Lakeside Collection Blog

Today is a happy day to remember all of your beloved pets. Take the day to share those great childhood memories of the family pets. It’s always great to remember the happy times we have we have had throughout the years.

Here are some great tips about celebrating this date. Thank you goes out to this great article I found below:

(http://voices.yahoo.com/national-pet-memorial-day-time-remember-our-deceased-6771708.html)

Tips for Celebrating National Pet Memorial Day

Reflect on your pet’s life – Think about your pets that have passed away and share your memories with family members. Why were these pets so special? You just might dig up old memories that have been long forgotten.

Look up old photographs – Do you have pictures of your deceased pets? Look through old photo albums and, if you have enough pictures, put them together in a memory scrapbook of your pet. If you even have one picture, frame it and keep the memory where it will be viewed often.

Donate to a local charity – Your town probably has a shelter or animal rescue; donate money to your favorite local charity in your pet’s memory or volunteer your time there. Every little bit makes a difference. Or if you are ready for a new pet, perhaps you will consider adopting one of these homeless animals and providing hope with a new life.

Check out Lakeside Collections Pet Memorial pieces to celebrate and remember.

Tomorrow (August 25) marks the 73rd anniversary of the US opening of one of the most beloved movies of all time, “The Wizard of Oz.”  This film centers around Dorothy, Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion making their way down a yellow brick road in pursuit of the Emerald City.

The storyline has been told and retold with different variations and subplots. Everything from the Broadway sensation “Wicked” to the critically acclaimed “The Wiz” has told taken a slightly different vantage point on this classic tale. The most recent installment of “Wizard of Oz” related storylines is “Oz The Great and Powerful.” This film, (which is due out in 2013) is a prequel to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and focuses on how the Wizard came to be in Oz. Here is the trailer:

Though the story (and variations) has been told many times, many still view the 1939 “The Wizard of Oz” movie as the best telling of this great tale.

We recently posted how Lakeside is all about Peace, Love, and Rock ‘N Roll this summer. It seemed fitting to pay tribute to one of the ultimate rock ‘n roll anniversaries today, the August 15, 1969 Woodstock festival opening in Bethel, New York. Here is some interesting Woodstock trivia courtesy of dailymail.co.uk.

- The dove perched on a guitar neck in the famous poster announcing ‘Three Days of Peace and Music’ is really a catbird, an American perching bird known for its catlike calls

- About two dozen ticket booths should have been in place to charge $24 admission, but they were never installed because of the crush of festival-goers. Attempts to get people to pay were abandoned on day one, the fences were torn down and Woodstock was declared a free event.

- The performance of The Star-Spangled Banner by Jimi Hendrix that closed Woodstock was described by the rock critic from the New York Post as ‘the single greatest moment of the Sixties’. Yet it was witnessed by just a fraction of the crowd. Most had gone home by the time Hendrix came on stage, at 9am on a Monday morning.

Have you checked out our Lakeside buyer Samantha’s Twitter account recently?  On Friday she Tweeted a great picture of our Food & Baby Products Buyer Ellen with Dora the Explorer!  Ellen met Dora recently at a trade show, below is the picture.

Today we are featuring some delicious and healthy recipes that will cool you down this first weekend in August.  The below ideas are especially great alternatives to sugary popsicles and ice cream.  These recipes are by Mary Saph Tanaka, MD, MS originally posted on acefitness.org.

Cool Cucumber Con Chili Limon

- 1 English cucumber

- ½ lemon

- 1-2 tsp. chili powder

- 1 tsp. salt

Cut the cucumber into 1/8 inch slices. Squeeze lemon over the cucumber slices, and then sprinkle with salt and chili powder.

Apricot Yogurt Bites

- 4 ripe apricots

- ½ cup low-fat vanilla yogurt

- ¼ cup fresh blueberries (or dried fruit – blueberries, cranberries or cherries)

Slice each apricot in half, removing the seed from the middle. Place apricot halves on a plate with the pit side facing up. Spoon about 1 TBS of yogurt into the pitted area of the apricot half and repeat until all apricot halves are full. Lastly, top the yogurt with one blueberry (or whichever berry you choose) and serve.

The Olympics are upon us. While the Games have technically already started with soccer, the London 2012 Opening Ceremony takes place today. As you settle-in for 5,535 hours of TV coverage across several channels, here is some interesting trivia you can share with friends and family.  The below trivia is from topendsports.com

- When London hosts the Olympic Games in 2012, the city will become the first to host the Games three times:1908, 1948 and 2012.

- Greece is the only nation to have participated under its own flag in all modern summer Olympic Games.

- The only Olympian ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was Philip Noel-Baker of Great Britain, who won the silver in the 1500-meter dash in 1920.

- At the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, silver medals were awarded to the winners and bronze to the second place getters.

- More athletes than spectators attended the 1900 Paris Olympic Games.

- Oscar Swahn became the oldest gold medalist when he won gold at 64 years and 280 days old in 1912

Merry Leon Day everyone!  Leon Day is just another way to say TODAY is the halfway mark to Christmas.  ’Leon’ actually comes from spelling Noel backwards!  Though technically an unofficial holiday, it is an important benchmark indicating that the Christmas countdown is on.  We recommend starting that countdown by enjoying the warm weather with friends & family (eggnog optional).

Have you recently checked out the Lakeside Collection’s Pinterest page?  If not you are missing out on some awesome new boards, cool content, and even some great new Lakeside products.  We are constantly updating our Pinterest account with new boards, pins, repins and great finds.  Here is a sampling of our 3 latest boards, but you can see all our content by searching our name LakesideCollect.

Yesterday, 7:09pm EDT marked the official start of summer!  Whether you are melting in a heat wave (Midwest & Northeast), or enjoying a nice cool breeze with your feet in the sand, happy first day of summer!  Below are some fun facts about the 2012 summer solstice (these facts are from kirotv.com picture from bbc.co.uk)

- Wednesday, the first day of summer, was the longest day of the year at 15 hours, 59 minutes, and 21 seconds
- Wednesday was three seconds longer than Tuesday
- Today (Thursday) will be one second shorter than yesterday

We always like to post fun Friday/weekend quotes and pictures, but what about Monday?  Our HR department sent us the below quote last Monday and it put perspective on this first day of the week.   Enjoy your day!