What did you Give or Receive This Holiday?

In the spirit of giving and receiving, I will share a few things that I gave and received this holiday season!

Gave:

1. A gift card for use at a casino nearby for my parents. They used it before Christmas for a little getaway!

2. A new yoga mat and metallic nail polish for one of my best friends.

3. An iPod Touch for my boy!

4. Boots for my cousins.

Received:

1. A new blender! I can finally make smoothies!

2. Social Network on DVD and a season of Glee.

3. Gift cards - Target, Starbucks, Victoria Secret, Barnes & Noble, etc. Yay for shopping!

4. A beautiful personalized snow globe from my boy!

Definitely a blessed Christmas! Tell me what you gave or received for the holidays!

Don't Feel Guilty About Eating Dark Chocolate!

Dark chocolate is one of my favorite things to indulge in. When I found out that it actually had health benefits, I said “More please!”. Now with the after Valentine's Day sales, you can find some at a great price!

Some “Dark” History

Chocolate history in general goes right back to dark chocolate, which was the first chocolate ever made. It goes back at least 3,000 years. It began as a bitter drink from the tropical areas of Central and South America. It was used by the Mayans and Aztecs as a ceremonial and medicinal drink and was often drank by the elite.

Next the Spanish discovered the drink and added sugar or honey and served the drink hot (perhaps the first hot chocolate?). Chocolate was considered a luxury and only for the rich. During the 19th century, milk was added to chocolate and this version became more popular than the dark chocolate that had always been around.

In the late 20th century into the 21st century, dark chocolate has been making a comeback, especially with all the health benefits that were uncovered.

Yummy Health Benefits

Dark chocolate contains an antioxidant called epicatechin that has proven health benefits. Dark chocolate has been shown to:

• Decrease High Blood Pressure
• Increase blood flow and prevent damage from strokes
• Inhibit cancer growth
• Lower cholesterol
• stimulate endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure
• contain serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant
• contain theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants

You can get all these benefits by eating just three squares a day! Also avoid eating with milk. Sure, it tastes great, but it has been shown to prevent these great antioxidants from being absorbed in your body when you eat it with milk.

Some Delicious Options

Now that you’re craving some dark chocolate, what kind should you buy? Some of my favorite brands that have delicious options for dark chocolate are:

• Dove Promises in Dark Chocolate (the wrappers have uplifting sayings on them!) or Dark Chocolate covered Dove ice cream bars
• Ghirardelli Intense Dark Chocolate squares with flavors such as toffee, espresso, and seat salt
• Hershey Special Dark Chocolate bars or chocolate kisses
• Godiva Dark Chocolate pearls with mint, a box of Dark Chocolate truffles, Dark Chocolate covered pretzels, and many more
• Lindt Excellence Dark Chocolate truffles with flavors such as orange and coffee

You can find all these options at your local grocery store or Target. You can also look for dark chocolate cupcakes, cakes, muffins or even make your own with dark chocolate chips!

Check out Dark-chocolate-life for more information.

See my original post on ASKinyourface.com.

Personalize Your Gifts This Valentine's Day!

One of my favorite type of gift to give and receive is the homemade or personalized gift. Homemade gifts can be cute, sweet, practical, or silly. But no matter what type of gift it is, it truly shows how much the person cares because they took the time to personalize or make something for you. Homemade gifts and personalized gifts don’t have to be time consuming or expensive either.

One of my favorite gifts to give someone is something involving pictures. You can buy a cheap picture frame and decorate it with stickers, markers, or paint and add a nice picture for a fabulous gift for any occasion. Another idea is finding a picture frame that has a bulletin board around the place for the photo. Then you can add a cute picture and tack memorabilia around the photo such as ticket stubs, movie tickets, notes, and other small pictures. Here’s an example of something similar with a mirror. You can also make personalized photo books at your local CVS or Walgreens. All you have to do is upload the photos you’ve chosen, add text if you want, and choose what type of booklet it will go in. This can be as inexpensive or as fancy as you’d like.

Another great option for personalizing and creating homemade gifts easily is heading to Zazzle.com. Simply choose what type of item you want to personalize. They have T-Shirts, mugs, greeting cards, ornaments, mouse pads, calendars, necklaces, posters, and the list goes on. For example, say you want to give your coffee-loving boyfriend a personalized mug for Valentine’s Day. Click on mugs and “create now” and chose the mug style, then you can either chose an existing design or upload a design or photograph. Then you can customize colors and text and they do the rest! From my personal experience with Zazzle, the website is easy to use, has cheap options, and ships fast. It is a great website for gift giving, no matter what person you’re buying for or the holiday.

Another way to your guy’s heart is by baking him his favorite dessert. Even if you’re not much of a baker, you can easily pick up a boxed mix to make brownies, a cake, or cookies. Then choose your guy’s favorite frosting and treats to put on top to show him you care. To go the extra mile, write your names on the cupcakes or frost a heart-shaped cake. If you want to stay on the cooking route, make him his favorite meal for dinner and set a nice table. This is a romantic and special way to show your loved one that you care.

Lastly, a homemade gift I like to give has to do with writing. Pick up a journal for couples at your local bookstore that has you answer questions to preserve memories about your relationship. If you prefer to really run the homemade route, you could make a book yourself and write memories. Be sure to include pockets to hold ticket stubs and other memories. If you’re not a writer, give someone a blank journal to preserve their own memories.

So this Valentine’s Day, don’t stress about what to get your sweetie. Make them something personalized or homemade and the sentiment will make it feel like it is worth a million dollars, even when you spent under $50.

Check out the original post by me on ASKinyourface.com here or read another article by me on gifts for certain types of men.

Day Two!

Day two is...."What I did today!"

Since today hasn't really started, I will just fill you guys in on what I've been doing this week so far.

Monday, I woke up around 10, got ready and headed off to my internship. I spent about 2 hours sending out a press release to various websites. (Copy, paste, copy, paste...) From there I headed to the local outdoor mall to pick up a birthday gift for my grandmother. I found her this beautiful bracelet that spells out "Grandma" and I engraved "Love, Lauren" on the heart. All for $26!
I got a raspberry banana smoothie and walked around while it was being engraved. At home, I did some online shopping and got some more great deals. I bought 3 textbooks for school, a used copy of DDR and Rockband Songs, a fitness game for PS2, and a subscription to Cosmo magazine. My friend and I are going to each buy magazine subscriptions and trade them. :)

Then Monday night I went to my boy's house and played some Wii and watched TV and just relaxed. Tuesday I got up earlier than usual to go help out at work while someone had the day off. Luckily, I got off around 1, had lunch with a work friend, and headed on home to wrap some presents and relax.

Now for today...I have an appointment to go to then working tonight. Hopefully something fun will come up after work! Have a great day friends!