Archive for January, 2010
Personal Whiteboard
Thursday, January 14th, 2010I got a super fun and useful present from my friend Mar for Christmas: a personal whiteboard from CocoaLiving.com:
It’s a great way to start the year off right and go green! I use so many post-it notes and scratch paper all day at work…but now, I just write lists and things down with the accompanying pen and wipe off and re-use when I’m done. The pen has a great little eraser right on the end. It came with a CD that lets you print a ton of other templates. So far I’ve kept mine blank but they have templates for calendars and lists and even games and stuff for kids. Love it and love doing my part for Mother Earth.
Dry shampoo
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010I’m Indian and we don’t wash our hair everyday. My hair is thick, unruly, frizzy and dries out easily (growing up and not knowing how to fix it was tough). Washing usually entails straightening, which takes time. Being able to stretch out the time in between for a day is a blessing.
I’ve long used the tip of sprinkling baby powder on roots and combing through to eliminate grease in between washes. But now they’ve capitalized on it…and made it better! They being many brands. So many that I was overwhelmed at Sephora. Apparently shade of hair is one factor differentiating the brands.
I was about to walk out with just a sample of Oscar Blandi’s ‘Pronto Dry Shampoo’ when I was convinced to try Ojon’s ‘Rub Out Dry Cleanser’ by a a gorgeous and put together woman buying multiple bottles. So I bought a travel-size bottle ($10) to try as well.
The spray (aerosol, which I’m not happy with and might be the deciding factor) makes the application difficult, but quicker. You have to be careful to keep it far away and control the nozzle or it sticks in one place and gets clumpy-ish. It smells great though and once you get the hang of it, it really does the trick! Which is why even though my first bottle clogged up after a few uses, I exchanged rather than returning.
The powder is much easier to manage and smells great – basically does the trick of baby powder but spreads through the hair much more evenly without residue. You have to use quite a bit of it though and you lose a lot during application because….well, it’s a powder!
I’ll have to test both, and maybe other brands, further before I make a decision on which one (if any) to purchase/use.
P.S.
3 reasons I love Sephora:
1. They will make you samples of anything you want to try at the store. They also have tons of free samples and coupons as well as promotion codes you can use online for more goodies. I’ve compared and their prices are on par, if not lower. Be a beauty insider to earn points and get even more perks!
B. The folks know their stuff! They understand the products and always take time to answer all my questions. They don’t just try to sell me something – they are genuinely interested in helping me find the right shade, brush or lotion.
III. You can return something, receipt or not, even when there’s only a 1/3 of the product left. They will refund or give store credit if something doesn’t work. What’s not to love??
Elderly couples make my heart smile
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010From the website, “Gives Me Hope”:
I was at the mall the other day when I saw an old couple sitting together. The man looked over at the woman and said,
“Jane, we did it. We grew old together.”
The look in her eyes GMH.
Cinderelly, Cinderelly!
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010Now this tip from Lifehacker I can really use: stretching too tight shoes with socks and a blowdryer!
Basically you wear a bunch of pairs of socks, blowdry the areas that are too tight while you flex your toes and they loosen up. It’s magic!!
Thrifty bookshelf
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com/), which is an awesome site with useful tips….if you can dig through all the nerdy business and leave that to your boyfriend…had this idea to decorate old drawers and use them as a bookshelf:
…but when do you have random drawers sitting around??
Pound for Pound
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
Bear and I pledged to lose weight (him 4, me 5) with the Pound for Pound challenge (http://www.pfpchallenge.com/).
We’re both really excited about something I read in Marie Claire recently (which happens to be my absolutely favorite magazine) – there was an article about two women and one only exercised and one only changed her diet. The one who changed her diet lost 10 pounds without any added exercise. She used the Mayo Clinic Diet (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mayo-clinic-diet/MY01040).
Of course I looked this up and found a ton of information regarding the program (the basic premise is that I eat only 1200 calories and keep the servings of each food group strictly regulated within those calories), how to outline a plan and recipes that I’m super eager to try. The latter is quite surprising since this girl wanted to use her dishwasher for her extra shoes till the boy came along.
I am going to write out a schedule, go grocery shopping, plan out meals and hopefully the pounds will fall away! I’ve never been overweight but the size I am now is the largest I’ve ever been and it’s taken a toll on me. Being hypoglycemic is hard because my blood sugar falls so fast and I don’t always have the healthiest solution nearby.
I can’t wait to see some visible changes. Plus I’m hoping that learning about servings and the different foods, along with how to make some (hopefully) yummy dishes will be knowledge that will help me keep my consumption healthy in the future.
I can’t wait to see some visible changes. Plus I’m hoping that learning about servings and the different foods, along with how to make some (hopefully) yummy dishes will be knowledge that will help me keep my consumption healthy in the future.
In addition, I’m all about getting back into using my pedometer like a geek and tracking my steps and hitting the goals necessary to help lose pounds through walking as well. We should all be walking about 10,000 steps a day (about 5 miles) to stay healthy (http://walking.about.com/cs/measure/a/locke122004.htm). Or at least wearing a pedometer to see where your personal baseline is for an average day. But then adding 2,000 more means about 100-150 calories and means more weight loss! My goal will be 10,000 daily at first but 12,000 (at least) soon after. I plan to wear the pedometer and then just walk the rest to make up the amount every evening on the treadmill.
So much useful information/tools on the web! I can’t wait to start!
