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From the book of "Better Late Than Never" by me, Bob Vila's tips on preparing your home for winter via Lifehacker. And some great ideas on keeping your apartment insulated without breaking the bank.

If you've booked flight on Max Jet, which sounded fabulous about a month ago, you might want to call your credit card company for a refund. They filed for bankruptcy on December 24th, and will only be working to assist travelers who have already started their journeys. I hope you're not one of them!

Speaking of flying, here are a few nice ways airlines seek to pacify traveling kids.

And just to keep the flight theme, we figured out a way to make meal time on our flight a bit easier, kids or not. We requested a special meal, which meant that we got something a bit more interesting than chicken or beef, and we got our meals before everyone else. We ordered three vegetarian meals, which turned out to be a tasty tofu curry. It's not exactly gourmet as it's still airplane food, but we were happy. There was a child's meal option, but it was food like chicken nuggets and french fries...that just wasn't going to cut it. While the airline we flew had a large selection of special meals (e.g., Kosher, vegetarian), they didn't offer a peanut-free meal. A concern for those with young kids or allergies. In any event, MetaBaby ate some of his meal, which we supplemented with food we brought from home (lentils, avocado, banana), and he did pretty well. Breakfast was also different, and was actually much nicer than the standard meal. Papaya, strawberries and kiwi. We couldn't have asked for better. Contact your airline for more details and to request a special meal.