5 reasons ridesharing is on the rise

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(BPT) – The rideshare industry has exploded in popularity over the past several years, with companies devoted to making transportation safe, reliable and enjoyable. At the swipe of a finger and tap of a button, you can hail a car through your smartphone. Within minutes, you are picked up at your desired location and whisked off to your final destination, whether it’s the grocery store, movie theater or the hottest restaurant in town.

Here are five reasons why millions of Americans are requesting a ride every day:

1. Owning and maintaining a car is expensive. At more than $9,000 per year, per household, a car is the second most expensive purchase Americans make, yet the average car in the U.S. gets only 4 percent utilization per day. The rideshare industry was born from the idea that by pairing drivers and passengers headed in the same general direction, not only is traffic significantly reduced, but car ownership ultimately becomes optional when you know you have a ride you can rely on.

2. It’s a safe way to get around. While pairing drivers and passengers who don’t know each other might seem unorthodox, thanks to stringent background checks, car safety checks and real-time ride tracking, hopping in an on-demand ride has become commonplace for people across the country. In fact, Lyft, the fastest growing rideshare service, currently covers 55 percent of the U.S. population, meaning 177 million people are able to request a safe, reliable ride every day. By the end of 2017, that number will increase to 231 million, or 72 percent of the country.

3. Ridesharing promotes community and economic growth. Not only is it an efficient way to get from point A to point B, ridesharing connects both people and communities. In 2016 alone, more than 162.5 million Lyft rides were taken. This opens the door for people who wouldn’t normally cross paths to share a car together. Drivers get to drop off passengers in neighborhoods they might not regularly venture to, and business owners serve customers that previously didn’t have easy access to their location. Ridesharing is a powerful driver of economic growth, encouraging local spending and pumping money back into the enrichment of neighborhoods.

4. As a driver, ridesharing provides an excellent source of income. Be it primary or supplementary, driving provides flexibility and allows people to own their schedules, clocking in and out when they want, where they want. From coast to coast, teachers, retirees, aspiring musicians and everyone in between is using ridesharing as a source of income. Lyft is the only platform that allows passengers to tip, with more than $150 million dollars going directly into the pockets of their drivers.

5. On-demand transportation is proven to reduce drunk driving. According to a recent study, 88 percent of passengers say they are more likely to avoid driving while impaired because of Lyft, and 53 percent of passengers use the platform to safely get friends and family home who are intoxicated. One tap of a button ultimately leads to saving lives by reducing the number of intoxicated drivers on the road.

Whether you’re a passenger or driver, ridesharing seeks to get you where you want to go, be it a final destination or a financial goal. Local communities deserve friendly, safe transportation they can rely on, and the rideshare industry is close to making that a reality for all people.

Let them live: Tips to help your Valentine’s flowers last longer

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(BPT) – Flowers and Valentine’s Day go together like heart and soul. Something about a bouquet of bright blooms just brings a smile to your face, and you want to stretch out the joy of your floral gift for as long as possible. Unfortunately, flowers are often as delicate as they are beautiful, so you’ll have to take some steps to ensure yours last.

The flower experts at 1-800-Flowers.com offer some tips for prolonging the life of your Valentine’s bouquet:

Keeping roses red (or pink or purple)

Roses are the number one flower choice for Valentine’s, with red, pink and purple being the most commonly given colors. Prized for their color, beauty and fragrance, roses need some special handling to look their best for as long as possible.

If your roses arrive in a gift box, open the box immediately and place the roses in tepid water until you’re ready to arrange them. Remember, roses are often shipped as tight buds so the flowers will bloom fully after they’ve reached their destination. Check to see if yours have green/white “guard petals” and if so, carefully remove them. With time and care, the buds will open into beautiful blooms.

When you’re ready to arrange your roses, fill a vase at least three-quarters full with fresh water and add flower food (follow the mixing instructions on the packet). Hold each stem under water and trim 1 to 2 inches off at an angle. Immediately add the trimmed rose to the vase. Change the water and re-cut the stems every two days or so to keep roses as fresh as possible.

If a rose starts to droop (called a “bent neck”), remove it from the arrangement, wrap it tightly in wet newspaper and leave the stem protruding. Fill a container with water and cut the drooping rose stem under the water. Leave the newspaper on, and place the rose by itself in a vase of warm water. After a few hours it should be standing straight again.

Love your tulips

Another commonly received Valentine’s flower, tulips herald spring and come in a variety of dazzling colors. Trim tulips as you would any other flower — under water and at an angle, removing an inch or so of stem.

You can easily create a full-looking arrangement for your tulips using some clear tape. Simply place thin strips of tape over the open top of a vase in a grid or checker board pattern, then arrange trimmed tulips to space them evenly throughout the grid. Add some greens, such as eucalyptus, for more color and fragrance.

If your tulips are bent, you can straighten them using the same newspaper trick that works on roses.

General flower care tips

Of course, roses and tulips are far from the only flowers given on Valentine’s. You may also receive lilies, gerbera, carnations, alstro, daisies, calla lilies or orchids — all commonly given flowers for the holiday. Generally, all cut flowers will benefit from these basic tips:

* Trim stems with a sharp knife or clippers as soon as you receive flowers. After a few days, trim again and change the water. Place your bouquet in a separate holder while you add warm water and flower food to the original vase.

* If you run out of packaged flower food, you can make your own. Fill a clear vase three-quarters full with bath-temperature warm water. Add one capful of household bleach, one capful of mouthwash and a teaspoon of sugar (or a capful of non-diet lemon-lime soda). The bleach helps kill bacteria and keeps the water clear. The mouthwash stabilizes the acidity of the water, and the sugar acts as a nutrient for the flowers.

* As you continue to trim stems and remove older flowers, your arrangement will start to look different. At this point, you can mix things up by putting flowers in a smaller container, or separating out the best looking blooms to place in a bud vase on your windowsill or night stand.

To learn more about flowers and for flower-care tips, visit 1-800-Flowers.com.

Let them live: Tips to help your Valentine’s flowers last longer

by

(BPT) – Flowers and Valentine’s Day go together like heart and soul. Something about a bouquet of bright blooms just brings a smile to your face, and you want to stretch out the joy of your floral gift for as long as possible. Unfortunately, flowers are often as delicate as they are beautiful, so you’ll have to take some steps to ensure yours last.

The flower experts at 1-800-Flowers.com offer some tips for prolonging the life of your Valentine’s bouquet:

Keeping roses red (or pink or purple)

Roses are the number one flower choice for Valentine’s, with red, pink and purple being the most commonly given colors. Prized for their color, beauty and fragrance, roses need some special handling to look their best for as long as possible.

If your roses arrive in a gift box, open the box immediately and place the roses in tepid water until you’re ready to arrange them. Remember, roses are often shipped as tight buds so the flowers will bloom fully after they’ve reached their destination. Check to see if yours have green/white “guard petals” and if so, carefully remove them. With time and care, the buds will open into beautiful blooms.

When you’re ready to arrange your roses, fill a vase at least three-quarters full with fresh water and add flower food (follow the mixing instructions on the packet). Hold each stem under water and trim 1 to 2 inches off at an angle. Immediately add the trimmed rose to the vase. Change the water and re-cut the stems every two days or so to keep roses as fresh as possible.

If a rose starts to droop (called a “bent neck”), remove it from the arrangement, wrap it tightly in wet newspaper and leave the stem protruding. Fill a container with water and cut the drooping rose stem under the water. Leave the newspaper on, and place the rose by itself in a vase of warm water. After a few hours it should be standing straight again.

Love your tulips

Another commonly received Valentine’s flower, tulips herald spring and come in a variety of dazzling colors. Trim tulips as you would any other flower — under water and at an angle, removing an inch or so of stem.

You can easily create a full-looking arrangement for your tulips using some clear tape. Simply place thin strips of tape over the open top of a vase in a grid or checker board pattern, then arrange trimmed tulips to space them evenly throughout the grid. Add some greens, such as eucalyptus, for more color and fragrance.

If your tulips are bent, you can straighten them using the same newspaper trick that works on roses.

General flower care tips

Of course, roses and tulips are far from the only flowers given on Valentine’s. You may also receive lilies, gerbera, carnations, alstro, daisies, calla lilies or orchids — all commonly given flowers for the holiday. Generally, all cut flowers will benefit from these basic tips:

* Trim stems with a sharp knife or clippers as soon as you receive flowers. After a few days, trim again and change the water. Place your bouquet in a separate holder while you add warm water and flower food to the original vase.

* If you run out of packaged flower food, you can make your own. Fill a clear vase three-quarters full with bath-temperature warm water. Add one capful of household bleach, one capful of mouthwash and a teaspoon of sugar (or a capful of non-diet lemon-lime soda). The bleach helps kill bacteria and keeps the water clear. The mouthwash stabilizes the acidity of the water, and the sugar acts as a nutrient for the flowers.

* As you continue to trim stems and remove older flowers, your arrangement will start to look different. At this point, you can mix things up by putting flowers in a smaller container, or separating out the best looking blooms to place in a bud vase on your windowsill or night stand.

To learn more about flowers and for flower-care tips, visit 1-800-Flowers.com.

4 bathroom design trends that marry luxury, beauty and sensibility

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(BPT) – When you’re ready to create the bathroom of your dreams, it’s no time to chase fads. You want design trends with enduring appeal, concepts that blend luxury, beauty, sensibility and eco-friendliness. Striking the perfect balance between indulgence and practicality can result in a bathroom where you’ll happily spend time getting ready to face the world or decompressing after a busy day.

As you’re planning your bathroom remodel, here are four 2017 bathroom design trends that are as smart as they are luxurious and lovely:

Rediscover cork

Chances are, if cork is already present in your home, it’s part of a bulletin board or nestled in the neck of your favorite bottle of wine. However, cork has many advantages as a design material, and it’s especially appealing in modern bathrooms.

Cork is a beautiful natural material. With a wide variety of colors, grains and textures, each piece of cork is a unique work of natural art. It’s naturally water resistant (although not water proof) and anti-microbial, so it combats mold and mildew in bathrooms. As a flooring material, it’s soft, warm texture is friendly to bare feet.

Finally, cork is exceptionally sustainable; it’s renewable, recyclable and biodegradable, and cork trees need not be cut down in order to harvest the material.

Win with wall-mount toilets

Already widely found in European homes, wall-mount toilets are gaining in popularity in the U.S. Wall-mount toilets offer many design advantages that are both beautiful and practical. Mounting a toilet on the wall allows greater design flexibility, and makes cleaning beneath and around the fixture easy. Great in any size bathroom, wall-mount toilets work particularly well in smaller spaces to create an uncluttered and open visual effect.

Leading manufacturers like TOTO offer wall-hung toilets that feature leading edge technology and eco-friendly elements. The newest addition to TOTO’s line of wall-mount toilets, the MH Wall-Hung High Efficiency Toilet, delivers an elegant appearance, powerful Dual-Max 3D Tornado flushing, a nano-technology glaze that repels waste and reduces the need for harsh cleansers, and a planet-loving 1.28 gallons per flush for solid waste and 0.9 gpf for liquid waste.

Delightful daylighting

The concept of daylighting — using natural light from multiple sources to illuminate a space — has been around for a while, and this is the year to welcome the trend into your bathroom. Incorporating natural light into a bathroom can help reduce electricity consumption, improve visibility, positively affect your mood, balance your internal clock and increase your home’s resale value.

Windows are the most common way to bring sunlight into a room. If your bathroom has an exterior wall that’s lacking a window, consider adding one. Windows with glass blocks or simple frosting on panes can allow you to enjoy sunlight while retaining privacy.

Skylights and tubular skylights are another tactic for bringing daylight into a bathroom. For rooms with direct roof access, professional skylight installation can be a cost-effective way to daylight the room. For ground-floor powder rooms and second-floor bathrooms with an attic above them, tubular skylights use reflective tubes and mirrors to transmit sunlight from the roof into the room.

Wonderful wet rooms

Showers, like TOTO’s Aero Shower System, have been trending toward larger and luxurious for some time now on the bathroom design scene. For a shower that truly stands out in terms of visual impact and luxurious experience, consider creating a wet room. Another bathroom design concept that’s popular abroad, modern wet room bathrooms eliminate shower doors, enhance accessibility, make cleaning easier and create a more expansive shower experience.

To turn your standard bathroom into a wet room, you’ll need to waterproof the walls and floors, and have the floor gently graded to lead to a central floor drain that carries excess water away. Whether you have a large bathroom or a smaller space, the wet room concept can make your bathroom look and feel bigger by eliminating shower stalls, doors and curtains that take up space.

The average mid-range bathroom remodel recoups more than 65 percent of its value upon resale, according to Remodeling Magazine’s Cost vs. Value Report. By choosing design trends that combine good sense with luxurious style, you can create a bathroom that will enhance your enjoyment of your home while increasing your home’s value.

4 bathroom design trends that marry luxury, beauty and sensibility

by

(BPT) – When you’re ready to create the bathroom of your dreams, it’s no time to chase fads. You want design trends with enduring appeal, concepts that blend luxury, beauty, sensibility and eco-friendliness. Striking the perfect balance between indulgence and practicality can result in a bathroom where you’ll happily spend time getting ready to face the world or decompressing after a busy day.

As you’re planning your bathroom remodel, here are four 2017 bathroom design trends that are as smart as they are luxurious and lovely:

Rediscover cork

Chances are, if cork is already present in your home, it’s part of a bulletin board or nestled in the neck of your favorite bottle of wine. However, cork has many advantages as a design material, and it’s especially appealing in modern bathrooms.

Cork is a beautiful natural material. With a wide variety of colors, grains and textures, each piece of cork is a unique work of natural art. It’s naturally water resistant (although not water proof) and anti-microbial, so it combats mold and mildew in bathrooms. As a flooring material, it’s soft, warm texture is friendly to bare feet.

Finally, cork is exceptionally sustainable; it’s renewable, recyclable and biodegradable, and cork trees need not be cut down in order to harvest the material.

Win with wall-mount toilets

Already widely found in European homes, wall-mount toilets are gaining in popularity in the U.S. Wall-mount toilets offer many design advantages that are both beautiful and practical. Mounting a toilet on the wall allows greater design flexibility, and makes cleaning beneath and around the fixture easy. Great in any size bathroom, wall-mount toilets work particularly well in smaller spaces to create an uncluttered and open visual effect.

Leading manufacturers like TOTO offer wall-hung toilets that feature leading edge technology and eco-friendly elements. The newest addition to TOTO’s line of wall-mount toilets, the MH Wall-Hung High Efficiency Toilet, delivers an elegant appearance, powerful Dual-Max 3D Tornado flushing, a nano-technology glaze that repels waste and reduces the need for harsh cleansers, and a planet-loving 1.28 gallons per flush for solid waste and 0.9 gpf for liquid waste.

Delightful daylighting

The concept of daylighting — using natural light from multiple sources to illuminate a space — has been around for a while, and this is the year to welcome the trend into your bathroom. Incorporating natural light into a bathroom can help reduce electricity consumption, improve visibility, positively affect your mood, balance your internal clock and increase your home’s resale value.

Windows are the most common way to bring sunlight into a room. If your bathroom has an exterior wall that’s lacking a window, consider adding one. Windows with glass blocks or simple frosting on panes can allow you to enjoy sunlight while retaining privacy.

Skylights and tubular skylights are another tactic for bringing daylight into a bathroom. For rooms with direct roof access, professional skylight installation can be a cost-effective way to daylight the room. For ground-floor powder rooms and second-floor bathrooms with an attic above them, tubular skylights use reflective tubes and mirrors to transmit sunlight from the roof into the room.

Wonderful wet rooms

Showers, like TOTO’s Aero Shower System, have been trending toward larger and luxurious for some time now on the bathroom design scene. For a shower that truly stands out in terms of visual impact and luxurious experience, consider creating a wet room. Another bathroom design concept that’s popular abroad, modern wet room bathrooms eliminate shower doors, enhance accessibility, make cleaning easier and create a more expansive shower experience.

To turn your standard bathroom into a wet room, you’ll need to waterproof the walls and floors, and have the floor gently graded to lead to a central floor drain that carries excess water away. Whether you have a large bathroom or a smaller space, the wet room concept can make your bathroom look and feel bigger by eliminating shower stalls, doors and curtains that take up space.

The average mid-range bathroom remodel recoups more than 65 percent of its value upon resale, according to Remodeling Magazine’s Cost vs. Value Report. By choosing design trends that combine good sense with luxurious style, you can create a bathroom that will enhance your enjoyment of your home while increasing your home’s value.

5 tips for safe space heater use

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(BPT) – During the coldest days of the year, space heaters are one of the easiest, most efficient ways to get warm fast. However, when not used correctly, they may also be one of the most dangerous.Space heaters accounted for 40 percent of all home hea…