Beauty Boxes

I realize that I still have a long way to go before this list is complete I will try and continue to work on it as often as I can in the next month.

All Natural Face- For 15$ a month you will receive a bunch of ANF products and a bunch of free samples ( a lot of their products are vegan).

Beauty Box 5- Receive 5 samples of your favourite beauty products for 12$ a month 

BirchBox- For 10$ you receive a box full of beauty samples tailored to your taste.

Bread and butter skin care- Choose between a 3-5 item kit personalize it then ship it. Products for men.

Eco Emi- For 15$ a month ( 38$ for international orders) you receive a minimum of 5 eco-friendly products for hair care to snacks.

Ipsy- For 10$ a month ( aprox. 16$ CAN) you will receive a box full of make-up and beauty samples. 

Lip Monthly- For 10$ a month you will receive a box that will help you discover the best of lip product. From lip balm to lip sticks and more.

Look Fantastic- For 22.65$ you will receive a minimum of 6 beauty products a month.

Star Box- For 15$ a month plus shippping you will receive 3-4 full-sized from the Star look line to try.

Top box- Receive 4 deluxe beauty samples for 12$ a month. 

Wantable-  This box company has an large array of boxes available to purchase. Box price varies by which one you choose.  ( 36$ and up).

Does not ship to Canada

angel beauty box- For 20$ a month you will receive 5 to 7 beauty product samples.

Beauty Army- For 12$ a month you will receive 6 luxury beauty sample that you get to chose. 

Boxy Charm- For 21$ a month you receive 4-6 full-sized beauty products to your door. 

Elf beauty bundle- For 19.99$ (14.95 S&H to CAN) you receive over 40$ of E.L.F Products every 8 weeks.

Glossy Box- Receive 4-5 Deluxe high end  beauty product samples for only 21$ a month.

Memebox- Receive a box full of Korean beauty products ( 4-8 Full and sample sized products). ( prices vary by box)

New beauty Test Tube- For 29.95$ you receive a tube full of full-sized and sample sized items for a value 150$+ in beauty items.

Olfactif- Receive 3 fragrances for 18$ a month.

Untoxicating beauty- For 35$ you receive hand-curated eco-friendly beauty products from the USA.

To shave or not to shave? that is the question

Hello ya'll,

So today I am going to share an experiment that I have been doing with the husband. A few weeks ago a Facebook friend posted a link to an article that I absolutely loved. It was about why we are often disgusted by body hair.  I am giving you a warning now this may be a little TMI for some).

After reading the article I had a discussion with my husband about this issue. I don't quiet recall the whole discussion except for the part where my hubby told me that and I am quoting him " as a man it personally doesn't bother me". That led me to answer " Ok. I won't shave for the next three month" and that my friends is how all this happened. My husband didn't want me to write about this as now the world will know how weird I am but I am ok with that.

It has been a month now that I have been up to this no shaving thing. I decided to hold off on writting about it because to be honest I didn't know if I could do it. The first month has been weird I haven't shaved, plucked or rimmed anything  ( and I mean ANYTHING). My razor had been silently staring at me right in the face in the metal wire hanging basket in our shower. I have been tempted on many occasions to reach for that dear old friend of mine but I haven't. It was weird at first and still is to apply deodorant in front of the mirror and to see a dark patch of hair under my arms. My legs and nether regions don't bother at all because well like many women in winter I typically don't shave them that often.

I did tell some of my friends and co-workers what I was doing. Most of them had the same disgusted face that I was gross ( or more so my arm hair). My best friend thinks this whole things is great and  I have to keep her updated on my armpit hair growth. I myself have mixed feelings of the hair, but I think it is just because I am used to having them shaved.

Now I have to say besides having hair nothing has really changed. I don't smell any more then usual, I am not dirtier ( in fact my showering routine has stayed that same). I won't deny that after this experiment I don't know if I will continue on this journey of being hairy.  I do have a complete waxing appointment ( eyebrows, armpits, Brazilian and legs) booked already and I will blog about that experience too.

Have you ever gone without shaving? What are your views on hairy women?


Me

Bean Box Review

Bean box

What is bean box?

Bean Box is a monthly subscription box for coffee beans. There is an option for two boxes both valued at 20$. In one you will receive 4x 1.8oz bags of beans ( gives about 16 cups of coffee depending on strength preference) and the other is one 12 oz bag of coffee ( this one also has the option to ship twice a month for 34$). There is also a decaf option.

You can also purchase a bag of coffee beans in the store if you particularly liked one of the samples.

I love how there is a note with my name in this box, It gives the box a personal touch. I also like that the box is only big enough for the coffee, That makes it less wasteful ( I keep my boxes to re-use when I need to ship things out that are too big to fit in envelopes).

All the bags are puffed up when you receive them. Beans create CO2 after they are roasted this is perfectly normal. The carbon dioxide is what keeps the moisture and oxygen out which keeps the coffee fresh. (plus opening them is so fun the smells that come out the bag just entices you to hurry up and drink it already)

This is the entire content of the box except for the little note. 

There is a paper with a discount code on it. This one is NEWYEAR2015 and it is good until the end of February 2015 you can get 15% off on full bags of coffee, gift orders and subscriptions. 

The box also comes with a chocolate ( I won't lie I wish there was more then one)

The other paper tells you how to "Brew like you mean it". I really liked that since well I don't normally have beans. I have a keurig and I just buy the little cups and that's it. 

On the other side of the paper there is a description of the coffee company and about the coffee you are going to try. 

I like that each bag is dates as to when the beans were toasted which let's me know that they are fresh. In the front of the coffee bag there is a description of the coffee. The description is the opinion of the company that produced the coffee and from the taster's of Bean Box.

Longshoreman's Daughter Coffee Roaster (Flavor Ethiopian Yirgacheffe)

Description from the bag and card:

Hint's of orange, ginger, berry, and mild chocolate.

Very sweet, lively taste with hints or orange,  ginger, berry and mild chocolate. Round acidity, syrupy body. Sourced from Dam Co-op in Ethiopia. ( Longhsoreman's Daughter)

Straight from the birthplace of coffee. We never imaniged great coffee could taste like tea.  ( Bean Box)

I loved this coffee. It was my favourite one of them. I loved the flavouring of the fruits in this. It truly does taste like tea. This is one that I would definitely buy.

Herkimer Coffee ( Flavour Drip blend)

Description from card and bag:

Hints of cherry, caramelized sugar and chocolate.

Soft, refreshing light acidity with a clean finish. Hint of cherry with deeply caramelized sugar and chocolate. Velvet mouth feel and weight. Directly sourced from El Cedral and El Cieleto  in  Honduras.  ( Herkimer Coffee)

Chocolate, chocolate, cherry. Try this roast without milk or sugar. It brings its own. ( bean Box)

I didn't mind this coffee. It was a bit more on the stronger side but with a bit of milk and sugar it was fine. I think that my hubby would of like this one if he tried it.  

Light House Roaster's ( Roaster's Choice is the flavour)

Description on the bag and card;

Dark, Bold taste that engages the palate.

A full-bodied blend of Ethiopian, Sumatran and Latin high-grown Arabicas. Rich and complex, Roaster's Choice touches the whole palate and stays clean. Our signature coffee. ( Light House Roaster's)

A bold roast with a real kick, but polished and refined like a gentleman. ( Bean Box)

I personally didn't like this coffee but my hubby did. This coffee was a bit too strong for me. I won't deny it I prefer the sweeter and lighter coffee's.

Kuma Coffee ( Flavour Nilson Lopez Colombia)

Description from card and bag:

Features drinking chocolate, marzipan, toffee, fig and pomegranate.

With taste notes of drinking chocolate, marzipan, toffee,fig and pomegranate, we think of the Nilson Lopez microlot like a beautiful piece of layered cake. Everyone wants their dessert.  ( Kuma)

With flavours as decadent and varied as a box of chocolates, this sweet cup is the total package. Go ahead, introduce it to your mother. 

This one was another of my favourite coffee. It is good on its own or with milk and sugar. I actually drank this one after supper as a dessert. Delicious,this is one that I would also buy. 

Coffee description card

Brew card

Final thoughts

I loved this box. I am not an "experienced" coffee drinker but I love the experience that this box has brought me. 

I never thought of drinking coffee as an experience and this box brought just that for. The smell when you first open a bag of coffee beans that just brings you a hint of excitement of what you are going to try. The different smells that come with them, I never knew coffee was so diverse when it came to flavouring it with fruits ( I typically just drink hazelnut and vanilla). I also loved the process of grinding it, seeing it change into what will become a good cup of coffee.  I brewed mine in my Keurig and I loved it, I loved the whole experience of this box. 

This is a box that I fully recommend buying. Whether you are an avid coffee drinker or not.

The customer service for this box was also exceptional. I e-mailed them because I didn't have my tracking number or my box. They replied promptly with my tracking information and also told me that for some reason my boxed got bounced around for some reason. They also told me that if I hadn't received my box that they would gladly send me another one. 

This box will bring you excitement, fun and joy and a whole new way of looking at coffee. 

Yours truly, 

ME

Fibromyalgia

Hello everyone,

So today will be a more serious post. I haven't blogged a lot in the couple of weeks because I have been exhausted and sore from my Fibromyalgia and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Today, I decided that it might be a good idea to write about it so you can understand what it is.

What is Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalia is a chronic pain disorder. It cannot be diagnosed through x-rays or blood test or any other medical machinery. Doctors diagnose patients based on there symptoms and through a physical exam by touching and applying pressure on trigger points that are known to people with the disease ( although some people have widespread pain throughout the body). Women aged between 25 and 60 are the ones who are the most at risk to develop this disease then men are but no one knows why yet. There is also no known reason as to why people have this disease. Scientist think that the disease can be triggered by trauma to the body ( i.e.. infection, accident and child birth).

What are the symptoms?

Some of the symptoms that affect most patients are:

• Fatigue ( Patients can have a lot of fatigue due to many reasons. Living with pain is exhausting. There is also the fact that many of patients can't sleep through the night because they are sore. IT is a vicious cycle. Being tired makes you sore and being sore deprives you of sleep)
• Depression
• Pain and tenderness in certain areas ( there is at least 18 tender points, Some of them are located in between the shoulder blade, knees, neck and hips all carry tender points.
• Anxiety
• Fibro-Fog ( the inability to stay concentrated on a tasks) 
• Head aches

Although some people may have all these symptoms some of them may not. 

What is the impact on life?

Due to the pain that comes with living with Fibromyalgia many people become irritated and have trouble functioning. The motivation to do chores or even hobbies can become hard to do.  Even parenting can become a hard thing to do. 

Treatment

There is no treatment yet for Fibromyalgia. How ever there is many medications that can help with the pain. Keeping active can also help with the symptoms of the disease. Some scientist even think that diet can effect the person.


How does it affect me? Like any other diseases or medical conditions I have good days and bad days. Normally if I have what I call an attack ( a day when I am extremely sore) it is normally coupled with a bad day for my Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Most of my pain from FM is in between my shoulder blades and in my calves although I have days where even parts of my skin hurts ( normally it is my forearms but sometimes it is everywhere).

Sometimes it is very hard for me to function. The pain can keep me up at night, so having a good nights sleep is often rare. Sometimes simple tasks are hard for me to accomplish because I just can't concentrate. Being a mother and a good person towards others in general is also hard sometimes. Being exhausted from the pain and lack of sleep often makes me short on patience but with that said I do remind myself that I am not frustrated at my children or others and that I have to find good ways to vent these frustrations and not let them out on my children and others around me.

To keep my mind off of my pain and to keep my irritability in check I do a lot of things. I read, exercise, knit and do rug hooking. These activities keep my mind going and my fingers nimble. I find that that more I become inactive the more I get sore. I do believe that staying active helps alleviate some of the symptoms from FM and RA but that it keeps me from falling apart both physically and emotionally.

For those of you who do follow me you may realize that sometimes my post may be scattered in topics or just down right not make sense and often it is because I am exhausted and I just can't think straight. I often blog as another way to cope with my daily pain and stresses.

That is about all for today though. I hope that this post has shed a bit of light on what FM is and how it affects a person. 

Sources
http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/ss/slideshow-index
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia

Yoga challenge completed

Hello everyone, 

My last post was about the update on my 30 day spending freeze that I did in January this one will be about the 30 days of yoga that I did along side the spending freeze challenge. 

I started this challenge because 1) I love Yoga 2)I fell off the yoga challenge and 3) I figured it was a good way to start the new year.  

I posted a picture of myself doing yoga every day for the 30 days that I was doing this challenge to keep me motivated. These pictures were also posted on Instagram. 

I've learned a lot of this yoga journey and I am continuing in this journey. I haven't been doing yoga everyday but I do take the time for it every second day. I also started a 30 day meditation challenge which is proving to be harder then I thought it would be  ( any ways back to the yoga challenge).

What have I learned and gained from this challenge? 

I am more flexible and strong then I thought I was but I still have a long way to go. I was able to surprise myself with some of the poses and how easy they were. Some of them that were a bit harder for me became easier by the end of the challenge. Finding out that I was stronger physically then I thought also  made a difference in how I thought about myself mentally. I found that I am more confident in my abilities as a person.

Making time for myself on a regular basis is important not only for me but my family. Taking care of a family is a lot of work and taking time for myself started taking the back burner again. When I started this challenge I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it everyday ( I missed two days and made up for them the next day by doing two practices). To my delight I found time for myself everyday to practice yoga. Even if the boys were up I would still practice. Yes, it wasn't all easy to do when they were up but I still did it. It made me smile seeing my kids play on the mat with each other ( even if that meant I had to practice on the wooden floor), sometimes they tried the position I took and other time the practice also became play time with the kids. I learned that taking time for myself was important because I was just walking through my days not really present. I knew obviously what I was doing but I mean I wasn't there in a sense that I didn't feel connected or grounded to anything and yoga has brought that back into my life. 

I've become stronger and less in pain. I suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis ( swelling in the joints) and Fibromyalgia ( a pain disorder), doing yoga for some reason or the other has seemed to help with this pain. I don't know if it is because it helps relieve pain caused by stress which lowers the amount of discomfort  ( when it comes to my fibro) or if the deep breathing and different poses we take helps with better circulation of the blood and other fluids that help alleviate swelling ( When it comes to my RA). Either way that is a great thing for me, being in pain often makes me a little bit less patient and exhausted all the time and this practice seemed to help me become a better person because I am less aggravated by the pain I often find myself in. 

Go with the flow. At the beginning of this journey I was following every instruction and following the sequences as we were told. What I like about yoga with Adrienne is that she gives us permission to just do what feels good for us. As I got closer to the end of my journey I started doing just that, I started doing what felt good for me, I often just started doing my own sequences sometimes rejoining in with the video but it was nice. I gave myself freedom to experiment and try what felt good for me. That is a lesson that I am now trying to take into my every day life. To just go with the flow and try to bring things that feel good into my life like, laughter and happiness. 

I will definitely continue in this yoga practice. Right now, I am trying to work on achieving two positions. I am working on the crow pose which is an arm balance stance and I am working on building strength on my arms and shoulder girdle to be able to do a headstand ( don't know how long that one will take to achieve).  I want to continue my journey to becoming a the best I can possibly be.

That is all for now. 

Namaste

30 day spending freeze if OVER.

Hello peeps,

If you have been following this blog you will know that I had taken up two challenges for the month of January that lasted 30 days. I was posting on a weekly basis but I took the time to post this one at a later date since the challenges were over soon.

The one challenge that I took that I will be talking about on this blog will be about ny 30 day spending freeze. That's right, I went ( or at least tried my best) 30 days not spending any more money then I needed too. Anything that wasn't on my grocery list wasn't allowed to be bought, no buying snacks at work or taking extra cabs.

The first week I spent 15$ that I wasn't supposed to ( read this post). The second week was great  I didn't spend anything extra ( read this post). .

For week 3 here is how it went. I was having a great week of fighting all the urges to spend money and then Friday happened. I brought my debit card with me because I had to do groceries that day and one of the deli meats that I was keeping my eye on in the hopes that it would go on sale or discounted for 50% off just happened to be 50% off that day. I had packed a light lunch and so I bought it that cost me 4.24$. I also bought an extra bag of pepperettes ( 9.99 on sale) and 4 things of pancotta also 50% off ( 2.25 each after the discount=9$) besides those expenses I didn't buy anything else that was on the list so week three I overspent 23.23$.

Week 4 I also didn't spend a penny extra in my last week of the challenge. All in all I didn't do as bad as I thought. I won't deny it though it was hard. Some days I just wanted to buy things, not because I needed to but because I wanted too. I realized through out this experience that a lot of my spending that was stopping me from saving money and paying off debts were on little things that I really didn't need. Like the pack of meat I bought because I wanted to try it, along with the 50-100$ extra that I would spend on groceries not because it was necessary but just because I wanted to have it. It was an extra thing on hand that I had to eat when I was bored. I realize now that our grocery bills can stay low. Yes, my husband has spent a few more dollars this month because he got all the good sales. I think ( even if it was my turn to do groceries) that spending money on extra items you actually need when they are on sale is fine. I also think that yes, once in awhile go ahead and spoil yourself with a little something but it doesn't have to cost a lot of money.

Although my spending freeze is over I will definitely watch what I spend money on and continue to look at all the progress I have made. I have also continued on my 52 week money challenge by continuing to put what ever amount of money I could aside each month ( anywhere from 10-50$) I cannot wait to see how much money I will have saved at the end of the year.


For now that is all. I will talk about the 30 day yoga challenge and how I felt with that.

Nighty, night

Me