I'm Like a Firecracker

Laugh as you will, but how can you not be excited for BRITNEY'S COMEBACK TOUR!?

According to People.com, the tour will feature her signature sexy dance moves, a stage filled with three circus rings, and magic tricks.

I CAN NOT WAIT FOR THIS CONCERT!!

Burn Calories, Burn!

My ex-boyfriend would be proud of me. For the past two weeks, I've been going to the gym at least every other day. Today (SATURDAY) I was on the elliptical for over 2.5 miles! (How long that took is another story, but one feat at a time, thanks.) I'm so glad the apartment complex has a decent gym. Take that, stupid $60 gym memberships!

Anyways, since I've been working out, I thought I 'd share this interesting tidbit I learned from Glamour's health and fitness blog Vitamin G. Apparently, different workouts (ie. running, swimming, etc.) lead to different cravings. Personally I don't crave much of anything after working out except water, but that could be connected to my choice of exercise, according to this post. I generally pick a treadmill over running outside, and supposedly, treadmill lovers are more likely to experience appetite suppression. Wacky, huh?

But if you're more of a swimmer, or a swimmer in cold water, you end up craving foods higher in fat. If you're an outside runner, expect to crave fruit and high-water foods. Now I'm not big on swimming in cold water nor running, so if you are, does this resemble your post-workout craving?

You can read more about the study conducted at Loughborough University here.

Twitter, Twitter, Tweet, Tweet

I swear a new "must-have" social networking site appears everyday. I watch them for a while and contemplate joining them. I already have Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. But after watching for a few days, weeks, what have you, I generally give in to the craze.

Case in point: I added another to my list today: Twitter, which from my understanding is pretty much a site made entirely of Facebook statuses (Is that correct grammer?). People can follow and are followed by other people, and you read and respond to their current statuses just like Facebook. I think the big thing is you can update your status by text messaging at any time. (I personally haven't gotten that far. I'm kind of scared about extra charges and so forth.)

So if you feel the urge to follow me, you can find me here.

Sharp as a Razor

I'm sure you've heard how doing puzzles, such as crossword puzzles and sudoku, help stimulate your brain and may possibly reduce the risk of memory loss and dementia. (If not, well, you just did.) Well last night while I was reading Reader's Digest, I came across a delightful discovery (which unfortunately kept me up way too late):

KENKEN PUZZLES! They're pretty much like Sudoku, but instead have an additional challenge (supposedly) by including math in the picture. (Truthfully, I find them much easier than those stupid Sudoku puzzles. They were created by a Japanese teacher, Tetsuya Miyamoto. Check it out on your left.

If you find that you enjoy these puzzles, which I hope you do, you can check out these sites for lots and lots of puzzles:

KENKEN

Reader's Digest KENKEN puzzles

NYTimes.com KENKEN Puzzles

Webkendoku

Money Makes the World Go Round

You hear it everywhere: FINANCIAL CRISIS. RECESSION. LAYOFFS. DECLINE. DOOMED. (Ok, maybe they don't use the word doomed, but it fits!) Somehow we must save, yet spend at the same time to stimulate the economy. So what do you do? Where do you go?

WalletPop.com is a site devoted to helping you with all things money--saving, spending wisely, etc. It's a pretty interesting site that talks about money in plain, simple English. Most of the ideas are fairly realistic, too.

I mostly just read the blog, with an occassional visit to the actual site (Thanks to RSS feeds. I have a growing addiction to them!). Check out some interesting posts:

Dating in a recession: the game has (thankfully) changed

"Ruff" day at the office? Workplaces that allow pets have calmer, less stressed employees

Save money by graduating college in 3 years instead of 4

One Man's Garbage, Another Man's Treasure

Or maybe I should say, "One Man's Misfortunes, Another Man's Smile." With my life not following the plan I've laid out for it, sometimes I get a little blue. Thanks to the blogs of two friends (Liz's and Isaiah's), I've discovered a site that constantly makes me feel better about my day.

Fmylife.com is hilarious. It was created by some French kids for people to post "everyday anecdotes likely to happen to anyone." And by anecdotes, they mean awful, embarassing moments in the user's life where there really isn't anything else you can say except "F**k my life." Better yet, on top of people posting the anecdotes of why their lives suck, the rest of us can judge them. You can vote "I agree, your life is f**ked" or "you deserved that one."

Some of my favorites from today:

Today, I went to have dessert with my boyfriend. We ordered some Jello. I said that I loved Jello because it is so fun and jiggly. My boyfriend said, "Like you. Except the fun part". FML

Today, in art class we finally had the critique for the self portraits we've been working on for a month. We critique a few and come to mine. Everyone is silent. Finally, one girl says "I'm just going to be blunt. It doesn't look like you. You're not that pretty." Everyone nods. FML

Today, I went to get a condom because my boyfriend and I were going to have sex for the first time. When I opened the drawer, I saw that every single condom had a Jesus pin stabbed through it, and a note on top of the box: "love mom." FML

Beauty's Going Green

I recently wrapped up an internship at SELF magazine. I worked on the 2009 Healthy Beauty Awards, which will appear in the May issue. (Make sure you check it out!)

While there, I had to work with hundreds of products--hair, bath, body, makeup, etc. I also had to unpack and unwrap a lot of those products and WOW, talk about a lot of trash. So while reading SELF's beauty blog, I was pretty excited to hear about beauty companies starting to turn green.

First, they started with the packaging. Thank goodness! Check out the hot new trends in beauty packaging (and hopefully packaging everywhere!) here. Be gone, stupid Styrofoam peanuts!

And wait before you toss out that old lipstick tube! They've even started recycling the actual packaging! MAC, Aveda and Bond No 9 have started a green movement, and I hope everyone picks up on it! Read Ale's post here about how to help reduce beauty's carbon footprint by recycling plastic and glass. And if you read more about it on the companies' Web sites, you may find way to score free stuff. Reduce pollution and score free makeup? Not a bad way to start your day.

I can do whatever I want.

Hey all. New location, new life, new concept, new start. So welcome to the new blog!


"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one "less traveled by"—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth." --Rachel Carson