What are your 2012 Fashion Resolutions?

What are your 2012 Fashion Resolutions? How do you plan to feel great by looking your best this year?

This is the latest question in the Life Well Lived BlogHer program. I've shared my answer and you should too!

Click here to see what I said and what others are planning to do.

Be sure to enter for a Kindle Fire/Amazon Gift Card here!

Book Review: Why Women Need Fat

Why Women Need Fat by William D. Lassek, M.D., and Steven J. C. Gaulin, PH.D., is one of the most interesting books I've read in quite some time. It's definitely one of my favorites from the BlogHer Book Club. It's not a diet book like you might think. It's a historical, sociological and medical look at how women's bodies work and how the American diet has changed to work against them.

I'm a strong believer in real food. No fast food, processed cheese, soda or other junk foods in my house. This book supports my beliefs, and it also goes into detail about how and why those foods are harmful and make women fat. The book describes the anthropological history of women's bodies in supporting pregnancies and producing health babies. One of the most interesting facts is that the American diet since the dawn of processed foods and vegetable fats has been reduced in omega-3 fats. Did you know that in women's bodies omega-3 fats are turned into DHA, stored around the hips and thighs and this DHA is solely responsible for nourishing a growing baby's brain in the womb? 

To me that is fascinating. And, what this book explains is that the American diet has transformed, thanks to vegetable oils like soy and corn, into a diet that is depleted of good fat and high in bad fat: omega-6. This bad fat actually lowers the good fat, omega-3, you ingest and may already have in your body. 

I'll stop giving away the book, but there's plenty more to learn. Whether you're heavy or skinny, this book isn't going to make you feel bad. It's purpose, in my opinion, is to enlighten you as to how your foods affect you, your body and even your children. Even if you don't read it, remember as Michael Pollen says, "You are what you eat eats." 

Click here to visit the BlogHer Book Review site, get more information on this book and talk with others who have read it. 

I was compensated for this BlogHer Book Club review, but all opinions expressed are my own. 

Book Review: Sea Change by Jeremy Page

I just read Sea Change by Jeremy Page. I found this book to be very intriguing. The overall premise is sad: Guy loses his wife and child. There you know. By the way, his name is Guy, not just a descriptor.

BUT, he keeps them alive in his mind and grows their lives' stories in his diaries. He continues to write about his family as if they are all still together for five years while he lives on a boat at sea. As a writer, I found it interesting that you could keep someone alive by writing about them. Could you really keep your life as you knew it going in your writing? I enjoyed the idea that his writing took on a life of its own, and there were times that even he was surprised by the outcomes, as if some other force was really writing the story...much like real life.

If you are a writer, I highly suggest you reading this book. If you're not a writer, you will still learn some life lessons from Guy, his diaries and his life on his boat. If you read it, come back and tell me the significance of the bird in the box....just wondering.

Go here to learn more about the book and talk to people who have read it. 

I was compensated for this BlogHer Book Club review but all opinions expressed are my own.

Fashion Trends for Grown Ups

As I'm approaching another birthday, and a change in seasons, I'm wondering how I should update my wardrobe accordingly. I'm not a big fashionista because I think runway trends are mostly silly. But, I understand how something completely overdone on the runway, can end up in my local store as something normal and cute. However, with age and in a work environment, it's difficult to stay up-to-date on fashion trends and not look like a teenager, wearing four trends at one time. I also don't want to purchase an entirely new wardrobe every season because everything I have is "so last season."

How do you stay in fashion while dressing your age? 

There is a great post on BlogHer: A Life Well Lived discussing this very issue. I've added my two cents, and you should to. There are also great ideas from other women, and I will take all the advice I can get!

Click on over to read my comment and everyone else's. Even add yours too!

And, you must enter the $250 sweepstakes! You could use the money to update your wardrobe :)

A Good Hard Look book review

I've got another BlogHer book club review up. It's on A Good Hard Look. See why I judged it on its cover. Right or wrong.

Click here to read my review. 

Mary Kay try out

I was lucky enough to be a part of a trial program through BlogHer and Mary Kay. I signed up; they sent me some makeup to try. Pretty cool, right? 

Here's the loot.

 It was a magnetic compact,  

three shades of eyeshadow and a blush

They all fit perfectly into the magnetic compact.

I wasn't sure that blue was my color, but I followed the instructions on the packet, which showed which areas of the eye to place the colors. 

Here's the shadow on my eye. I like the two brown tones, but with my green eyes, I really need a purple hue instead of blue. The makeup did go on well though. I used their little brushes that were included, but I always prefer a real sized brush. The small ones would be nice on the go, but they just can't compare to real brushes. 

And, here's the finished eye. 

I normally use Bare Minerals, which I do love. However, the Mary Kay sample was really nice with the magnetic compact. I could see that it would be nice having everything you needed in one compact instead of several loose powder tubs like I have now. I think I may look into purchasing a purple hue to replace the blue, and I'll keep the compact in my travel bag. You never want to find yourself without makeup!

Thanks Mary Kay and BlogHer for the samples!!

Chicken pot pie ice cream

This is not a joke. 

I made chicken pot pie ice cream. 

Through Blogher, I entered a recipe contest using a new product from Knoll: chicken stock concentrate. It's like chicken stock jelly, in a good way. The contest was to create an original recipe with the concentrate. Now, I must have been watching too many Iron Chefs or something because I thought, "That jelly-o-chicken would melt perfectly into an ice cream custard." 

So off I went to make chicken ice cream.

I make plenty of ice cream in my KitchenAid attachment ice cream maker, so I knew the basics. I figured I'd wing the rest. 

Here are the ingredients. Half & Half, a little butter and the tub-o-chicken-jelly. 

I used four eggs. 

I heated the half & half, butter, chicken jelly and some fresh thyme from our garden in a pot. 

Then, I tempered the eggs and cooked the now-custard mixture until thick. Next, I strained it and  completely chilled it in the refrigerator. Then it could be processed through the ice cream machine. Then it stayed in the freezer overnight. 

To make this chicken ice cream, chicken pot pie ice cream, I baked off a square of puff pastry. 

And topped it with a scoop of the chicken ice cream. 

Chris and I each took a bit of this one. It definitely tasted like chicken, and you really needed the puff pastry to cut the chicken-y flavor. I'm not sure I'll ever make this again; however, it was a fun process to create something so unique. 

I'll let you know if I win the recipe contest. Who knows? Maybe they are looking for the perfect chicken pot pie ice cream recipe!

My latest book review is up!

My latest BlogHer book review is up. 

Click on over to read it!

Need a new book to read?

My second book review for the BlogHer book club is up! We read Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok. Head on over to my review to see what I thought about it. You'll see I even received a comment from the author herself!

Click here to read my review!

My first review with BlogHer

Are you looking for a book to read? 

Head on over to BlogHer, and read my review of Caleb's Crossing. 

 

I'm a member of their book club, and I hope to be reviewing many books for them in the future. 

Go Luxe

There's a cool contest over at Blogher.com that you all might like. It's based around Jesse Garza and Joe Lupo new clothing collection debut collection, VT Luxe!

You can enter the contest here, and if you win, you get to choose which item of clothing you want. That's my favorite part! You won't be stuck with some random item that you don't want. 

Also, they are giving away 50 copies of Jesse and Joe's book, "Nothing to Wear?"

With spring and summer around the corner, I'm ready to spruce up my wardrobe, and any style advise is welcomed!

Jesse and Joe also have a style blog: http://visual-therapy.com/blog/

Here's wishing you a stylish season!

Traveling the Blogsphere

I was quite surprised this morning when I received an email from an editor at Blogher.com. It's the web site that supplies me with all these lovely ads. 

As a Blogher member, I have a profile on their site, and I'm able to post blogs there as well. I recently posted by article about how I grocery shop. 

This morning, I learned that they had chosen it as a featured post, and they would be promoting it on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. It would also be promoted on the web site as a "featured" post. 

So this is how I've traveled the Blogsphere today. 

First, I posted my article here.

Then here on Blogher's site. As of right now, my article on the Blogher site has been read almost 300 times. Six people have shared it on their Facebook page. Three people have commented on the article directly, and three more have shared it on their Twitter page. 

Next, it was selected as a featured post, and Blogher posted it on their Facebook page. They have more than 11,000 fans so it's possible 11,000 people saw my face today:

After that, they posted it on their Twitter page. They have almost 25,000 Twitter followers.

So we're clear, all of these links they are posting go back to my article.  

Wow. This is why social media is so popular and addicting! Thousands of people have seen and read an article that I wrote. They've shared it with others and so on. It's very exciting for me, and I'm already thinking about what I can write next that will hopefully be featured. 

Requests?