March 21, 2010

What a crazy weird winter it has been for us in Texas!  Snow on Christmas Eve, record-setting snow in February and now snow on the first full day of Spring!  Here in Dallas, I woke up this morning to at least 3 inches of snow!  It’s so beautiful and so rare for us that I had to share some photos with you…

~BigSis

March 20, 2010

We all like saving money, right?  I check the Sunday newspaper every week for coupons, but it seems like most of the offers are for things I never ever buy; otherwise they’re too puny to even mess with!  10 cents off 12 rolls of toilet paper?  Fugedaboutit!

There are lots of coupon sites out there, but I heard about a coupon database the other day that I think is pretty cool, and it seems to have lots of coupons I would actually use.  It’s on MyDallasMommy.com, which features all kinds of freebies, deals, giveaways and other fun goodies to help you stretch your dollar a bit farther.

Some of the coupons are printable, others will refer you to another site like CoolSavings or Upromise, or to a Walgreens coupon book.  I think this database is really a portal that organizes all of the stuff out there for you in one place.  One great feature is that expiration dates are shown with the search results so you don’t waste your time clicking all over cyberspace, only to find a bunch of expired offers.

On my first visit to the database, I found a $1 coupon for my favorite Sensodyne toothpaste.  I was referred to the manufacturer’s web site and I did have to sign up before printing, but for a decent savings on an item I use and rebuy all the time, it’s worth a few seconds of time for me.

So, that takes care of coupons for your usual “in-person” shopping.  What about saving money on the things you order online?  You need promo codes, of course!  Do you know about RetailMeNot.com?  I’ve been using it for years, and love it.  You just go to the site, type in your store’s url, and poof!  You get a list of coupon codes.  Voila!

These codes are reported to the site by other users, so it can be a bit hit or miss, but you can easily see the success rate for a particular code.  For example, today you can use “KCOOK34” to get $5 off at DSW Shoes, and it has an 89% success rate.  If it doesn’t work for you, just go back to the site and report the failure.  When I pulled up Amazon.com offers, they were all labeled as unreliable, with very low success rates, so I wouldn’t even bother trying to use them.

I order supplements from Vitacost.com a lot, and always check RetailMeNot for a promo code first.  Right now, you can get 5% off your order at Vitacost.com using the promo code “pc13wb”.  The site tells you this code has a 94% success rate and that the average reported user savings are $6.03.

I also saw some great deals today for 25% off at Coldwater Creek, 15% off at Kohls and FootLocker, and free shipping at tons of sites.  Why wouldn’t you use this site, I ask?  🙂

Now get out there and save some money!  And enjoy your weekend!

~BigSis

March 16, 2010

Happy St Patrick’s Day!  LilSis and I are only 1/4 Irish at the most, so we can’t really claim this holiday as our own, but it’s a pretty fun little holiday anyway!  There are no responsibilities or expectations; it’s just about the wearing o’ the green, eating food you probably wouldn’t eat every day like corned beef and cabbage (I’ll pass), and having fun.  Oh, and green beer works its way into the celebration more often than not!  And do you remember when McDonald’s used to have green vanilla milkshakes on St Patrick’s Day?

I’m determined to find a delicious way to bake without using eggs and dairy, and I’m encouraged by my success so far with my favorite Pumpkin Bread and the Banana-Wheat Germ Muffins I made recently.  Getting braver, I decided it was time to be a big vegan girl and try something a little trickier…cake!  With St Patrick’s Day coming up, I had the perfect excuse to bake!

I found this recipe for vanilla cupcakes on VegNews.com and was intrigued!  The amount of lemon juice and apple cider vinegar sounded very acidic, and I wasn’t sure about 100% whole wheat pastry flour in cake.  My rule for a brand new recipe is always to follow it precisely the first go-round though, so that’s what I did.

How’d the cupcakes come out?  My first thought was that they could benefit from a bit less sugar, and perhaps 25% to 50% all purpose flour in place of some of the whole wheat pastry flour.  They were pretty coarse in texture, and maybe a bit more like dense muffins than cake.

I took these to my test subjects at the office, and got a variety of reactions:

• A laugh and a shake of the head followed by a brisk/frantic walk away from the untouched cupcakes.

• Silence after eating one.  Dead silence.  Still silent.

• “It’s really good, but I like things that taste like they’re healthy”.

• ” That cake will take some getting used to but I like the frosting”.

• “Well, they look good.”

I’m convinced that there is a tasty vegan cake recipe out there; actually, I’m sure there are several.  Is this cupcake one of them?  Mmmm, nah.  But it’s not bad.  And when you’re vegan, maybe “not bad cake” is better than no cake at all?

~BigSis

March 14, 2010

This humble muffin is a muffin with a secret.  He’s not very flashy; lots of other muffins are turbo-size, or chock full of fruit and even chocolate chips.  He’s not real pretty either; just a modest little tan guy with a few glimpses of nut here and there.  And he’s not a sweet-fluffy-puffy-light-as-air muffin.  He’s a substantial guy, moist and dense.  But his secret is what makes him more special than the flashy or pretty muffins.  This muffin is healthy AND tasty.

This guy’s given name is Banana-Wheat Germ Muffins, and he was born in the cookbook called Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.  Yep, you guessed it!  This muffin’s middle name is Vegan!

I made these muffins a couple of times when Bry was here, and we polished the dozen off between us in only a couple of days.  It is true that Bry is my nephew, and a sweet one at that, so even if these muffins were craptastic, he would probably still gobble them up and declare them delicious.  I’ve had my share of baking disasters though, and I don’t count these muffins among them.

This recipe was my first foray into vegan baking, and I was nervous to say the least.  How could I make a delicious baked good with no eggs and no dairy?  The first thing I needed to do was find a reliable and creative vegan cookbook, and Veganomicon fits the bill.

These muffins use baking powder for leavening, with a bit of canola oil added to the mashed banana for tenderness and moisture.  I made just a couple of changes to the original recipe.  I added about a cup of toasted, roughly chopped walnuts, and used my homemade almond milk instead of soy milk.  I also added a dash of good nutmeg, along with the cinnamon.  You can find the recipe for Banana-Wheat Germ Muffins on RecipeZaar.

There’s a lot to love about these muffins.  They are:

• Low in sugar: only 1/3 cup for the whole dozen.

• Full of whole grains from the whole wheat pastry flour and wheat germ.

• Low in fat: only 1/3 cup canola oil.  No butter, no eggs, no sour cream, nothing to clog your arteries!

• Easy to customize by adding your favorite nuts, seeds or spices.

• Filling and do a great job of keeping you satisfied til lunchtime.

• Great on their own, or with a dab of Earth Balance.  I think they’d also be awesome with some of my homemade crockpot apple butter!

One note:  I think these are better the second day.  The first day, they have a very slight bitter aftertaste that I suspect may come from the wheat germ, but it mellows and dissipates by the second day.

Hey, LilSis! Don’t give up on baking, even if you weren’t happy with your Low Fat Fruity Breakfast Muffins.  Any time you try a modification, you run the risk of a boo-boo, but keep trying!  I wonder if maybe you weren’t totally pleased with these muffins because there was a pretty high ratio of goodies to batter?  And don’t be intimidated by the fact that SisMama and I like to bake; we both have our failures and we both always use a recipe!  Don’t quit!  For the love of HayHay and SirHoney’s sweet tooth, don’t quit! 🙂

~BigSis

March 11, 2010

LilSis has been talking about using more frugal beauty products, and I have one to tell you about.  How about a facial moisturizer that costs you $18 for 4 ounces?  Not bad, huh?  A while back, the folks at Skin MD sent LilSis and me a bottle of their Shielding Lotion.  I’ve been using it for a couple of months now, so I think I can give you a fair review of it.

What’s special about it?  The literature says this about Skin MD:

• It can replace traditional moisturizers which temporarily restore moisture to the skin.  It binds to the skin to create an invisible shield around the skin to maintain moisture and  protect it from environmental chemicals and pollution.

• It contains natural ingredients like aloe vera, arnica montana, chamomile, vitamin E, and a proprietary humectant ingredient that is supposed to be more effective than glycerin.

• It is non-greasy and non-comedogenic so it should not clog pores.

How did the product do?  Did it live up to the claims?

I can’t say if it shielded my skin from pollution and chemicals, but I liked that it was really lightweight and soaked into my skin quickly.  It created a nice smooth base for my foundation.  And, this is huge…it didn’t break my skin out!

Absolutely everything breaks me out, so I hold my breath when I try a new serum or moisturizing cream or lotion.  90% of the time, it does cause a breakout, even it it’s supposedly non-comedogenic.  So the fact that Skin MD didn’t cause a flare-up is pretty darn big.

So, Skin MD has earned two big gold stars from me:  for smooth texture and for not instigating a zit attack.  The big question though is whether my skin seemed hydrated.  I’m afraid I can’t give out a gold star for that.  This product just hasn’t been enough for me this winter, even when I applied it twice in the morning.  I’ve had some dry areas, and some little flakies here and there.

To be fair, this has been a super cold winter, plus my skin has been drier than usual because of a prescription I’m taking to help prevent hormonal breakouts.  Even so, most people are still drier than me.  Skin MD is recommended for body, hands and feet as well as face, but if it wasn’t enough for my face, it definitely wasn’t enough for the rest of me in the wintertime.

I still have lots of Skin MD left, and my plan is to give it another try as a facial moisturizer in the summer when I typically need a lighter product under my foundation.  Overall, I liked it and thought it was a quality product; it just wasn’t quite enough for me during the winter.

Skin MD is available in my area at CVS and Walgreen’s drugstores, as well as Tom Thumb and Minyard’s grocery stores.

~BigSis

March 7, 2010

Thanks for the reminder about the healthy snacks, LilSis. I think it’s really smart to keep good things on hand in case of a snack attack, which is going to happen, sooner or later!

Remember me talking about P90X last weekend? I was all psyched up to start it. I did the fitness test, and was able to pass it, but the darn thing kicked my butt and made me realize how puny and weak my upper body is right now. Even though I wanted to jump in 100%, a voice of reason in my head told me I’d probably end up getting hurt, or getting so sore that I’d quit, or getting discouraged because I couldn’t do the whole workout. Those would all be bad outcomes that I don’t want.

So, for once, I decided that I should be smart and ease into the new workout.  In addition to my gym workouts five times a week, here’s what I’m doing.  If you’re chompin at the bit to whip yourself into swimsuit shape, but need to ease into a heinie-kickin’ workout like me, give these workouts a try!

• Inhale Yoga with Steve Ross – it comes on live here on the Oxygen cable channel at 5 am and 6 am.  I record it on DVR now, so I can do them whenever I want.  This is my favorite yoga.

• 30-Day Shred with Jillian Michaels – I talk about this all the time.  You get 3 levels of a 28-minute workout that is surprisingly effective.

• No More Trouble Zones with Jillian Michaels – this workout uses lots of weights and runs for close to an hour.

• Banish Fat Boost Metabolism with Jillian Michaels – this workout is also close to an hour long, and includes lots of cardio.

Amazon has the set of all three Jillian Michaels DVDs for $22.99.

After doing  a month of rotating these workouts, I think I’ll be ready to start P90X.  Yoga is great for building strength – both upper and lower body – and Jillian’s videos all incorporate excellent upper body exercises.  I’m hoping that doing a month of prep before embarking on P90X will decrease the probability that it will kill me!  What do you think?

~BigSis

March 5, 2010

Have you had a good week?  I hope so.  As we cruise into the weekend, I wanted to send you off with a little fun, a little cuteness and a little joy.  It’s an animal video, of course.

I loved this video when I saw it the first time, and just as much when I saw it again today.  I don’t know what makes me happier: the sweet relationship between these two, or the infectious joyful attitude of the orangutan.  See what you think.  Oh, and have a most excellent weekend!

~BigSis

March 1, 2010

So what did you think about the conclusion of the Bachelor? Did you see the handwriting on the wall from the beginning of the episode?

• Did you think it was weird that Jake’s family changed their opinion of Vienna so easily?  His mom seemed to be pretty intuitive from the beginning, and Jake was totally defensive about it, and was freaking out that he might have given his family a negative first impression of Vienna.

• You knew it was trouble when all Jake could say to Tenley was I love your eyes, your smile, your positivity, blah blah blah.  That isn’t the way you talk to someone you’re in love with.

• How harsh/stupid/mean was it for Jake to say that he and Tenley didn’t have physical chemistry?  Was he placing the pure lust he seems to feel for Vienna, above the emotional connection that he seemed to have with Tenley?  Ouch.  I would have been hurt too.  We all know that the lust stuff can wear out, and then what do you have left if that was the whole basis of your relationship?  Eventually you have to stop rolling around in the mud, and join reality:  start doing dishes and cleaning out the garage and taking the kids to soccer practice.

Do you believe me now when I tell you I heard that Jake isn’t with the woman who got the last rose, and in fact they had already split by the time “After the Final Rose” was shot?  We’ll see.

~BigSis

February 28, 2010

I know LilSis and lots of the other Ten in 2010 participants have started off the new year with a new motivation, increased fitness and weight loss.  Not me though, I’ve been doing good to just maintain with my 5 gym workouts a week.  Since my priority the last several weeks has been to spend as much time as possible with Bry, I wasn’t getting in any additional workouts, which is perfectly fine. My priorities were clear to me.

But now that he’s off on his Navy adventure, it’s time for me to recommit to getting back into fighting shape.  I never know when I might have an unexpected scuffle with an ornery chick in the parking lot before work!  Yeah, there’s a story there, but I’ll save that for another day.

The truth is, a forty-plus body wants to get fat.  You have lower metabolism, more aches and pains, less energy, and wacked out hormones.  At least, that’s the state of the union in my world.  It takes more and more work to achieve results, and it’s very easy to get stuck on plateaus.  Plus, doing the same old stuff starts to lose its effectiveness.

All of that is no excuse though, and I’m not making any.  I don’t have a ton of weight to lose, but I do want to build some more muscle and lose those ding dang blobs of fat that insist on congregating and loitering on my rear view.  You know the ones I mean.

I had planned to go back to Jillian Michaels’ 30-Day Shred, since she whipped me into decent shape last year with her program.  I’d been rotating the 30-Day Shred with a couple of her other heinie-kicking DVDs, and they really did work.

Bry and his dad have been big fans of P90X though, and Bry said I should give it a try, and swears I can do it.  Really?  Ok.  If you say so, Bry.  I know you care about your old aunt and you wouldn’t tell me that if you thought it would be the death of me.

I love a challenge, and with my all-or-nothing personality, P90X is right up my alley, at least theoretically.  One of the things that intrigues me about it is the idea of “Muscle Confusion”, which is said to bring greater results to your bored muscles.  So today, I’m going to do the fitness test to see if I’m up for the P90X challenge.  If not, I’ll do the 30-Day Shred for a couple of weeks, and then test again.  If I pass the test, I’m off and running.

I just have one question before I start…will P90X kill a forty-plus woman?  Do you know of any women who have done it and survived; other than Sheryl Crow and Pink?

~BigSis

February 25, 2010

I swore I’d never watch another one of these ding dang things!  After that whole Jason debacle, I was so hissed off that I swore I’d never again waste my time on this show!  I didn’t watch Bachelorette last year and I didn’t start Bachelor this year.  That is, until Bry moved in!  Gah!  I hope he doesn’t lose his man card for this, but some chickadee got him hooked on the show and I started watching it with him.

Even though I’ve been watching, I still don’t feel very invested in the “characters”. Maybe I’m protecting myself since Jason burned me so badly when Kind Humble Man turned into Flaky Man and traded in Melissa for Molly after the fact.  This season just feels a little shallow to me, which I guess would mean the other seasons have been full of deep meaningful content?  🙂

One interesting tidbit this season was the whole Rozlyn travesty of a mockery of a sham and her appearance on the “Women Tell All” episode this past Monday. Really? Does she honestly think we believe a teensy weensy word she has to say?  You get caught red-handed (or red-whatever) by several people, and still lie like a rug?  And then you attack Mr. NiceGuy Chris Harrison in the process?

Two thoughts about that.  #1, didn’t Forrest Gump say stupid is as stupid does?  He would probably say the same thing about pretty.  It doesn’t matter how gorgeous you are on the outside if the inside is contaminated by a lack of character with a big dose of mean and nasty.

#2, don’t be hatin’ on Chris Harrison, friend, just because you’re caught in a corner.  That’s just not right.  I happened to see him at a local Jason’s Deli with his family a while back, and he seemed like a pretty lovely man to me.  PS, he’s more handsome in person.

So, back to our story.  Will it Be Vienna, or Tenley, or neither?  All I’ll say is that I heard from a little bird that it doesn’t matter which one gets the final rose, cause Jake isn’t with the “winner”.

Already.

Glad I’m not invested.

~BigSis