I’ve been to The Reserves off Arbuckle Road before, but right now there are five houses for sale in that region, and all are impressive. Here’s a link to my story in this week’s House to Home. That hubba-hubba great room at left is inside 275 Edgewater Circle — open house tomorrow. The list of homes for sale is at the end of this article.

We have plenty more on the local front. Click on the articles below:

» High Point market puts accent on statement makers – Meadville’s Marie Feltz gives us the news 
» Orchids mimic animals at weekend show Sue Scholz is going to the orchid show this weekend at the ice rink — you’ll see more than flowers
» Chalk one up for paint flowing at flower shop I visited Le Jardin in Edinboro — some must see decorating ideas.

Here are details on houses for sale in The Reserves:
275 Edgewater Circle
• $649,900
• 1.18 acres
• 3,210 square feet
• Built in 2005
• Five bedrooms, four baths
• Karen Antonio, of Howard Hanna, is the listing agent. For a closer look, attend an open house Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m., or call Antonio at 825-6097.

I’m not a flats kind of girl, but an e-mail spoke to me about “Earthing.”

The makers of Pluggz teased me about how good it feels to walk barefoot on grass or sand — they explained that it’s because we are in direct touch with nature  – Mother Earth.

We absorb energy, electrons that “ground” us — called Earthing. Well that caught my attention, so I visited the website and found  leather and linen ballet flats that have “pluggzproprietary” grounding technology, padded arches and heels with memory foam, moisture wicking, anti-microbial lining and trampoline heels for extra comfort and support. They retail for $129 per pair. I am hoping to get a free pair to try them out for everyone. They have a men’s version — flip flops.

White nails — they’re everywhere –Huffington Post, Harper’s Bazaar and more. This photo is from InStyle. The white nails look pretty good and some folks add little decals, stickers and other adornments. Check it out in the latest edition of InStyle magazine. 

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom of three and step grandmom of one.

Soap legend Katherine Chancellor of “The Young and the Restless” is a household name in soapdom. Jeanne Cooper played the role of the epic rich woman who battled alcoholism. She was a complicated character ever since 1973 — the first year of the soap. I watched in high school, college and later, but drifted away from it.

Cooper’s son, Corbin Bernsen (of LA Law), announced yesterday that his mother had died at age 84. She had been in and out of the hospital with an infection for the past month. She did participate in Y&R’s 40th anniversary celebration earlier this year.

Cooper was a pretty fascinating woman long before she hit soaps. She was in westerns, The Big Valley, Perry Mason, Bracken World, Ben Casey, and a host of other TV programs of the 1950s and 60s.

Here’s a 2009 interview with Cooper, courtesy of the Archive of American Television. She had a facelift on TV. Here’s a link to that interview. 

Her memoir is called “Not Young, Still Restless.” Read an excerpt here. 

Here’s her bio on SoapCentral.com

Here’s a link to the CBS website

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom of three and step grandmom of one.

Yes, it is May 8.

As the Poinsettia Blooms — sounds kind of like a soap opera name, doesn’t it? I like it. I am outside admiring the 13 pots of flowers we planted, but it’s my inside garden that is impressive. Here’s how the funny fauna family fares at Chez Parker:

My November poinsettia is still blooming — even has new red bracts  – it is sure to croak after I write this. Here’s a link to care and feeding of a poinsettia.  I have done none of the things on that website. I think I just got a hardy plant. It’s looking scraggly compared to its former holiday splendor, but it still lights up the living room with color that no other indoor plant delivers.

Over the years of countless poinsettia purchases, I tried only once to do the total darkness thing. My plant bloomed the following Easter … and then croaked.  Advice from the Dept. of Horticulture in Michigan (I chose that site because it had great month-by-month pictures) on the year-round care and feeding of a poinsettia) is this: “You must keep the plant in complete darkness between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. daily from the end of September until color shows in the bracts (early to mid-December).” I have seen variations on this theme, but it sounds like we would need a poinsettia sitter to handle that.

My indoor February shamrock is also flourishing, but that’s nothing new. I had one last year that I re-potted several times because it got so big. I set that one outside where it looked like a small shrub with a perfect shaped mound of green leaves and bundles of delicate white flowers … and then it died.

This one is very different — huge, dark green, leaves and delicate white flowers. We’ll see if it makes it to the outdoors where I am a geranium kind of girl. Geraniums are hardy and  never let me down in color and impact. The ground at this house is unforgiving to most plants — hence the 13 pots. I’ve kept geraniums alive year-round many times. When I was pregnant with my youngest, I had indoor blooms on five plants straight through the winter and into the spring when I moved the plants back outside. They liked the window seat better, but they were a beautiful addition to my old dining room.

Geraniums also keep bees away, I hear. I veered away from them for a few years in favor of some showy pots of colorful pansies and petunias, but I did not fare well with those beauties. They looked great in the spring and again in October. I couldn’t keep up with their needs, and neither could the waterboys — my two sons who were here last year and handled lawn and garden maintenance.

This year, I hope the geraniums are as hardy as the plants I had 21 years ago that moved indoors and kept my family smiling while we awaited the arrival of Ryan, my youngest.  If they don’t, maybe the poinsettia and shamrock will continue to bloom.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom of three and step grandmom of one.

It was quite a week for the 82-year-old “Oracle of Omaha.”

He joined Twitter saying, “Warren is in the house.” He also raised the roof and told the world how valuable women are to every business in a magazine article he wrote for Fortune. Read it here. In essence, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO says we need women in every occupation. Women are “the key to American prosperity,” he said.

He encourages women to be confident, and so does “Lean In,” Sheryl Sandberg’s book that discusses how women often hold themselves back. Read what Erie women think right here in a great story by Lindsey Poisson.

Check out Hathaway’s interview with Rebecca Jarvis on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” here.

Here’s an article on how Gen-Y women will close the salary gap. Read it here.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom of three and step grandmom of one.

If you have never seen the Niagara Pier condominiums, get to the next open house fast when there is one. The units — all located right off the Bayfront Parkway — have become popular real estate lately. Read my story here in House to Home.

Other information in House to Home includes:

» Garden club plant sales in full bloom
» Hay-fever season sign of pollination
» Grow your own organics
» Plant native grasses to save water
» Color your door, entry hall
» Tilling soil for yard art
» Designers provide privacy tips for open floor plan

You’ll go down in history!

Share some Erie history with us! The Erie Times-News celebrated 125 years of delivering the news on April 12, and we are celebrating all year. We want to hear your stories of home restoration. Click here for all the details on our Historic Homes contest. Reminder: This is a web contest, so you must submit everything on the Internet. The grand prize winner gets a weekend stay in one of the oldest brick buildings in North East — The Grape Arbor Bed & Breakfast.

Pam Parker has written about real estate, home improvement and remodeling for 25 years. She is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three and stepmom to three.

The clothing is coming!

The clothing is coming! And a whole lot more.

“Downton Abbey” styles goes retail this year — according to Gareth Neame in an interview with CNBC.

“We’ll be working across an entire range of products coming out this year. From fashion, apparel and homeware and furniture to wallpapers, beauty products and stationery,” Neame, who is also the show’s executive producer, told CNBC.

“Some of these things have been available since 2012 and we publish books and have made a music album, but the more complex products take time,” he said, adding that there would be even more scope for merchandising in the future.

Click on the picture — it takes you to the story from Huffington Post in the UK. Here’s the story from Huffington Post in the United Kingdom. Here’s the story from E!Online. Here’s the story from Vogue.

Will 1920s styles sell nearly 100 years later? That will be the real story.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom of three and step grandmom of one.

All of us can think of a nurse who cured us. It’s time to thank them.

Nurses Week starts Monday and stretches through May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale. At the Erie Times-News, our salute to nurses runs today Friday, May 3. It is written by regional nurses. Read all the stories here.

National Nurses Week took decades to become sanctioned, according to the American Nurses Association. In 1953, Dorothy Sutherland of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare proposed Nurses Day to President Eisenhower. A year later, National Nurse Week kicked off from October 11 – 16 celebrating the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s international mission. In 1965, the International Council of Nurses celebrated “International Nurse Day” on Nightingale’s birthday.

In 1974, a week in February became National Nurse Week, thanks to President Nixon. Four years later, May 6 became “Nurses Day” in New Jersey. In 1982, May 6, became “National Recognition Day for Nurses.”

In the 1990s, the week received a permanent recognition.

Hug a nurse today.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom of three and step grandmom of one.

I get a lot of e-mails about gifts for Moms, Dads and grads. Last year, I blogged that what grads want is plain old cash. Don’t get clever, just hand over the Benjamins.

Mom and Dad want greeting cards, gift cards and a few hours of your time — simple.

Finally a web site agrees. Here are the results of ShopAtHome.com’s latest survey results:

23 percent of moms and 30 percent of dads prefer gift cards over traditional gifts like perfume or clothes

Both moms and dads (52 and 48 percent, respectively) want their loved ones to spend $30 or below on a gift
22 percent of moms and 17 percent of dads prefer a simple greeting card
59 percent of graduates would like money as a graduation gift
In a press release, Lesley Kennedy, ShopAtHome.com senior managing editor suggests, “If you can save money finding a discounted gift card online and pair that with a heartfelt homemade card, a home-cooked meal or a simple phone call to say  ‘thanks, Mom and Dad.’”

Kennedy added that you can buy and trade gift cards on sites where you can save up to 30 percent on the cost.

ShopAtHome.com was founded in 1986 by husband-and-wife team Marc and Claudia Braunstein. It provides online coupons on the web. The survey took place on ShopAtHome.com’s Facebook page with more than 4.4 million Facebook fans. It had 1,825 respondents from April 18 to 24, 2013.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom of three and step grandmom of one.

To see the preliminary 2012 -2013 budget pages, click here — thanks to No New McDowell on Facebook.

In other news, the district’s business manager will now report directly to the board — read Erica Erwin’s column here.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three and stepmom of three — all graduates of Millcreek elelmentary and middle schools along with McDowell High School.