Prospective homebuyers list hardwood flooring as one of their most-sought-after features when they begin shopping for a new home.

Hardwood is timeless, beautiful, and resilient. If properly cared for, a hardwood floor can last upwards of 100 years. But have you ever wondered how your home’s indoor environment affects hardwood flooring?

Incontinent pets, children’s toys, high-heeled shoes, spills, and a busy family can all cause damage to a hardwood floor, but the greatest threat your floor faces may be the environmental factors that you can’t see.

As a natural product (it is wood, after all), hardwood flooring is extremely susceptible to changes in temperature and humidity. Installing a hardwood floor in a geographic region where temperatures and humidity fluctuate wildly from one season to the next can be a tricky endeavor.

If your flooring contractor installs the planks too closely to the walls without allowing room for the wood to expand and contract, there is a strong probability that your flooring may begin to peak during humid months. Alternatively, when the humidity drops, you may notice unsightly gaps between the planks.

Let’s face it; having hardwood floors installed in your home costs a pretty penny. If you choose the wrong contractor or you pick a wood species that doesn’t react well to fluctuations in temperature and humidity, thousands of your hard-earned dollars might end up in the nearest landfill.

It’s in your best interest as a homeowner and a consumer to do your homework on individual wood species, the Janka scale (the Janka scale measures how much pressure a wood species can handle before denting occurs), and how the geographic region you live in may affect the longevity and beauty of your hardwood floors. Hardwood flooring in a home in Michigan won’t react the same way to seasonal changes as a home in south Florida will.

Any longtime resident of the Great Lakes State can attest to the fact that summertime in Michigan is often a fleeting and all-too-brief affair; it almost seems as if we Michiganders go from boating, fishing, barbequing, and watching Tigers games at Comerica Park to shoveling snow overnight.

After enduring six months of snow, slush, and frigid temperatures, the last place most Michigan residents want to spend their time is indoors. Now that the first day of summer is officially less than three weeks away, it’s probably safe to trade in your windshield scraper and snow shovel for a beach towel and your favorite pair of shades.

Michigan has a longstanding reputation for being a winter wonderland, but many people don’t realize there are plenty of places to see and activities to enjoy during Michigan’s warmer months, too. Whether you enjoy the serenity of reading a good book while listening to the two-note call of a common loon on one of Michigan’s many lakes or you prefer the action of riding the rapids in your kayak, you can rest assured that Michigan has a summer vacation hot spot that’s perfect for you and your loved ones.

To help you plan your best-ever summer vacation, we put together a list of five of the most popular summer vacation hot spots Michigan has to offer.

There’s no better place to get in touch with nature than in the Keweenaw Peninsula. Located in Michigan’s rugged Copper Country, the Keweenaw Peninsula boasts white sand beaches, miles of beautiful coastline overlooking the picturesque waters of Lake Superior, and one of America’s few island national parks.

Isle Royale—accessible only by boat or seaplane—has 244 campsites and 165 miles of hiking trails to appeal to even the most adventurous wilderness explorers. You can visit Isle Royale at any time between mid-May and September, but you will need to call ahead to verify with the park ranger that there are still camping permits available.

For more information, visit the National Park Service’s website at https://www.nps.gov/isro/index.htm

Conveniently located between Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Detroit, the Brighton Howell Area has twenty golf courses, 123 miles of trails, 184 lakes, and more than 50,000 acres of parks for you and your loved ones to explore.

When the day is done and your stomach begins to rumble, head to downtown Howell to enjoy the fare at one of Howell’s eateries and a pint from one of the area’s craft breweries. Howell’s residents and business owners take great pride in the downtown area.

Howell received the 2018 Great American Main Street Award from Main Street America, a nonprofit subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Only 600 people lay claim to a year-round residence on Mackinac Island, but Mackinac (pronounced Mack-in-awe) is one of the most popular vacation spots for residents of the Great Lakes state.

You’ll have to travel to Mackinac Island via ferry—automobiles are not allowed on the island—but the trip is well worth the scenic views and 19th Century charm you’ll find on the front porch of Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel. Once there, you can spend your days touring the Island’s 3.8 square miles via horse-drawn carriage or by bicycle.

Visitors to Mackinac Island can spend their days golfing, shopping, and eating creamy, delicious fudge from one of the Island’s many candy makers.

Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes is a popular tourist destination perched some 400 feet above the pristine waters of Lake Michigan’s northwestern shoreline not far from Traverse City. Camping, canoeing inland lakes, bird watching, and hiking a trove of beautiful trails are just a few of the activities that visitors to Sleeping Bear Dunes enjoy during the summer months.

Well known for its wine tours, four-star dining establishments, bed-and-breakfast lodging, and the National Cherry Festival, Traverse City is four-season playground for visitors from around the Midwest.

For more information on Traverse City vacation ideas, visit https://www.michigan.org/city/traverse-city

You may not hold the secret to preventing global nuclear proliferation, but that doesn’t mean you can’t become a catalyst for positive change. Benevolence doesn’t require you to have the answer to all of the world’s ills, only that you be willing to take actions that lead to positive results in the lives of others.

If you want to change the world but you aren’t quite sure how to, here’s a list of five ways you can make a difference in the world, starting right in your local community.

Blood: everyone has some, and some people are in dire need of more. You could literally save a person’s life by making a deposit at your local blood bank, so there’s really no excuse not to donate blood. If you become squeamish at the sight of a hypodermic needle, close your eyes or direct your attention elsewhere while the phlebotomist draws your blood.

Underprivileged youth, senior citizens, and those suffering from limited mobility could always use a helping hand. You can make a big difference in the overall day-to-day quality of a person’s life by assisting him or her with a task they may not otherwise be physically able to do alone.

If you have an elderly neighbor that has trouble hauling their trash and recycling bins to and from the curb each week, take a few moments out of your day to help that person.

Many charitable organizations depend on the local community to provide hands-on assistance to achieve the organization’s goals. Churches, food banks, senior centers, and animal shelters always need an extra set of hands, so don’t be shy about reaching out to organizations in your neighborhood.

A community’s public parks, recreation areas, shorelines, and roadways always look much nicer when the residents band together to complete a beautification project. Gather a group of like-minded friends or family members to assist you in collecting trash, planting trees and flowers, or trimming overgrown vegetation so you can keep America looking beautiful.

Spending your hard-earned dollars with locally based businesses is a great way to make a difference in your local community. Locally based retailers depend on the community to keep their businesses alive. When you shop local, the money you spend strengthens the community because a portion of those dollars goes on to support other businesses owned and operated by people living in your area.

Choosing to eat at a restaurant owned by someone in your community strengthens your community’s tax base and the symbiotic nature of locally based businesses and the residents that support those business’s endeavors.

Have you ever wondered what all the chemicals listed on the back of soda cans do to your innards? Chances are you probably have.

The folks at Harvard University wondered what those chemicals do, too. Findings from a 2012 study conducted at Harvard showed that participants who consumed the most soda had a twenty percent higher chance of developing heart disease than their less soda-addicted counterparts and participants who drank the most soda had a twenty percent higher chance of having a massive heart attack.

Soda’s Negative Effects on the Brain

A study conducted by the Department of Neurological Science at UCLA found that test subjects who consumed a diet high in sugar and fat had decreased spatial learning abilities and a greater instance of plaque buildup in the brain.

Scientists have linked increased plaque buildup in the brain to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and other memory-related illnesses that dramatically decrease people’s quality of life.

Soda’s Negative Effects on Teeth

It’s no secret that soda is terrible for your teeth. In fact, soda is so bad for your teeth that the Department of Restorative Dentistry at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, found that people who drank excessive quantities of soda pop over an extended period experienced the same degree of dental erosion as people addicted to meth and crack cocaine.

If you’ve never seen a chronic meth abuser’s grin, trust us when we tell you that you don’t want your smile to resemble the mouth of a chronic drug abuser; nobody looks good with a mouth full of rotten teeth.

Soda’s Negative Effects on Your Weight

If increased plaque buildup in your brain and your teeth falling out of your head isn’t enough to make you stop drinking soda pop, consider the negative effects soda has your waistline; research shows that removing one Coca-Cola from your diet each day would decrease your annual caloric intake by upwards of 200,000 calories—the equivalent of sixty pounds of weight loss.

Soda’s Negative Effects on Your Overall Health

A 2014 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that soda drinkers’ immune cells have shorter telomeres than the immune cells of non-soda drinkers. For those of you who are unfamiliar with telomeres and what they do, telomeres are protective units situated at the end of your chromosomes. The shorter your telomeres, the faster you age, increasing your risk of sicknesses.

Another major pitfall associated with drinking sugary sodas is the increased chance of developing Type-2 diabetes and other chronic health issues such as obesity and cancer. Plain and simple, giving up soda is one of the simplest lifestyle changes you can make to improve your health and wellness.

Every year on the last Monday in May, Americans gather together at parades, festivals, and family parties to honor our fallen military heroes who selflessly gave their lives in the line of duty.

The tradition of Memorial Day remembrance is one that is near and dear to our hearts and roots as a country, but we’re willing to bet that there are some interesting things you may not know about this special occasion.

In light of that, here are six cool Memorial Day facts you may not know.

Traditions of remembering fallen heroes date back to the days of ancient Greeks and Romans. Each year, graves of loved ones were adorned with flowers, and festivals were held to show honor to the dead. Similar events were also done in Athens with one of the first known celebrations held to honor Pericles, a strong Athenian general. The first Memorial Day in America began in the 19th century.

One of the earliest and documented ceremonies were held by over 1,000 freed slaves on May 1st, 1865. Groups of colored troops, such as the 54th Infantry, joined the newly freed men and sang hymns while distributing flowers among the tombstones in the cemetery. This event occurred near the end of the Civil War.

Before Memorial Day was actually called Memorial Day, General John A. Logan first issued a decree that today would be dubbed “Decoration Day”. Early American received this notion well, and ceremonies took place in more than 27 states within the first year.

Even though the term Memorial Day started gaining traction in 1880, it wasn’t until the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 finalized the new celebration date and name. There was a ton of controversy that surrounded the changes for quite a few years from many groups, but as we can see, that settled.

Believe it or not, there is a lot of rivalry surrounding the topic of who celebrated Memorial Day first:

Only one town has federal recognition to back up their birthplace claim, and that is Waterloo, New York. They have the official U.S. Government seal of approval for their 1966 celebration.

Although more and more people celebrate Memorial’s Day as an annual summer holiday, there are many traditions that have remained strong through time: