Yoga

I never really looked much into yoga until recently. It just wasn't my thing. But suddenly I was seeing yoga everywhere, yoga is supposed to help if you are stressed or have migraines (I have both), and yoga is in 27 Dresses, and the Wedding Planner (I kind of want Judy Greer to be my best friend, she's awesome!) and there is free yoga at school. Yoga was just everywhere. So I figured I would give it a try.

I did not feel comfortable going to a yoga class at school. Plus, the classes and my schedule did not like each other. I looked online, and found some yoga videos on youtube. Esther Ekhart is the yoga teacher. The video is titled "Yoga for Beginners" and I really enjoyed this. She has several videos, I usually just do the first and second video. If I have time, I will do the third. But these are really great videos if you have NO idea what you are doing, like me! Esther is very easy to understand, she shows you how to do everything, and its definitely relaxing!

I also mix a little physical therapy stretches in with this yoga. I do a little stretching before, and some neck stretches afterwards. I try to do yoga three times a week. I am not quite in the routine of doing yoga every week, but I am getting there! Once or twice a week I will add some crunches into the mix!

Yoga, I can say from experience, is helpful if you are stressed, or get migraines a lot. I know that there are many more things yoga is helpful for. If you are tense, or have tight muscles and need to stretch your body out a bit, yoga is perfect. It is exercise, stretching, and good for your respiratory system. So check some yoga out! Get involved in a class near you, and do it your way, if you want to get comfortable in your own home first, then do that! If you want to jump right into a class, go right ahead!

Macaroni and Cheese for One

I hate leftovers. I usually eat them, but I just hate having leftover food in my refrigerator, I am one person, if I need a meal, I cook something fresh, it just makes my life simpler. I like macaroni and cheese (with chicken nuggets!), but making a whole box just drove me crazy. So I measured everything out to figure out how to make only a half a box at a time! This recipe is using the Kraft brand macaroni and cheese 7.25 oz box.

1/2 cup of noodles*
1/8 cup or 2 1/2 tablespoons cheesy powder**
2 TBSP butter
1/8 cup milk

Boil the noodles, and drain them. Melt the butter in the noodles, add milk and cheesy powder, stir well.

So there you have it! Simple, yet easy! I love macaroni with chicken nuggets. I cook anywhere from four to eight nuggets (depending on how hungry I am) in the microwave for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Happy eating!

*There is a little more than 1 cup of noodles per box, so make sure that this 1/2 cup of noodles is a little overflowing.
**The powder is a little less than 1/4 cup, so if you use the 1/8 cup then make sure its not quite full.

Teatime

Celestial Seasonings has the most amazing tea! Its called Tension Tamer, it has a blend of ginger, chamomile, peppermint and lemon. I think those sound like a really weird mix, but this tea is incredibly good! It does tend to be a bit strong though, so I don't let it steep as long as I would for other teas. I also don't use sugar, I use a bit of honey in this!

Aside from Tension Tamer, Celestial Seasonings has some really incredible tea mixtures. They have a sleepytime mix with vitamin c, zinc, elderberry and echinancea. Also a sore throat tea with chamomile, spearmint, licorice root, slippery elm bark (which sounds absolutely awful! It is good for your throat though!), lemongrass and ginger.

You can get coupons on their website if you have the ability to print coupons. They also send out coupons every few weeks in the Sunday paper if you get that. Their teas are definitely worth buying!

Acne

Since I started working at Penn Station my face has been more greasy than usual, which means I've had more zits than usual. I usually don't even have a problem with zits, but lately I've had a lot on my forehead. I searched on google for zit home remedies, and found this one, which I just tried:

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup of warm water

Dissolve the salt in the warm water, and using a cotton ball, soak it in the water. Squeeze the cotton ball so its still wet, but not dripping (you don't want it to be really dry). Place the cotton ball over the area where you have zits, and hold it there for 3-6 minutes. I held it there for four minutes, but you can hold it up to six minutes. Remove the cotton ball, and dry your forehead, or wherever the zit was off. I noticed an almost immediate difference. I had a zit appear just today, and so it was all moist and gross. But after doing this, the zit looked more dry, and like it had been there for a few days. You can do this as everyday, or even twice a day. Just be careful because the salt will dry your skin, as well as the zits out. You don't want your skin to become too dry. 

If you have a lot of zits, this might take a while to do since a cotton ball isn't very big. You can try stretching the cotton ball out over a bigger area, or using both your hands to hold cotton balls on your face at the same time. You could even just do the areas that are the worst, or do one or two spots a day, switching spots everyday that you do this. 

This is just a really cheap, and mostly easy way to get rid of zits. Salt costs only 40 cents for a LOT of it. I use salt for a lot of stuff!

Buttons

I am trying to get more into this blogging thing, and I am currently learning about buttons. If you would like me to add your button onto my blog, just post a link where I can get one in the comments and I will add your button. I guess that's how all this works! 

Thanks!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 softened sticks of butter
1/2 cup sugar*
1/2 cup packed brown sugar*
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cups nuts (optional)

Oven: 375

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl**. In a separate bowl, combine sugars, and butter. Beat well. Add eggs and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture, add chocolate chips and nuts. Drop in teaspoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 9-11 minutes until golden and let cool. I like my cookies with milk, Taylor does not. Its up to you!

*The original recipe calls for 3/4 a cup of both sugars, but I found this to be extremely sweet. Even 1/2 a cup is very sweet. Feel free to add more sugar if you like! Keep in mind I do not eat a lot of sugar, so if you like sugar you might want to add more.
**The reason we combine flour, salt and baking soda in a separate bowl is to thoroughly mix the baking soda, and salt into the flour so you don't have nasty chunks of baking soda in the cookies.

Keeping Healthy

Between the soda ban in New York, the CDC declaring an obesity epidemic (over 35% of American's are obese), your doctor telling you that you have high blood pressure, diabetes, ect, and then on top of all that, you have advertisements where the women are impossibly thin, its difficult not to at least want to watch what you're eating. I disagree with being obsessed with your weight. If you are healthy, it is wise to stay healthy, if you have a medical problem (regardless of how big or small it is), its good to keep an eye on what you are consuming. 

But how do you know what you are really eating? I worked at McDonald's for over two years, so let me inform you as an insider. Nothing you can eat there is good for you. In my two years working at McDonald's I did a LOT of menu scrutiny. The menu is on the back of the tray covers by the way, and you can also ask an employee for a calorie chart if you want. Here's the thing, a lot of people ordered sandwiches without cheese, but one slice of cheese from any sandwich on the menu has only 20 calories. If you get a quarter pounder without cheese, you're only dropping 40 calories off a sandwich that is over 500 calories. It really doesn't make that big of a difference. 

One of the managers was trying to be healthy, she ate a salad everyday for lunch. The only salad worth eating to be healthy is a side salad, WITHOUT dressing, it is  20 calories. Just take a minute and think about this: all the other large salads START at 250 calories with GRILLED chicken. Switch the grilled chicken for crispy chicken (which is more popular than grilled), and you're adding 150 calories. Add one package of croutons, 50 calories. Drizzle a package of ranch dressing on top, adding another 170 calories. What started out as a healthy, 230 calorie lunch, ends up being over 600 calories. You can eat an Angus burger for that! You can eat two McDouble's and a small french fry for that, and still have calories left over. My point is, food is deceptive. 

So how do we know what we're eating? You have to faithfully keep up with what you eat, and not just the calorie content. If you have medical problem (that sounds awful in words, I just mean anything small like high blood pressure, diabetes, ect.) then you can look up the problem on mayoclinic.com, click on Health Information, and Diseases and Conditions. They are listed alphabetically. They typically will list foods that will help, and if they list a vitamin (such as vitamin C), you can go to Vitamins and Supplements and look up that vitamin, and they will list foods that you can eat to get that vitamin naturally. Then you know what foods will help, and hurt your problem. If you don't have a problem, that great! The most common problems tend to be high blood pressure, diabetes, and arthritis, so you could simply look those up, and eat foods to help prevent those conditions.

The other option you can use is myfitnesspal.com. This is a free website that I use occasionally. I don't have time to use it on a daily basis, but if you have internet on your phone, I would encourage you to try to keep up with it. You will notice a difference in how you eat if you are keeping up with what you eat. The main purpose I use my fitness pal for is to check calorie/fat content of meals. For example, my most typical breakfast is two maple sausage links, and a bagel with cream cheese, the calorie content of this is about 400 calories. If I have fruit, sometimes I'll eat fruit with it. 

I do not think that it is healthy to be obsessed with your health/weight. I do, however, think that it is important to be careful of what we put into our bodies. Believe me, I eat ice cream, I LOVE cheese, and I have potato chips and pudding in my cabinet (and a chocolate cake mix!), but its having the self control to eat these in moderation that is important. I will have a post soon about tips for eating healthy when you are gone constantly like I am. I will also be posting more recipes on here, because cooking at home is a great way to be sure that what you are eating has the least amount of preservatives as possible! Happy eating! =)

Keeping Up With the News

Whether you're in college, or going to be, keeping up with what is happening in colleges across the United States is important. Knowing what the government is doing with tuition, administration rates, even whether or not Harvard had a "nap room" (they do by the way!)
I have two resources that I use to keep up with college news. I don't read EVERY article, but it is good to read what interests you, and things that relate to you (for example, tuition rates). The first one is a newspaper that the library has called The Chronicle. I would think that most college libraries would have a copy of this, I personally prefer reading from paper, rather than a computer screen! If your library does not have this option, the website is: The Chronicle.
The second place I use to keep up with college news is USA Today College. They tend to have more articles written by students, where The Chronicle has more college news related articles. Both are interesting, and good places to at least skim over every so often so you know whats going on! The USA Today website is: USA Today College.

On a different note, keeping up with the weather is also something smart to do. Plus, you'll know if it is going to rain, so you know whether to wear rain boots or not! You don't want to be the person with soggy shoes! weather.com is the website that I use on a regular basis. I use the hourly forecast because I prefer it over the other options. Use whatever you prefer. However, if there is bad weather in your area do not rely on this website. No, no, no. Haha, log onto your local weather website, or turn your TV on. I use weather.com simply to know the temperature, and rain/snow/storm updates. If I hear the tornado siren going off, I turn the TV on. I will be posting sometime later on about weather safety tips.

Spring = bugs

Its almost springtime, which means BUGS! What I want to do is share with you the non-obvious ways to get rid of bugs! The obvious being bug sprays, and traps. I do not have any kids, but if you have kids, using chemicals might not be something you want to do. So here are some other options for getting rid of bugs.

Ants
Ants do not like lavender. My apartment has a horrible ant problem during the spring and summer months, and they are mostly in my bathroom. What they find so interesting in my bathroom I have no idea. I am just grateful they aren't in my kitchen. I spray lavender oil all over my carpets about once a week, sometimes more if I feel it is necessary. I have a 12oz spray bottle that I put 10 drops of lavender oil in, and fill the rest of the way with water. Lavender oil can be found at any organic or health food store in your area, or also online. I also use raid ant traps, one taped to the wall above the shower in the bathroom, one underneath my bed, one in the kitchen, and one in the living room by the window. Between these two things, the ants usually stay away. Since the bathroom is such a problem area for me, occasionally I will use some chemical spray in the bathroom, but lavender oil is what I use on a regular basis. Ants also do not like bay leaves. Growing up, mom always had bay leaves laying around the house, and that seemed to keep the ants away as far as I can tell.

Fleas
Fleas also do not like lavender. In my attempt to get rid of ants, I am also driving fleas away! (Lice are another thing that do not like lavender, so hopefully they stay far, far away from me!) I have outdoor carpet on my porch, which is also open, and there are a lot of stray cats in my neighborhood that come up on the porch. In the summer there are LOTS of fleas! So gross. I am a bug hater! One night last summer I was about to go crazy with the flea problem I had. I was so sick of fleas being all over my apartment, and I hadn't had a chance to go to the store. So I got on google. I found that if you have a really bad problem, like I did, get a pan of soapy water (lots of soap, because the soap traps the fleas so they can't jump back out of the water), and leave it in front of some kind of heat and/or, light. A heater, the TV, a nightlight. Fleas are attracted to heat and light, so they will jump into the pan of water that is underneath that heat and light. Then they will be trapped! This worked wonders for me. The other thing I did was sprinkle salt all over my carpets. Google said to vacuum a day or so after you salted the carpet. I don't, I just leave it (mostly because I don't own a vacuum!) But either way, the salt dries out any flea eggs that are in the carpet, keeping them away.

Mosquitoes/Moths
I have a fly strip outside my door in the summer because there are so many moths on my porch. Lavender, again is helpful. Bay leaves I have heard are something else moths don't like, I recently bought some so I will be trying this out. For mosquitoes, citronella (an essential oil that is also found in health food stores) works very well. I'm sure you have seen citronella candles in the outdoor section at the grocery store. Try a mixture of lavender and citronella, and maybe even lay a few bay leaves around your door.

So to summarize what I just said, between lavender, salt, citronella and bay leaves, you can keep your house relatively bug free without using chemicals. You can even take it one step further, and use lavender scented laundry soap, and dryer sheets. I am also going to buy a lavender plant next time I go to Wal-Mart, because I like the way lavender smells!
Happy de-bugging! =)

$10 off at JCPenney

This weekend (March 8-10th) you can get $10 off a purchase of $25 or more at JC Penney if you use either of these promo codes: SHOP4YOU (serial number: 0096577382), or 4SPRING (when asked for the serial number enter: 0096577385). Get some free stuff!
JC Penney has amazing clearance, sometimes they even have cute shirts for three or four dollars! Check out their home and bedroom section too, I have found some amazing things in their clearance home and bedroom!

My favorite way to shop online is to sort the clearance by price low to high, set a price limit for myself (be reasonable, often for tank tops, its just five or six dollars, shirts are no more than 12, jeans are 20 if they are in the clearance section. Set a limit you know you can go with!) and then go through, right click on each item that looks interesting to you. When looking for items, look at the name of the item (so you know what it is), and the style. Don't worry much about the colors that are available until you go through your tabs a second time. After you have reached the part of the page where the items are going over your price limit, go through the tabs you have pulled up, and be picky. Do they have your size? The color you want? Is it in stock? Doing this easily narrows down the items you have that you are considering buying. Then you can go through and decide what you need vs. want, and what you can afford to buy!
Make sure you know what size you wear. Online shopping is NOT the time to experiment. If you aren't sure, don't buy it.

Good luck, and happy shopping!

Self-Injury Awareness Day

Today is Self-Injury Awareness Day. Here is a link to one of my favorite organizations ever, To Write Love On Her Arms, http://www.twloha.com/facts. TWLOHA is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people who struggle with depression, addiction, self injury and suicide. They have a blog, and they are also on facebook.
Be nice to the people around you, you never know what they are going through.

Have a great day people! =)