We all want to save the world. Don’t we? And we try. We buy organic, we recycle, and we drive fuel-efficient cars. (Well, that last one has more to do with high gas prices, but still.) Don’t you wish you could save the world all the time, like even when you’re spending your well-deserved two weeks off on a tropical vacation, drinking cocktails and getting massages? No? Bear with me here.

What if you could do both? What if you could save the turtles and work on your tan? Maybe plant trees and trek through the rainforest? Never fear, that’s exactly where Volunteer International comes in. Consider it your one-stop shop for all do-gooder vacations. It has a search engine with links to all sorts of charity vacations.

Want to transport supplies to remote village in Niger? Here’s the place! For me, that tilts too far on the “do-gooder” end of the spectrum rather than “vacation,” but there’s more than a few opportunities we found that offer a good balance, here were some of our favorites:

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Every girl out there has a passion for lipstick and that’s a natural fact. From the rainbow of colors available to the shiny bullet-shaped tubes it’s packaged in, there’s nothing about lipstick we don’t love. Except for the fact that there are more ways to mess up your perfectly applied lip color than there are brands of cosmetics. Smooching, smoking, sucking down coffee (or a mid-morning cocktail, for that matter) - these are just a few of the ways that lipstick finds its way off your lips and onto blank surfaces of all kinds. Luckily, cosmetic companies have learned a lot about what us ladies are looking for in a lipstick since the days of old and have subsequently brought us one of the great inventions of the modern age: long wear lipstick.

Long wear lipstick is like mana from the Goddesses. A lipstick that stays on through kisses, cookies, and other various activities without fading or rubbing off? It’s utter genius! Why didn’t Edison invent it before the light bulb?
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There’s nothing quite like a cold beer on a hot summer day. Planning to serve a full-bodied Chardonnay with your Fourth of July barbecue? Of course not! That would be unpatriotic!

Of course, there’s beer, and then there’s beer. (And then there’s a hangover, but that’s another matter.) So when you’re stocking up for your summer imbuement - or even when you’re out on the town - what’s the best brew? And what’s best avoided?

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale seems nice and light (it’s called “pale” isn’t it?) but it actually has more than double the calories in your average light beer. One bottle clocks in at 210 calories. In fact, if you’re watching the calories and lucky enough to be in a bar with microbrews you don’t recognize, pretty much anything called “Stout” or “Pale Ale” or “IPA” or “Fat-Ass Beer” should best be avoided.

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Do you know what it’s like to be covered in dirt, worn into the ground, and scrubbed over until your nerves are just a messy tangle of split-ends? Do you how it feels to be walked all over by a feckless majority?! Then you know how those warped linoleum floors and threadbare carpets in your house have been feeling for the past 10 years. I can actually hear them crying for help out now. Yes, my dear, it’s time for you to get off your butt and do something kind for those poor excuses for flooring. And I don’t mean cleaning them. Again.

You need new floors and you need them now. Man cannot live on linoleum alone, no matter how spill resistant and easy to clean it may be. It’s just boring. As the great girl band Le Tigre once sang, “I’m so bored, I could be entertained even by a linoleum floor.” Amen, ladies.
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