Everyday Goddess

Free Bike = Youthful Fun. My First Contest!

After wanting one for years, I finally bought a bike when I got laid off a yearish ago. A little counter-intuitive, and certainly I wasn't splashing money all over the place just as I lost my primary income. But I thought, suddenly I have time to pick out a bike, suddenly I have time to exercise, and so I charged it. One of my best life decisions, actually.

I get seriously discomforted when I'm not working and making an income, and the bike kept me feeling good and gave me a place to push through my negative feelings.

But what surprised me is how much getting a new bike in your 30s feels exactly like getting a new bike when you're ten. Simply put, it's the most fun exercise out there. It feels so much more productive and powerful than walking. It feels like you have the coolest new toy on the block. It feels like flying.

And you, my (American) friends, can win a Fuji Crosstown 2.0 bike from me (and Lipton)!

Now, I know that the bike is cool, but allow me to geek out here for a minute. This is a really impressive online blogosphere promotion. It allows bloggers to give something away to their readers, which is fun and has many of us hosting our first contest ever.

They sent me a "White Tea Experience Pack," which included: 1 20 oz. bottle, ready-to-drink Diet Peach Papaya, coupons for some free 1.5 liter bottles, 1 box hot White Tea, and  5 To-Go Sticks. I will say that the bottle of Diet Peach Papaya was a little too sweet for me, but the To-Go Sticks (powder to pour into your water bottle) were raspberry white tea, and I liked them a lot. Sometimes I don't drink water because it feels to harsh on my throat and stomach, so the To-Go sticks are cool for me, plus, I prefer raspberry.

And the hot tea is divine. I'm going to sound like a pansy now, but I can't drink hot black tea sometimes because it's hard on my stomach. The white tea (there's some green in there, too) is much lighter and smoother, and the mango peach flavoring isn't overwhelming. Very tasty, and with those nice pyramid bags, too.

So free tea for me, a bike for you, what gives? It's all part of the "Free Your Y" promotion.

To highlight the fact that Lipton’s White Teas are made from young tea buds, plucked early in their life cycle, we worked with Lipton to develop the “Free Your Y” campaign.  “Free Your Y” is all about tapping into our customer’s inner youthful spirit and highlighting those things we do every day to make us feel young again.

Part of the promotion is a cool video competition on YouTube. The deadline for submissions is today, but you can go there and watch the fun things people submitted. They've put together an impressive YouTube page, that's for sure. And hey, if you're reading this right after I post it, you could whip up a video submission today. It's basically, shoot yourself doing something fun and/or cool and throw it up there. They're giving away $25,000.

And I'm giving away a bike!

The winner will also receive 5 coupons for a free 1.5 liter bottle of Lipton White Iced Tea and a check for $75 for professional bike assembly. Lipton is in charge of fulfillment, and here's some important legal stuff: The Pepsi/Lipton Partnership will provide a check for $75.00 to be used for professional assembly of all Lipton Fuji bicycles awarded.  Neither Pepsi Co. nor Unilever is liable for any injuries, damages or accidents that may result from the receipt, assembly or use of this bicycle.

So! Here's how to enter to win a bike from me:

1. Comment on this post - only once, please. (You don't have to use your real name if you don't want to.)
   
2. With a valid email address.
3. Tell me what your favorite healthy snack is, with prep instructions if required.

Deadline for entry is next Saturday May 17th. So long as your comment comes in time stamped by Saturday and includes your favorite healthy snack, you're in. I will randomly determine, announce, and contact the winner on Sunday May 18th. At which point the winner will need to promptly email me back their information to forward onto Lipton. (You do have to be in the United States to win. Sorry to my international readers.)

That's it! I really looking forward to reading all your comments, and picking a winner. I'm hoping to do the drawing as a video post next Sunday.

Cheers, and good luck!

Disney Princess Enchanted Tales - Follow Your Dreams

I was a little girl in the 70s, and a tween and a teen in the 80s. I remember playing with Barbies, but I also remember having matchbox cars and Star Wars action figures. Legos and Lincoln Logs.

Lately, I've found myself thinking, what the heck happened in the 90s while I was busy working? Suddenly, toys marketed to girls got really, really pink.

I played Careers, my friends, not the absolutely horror that is Careers for Girls. I have fleetingly glimpsed the phenomena that is the "Disney Princesses" with suspicion and concern for what the heck they're teaching girls these days.

So I let Disney send me a DVD:Disney Princess Enchanted Tales - Follow Your Dreams. Yes, my friends, this was just in my DVD player:

Now, while I was genuinely curious, and perhaps a bit trepidatious about the Disney Princess thing, I was also inspired to check out the DVD - "Featuring Sleeping Beauty's First New Story Since The Beloved Classic" btw - because of the blurb I read on Amazon:

Believing in oneself and persevering in the face of difficulties is challenging whether you're a princess or an everyday person. In the two stories included in Follow Your Dreams, Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty and Princess Jasmine from Aladdin discover that they must work hard and believe in their abilities if they are to reach the goals they've set for themselves. When Princess Aurora is put in charge of the kingdom for the day, the workload proves impossibly huge and the villagers' many problems seem too difficult for her to solve. Resorting to some magical help from the fairy Merryweather seems like the perfect answer, but in the end Princess Aurora's own hard work and ingenuity prove far more effective than magic. When Princess Jasmine yearns for something important to do with her life, her father gives her a position in the local school, but it proves much more challenging than she ever could have imagined. Add in an escaped wild horse and the prospect of letting her father down and Princess Jasmine feels overwhelmed and ready to give up. Can perseverance and hard work help Princess Jasmine realize her dreams? This nicely animated presentation features two favorite Disney Princesses, lots of new songs, and great messages about the value of self-confidence, hard work, and perseverance.

Well, that sounded kinda great, actually.  You really can't beat the value of self-confidence, hard work, and perseverance in life.

The DVD does indeed feature two shorts - one with Aurora and one with Jasmine. I enjoyed both of them! I think my favorite bit is when Jasmine finds herself suddenly left with a classroom of children and is completely overrun. That rang true to me - she doesn't just naturally get it; the classroom is a challenge. And she goes on an adventure and tames a horse before she tackles kids again.

There's really a lot to like in these shorts, from the princess's relationships and responsibilities to their determination and thought processes. And I have to admit I laughed out loud in more than one spot. The shorts are very good natured and brimming with positive message.

Young me would have liked them back in the wild, wild 70s and 80s.

I was going to forward the DVD on to some young girl or another (friend's kid or some such), but I liked it so much I've decided to keep it. Just in case I've got a little girl to give it to someday who's a little closer to home.  ;)

Seriously, the Hows Market in North Hollywood Deserves Its Own Post

Because clearly the awesomeness cannot be contained.

SH! says my roommate.  If you tell too many people, they'll start shopping there.  Keep that North Hollywood Hows a secret!

But people, it's a grocery store, and people need to shop there because if it goes away I will die.  DIE.

I had forgotten the ease and cleanliness I'd grown accustomed to while shopping at Publix in South Florida.  I'd given up on what a supermarket is supposed to be.  All supermarkets, not just the expensive ones.

And now I have a beautiful, convenient grocery store stocked with good meats, wine, and everything I need.  Friendly, helpful staff and QUICK CHECKOUT.  Mere minutes from my apartment.  I can bike there.  Or park conveniently.

And pick up Peet's on the way out.

Live nearby?  Check out the new Hows Market on Chandler by the Lankershim Metro Station.  It totally rocks.

Keri Lotion - Original & Shea Butter

Funny story about lotion.  Growing up in Florida, hand lotion was about as lotion-y as it ever got.  Just to make your hands soft or smell nice.  Other than that, lotion was something the older residents used.

The hot, humid air was lotion-y enough for the rest of us.

When I moved to California, I somehow had no idea that the climate would be so different.  I thought, well, there's palm trees here, and there's palm trees there, so it must be the same.

The fact that the southwest is all desert-y somehow escaped my notice until I was driving through it.

And somehow, I managed to suffer with my brand new dry skin for over a year before it finally occurred to me that perhaps LOTION was the solution to dry skin.  Perhaps, even in my early thirties, I should buy some LOTION.

I was busy, people, I just ignored it for as long as I could.

And so my adventures in lotion began, and eventually settled on Trader Joe's Moisturizing Lotion, which is a nice, lightweight, cheap, basic lotion.  Nothing fancy.

Keri offered to send me some of their lotions to review, so I accepted.  They sent Keri Original Soothing Formula and Keri Nourishing Shea Butter.

I'm not in love with the original formula.  It's not as light as my Trader Joes lotion, but it's not as rich & creamy as the shea butter formula.  It falls into that sticky middle I don't like.  Still, it's a solid lotion if you don't mind the sticky.

I think, however, that it also suffered from being reviewed next to the shea butter formula.  Because I started walking by the Keri Original and the Trader Joe's lotion to find where I last left the Keri Shea Butter - even half asleep or rushing to get out the door in the morning.

The Keri Shea Butter formula is yummy - and not sticky.  I found myself fantasizing about having it rubbed on my back.  And I've used it on my arms, back and chest.  Even though it's richer than the original formula, my skin likes it much better.

And it smells good, too.

Can't Say No to Coffee

So after you've been blogging for a while, you start to get e-mails from people who want to send you things for you to review.  Usually books.

My agreements with BlogHer allow me to accept items under $40 for review, but I wasn't sure how I felt about it.  Certainly, this blog will never be a straight product blog, but on the other hand, I do really enjoy trying out new things and sharing good finds.

So I was collecting these emails - mostly for books - when I into my inbox came an offer I couldn't refuse.  Folgers offered to send me coffee.  Can't say no to coffee.

Specifically, they sent me three flavors of their new Folgers Gourmet Selections:  Morning Cafe (light roast), Lively Columbian (medium roast), and Vanilla Biscotti (flavored).

They're fine ground, and they're pretty good.  They smell great out of the bag, for sure, and they brewed up with nice color and aroma.  And I have to say I really appreciate the packaging.  I guess I shouldn't care about that, but I do, and they've got a "taste the rainbow" thing going on that really appeals.

Now, me and coffee, well, I've had a lot of Starbucks, so honestly, the Folgers Gourmet Selections I tried all struck me as pretty light.  If they were wine, the label would read "drinkable" or "accessible."  In particular, the morning cafe (admittedly described as "light blend") would do me on a weekend, but it's not going to get me to work.  That said, since I've been drinking the Folgers for over a week now, I don't wake up completely unable to function before my coffee, so perhaps I'm looking at this wrong.  Both the Morning Cafe and the Lively Columbian had good flavor.

Surprising to me, the Vanilla Biscotti is my favorite.  Surprising because so often flavored coffees are just nasty, aren't they?  The Vanilla Biscotti has a nice nutty flavor with a slight vanilla flavor.  Not overpowering at all.  Definitely still tastes like coffee.  Which is what you want in a coffee, as far as I'm concerned.

So overall, I like the Folgers Gourmet Selections, and I would feel comfortable buying them, particularly for an everyday coffee, but also to serve after dinner, for sure.  And I'm think I'm going to pick up a bag of the Caramel Drizzle, because that sounds yummy, and I feel confident the flavor will be complementary, not overpowering, based on the Vanilla Biscotti.

Finally, having all this coffee in the house has inspired me to attempt to set my coffee maker to make my coffee for me tomorrow morning.  This could be the start of a beautiful new relationship.