Salads, at their simplest, are a mix of some really good things. Lettuce or spinach. Carrots. Tomatoes. Cucumber. Veggies of all sorts gather here to offer you their goodness. But if you’re keeping them naked, you might be missing the best of what they have to offer.
“Salad dressing is wonderful,” says Karen From, nutrition and health education specialist with the University of Missouri Extension Office. “And it tastes really good.”

Finally, it’s time for a break. The weather’s great. You’ve worked hard all year. You deserve a vacation. And an extra glass of wine. And a second scoop of ice cream. And a bite of funnel cake won’t hurt, right? You’re on vacation. You’ve earned it. Or you will, in weight, at least, if you’re not careful while being carefree.

You know that smell? When you walk into a space, and someone has cleaned? It’s a little overwhelming, maybe it gives you a headache, but you also know the job’s been done. But maybe you don’t want the chemicals in those household cleaners hanging around your home. “A lot of our customers are concerned about the toxins in the air, the toxins in the water, the toxins everywhere,” says Jim Fly, owner of A-Z’s FreshAir Fare Natural Market. “They really have detox on the mind.”

You know how people are always saying not to wear white after Labor Day?
Let’s consider that the least of your worries.
What about how to wear white and not look like a stained restaurant napkin? What about how to wear white and not hear “I see London, I see France ...” every time you stand up? And what about how to wear white and not look like you’ll be leaving port soon, or want to take someone’s temperature, or are about to conduct tests on lab rats?
In honor of the summer’s favorite color, here are some tips on wearing white and looking bright.

For Russell Book, athletics and activities director at Lafayette High School, there’s nothing better than walking laps on the school’s track, the grass cut nicely, the air beginning to warm.
There’s nothing better, except maybe that it’s free.
“The public is welcome to walk and run on the track,” he says.
This winter, you’ve had no end of excuses about why you can’t work out.
It’s too cold. There’s too much snow. You can’t afford a gym membership. You lost your power. There’s too much snow. There’s too much snow. There’s too much snow.
But the weather’s better now, and with those warm temps come the perfect cure to your workout excuses — the free outdoors.

Something interesting happened to the people at Christ Church Unity in North Kansas City a few years ago.
Their pastor, the Rev. Will Bowen, challenged them to go 21 days without complaining. They were given purple bracelets and if they caught themselves complaining, they were to move the bracelet to the next wrist and start their count all over again.
While the people at acomplaintfreeworld.org say it actually can take between four and 10 months to make it a whole 21 days without complaining, gossiping or being critical, the movement has caught on across the world. According to the organization, which operates as a non-profit, non-religious entity, 4,954,938 bracelets have been distributed.

Will Stuck stares hard at the plastic cup in front of him, his eyes level with the water that fills the cup to the top.
Please work, he’s thinking. Please work.
“OK,” he says. “We’re gonna try it.”
All around him, kids lean in, staring hard at the plastic cup, too.
Will takes a swirly green marble between his fingers, rolls it over the cup’s edge and lets go.
No water spills.
Awesome.
Will adds more marbles, then pennies, quarters and dimes, but the water doesn’t spill. It rises, an invisible skin over it creating a dome best seen at eye level.
Will slides a quarter in.
“Cha-ching,” says Noah Hutchison, 7, at Will’s side.

Two sets of lungs sit side by side at Union Station. One set are the lungs of a smoker, blackened with nicotine. The other set are the lungs of a non-smoker, still pink after death.
Both lungs are real, not models created to discourage smoking. And both offer a closer look at the human body as part of Bodies Revealed at the Bank of America Grand Gallery at Union Station.
The exhibit, which features real human bodies that have gone through a process called polymer preservation, opened Feb. 29 and will run through Sept. 1.

In November of 2004, a man in Washington D.C. handed out blank postcards to strangers, asking them to decorate them and to include a secret. Soon, those postcards came back to Frank Warren. He displayed them in an art show. The art show ended, but the secrets didn’t.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a ... what was that? The guy upstairs is blasting Linkin Park again? Oh man, the property manager is knocking on the door because rent is late? You need to hide the cat? And your cousin who’s not on the lease?
Not a beautiful day in any neighborhood, and perhaps one that can be avoided all together.
Three area property mangers offer some advice on how to get along well with both them and your neighbors. Mostly, it takes common sense, agree Michelle Phillips at Chatsworth Apartments, Sandy Johnson at Broadmoor Apartments and Angie Bridger at Northwest Terrace Apartments.