Reading is great for the mind

It seems everywhere you go everyone and everything is either blaming the economy or blaming the environment for their troubles. From housing to fast food, everything seems to be taking a turn for the worse. Somebody has to come up with a solution somehow! I have found a great website to help alleviate costs and reduce your carbon footprint, even by just a bit!



This is an incredible website where members can swap books (and DVD's and CD's) with each other... for free*. All you have to do is sign up, add available books to your bookshelf and once you successfully send out a book to another member, you get a credit for a book of your choice! If you don't have any books to post, you can add money manually, but how many people have tons of books lying around that they don't know what to do with or are just collecting dust? This helps reduce your waste as the books you send and receive are being "recycled."

There are a few caveats to the website, as you have to print out the address label, mark the books sent and received, and add postage (but it's media mail, so most of the time the postage costs less than $2.50). You are also subject to only selecting books that other members have posted, so it's not the same selection as Amazon, but the more people who join and add books, means there will be more selection! It is such an incredible deal that I have been using the site for over a year now, and have been extremely happy with it.

www.paperbackswap.com

*There is the cost of postage to send books out, but using stamps feels like it's free!

Things that DO NOT make me happy

So I have a love hate relationship with Paige Premium Denim. I love their jeans because they are very comfortable and make my legs look nice. What I don't like about them is that I have purchased two separate pairs of their product and both times the jeans have gotten a hole in them within 6 months. This time, it took less than one month!



Look PPD, I know you are trying to sell a look and lifestyle with your product line, but come on. I am a slender young woman who just wants to be able to wear the $150+ pair of jeans she just bought for more than a few weeks before they decide to give up and a hole forms right in the nether regions where you absolutely do not want a hole to form. I love you but I don't think I will be purchasing another pair from you.

Harumph.

The Soup

If you know me, I watch a lot of television because of the most wonderful invention in the whole world; Tivo. One of my favorite shows to watch on a weekly basis is the hilarious "The Soup" with Joel Mchale.


I have been watching this show on and off since it used to be named "Talk Soup" with Jon Hendersen, but I have been watching it religiously since I started using Tivo. I love how great Joel Mchale is with any quip on reality shows and contests that are on television these days, because honestly, the people on many of these shows are just ridiculous. I personally try to watch as little reality TV as I can, but like to know the antics aren't going unnoticed (and un-ridiculed). I assume that many people feel this way and a show made entirely to poke fun at ridiculous story lines and "reality stars" makes my weekend that much better.

Word of the Day

I am someone who really enjoys learning; some might call me an "educatophile." Since I clearly just made this work up, I think my vocabulary might need some help. Getting some help from The Dictionary does not sound all that fun. But, an easy way way to do this is to subscribe to Merriam Webster's "Word of the Day". Here is an example for today's word:

trepid

The Word of the Day for December 29, 2008 is:

trepid • \TREP-id\ • adjective

: timorous, fearful

Example Sentence:

After dark, the less trepid among us would venture as far as the front porch of the empty house, where the smallest creak would send us screaming.

Did you know?

Don't be afraid to use "trepid." After all, it has been in the English language for more than 350 years -- longer, by 30 years, than its antonym "intrepid." "Trepid" (from Latin "trepidus," meaning "alarmed" or "agitated") isn't used as much as "intrepid," but it can be a good word at times. Bill Kaufman, for example, found a use for it in a May 7, 2000 Newsday article, in which an aquarium volunteer is "asked if she is perhaps a little trepid about swimming with sharks in a 12-foot deep, 120,000 gallon tank." (Her fearless reply: "Not really.") The more intrepid among you might even consider using "trepidate" for "to tremble with fear" and "trepidant," meaning "timid" or "trembling." These are uncommon words, granted, but they haven't breathed their last.

The great thing about this site is you can easily subscribe and they send a new word to your inbox everyday. It's like in the movie Clueless where Alicia Silverstone is decides to help people so she gives Brittany Murphy a makeover, asks her to read one non-school book a week and look up one vocabulary word a day to try use it in a sentence. I believe the word in the movie was "Sporadic." This is even better than looking it up yourself because you can just check your email in the morning and have a new word to use that day! All your office mates will think you are getting smarter all the time, which in reality, you actually are!

I think since I have been home more recently, due to the weather and lack of 9-5 job, I have been giving food more thought. I have been cooking and baking and even making my very own hot chocolate recipes! I try to be healthy and eat only things that are good for me, but sometimes I crave something that I feel may be a sneaky trick the Devil pulled in order to get us to drink his blood:


I swear, this stuff is like crack. They must put so many chemicals in here you don't even want to know. How do they get it to continually be mixed? If you make chocolate milk at home, and it sits around for a few minutes, the chocolate syrup inevitably ends up separating from the milk and you have to re-stir it to get it chocolatey again. Once in a while a craving hits me so hard it's all I can think about. A few months ago walking home from class I popped into a drugstore to buy one and all that was left was Strawberry milk. Who even likes that stuff? Why do they stock it? I have never met one person in my life who admits they drink it. And don't even get me started on the Banana milk. Anyway, this irritated me to no end and I had to go to 3 different CVS's in order to find one that still had the chocolate variety available. To manke things even worse than being addicted to chocolatey crap, I think they changed the recipe as the containers that have plastic wrap around the outside of the cap taste different then the other containers that only have a tinfoil wrapping over the mouth. Ugh! I can't even get my fix anymore. Oh well, I guess Fleur De Sel will have to make up for it.

Ever since I was little, my first love has always been chocolate ice cream. Especially Haagen-Dazs Chocolate - I just can't get enough of the stuff. I could eat it everyday and never get sick of it (and have almost done that in the past!) I love the creamy texture and delicious chocolate taste that other ice creams just can't get quite right. Honestly, if I was ever on death row I think my last meal would include an entire bucket of Haagen-Dazs Chocolate (the big one, no mamby pamby small one for me). While perusing the frozen section of the grocery store, I ran across a new flavor Haagen-Dazs was selling: Fleur De Sel


I thought to myself "Well, this sounds odd yet interesting" so I decided to give it a whirl. To my great surprise, this may be my new favorite ice cream of all time. I know!! It is caramel ice cream with swirls of caramel and chocolate covered caramel chunks surrounded by the ever-so-slight hint of salt. It is the exact right combination of all the flavors and even the salt doesn't taste weird in the ice cream. Haaggen-Dazs, I hate to say it, but you may have a lifelong Chocolate snob turned Fleur De Sel addict on your hands. What is the next flavor you will unwittingly unleash upon my tastebuds? We may not know for awhile, but keep 'em coming!

Christmas Shopping

As hard as I try to slow time down, it never seems to work and the holiday season is upon on us once again. In order to help with the inevitable shopping that accompanies the holidays, here is a great website with deals for retailer's online websites.

If you are thinking of making an online purchse, just go to this website and type in the retailer's website. Retailmenot.com will give you any coupons they know of (free shipping, extra $10 off, etc.) to help with your online purchase. And all free for the consumer. Geinus!