Low-Key Valentine's Gifts

While some ladies dream of a big, romantic gesture on Valentine’s Day, I am not one of them. Certainly if you had the means and wanted to fly me off to Paris for a romantic long weekend, I would be in heaven (I’d even settle for New York. Just sayin’.), but realistically, I prefer an acknowledgment of the day in a way that shows that my husband gets me. And that is the key, I think. I’m not into a lot of bling. I don’t care for roses, and although I like flowers, I am allergic to them.  Truth is, I don’t really want or need much. If your significant other is the same way, here are some ideas that may help you be the hero this Valentine’s Day. 

Four Low-Key Valentine’s Day Gifts

Divine Calm - Great Gift

1. A Relaxing Bath. Light some candles, draw her a bath with a lovely, skin softening additive like The Body Shop’s Divine Calm Serenity Milk Bath Powder ($18), then leave her alone for 30 minutes. Then greet her with a warm towel and robe. It will be worth your while. Promise.

A Just-Right Treat

2. Chocolate-Covered Strawberries ($19.99). A little chocolate plus a berry packed with fiber and vitamin C. Great for your health-conscious sweetheart. A half dozen will do nicely; she might even share.

Casual, But Not Sloppy

3. A Cool Leather Bracelet ($65).  This is a cool-looking, casual bracelet that you can make her own by getting it personalized for her.  Another idea that’s as unique and rare as she is.

Say It Simply

4. A Personalized Ring ($109.98). If you’re looking for a more grand gesture, this demure ring, make personal with her initial and maybe a little love note from you. A gift that’s one of a kind. Like her.

If all else fails, clean the house. Without her asking. Make her dinner and do the dishes. It’s the little things that mean a lot—and get the biggest rewards. Wink-Wink.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Featured Photo Credit

About The Author:  Megan is a professional writer, amateur photographer and an accomplished beauty product crash test dummy. She'll try anything once, especially if it's a free sample. She's still trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up, but it will probably involve travel and Colin Farrell. And maybe some writing and photography. You can visit her at onethousandwordsormore.com or follow her on Twitter: msmegan.

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Cook This, Not That And Love Eating Healthier

I do not diet. I do not like diet food: fat-free this, light that. Yuck. And really, most of that stuff is so chemical-laden that it negates any calorie benefit it might have. Over time I have discovered that the key to eating healthier is making better choices and watching portion sizes. This is where Cook This, Not That comes in. It’s a cookbook that will help educate you on how to make better food choices and give you some awesome recipes in the process. It was written by the editors of Men’s Health magazine.

The book calls itself the “No Diet Weight Loss Solution,” but you should be aware that they are basing this statement on the fact that many of us eat out way too much and that restaurant food is, on average, horrible for you. It gives you homemade alternatives to some popular restaurant dishes—alternatives that seriously slash calorie counts. If you eat out a lot and stopped doing that and ate from this book instead, you would lose weight. That being said, if you are trying to lose weight overall, you’ll still need to keep a good eye on your calories, etc.

350-Calorie Version

But for those of us who just want healthier food that tastes good, this is a godsend. Seriously. I’ve had this book for a few months now and don’t think I’ve had a bad meal from it. It has everything from appetizers and snacks to dessert. It gives you some great ideas for branching out on your own and making healthy choices while doing it. I love this book so much when I found out they had a new, 350-calorie version, I had to have it. It’s been a few weeks and so far, I love it.

What I like best? The recipes use real food and not weird-tasting substitutes. It educates you about healthy fats and portion sizes and how to eat to stay fuller longer so you don’t binge on things you shouldn’t. It’s the healthy eating information most of us probably knew back in the day before the fat-free revolution loaded us up on sugar and chemicals. This is eating more like people ate back when I was kid. Nothing was completely out of bounds, but people didn’t eat out for every meal and they didn’t eat hamburgers the size of their heads.

For me, this is a return to eating sanity. I heartily recommend both of these books; they’ve become household staples for me. My son even likes the stuff. Go figure.

Wanna learn more? Follow Eat This, Not That on Twitter at @EatThisNotThat and check out their Web page.

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A Damn Good Workout

I’ve been exercising for like 150 years. OK, maybe it isn’t quite that long, but it feels like it. Why? Because I get bored. Lift weights, hit treadmill, blah, blah, blah. Meh. So over it. What I am not over is how exercise makes me feel – lean, strong and healthy. I recently set out to find a new exercise program that would give me a good workout but be different what I’ve been doing. Enter Rodney Yee’s Power Yoga Total Body.

This is not for wimps. I only recommend it if you have a some yoga experience under your belt. It’s done in a flow style, where one pose flows into the next. Rodney calls the poses by their names, so if you don’t know Warrior One from Downward Dog you’re going to be lost. Even if you are an experienced yogi, this is a challenging workout. It’s meant to help you gain strength as well as flexibility. You will sweat. You will curse Rodney repeatedly (or maybe that’s just me). But in the end you will be damn glad you plunked down the $8.99 plus shipping for this baby. Like I said, I’m an experienced yogi/exerciser and this is challenging for me.

The workout is 60 minutes – that’s one hour of almost constant movement. The pace is quick, not relaxed like you may have experienced with other yoga workouts. This is not for relaxation and centering, it’s for toning and conditioning your body.

I like Rodney Yee as a yoga instructor. Sometimes I giggle at him, but it’s in the privacy of my own home, so it doesn’t count (does it?). Other instructors  irritate me because they talk too much or too slowly or whatever, but I think Rodney gets it about right.

If you’re looking for a new challenge or just want to add new dimension to your workouts, try this video. It’s under $10 and since you do it at home, no one can see you when you can’t get your head off of the floor in Reverse Bow.

Namaste indeed.

Oh! Look what I found at Target! Why did no one tell me about this before?!

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Running Gear For The Digital Age

I love to run and when the weather is nice, I would prefer to be running outside than on a treadmill. I am considering training for my first half marathon this winter and as I start increasing the distance of my runs, I don’t always want to drive them first to check the distance and I don’t like to run on a track so figuring out my miles has always been a problem.

With regular pedometers, my gauge is always off. I’m never sure if it’s because they’re attached to my hip in the wrong place or if I am doing something wrong when I set them up and I tend to get frustrated with them and give up after a few months. For the past year, I have been using a new method of mileage tracking, the Nike + iPod Sensor. If you have an iPhone or an iPod and like to run or walk, this is the greatest invention since sliced bread.

The kit comes with a tiny sensor that fits into a pocket on your running shoes.  If your shoes don’t have pockets – mine don’t – you can buy separate little pouches that strap onto your laces to hold the sensor for about $5.  The kit costs $39, but if you have an iPod touch or an iPhone 3GS or newer, the receiver is built in and you can buy just the sensor for $19. Once you have the sensor on your shoe, you open the app on your iPod and start walking. The receiver picks up the signal, starts tracking your mileage and you’re on your way.

There are a few things I really love about the Nike+ system, the first is that it saves all of your data from every run so you can keep track of your speed if you are trying to decrease times for marathon training.If you run different routes from day to day you can title them and save them. The next time you run that route you tap on it in your list and all of your previous information comes up for comparison. The app also uses music you already have in your playlists to play durng your workout. You can build a new playlist specifically for the app or use one already in your library.

The only con I have found in the system is that the sensors do burn out.  My first one lasted about 9 months before I had to replace it, but that’s longer than I have ever had a single pedometer last before. All in all, it’s a great tool for runners and walkers looking to keep track of their workout information whether it’s simply for exercise purposes or for marathon training.

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Amy's Ravioli Bowl

Throughout the chaos of plumbing that falls out of the sink and cabinet paint that blisters like a bad sunburn, we are trying to maintain our organic lifestyle as much as we reasonably can while we remodel the kitchen. This weekend when I did my grocery shopping I was the lady with the full cart of Amy’s frozen dinners. I don’t think I even had my wedding ring on and it’s almost certain I hadn’t showered, so I was 35 cans of cat food away from being a that lady.

If you shop at Whole Foods there is a surprisingly large variety of organic options in the frozen pre-made meal department. The majority of them are Amy’s brand, which are all vegetarian meals, and they’re really good. I guess at $5 a pop they should be, but I was actually kind of shocked at how good they’ve been. In my previous weight loss lives I established long-standing relationships with Lean Cuisine and Smart Ones, which are mediocre-tasting at best, so the Amy’s experience really was a pleasant surprise.

Amy’s kitchen makes over 88 different frozen meals running the ethnic cuisine gamut from Mexican to Indian, with Italian thrown in there along with good old-fashioned pot pies, and I haven’t yet tried one I haven’t liked. I’ve had stuffed shells, ravioli, tamales, burritos, enchiladas, and more and they’ve all been really good. Each meal has been well within the calorie range I like to maintain, and yet the portion sizes have been on the generous side of just right.

With my refrigerator parked in the dining room and the microwave the only cooking option available I’m glad we’re still able to follow a mostly organic food plan. Since the plumbing fell out of the kitchen sink (how does that even happen???) we’ve been doing dishes in the bathroom, which I have to say is NOT fun and possibly not even sanitary, (although I feel it necessary to interject that we have stopped using that bathroom for anything else) it’s also helpful that they come in disposable and mostly recyclable containers. It’s important to me that they are conscious of their packaging contents. From their website:

The concern about the use of plastic films and coatings in food packaging is based on research showing that some plastics, including PVC, have plasticizers in them that could leak into food at low levels. Because of this, Amy’s Kitchen requires that all plastics and coatings used in the packaging of our frozen products be free of plasticizers.

They are expensive, there’s no way to get around that, but I’m a firm believer in “you get what you pay for” and the combination of great tasting organic ready-made food and responsible packaging is worth it to me.

Anyone want to come for dinner?

Photo Credit: theimpulsivebuy

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I searched the Zumba website for gyms that had a class near me and found one that offered free trials. Did you know you can go to a gym you don’t belong to and try out a class? You totally can at some gyms, you just have to call them and ask.

I had no idea what to expect at the class, but YouTube and the Zumba website gave me a general idea. The room where the class was held was tiny and packed with women. I was glad to see that there were women of all ages and sizes there, and their Zumba skills ended up varying just as widely so I fit right in.

When I arrived I told the instructor that it was my first class. I do this with any fitness class I go to for the first time because I’ve found that they are extra helpful if they know you’re a newbie. They want you to like their class so you’ll come back and they’ll get to have more classes, so set your shyness aside and go talk to the instructors. Even the shoutiest spin class instructor doesn’t really bite and you’ll probably learn something that all those people who were afraid to talk to the instructor wish they had asked before you. They’ll also keep an eye on you during class and offer suggestions to help you learn the steps.

The class started off pretty quickly, and it got even quicker from there. The Zumba music has a Latin beat as the name would suggest, and it’s lively and energetic. The steps start off pretty basic, then they add on more and gradually become more complicated. It’s ok if you don’t get them right away. There are other people in the class who aren’t getting it either, I guarantee it!

The class lasted an hour and it definitely lived up to its promise of a high-energy cardio workout. Between the heat of the room and the non-stop movement of the class I was worn out and drenched by the end. And I had fun! A lot of fun, actually, and the hour flew by quicker than most hours I’ve ever spent at a gym.

If you are thinking about taking a Zumba class, you can find one on their website’s class locator. You don’t need special clothing, although you will want a sports bra to combat all the bouncing. You will also need a towel and a bottle of water. That’s about it!

If you’re shy, or just don’t want to go to a gym, you can order their DVDs, which are available on their site and on Amazon. I used the DVDs at home for quite a while before actually joining a gym and found them really helpful because there is an entire DVD dedicated to just teaching you the steps.

If you are bored with your current routine and are looking for something new Zumba might just be the thing for you!

Featured Photo by: Cimm

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Advil Congestion Relief

Let me count the ways… Just one. IT WORKS!

I saw the commercial for Advil Congestion Relief for the first time recently. You may have seen it. The woman sitting in bed blaming her woes on a guy in a t-shirt that reads MUCOUS. And he defends himself saying that her problem is congestion and not mucous. I thought to myself I probably ought to buy myself some of that. Then I did nothing.

Fast forward to last week when I was moaning in self pity thanks to a cold I was fighting. I couldn’t breathe through my nose at all and it was driving me crazy. The neti pot offered no relief because I was so congested the warm water just couldn’t get through. I used some nasal spray and it worked ok but I hate the way nasal spray feels, plus it’s bad for you to use it too often.

Then I remembered the poor misunderstood scapegoat named Mucous in the Advil Congestion Relief commercial. I made a trip to the drug store and bought myself a box and excitedly took my first dose. Obviously it doesn’t work as quickly or as dramatically as a nasal spray but after about an hour I did feel it working. Not to be too gross but I could blow my nose and got a result from it. You can take one pill every four hours so I took a second dose later that night, before I went to bed. I slept through the night, breathing through my nose all the while. I haven’t had to take another dose since then.

The other thing I love passionately about this stuff is that you don’t need to get on a pseudoephedrine watch list to buy it. You can just get it off the shelf and buy it, without being treated like a possible meth head.

Advil Congestion Relief is available at any drug store or at Target. It’s around $8.00 for a ten-count box. It’s cold season. I highly recommend you buy a box now and keep it on hand just in case.

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Neti Pot - Allergy Relief for Lovers of Spring

Things I love: springtime, most flowers, trees, dogs, cats, popcorn, and the smell of eucalyptus.  Things I am allergic to, but am experiencing in some form or another: please see my previous sentence.  I know people effectively manage their seasonal allergies with the use of inhalers, shots and medication, and, believe me, if that stuff worked for me, I would use it.  But, it doesn’t, so I have to rely on the methods of “natural health” to manage my allergies and chronic sinus issues.  So far, the absolute winner among those is the NeilMed NasaFlow Neti Pot that I stumbled across about a year ago while I browsed the aisles at a drugstore.

In case you don’t recall from watching Dr. Oz on Oprah, a neti pot is an ancient “technology” that has been used by practitioners of yoga for over a thousand years.  It works on the principle of gravity and essentially flushes the nasal passages using low pressure water irrigation. Basically, you fill up this little thing that looks like a mini tea pot, press the spout opening against one of your nostrils, tilt your head in the opposite direction from said nostril, and flush out your nose.  There are all sorts of neti pots available to folks interested in this method of allergy management and health maintenance, but my vote is for the NeilMed Neti Pot because it’s cheap, readily available in drug stores, and seems to be a thoroughly researched product by its manufacturers.

Effective And Reasonably Priced

For example, research on nasal irrigation as a technique for maintaining sinus health suggests that the sinuses have to be irrigated with a minimum of 200 mL of salinated water for the irrigation technique to be effective.  The NeilMed pot holds 240 mL, and the company makes an affordable saline packet that is readily available in most drug stores.  The salt in the packet has been formulated with pharmacy grade salt that should be mixed in with the water prior to use.  Some people who use neti pots either forgo the salt altogether or use table salt, which is a huge mistake.  The saline reduces inflammation, so it’s an integral part of maintaining sinus health.  Furthermore, table salt has impurities in it, so you might be snorting more than just salt if you decide to fill your neti pot with it.

It might also interest you to know that neti pots aren’t just effective for sufferers of chronic allergies, but has been advocated as something that should be used to maintain general health.  Think about it this way, you’re breathing in about 14,000 liters of air every single day and that air is filtered by one thing: your nose.

How often are you cleaning that filter and how well are you cleaning it?

NeilMed has a myriad of solutions for people looking to maintain sinus health through natural methods, and the neti pot is just one of them. A great little feature of my neti pot was that it came with a little booklet that both explained the principles and techniques of sinus health in great detail.

Featured image by Jason Verwey

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Where can I find a pedometer that won’t break for under $25? I have gone through all of them at Target. I am on my sixth in about 9 months. I walk. I don’t do anything weird. They just fall off and break. It’s like they are trying to flee.

It is so frustrating to buy something and be excited to use it and then it breaks. I hate that!

Oxeri 4x3motion Digital Pocket 3D Pedometer

What if you tried a model that you didn’t have to clip to your hip? The Oxeri 4x3motion Digital Pocket 3D Pedometer can be worn around your neck, in your pocket, in your bag, wherever is convenient. The reviews attest to its accuracy no matter where it’s stored, and if I were in the market for a pedometer this is the one I would buy because I really hate clipping things to my pants. My waist is such that it’s never comfortable for me, so being able to stick it in my pocket would be perfect. I know it’s slightly over $25, especially considering shipping, but if it means you don’t keep going through them it would be worth it to me.

Omron HJ-112 Pedometer

The OmronHJ-112 Digital Pocket Pedometer gets awesome reviews, including a thumbs up from Buy-Her’s very own Hamlet’s Mistress:

I know it’s a little over $25…it’s $27…but I love it. I’ve never had it break and it has fallen off plenty.

This one comes with a detachable belt holder and security strap so it’s a lot less likely to actually hit the ground if it falls off – a leash for your runaway pedometers!

I hope one of these will fit your needs and that you find lasting pedometer love!

Photo Credit: Nick Harris1

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The truth is?  They can be a great enhancement.  Sure our bodies naturally lubricate themselves, but if the night goes into extra innings?  A girl might need some help.  There’s no shame in that game.

But with so many on the market, which one to chose?  I haven’t done extensive research in this area, so I’m not going to be able to cover all the bases but I have tried a few.

ID Glide Personal Lubricant

ID Glide Personal Lubricant

ID Glide Personal Lubricant is a water based lubricant which is body and toy friendly.  It is easy to clean up, and doesn’t leave behind a greasy film.  It reduces mood killing friction and makes extended foreplay more enjoyable.   Water based lubricants are latex friendly as well, where silicone based lubricants are not.

ID Glide is clear and odorless and also?  Taste-free, you know, for those who might be wondering.   Because it lasts longer than some others I have tried, the 5.5 oz bottle will last a while depending on the frequency of use.

ID Glide Lubricant can be found at Amazon.com or at Walgreens.com.

K-Y Yours + Mine Couples Lubricant

K-Y Yours + Mine Couples Lubricant

K-Y is the go-to name in personal lubricants.  It’s the first name that comes to mind when personal lubrication comes up.

And with good reason.  K-Y makes a great product.  Correction, K-Y makes several great products.

The Yours + Mine Couples Lubricant is two lubricants to be used by a couple together.  Each one works great by itself, but when used together?  The results are amazing.

The Blue tube goes on him and offers a slight warming sensation.  The purple is for her and offers a cooling/tingling sensation.  When the two meet, the sensations mingle together and create a new and exciting sensation felt by both partners.  The lubricants are interchangeable or can be used alone.

There are two drawbacks to this product though.  K-Y Yours + Mine Couples Lubricant are silicone based, so you will need to wash the product off.  Also, the packaging is two test tubes and therefore they do not sit/stand upright, so you have to be extra careful to not spill them.

As with ID Glide, you can get K-Y Yours + Mine Personal Lubricants at Amazon.com, kyshopdirect.com or at department stores where personal lubricants are sold. (ie, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Target)

With Valentine’s in the air, what better time to have a little fun in the bedroom?

Featured image from here.

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