 101 ideas of things to do with my Elf on the Shelf to make my life easier. Why do I need all of these crazy ideas? He’s supposed to sit on a shelf.

He’s not supposed to take a marshmallow bath in the sink.

Or ride in a hot air balloon made from a pair of Underoos.

Or overdose on Jim Beam and Vicodin while a naked Barbie doll watches from her camper (let’s face it, those girls are overachievers, too).

Here’s what would make my life easier: Just stop the madness. Stop trying to make every single day memorable and magical and photographable (Is that even a word? Well, it is now). It doesn’t need to be this hard.

Christmas is already a magical time; we don’t need to make it insane. I shudder to think what my kids will be doing for their kids when the time comes. They will probably hire live reindeer to stand on their roof and poop “magical” droppings.