1. People often feel overwhelmed during the holiday season. Social gatherings, gifts and family often all come together and this can be stressful because people feel pressured to do a number of things that they do not do as much during the year. Start planning early. This means now. Start thinking about which events you might be invited to attend and who you might need to buy presents for. Plan how much you want to spend on gifts. Consider shopping early so you won’t have to brave those hectic December crowds. Make up a list of gift ideas before you shop to cut down on the number of shopping trips you need to make.

2. Social events can be a gift as well as a burden. To help manage them, ask yourself a few questions. How many events do you feel obligated to attend? How many feel like a choice? How many are events that you really want to attend? Think now about what you are willing to do, what you want to do and what you feel obligated to do. Identifying the difference may give you some freedom about how to respond to invitations or requests from family and friends.

3. Do you have a “toxic” or unpleasant family member that you can’t avoid? What you can do is reduce time with people who bring you down. Accept that the unpleasant person may not change and that you can have a good time and avoid (or limit) engaging with someone who does not engender positive feelings. If you have to spend time with a toxic relative, try to be as pleasant as possible. Keep in mind that most events only lasts a limited time—and if you’re lucky, they only come around once a year.

4. Remember it’s okay to say, “No, I can’t.” You can’t do everything that people ask you to do during the holidays. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, politely but firmly say no. Keep the conversation short and cordial. You don’t need to go into all the reasons why you’re saying no. Still, it helps to have some handy just in case the person persists.

5. Get some exercise. At this time of year it may not be realistic to join the gym or start learning yoga (even though both of which are great ideas for health). But you can find simple easy to be more active. Park further away from your office and walk a little more to get there, for instance. Take a 10-minute break in your day and walk outside. If the weather is bad, walk up and down a few flights of stairs or around the hallways. Almost any kind of activity will help improve your mood.

6. Money causes stress even in the best of times. During the holidays it’s an even bigger issue for many people. These days, with lay-offs, furloughs and cut backs, many people are working at just getting their own needs met. To ease financial stress, set up a small savings plan for the holidays. Think of ways to cut back on other expenses—your afternoon latte, for instance, or a dinner out–and put that money in the holiday savings account.

7. Find some way to give back to your community. Giving your time can help you feel good about yourself and thankful for what you have. If you are low on cash, volunteer your time to help a non-profit.

8. Think about all that you have–not what you don’t have–and accept your life as it is today. Make a list of the people you’re grateful to in your life. Take the time during the holidays to let them know that you care about them.

9. Finally, consider seeking counseling services if you continue to feel anxious, overwhelmed, depressed or angry this holiday season. Asking for professional help is sometimes necessary if you have exhausted your family and friend support. If you feel down more often than you feel balanced or happy, cry more than you want to, feel sad and have no one to turn to for comfort, it’s time to seek professional help. If you “explode” in anger at anyone, it is time to seek professional assistance. A trained professional will help you make changes in your life and will work to understand you and your needs.

Lara Windett is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist & Certified Addiction Specialist who works with individuals, couples and teenagers in her private practice located in San Jose.

• A survey of 20,144 Brits this past November found that sex was “the most popular low-cost activity.”
• Traffic is up in a big way on dating websites such as eHarmony and Match.com
• The gay dating site Manhunt had its biggest one-day surge in membership last September 29–a day when the Dow crashed.
• Sex toy shops around the world report booming business.

At first glance, it may seem counterintuitive that sexual desire should perk up during times of stress and worry. But Quilliam notes a clever 1974 experiment in which men encounter an attractive woman who gives them her telephone number. Males from one group encounter her on a rope bridge 200 feet above a river. The others are on solid ground when she invites them to call. Over 60 percent of the men on the perilously swinging rope bridge called her, the scientists found, versus only 30 percent of those safely on terra firma–suggesting that a sense of anxiety sharpened their erotic interest.

Too much worry and anxiety, of course, can turn off sexual interest, other research shows, and may also affect performance and satisfaction. Couples exhausted from working long hours under a cloud of financial worries may not have much interest in a romp under the covers at the end of a long day. Then again, as the British survey respondents noted, sex offers cheap entertainment–unless, of course, you get stuck picking up the tab for that fancy dinner out on Valentine’s Day.

© 2009 PDQhealth

Pack a rubber door stop (available at any hardware store). Locks and deadbolts can be forced open, but it’s almost impossible to open a door jammed with a rubber stop.

Wear a wedding ring (even if you’re not married.) Women are less likely to be hassled if a trouble-maker thinks a husband may be just around the corner.

Bring along boxer shorts if you’re a woman traveling alone. Boxers? If someone you don’t know knocks on the door, don’t open it first. Instead, turn on the shower, shut the bathroom door, and toss the boxer shorts on the floor. The person at your door, seeing the boxers and hearing the shower, will assume there’s a man in the bathroom. (Who else would leave a pair of boxers tossed on the floor, right?)

For information about travelers’ insurance, check out Medex.

“Just sauté them in olive oil with a little garlic and a few red pepper flakes,” offers a fellow shopper browsing at this crowded outdoor market stall. “They’re wonderful.”

“Or simmer them up into a soup,” another says. “I’ve even put them in vegetarian lasagna. Just be careful of the nettles.”

It’s nine-thirty in the morning. Fog still shrouds the city. But the stalls of San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza Farmers Market are humming with activity. Shoppers clutch cups of hot coffee and browse through bins overflowing with the season’s bounty: plump tomatoes, fat round pears, fresh garlic, figs, cucumbers and opulent heads of cauliflower.

A tasty destination anywhere you travel

The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is just one of an estimated 4,000 farmers markets operating around the country–from the Union Square Greenmarket in the heart of Manhattan to Kapiolani Community College Farmers Market in Honolulu, Hawaii. All of them celebrate the bounty of regional farms and the virtues of buying local produce. Farmers markets everywhere reflect the unique character of the places they call home, from the wild mushrooms and smoked Pacific salmon on sale at the Portland Farmers Market to pine nuts and hot chili peppers hawked at the Austin Farmers Market in Texas. The best of them help preserve local farms and support sustainable agricultural practices designed to keep soil fertile and water uncontaminated.

Wherever you travel, it’s worth checking out the local farmers market, not only to cast your vote for a vital local agriculture but to get a grassroots sense of the place and its people.

Our favorite farmers market

Of course we think the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco is something special. Arrayed on three sides of the newly-restored ferry building, the market looks out on sweeping views of the Bay Bridge as it arches across white-capped waters to Yerba Buena Island and then on to Berkeley and Oakland. Where an ill-planned and unsightly elevated highway once stood, a wide boulevard lined with palm trees now stretches along the embarcadero in front of the ferry building. With an estimated 30,000 people crowding into the market on a busy Saturday, locals use the statue of Gandhi that presides over the plaza as a meeting place—a perfect emblem for a city once synonymous with peace and love. These days, though, hippies have given way to foodies, and the Ferry Plaza market has become their Mecca.

When the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake struck, halting the World Series, toppling houses and collapsing highways and sections of the Bay Bridge, an elevated highway in front of the ferry building sustained extensive damage. At exactly 5:04, the moment the quake shattered the city’s peace, the clock in the ferry building’s prominent tower stopped. For almost a decade it remained frozen at that time while the ferry building underwent repairs–an unsettling reminder of the city’s precarious perch not far from the San Andreas fault. Now the clock keeps time again, presiding over the restored ferry building and the transformed neighborhood around it, a symbol of the city’s indomitable resilience.

History, physical beauty, and renewed urban spirit come together to make the setting special by any measure. The Bay Area may embraces an agricultural region of unparalleled diversity, blessed with a mild Mediterranean climate that allows local farmers to bring fresh fruit and vegetables to market all year round. Within a radius of 150 miles, a remarkable range of microclimates favors almost everything under the sun. To the east and south lie the sun-struck fields of the Central Valley, famous for artichokes, garlic, nuts, and a cornucopia of other produce. Up north, cows and goats graze the rolling pasturelands of Marin. Mild ocean breezes there create cool conditions ideal for raising leafy green vegetables and pinot noir grapes. Nearby Tomales Bay produces some of the most succulent oysters around, while the fishermen of Bodega Bay, a little farther north, haul in generous harvests of Dungeness crab and salmon. Inland, the valleys of Sonoma, Napa, and Sacramento enjoy hot summer days and cool nights, the ideal conditions for growing some of the world’s finest grapes, as well as tomatoes, squash, kale, beans, peas, cauliflower, apples, pears, and figs.

Why farmers markets matter

Special? You bet. But there’s something special at almost any farmers market, anywhere in the country. Many of the country’s leading food writers and top nutritionists urge shoppers to leave the grocery store and head to the farmers market whenever they can. Why?

Freshness, taste and variety, for starters. At most farmers markets, growers pick their produce the afternoon before they sell it, making it far fresher than most anything on sale at large grocery stores, with their long distribution chains. Truly fresh produce tastes better and stays fresher longer, the experts say. It may also pack more nutrition, some studies show. Farmers markets typically feature heirloom varieties—cultivars of tomatoes, potatoes, apples, pears and other produce that were developed to suit growing conditions in specific regions. A century ago, more than a hundred different apples and nearly as many varieties of tomatoes grew around the US. Many of these heirloom varieties all but disappeared from markets as large-scale farmers settled on two or three varieties that had the virtues of being easy to grow and ship. Small farmers, because they sell locally, don’t have to worry about shipability. They can choose varieties that look and taste terrific—the virtues that really matter when you’re selecting food.

Loyal customers at farmers markets are willing to pay a little extra for an extraordinarily ripe and flavorful tomato or head of lettuce. That, in turn, makes it possible for small farmers to experiment not only with growing unusual varieties but also with innovative techniques for organic and sustainable agriculture. Spend a few hours kibitzing among the stalls and you’re certain to overhear growers comparing notes on techniques they’ve tried in order to keep snails from devouring their lettuces or aphids from spoiling their pears or tomatoes. In many areas, growers have gone beyond official organic standards to embrace biodynamic and other farming methods that attempt to create self-sustaining ecosystems, using as little energy as possible and recycling virtually everything on the farm.

“Sustainable agriculture isn’t just a sideline here. It’s the reason this market exists,” says Christine Farren, events director for the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, which hosts the Ferry Plaza market. “We’re here to encourage a greater understanding of how food is produced, to help foster a connection between farm and market and table.”

Indeed, farmers markets like this one keep many small farms in business.

“If it weren’t for the customers at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, we wouldn’t exist,” says Brandon Ross, of Ella Bella Farms, one of the most popular vendors at the Ferry Plaza market. He can sell wholesale quantities of the farm’s produce here at retail prices, making 80 cents on the dollar rather than the 20 cents he would might earn selling to grocery chains. What’s more, his customers—including chefs from top-tier restaurants like Chez Panisse, Rubicon, Zuni Café, Greens, Hayes Street Grill and Boulevard—come to him every Saturday and Tuesday, sparing him the expense of time and trouble to make individual deliveries. “That means we can spend more of our time farming and keep our costs down.

And because the market goes year-round, we can offer our workers a steady job at good pay.” That matters deeply to a man whose deep roots in Bay Area agriculture tap both a heritage of political activism and a strong environmental ethic. Ross’s grandfather was a labor organizer and mentor to Cesar Chavez, who started the Farm Workers Union. Ross himself studied sustainable agriculture at the University of California. “I went into farming to meld those two worlds, to give farm workers a fair wage and a healthy working environment, and to protect the soil and land and the heritage of small farms like ours,” he says. “We couldn’t do that without the Ferry Plaza market.”

Sweeping vistas, icons of boom-and-bust history, and a half day’s worth of gallery hopping and browsing, plus trails to seaside bluffs, a gentle beach, and shady woods—not too bad for a lane just five blocks long.

But that’s Main Street in Mendocino, Calif. Start at the handsome Presbyterian church with its landmark steeple, built of redwood in 1868, when the village’s timber industry was churning full bore to supply a burgeoning San Francisco. As you cross the street, admire the 1866 Masonic Hall topped by Father Time and the Maiden, a somber statue carved from a single redwood trunk.

Farther down Main, choose among enticements in some two dozen plank-sided storefronts: fine photos and paintings at the Artists’ Co-op, homespun stitchery at Ocean Quilts, and charming books for children at the Gallery Bookshop. Or amble along to view (but not enter) a private garden with 50 kinds of flowers and a jumble of wondrous sculptures including mannequin legs in running shoes.

Be sure to hit the Kelley House, built in 1861 and now a museum with photographs showing the village as it has evolved through the decades. When you need to sit for a spell, stop to sip wine at the wood-paneled bar in the Mendocino Hotel and gaze up at its domed stained-glass ceiling. Or rub elbows with the locals at Dick’s Place, a popular pub decked out with vintage pictures and the town’s one neon sign—a martini glass.

Hungry? The Bay View Café lives up to its name and serves tasty fresh fish sandwiches. After eating, stroll along the rocky headlands or follow the stairs from near the church down to the beach. Ramble into the redwoods on the newly opened trail along Big River, a tidal estuary rich in wildlife.

WHERE IT IS
Three hours north of San Francisco on Highway 1.

WHO WILL LIKE IT
Handcraft hunters, art and nature lovers.

WHEN TO GO
Starting in April, the Kelley House Museum offers one-to-two-hour walking tours Friday through Monday. Information: (707) 937-5791

First thing Monday mornings, Gary Meyer climbs the clock tower of the Mariposa County Courthouse and gives the clock crank exactly 52 turns. “Fifty-two on Monday, 45 on Wednesday, 40 on Friday,” says Meyer, an employee in the Department of Public Works. “It’s not the most glamorous job in the world.” Still, he’s doing more than keeping a clock running. He’s also keeping history alive.

The courthouse has stood on this grassy rise above the town of Mariposa, Calif., since 1854, when the glitter of gold lured tens of thousands of prospectors to the Sierra. At that time, the young state urgently needed courts to settle sometimes violent disputes over mining claims. Much of the nation’s Mining Law of 1872 was written here, in the sugar pine–paneled chambers where lawyers argue cases today; this is the oldest county courthouse in continuous use in California.

Like its courthouse, Mariposa, located about 40 miles northeast of Merced on Highway 140, balances the past and present with grace. The downtown preserves more than a dozen buildings that early prospectors would have known well. Stroll by the Schlageter Hotel and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall, both rebuilt in 1867 after a fire swept through the frontier town. Small wonder that the 1858 jail remains standing: Its granite walls are two feet thick. From a wooded hill nearby, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, dedicated in 1863, presides with austere beauty. The graveyard behind, dotted with headstones that often mark tragically short lives, attests to the hardships faced by early pioneers, many of them immigrants.

Mariposa is far more than a museum, though. Its handsomely restored Gold Rush era buildings house a lively collection of galleries for local painters and photographers, several fine restaurants, an artisan doll maker, a shop that sells locally handmade shoes, and a whatever-you-need-we-got-it hardware store. You’ll also see the offices of the Mariposa Gazette, the state’s oldest weekly newspaper that hasn’t missed an edition since it began printing, the same year the courthouse was built.

A few blocks north of the old downtown, the Mariposa Museum and History Center provides glimpses of what the place must have looked and felt like during the time of the forty-niners. Items donated by pioneer families fill the exhibits, which include recreations of two early saloons plus a drugstore, one-room schoolhouse, and prospector’s cabin. Scattered throughout are excerpts from letters written by Horace Snow, a miner who came to Mariposa from Massachusetts in 1854. One of them describes another kind of rush, when mail for homesick miners arrived at the post office: “We were all crowded up around the counter six or eight deep and the person that stood next to me was so excited that I could feel his heart beat against my side.”

A carefully preserved stamp mill on the museum’s grounds, once used to crush quartz for gold, still operates on occasion; its five half-ton weights drop through scaffolding with a chest-thumping boom. “Back in the 1850s, when dozens of stamp mills were operating, people could find their way to Mariposa just by the noise they made,” explains Ron Loya, a mining expert.

At the fairgrounds, 1.8 miles south of town, the California State Mining and Mineral Museum displays a dazzling collection of items from around the world, including California’s state gemstone. Any guesses? It’s benitoite, named after San Benito County, the only place in the world where large deposits of this blue stone can be found. The museum also boasts a 175-foot replica of a mine tunnel and a working miniature stamp mill.

Take a break from local history and check out the new nature walk on the banks of Mariposa Creek a block west of downtown. For longer hikes, the county has trails aplenty. In spring, brilliant displays of wildflowers dot the landscape. You’re likely to find hummingbirds, since the area is a popular flyway. The name Mariposa means “butterfly” in Spanish, which is fitting; warm weather also brings the colorful flutter of thousands of butterflies. For today’s visitors, as for those of yesteryear, the region’s natural beauty is as good as gold.

irst thing Monday mornings, Gary Meyer climbs the clock tower of the Mariposa County Courthouse and gives the clock crank exactly 52 turns. “Fifty-two on Monday, 45 on Wednesday, 40 on Friday,” says Meyer, an employee in the Department of Public Works. “It’s not the most glamorous job in the world.” Still, he’s doing more than keeping a clock running. He’s also keeping history alive.

The courthouse has stood on this grassy rise above the town of Mariposa, Calif., since 1854, when the glitter of gold lured tens of thousands of prospectors to the Sierra. At that time, the young state urgently needed courts to settle sometimes violent disputes over mining claims. Much of the nation’s Mining Law of 1872 was written here, in the sugar pine–paneled chambers where lawyers argue cases today; this is the oldest county courthouse in continuous use in California.

Like its courthouse, Mariposa, located about 40 miles northeast of Merced on Highway 140, balances the past and present with grace. The downtown preserves more than a dozen buildings that early prospectors would have known well. Stroll by the Schlageter Hotel and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall, both rebuilt in 1867 after a fire swept through the frontier town. Small wonder that the 1858 jail remains standing: Its granite walls are two feet thick. From a wooded hill nearby, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, dedicated in 1863, presides with austere beauty. The graveyard behind, dotted with headstones that often mark tragically short lives, attests to the hardships faced by early pioneers, many of them immigrants.

Mariposa is far more than a museum, though. Its handsomely restored Gold Rush era buildings house a lively collection of galleries for local painters and photographers, several fine restaurants, an artisan doll maker, a shop that sells locally handmade shoes, and a whatever-you-need-we-got-it hardware store. You’ll also see the offices of the Mariposa Gazette, the state’s oldest weekly newspaper that hasn’t missed an edition since it began printing, the same year the courthouse was built.

A few blocks north of the old downtown, the Mariposa Museum and History Center provides glimpses of what the place must have looked and felt like during the time of the forty-niners. Items donated by pioneer families fill the exhibits, which include recreations of two early saloons plus a drugstore, one-room schoolhouse, and prospector’s cabin. Scattered throughout are excerpts from letters written by Horace Snow, a miner who came to Mariposa from Massachusetts in 1854. One of them describes another kind of rush, when mail for homesick miners arrived at the post office: “We were all crowded up around the counter six or eight deep and the person that stood next to me was so excited that I could feel his heart beat against my side.”

A carefully preserved stamp mill on the museum’s grounds, once used to crush quartz for gold, still operates on occasion; its five half-ton weights drop through scaffolding with a chest-thumping boom. “Back in the 1850s, when dozens of stamp mills were operating, people could find their way to Mariposa just by the noise they made,” explains Ron Loya, a mining expert.

At the fairgrounds, 1.8 miles south of town, the California State Mining and Mineral Museum displays a dazzling collection of items from around the world, including California’s state gemstone. Any guesses? It’s benitoite, named after San Benito County, the only place in the world where large deposits of this blue stone can be found. The museum also boasts a 175-foot replica of a mine tunnel and a working miniature stamp mill.

Take a break from local history and check out the new nature walk on the banks of Mariposa Creek a block west of downtown. For longer hikes, the county has trails aplenty. In spring, brilliant displays of wildflowers dot the landscape. You’re likely to find hummingbirds, since the area is a popular flyway. The name Mariposa means “butterfly” in Spanish, which is fitting; warm weather also brings the colorful flutter of thousands of butterflies. For today’s visitors, as for those of yesteryear, the region’s natural beauty is as good as gold.

We were on our way.

In two days of dallying around the lake—a circuit of about 60 miles—we discovered a region steeped in history but changing fast, with weathered cabin-style motels and upscale bed-and-breakfasts, funky antique shops and impressive lakeside estates. OUr first stop: Kelseyville, west of the lake. The town won’t celebrate its Pear Festival until harvesttime in September, but in spring you can revel in the flowering pear trees that line both sides of Main Street and savor spicy pear cake at Marcie’s Brick Grill in Kelseyville’s oldest commercial building (it dates to 1872). When the United States argued over the issue of drinking a century ago, one side of Main Street was wet, the other dry. Happily, that controversy has long since been settled, and one of the area’s best wineries, Wildhurst, has an elegant tasting room downtown. There we sampled a gold medal winner from the 2005 California State Fair, a jammy, softly rounded 2002 zinfandel.

More than a dozen other wineries dot the lakeshore. We sipped a smooth cabernet sauvignon at Tulip Hill Winery, which hosts a tulip festival with 25,000 flowers every April. Steele Wines offered up a pinot noir that we loved in spite of its unnerving name—Writer’s Block. And we lingered at Ceago Del Lago, where the shaded courtyards and splashing fountains reflect Mediterranean influences on three-quarters of a mile of lakefront. Owner Jim Fetzer, formerly president of Fetzer Vineyards, oversees an operation in which the winery’s grapes are grown biodynamically—a partly scientific, partly mystical approach that makes organic farming seem, well, conventional. Call ahead to schedule a tour and you’ll learn about practical, self-sustaining farming techniques, such as using chickens to control cutworms, and more celestial rituals like composting schedules timed to lunar cycles.

In Lakeport we dipped our toes in the water off the beach at Library Park, where you can sit in a graceful Victorian era gazebo. Nearby, we visited the Lake County Historical Courthouse Museum’s fine collection of Indian artifacts, including baskets so tightly woven they were originally used to hold water. Then, with a hankering to do some collecting of my own, we headed 10 miles north to Upper Lake and the First & Main Antique Mall: almost a dozen rooms filled with photographs, pottery, kitchen gadgets, books, lamps, and all things collectible.

Owner Tony Oliveira, a former competitive sharpshooter known for his quick draw, smacks of history himself. “I’d fire two shots and they’d call me a liar,” he said. “I had to open the gun to show ’em two bullets were gone.” Ask nicely and he’ll take you to his cache of museum-quality cowboy memorabilia, including gorgeously tooled saddles and holsters, fancy pistols, rifles, and vintage clothing. “That saddle there,” he said, pointing to his prize piece, “that belonged to Pancho Villa.”

We weren’t about to argue with a sharpshooter.

The lake’s eastern shore offers panoramic views of blue water and Mount Konocti, a dormant volcano covered in lush forest. Birdwatchers flock to Anderson Marsh State Historic Park, at the lake’s southern end, to see white pelicans, western grebes, and belted kingfishers. Not far away, the sprawling Konocti Harbor Resort and Spa is just the place to get a mud wrap or attend a concert that will explain whatever happened to your favorite aging rockers, from Peter Frampton to Heart.

For dinner, we backtracked to Upper Lake and the Blue Wing Saloon’s wood-paneled dining room, where you’ll find generous portions of unpretentious food: grilled fish, braised short ribs, and pesto pasta with locally grown walnuts. We would have lingered over dessert, but we wanted to get back to the family-friendly Edgewater Resort in Kelseyville for sunset. Sitting on the dock, watching the slow-motion dance of a stately heron fishing along the shore, we thought back to something Jim Fetzer had said as we gazed at the lake from Ceago Del Lago. “Everything about this place just feels alive,” he said. “Who wouldn’t love it?”