Posted under

Posted under

I love the Doctor Oz Show, and record it every day like clockwork. I always learn something from it. It might be a supplement I never heard of, a medical issue to be aware of, or a new beauty product I need to try.

About a month ago, I saw a Doctor Oz segment on ancient skin secrets from other cultures. His guest was Shalini Vadhera, who has written a book called Passport to Beauty. Two of Ms. Vadhera's treatments intrigued me.

One was a Korean rice water treatment to fade brown spots. I haven't tried that one yet, but I will. Even with sunscreen, I still end up with brown spots on my face, mostly on my upper cheekbones just outside the protection of my sunglasses.

The other treatment that caught my attention is called the Indian Bridal Glow Mask. Indian women use it on their face and body to make their skin smooth, bright and soft for their wedding day. It sounds pretty simple.

Just mix 1 cup of chickpea flour with 3 tablespoons of turmeric, and add enough almond oil to make a paste. The chickpea flour absorbs oil, the almond oil moisturizes, and the turmeric is anti-inflammatory and antiseptic.

The directions are to apply the paste to your face and let it sit for a few minutes. Instead of just removing it with a washcloth, you rub it off with your hands to exfoliate, which also is supposed to take off some of the peach fuzz that most of us have on our cheeks.

I finally tried the Indian Bridal Glow Mask today, and am pleased to report that it was surprisingly effective. Dare I say it was incredible even?

My skin feels softer and smoother than I can ever remember it being, even after using my favorite exfoliator; the amazing Exfolikate by Kate Somervell. I only have a small sample size tube of Exfolikate from a New Beauty Test Tube a while back, but if I bought a small 2-ounce size tube it would cost me $85! (PS: if you aren't getting the Test Tubes, you HAVE to do it! You will thank me.)

So, I could spend $85 for 2 ounces of a fabulous professional exfoliation product, or I can spend a couple of dollars on simple ingredients that I might already have in the house (which I did). Which is more appealing?

I can tell you I'd spend that $85 if I had to in order to get great skin, but if I don't have to, I'm spending that $85 on something fun, like shoes, workout clothes, craft supplies, a kitchen gadget, or anything pink.

Back to the Indian Bridal Glow Mask. I just used it on my face, and saw amazing exfoliation. My pores look smaller, my skin texture is smooth, and there is absolutely zero irritation. Lots of heavy-duty scrubs and masks can leave behind redness, and inflamed delicate areas that can start to peel in a day or two. That is not the case with this mask.

I didn't see a complete removal of  peach fuzz, but I think some of it is gone. The demonstration on Doctor Oz showed that the mask was drier than mine was, and when it was rubbed off, it actually came off in blobs. Mine was creamier than that, so the exfoliation was probably milder on my skin. I didn't feel that I added too much oil though; just enough to make a peanut butter consistency paste.

I have lots of the mask left, so I put it in a glass jar to save in the fridge until I do the next treatment in a week. I think it should be ok. If not, then next time I'll decrease the batch by about 75%.

One huge word of caution about this mask: BE CAREFUL! I cannot tell you how messy this concoction is! The turmeric will stain everything it comes in contact with. I'm not using the mask on my body as suggested, since the turmeric would absolutely instantly cause a huge yellow stain in the shower that I don't want to imagine.

I recommend mixing the mask in a plastic or paper bowl with a plastic spoon so you can throw it all away. When I was rubbing the mask off and wiping the residue off with wet paper towels, I had a couple of layers of paper towel in the sink to catch any drips. Otherwise I would have been scrubbing a yellow sink for a while.

Make sure you wear gloves when you work with the mask. It will stain your fingers and fingernails. Strangely enough, it didn't stain my face at all. Not sure why, but it didn't.

I'll use this mask again next week, and might let it sit on my skin a little longer to dry out more. I may get a photo of it actually on my face…it's pretty scary looking!

I highly recommend this treatment and am really excited about it! I love that it was effective, inexpensive, and completely natural, and I can't wait to try the Korean Rice Water Treatment next. I think that Shalini Vadhera just might be on to something!

~BigSis

Posted under Beauty and Skin Care

Hey LilSis, I think it's a really appropriate time to talk about stress since we're all about to go into Turbo-Speed Stress Season. We all have holiday stress for different reasons. Many of us get so excited at the holidays that we overcommit and underestimate how much time all of these things will take. We may have financial issues that make the holidays stressful, and unless we decide to be smart when it comes to our financial planning, there is a chance that this money may not see us through the rest of the month. When we start the holidays off on the wrong foot, like not having enough finances, it could seriously affect how the rest of the break goes. It nearly happened to my friend once, but luckily he decided to invest in things like Bitcoin and even went one step further and decided to Buy Bitcoin with other payment methods, or Bitcoin mit anderen Zahlungsarten kaufen as they would say in his native language of German and because of the trading that he did, it wasn't long until his financial issues were no more. He managed to get rid of them and could live the remainder of the holidays in a much better way. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen to everyone and they may have other pressing matters to worry about.

Some people are sad at the holidays and dread going through it, and feeling like they have to do things they really aren't up for. Other people have family issues that can't be avoided at get-togethers. Many us of just feel pulled in too many directions at one time. One of my friends was having a lot of stress surrounding caring for her elderly parents, who could no longer care for themselves, therefore they could try and get some in-home assistance to give her a break and enjoy her time with her parents again. There are many places that can provide this service such as Seniors Helping Seniors Baton Rouge, and help take the weight off a family member's feet.

For whatever reason, we're ALL going to have stress to some degree over the next couple of months. Maybe we can all help each other out by sharing some ways to tame stress since it's such a universal experience! I'll start us off.

• My favorite way to manage holiday stress is to plan and start early! I already mentioned that I'm doing another Christmas bake sale for the SPCA on December 14th. How can I commit three full weekends to baking, just before Christmas? It helps that I'm kuku/kookoo (how do you spell that?), but I actually started planning a week ago. The baking team has already had a meeting, and we all know pretty much what we're baking, except for a couple of new recipes that I'm going to test-drive this week. I'm going to have all my Christmas shopping done before baking time starts, as well as all the bake sale shopping, and packaging for the bake sale goodies will be ordered this week.

How does my bit of planning translate to organizing your holiday season?

• Even though it seems way too early to start thinking about the holidays, do it now! How often do you hear yourself say that the holidays just “snuck up on you”? There's no sneaking! Christmas comes at the same time year after year! We just haven't planned for it!

• First of all, have a brainstorming session with yourself. Find half an hour of quiet time, and just make a rambling list of everything you can think of that you need to do between now and New Year's Day. As more and more things come to mind later, add them to your list. Just getting thoughts out of your brain and onto paper will give you a serious chunk of peace of mind. Sign me up for some of that!

• Now go back over the Master List you brainstormed, and start making Detailed Lists. If you included “buy gifts” on your Master List, then make a Gift Idea List. List everyone you want to buy for, and then start listing any gift ideas you have. You can see where the holes are. If you have no ideas at all for Uncle Paul, then make yourself a note to call Aunt Paula to find out what Uncle Paul wants. If your list includes “send Christmas cards”, then start a separate list of the recipients, and check to see if you're missing any addresses. Look for those addresses now, and not on December 22nd! You'll also know how many cards to buy when you're in the store, and won't have to run back out for more at the last minute.

• Make yourself a notebook, folder or binder with all of your lists and keep it with you! If you work outside your home, take it with you in a tote. It doesn't do any good to have a plan if you don't have it available to refer to when you need to.

• Now that your lists are in the works, next get yourself a calendar going. You might like a big wipe-off calendar that can be displayed in the kitchen for everyone to see, or maybe a calendar in your planner or on your phone works bet for you. Whatever it is, start adding every party, every cookie exchange, every school function and every travel itinerary on it as you find out about them. Grill your family for all of their commitments. Update this calendar immediately as new functions are discovered. Threaten your family that failure to notify you of a commitment means they have to eat the fruitcake that's been regifted since 1974. Or you could say that Santa will bring them a lump of coal, but that would be pretty mean. 😀

• Practice saying “no”. The reality is, you won't be able to do everything that is asked of you for the next couple of months. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. You can say “no” to good things in order to say “yes” to the best things!

That's how I get my holiday season organized, and it really seems to help me to just write things down! It's a simple thing but it has a huge impact. You won't wake up in the middle of the night worrying about whether you're going to forget to bake the two dozen cupcakes for the school if you've already put that on the calendar.

If you have other ideas, please pass them on. Over the next few weeks, we're going to be on a mission to find other thoughts and tips that we think might help us all enjoy this glorious season even more!

~BigSis

Posted under Holidays

Posted under

Posted under

Posted under

Posted under

One of the things I love about blogging is the community.  We share a common interest, and it seems to me that most bloggers are very supportive of each other and encourage each others' success.  And if you're lucky, at some point you might get to meet your online friends in person.

The other thing I really like is that bloggers know food!  If I see a recipe posted by Anna, Peabody, Grace, Cathy, Susan, Michelle, Susan, Lisa, or  Heather (among many, many other incredible cooks and bakers), I am confident that I can make that recipe and it'll turn out great.  If I have any questions or problems, or successes I want to share, then I know who to go to.  I can't do that with the cookbooks on my shelves.

The only problem with online recipes though is how to organize them.  I used to highlight the recipe and paste it into Microsoft Word, then print it out and save it to my hard drive.  But then I had all of these hard copies to sort and file, and who ever goes back through all of those?  There's too much paper in our lives to deal with already.  And invariably I save a recipe to my laptop at home, and then later need to access the recipe at work so I can pick up the ingredients on my way home.

What if you could save an online cookbook of all your favorite recipes, sorted the way you want it?  Well, you can do just that and it's super duper easy!  Are you using Delicious bookmarks?  If you are, then you can tweak it to organize your online recipes, and if you're not, then think about getting on board!

Delicious is awesome because you just sign up for a free account, and then you use it to bookmark your favorite pages.  It doesn't matter which computer you're on.  Your bookmarks are on Delicious, not on one particular computer.  The other cool thing is that you can choose to share your bookmarks and your personalized cookbook with other people that you specify.

So, let's set up your online cookbook!

• First, access your account at http://delicious.com or set up a new account.

• In the right sidebar, click on Tag Options and choose Manage Tag Bundles.

• A new window opens. Click on Create to make a new tag bundle.

• In #1, enter the Tag Bundle Name, something like “Emma's Cookbook”.  In #2, enter the tags that you want to use to sort your cookbook.  Separate your tags with spaces.  You could use broad categories like appetizers, vegetables, meat, and dessert, or you could use more specific tags like cookies, chocolate, soup, potatoes, quiche, candy, fruit, etc.  You get the idea.  It's totally up to you and how you want to organize your recipes.

• Click on the green Save button, and you're done!  Voila!

Now, when you go back to your Delicious home page, you'll see your tag bundle listed on the right sidebar under Tag Bundles.  To place a recipe into your cookbook, just add your tags to it before you save the bookmark.  Delicious will sort it into your cookbook bundle, and you just have to click on the tags in your cookbook to show all of the recipes with that tag.

If you decide later that you want to add more tags to your cookbook, just choose Tag Options and Manage Tag Bundles again. Then click on Edit next to your Tag Bundle's name.  Add, change or delete your tags as you wish, then Save.

That's it!  You have your own online cookbook, wherever you are!  I hope that you give this a try and enjoy it as much as I do!

~BigSis

Posted under Food

I hope everyone had a great week! It just flew by for me.  I feel like I had a healthy, productive week even if I did slip up a couple of times. We went out on Tuesday for a friend's birthday and enjoyed a few cocktails, then on Wednesday we had friends pop over to say a belated Happy Birthday to SirHoney which led to me staying up way too late that night.

On a positive note, I was able to accomplish almost everything that I had on my list.

• I had great cardio workouts for all but one day. (Which was the morning after I stayed up too late.)

• I started off the week with a great Yoga class at the Y that focuses more on stretching and I finished off the week with a really hard Power Yoga class at 24 Hr Fitness.

• I managed to stick to our weekly menu plan and even made a healthy choice the one time I went out to lunch during the week. (Even though I was craving Mexican food.)

• I was finally able to get HayHay to show me how to operate the new TV and Wii so I took a new Fit Test and set my weight loss goal on the WiiFit to help me monitor my progress. (One nice surprise, the Wii shows my weight 3 pounds lighter than my digital scale.)

• I haven't had one. single. beer. all. week! (Did I ever mention how much I love beer? This is a tough one for me, but I'm sticking to the “no beer during the week” rule.)

• I lost two pounds this week. Seven more to go.

I received my fitbook in the mail this week so I was able to start recording all my goals, workouts, and food all in one place. I have never had any desire to follow any kind of diet program where I had to count calories or points. I just know myself well enough to know that I won't stick to it.

But, after these past two weeks of recording what I ate, I've discovered that it has helped me be more accountable to myself and my commitment to cut down on my snacking and mindless eating. Here's my food log from yesterday. I love how you can rate each meal with the happy face or sad face. 🙂

I only did crunches once last week and was sore for DAYS, but this week, they're on the calendar for three days. Here's my workout plan for next week.

My goals for next week are:

• Go to bed early EVERY night. It's amazing how much better I feel in the morning when I actually get 7 or 8 hours of sleep.

• Plan meals for the week, do the shopping on Sunday and stick to the plan.

• Start every morning with a positive attitude and stay away from any negative influences.

This Challenge isn't just about losing weight; it's about feeling healthier and happier with myself, making better choices in all aspects of my life and keeping a positive attitude about 2010 being a great year! Have you ever heard that a home is said to be lucky and will have a prosperous year if a plant blooms on New Years Day? Look what I found on my Jade plant on New Years Day.

When we first moved to our home almost eight years ago, I moved this sad little Jade plant to my front courtyard because I heard that a Jade plant symbolizes prosperity and good luck. I've nursed this Jade ever since and it's grown to be quite large but has never bloomed until now.

If the Chinese superstition proves to be true then we should be looking forward to a prosperous year! (Believe me when I say that we need for that to happen.)

Have a great week everyone!

~LilSis

Posted under Health