Etsy Stores I Love

These days "window shopping" to me means browsing Etsy.  I love to randomly peruse what people have made and get ideas.  Of course there are many items I could never make and there are many stores I seem to visit the most; some I've ordered from.  Here are a few of my favorites.

MyDearLinen has beautiful and well made table linens.

Some of the sweaters from this shop look fun to wear now that Fall is here.

Did someone say cashmere tights!? Wouldn't these be great for winter?

Want a statement piece for your home? The lights in this store would fit the bill!

I've ordered a couple slips from this shop before. They're an inexpensive way to change up a dress or skirt.

I love the work this jewelry maker does.  Aren't these earrings so delicate and beautiful?

Gift Ideas

Every Christmas my son asks me what I would like for a gift.  Once put on the spot, my mind goes blank; so this year I'm going to try something different and make a blog post of what I consider to be AWESOME gifts for anyone (and if, by chance, anyone I know looks at it....all the better!)

*Warning*  This list is weighted with food and drinks, books about food and drinks, and gadgets to help eat  or make food and drink;  because well, food and drinks are AWESOME.  Also, *Warning* I'm going to practice using semicolons in this post because I read this recently on how to use them and  I'm all now like, why didn't I use this awesome punctuation before!?

Ok, so let's begin; in no particular order here are some FABULOUS gifts:

1. Pizza Rocker -- This gets bonus points because it's also a really cool knife and I have this soft spot for knives and that does NOT make me weird, thank you.  Lately, we've been making homemade pizza every week and this cutter would be just the item to make our pizza experience even better!
2. Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again
 Ok, I'm a little late to this fan club but I read this article about Ina Garten (THE Barefoot Contessa) and thought, hmmm, she's kinda awesome; so naturally, I need a book of hers!
3. Plant Hanger  This isn't technically food or drink related on the surface; look a little deeper though.  Can't you picture a couple or three bowls of herbs growing on it?  I thought so.
4. Chocolate Whiskey; enough said.
5. IMUSA, A417-82501, Electric Pressure Cooker, 5-Quart
 This was on my Amazon wish list and I don't remember exactly why.  I'm going to trust my instinct and figure I had a good reason for putting it there and it probably had to do with chocolate cake.  Speaking of which, I overheard this conversation at work about someone making chocolate cake in a slow cooker!  Seriously!  Well, I'm not putting slow cooker on the list this year.
6. Wine from Shallon Winery in Astoria, Oregon.  Unfortunately the only way to get this wine is to visit the winery, but lucky for you, the trip is so worth it!  This winery is a one man operation and he's about 80 years old.  The first thing he'll do when you walk in is lock the door.  Don't be alarmed, he just wants to devote all his attention to you and not be bothered by any other pesky customers.  Allow at least 30 minutes to listen to his spiel and taste his wines.  This will not be a quick 'run in for some chocolate wine' kind of trip.  WHOA!  Did she just say CHOLOCOLATE WINE!?  Yes I did and it is fabulous!!!

Here's a picture of my bottle from my last trip (in the pretty blue wrapping) and my bottle of spiced apple wine which I'll be serving with Thanksgiving dinner, thank you.

1. 9. Soap from Lora's Beauty -- Ok, this is just obvious promotion of my wonderful, artisan soaps and no, I don't expect my son to give me these for a gift as I have all I want!  However, for those of you who haven't tried the awesomeness that is artisan soap, may I recommend a few.  My favorite is probably the Cocoa Butter Cream and you can't go wrong with tossing in a Mug-o-Beer Bar with your gift and a couple bars of Himalayan Salt Soap would round out a perfect gift to be loved and used by anyone!

Well, that's all I have for now but I think this may be the best gift guide this year as well as the best post with semi colons!

Sharpologist Review!

We here at Lora's Beauty and LB-Equipment love reviews of our products!  Check out the latest review from Sharpologist of LB-Equipment's Beard Oil, Mug-o-Beer Bar, and Shaving Soap.

"it is safe to say that I liked the products offered here, especially in light of the quality stuff you’ll be putting on to your skin."

Fitbit Zip Review

It was an impulse buy, kinda.  I had thought about purchasing an activity monitor for several weeks when I finally decided to do a little research on them.  With my new found internet knowledge, I went over to Amazon and clicked the 'buy now' button on a Fitbit Zip.  Am I happy with it?  Overall, yes.  

I'm happy I only spent $49 on an activity monitor.  I like the fact that it's not a bracelet and I can clip it discreetly to an article of clothing.  I also found it interesting to see how many calories are burned by just living, breathing, and walking into the kitchen to get more coffee.  I also like the website monitoring and log that comes free with a Fitbit purchase.  The food database is quite extensive, which means just about everything you eat can be found in the database and therefore all you need to enter is how much of something you ate and the calories will appear automatically.

It's also nice that you can log activities you may do manually on the website because one of my biggest not-likes (dislike is too strong of a word) is that the Zip doesn't track cycling very well.  Before I purchased it, I read several reviews that said it would and that you just needed to clip it to your shoe.  The rotation of your foot on the pedal would register steps.  This is true, however, it's no way accurate, especially the miles traveled.  Because of this, I've been logging cycling manually.  Unfortunately, I have yet to find a way to remove the steps the Zip logs while I'm cycling and I'm ending up with the activity being logged twice.

I received my Zip Thursday and immediately started using it.  Sunday of the same week, the battery died.  The Zip uses a  3V coin battery  and they are quite cheap, about $3 for 5 of them.  When I researched why my Zip's battery would die within 4 days I found that I should have installed the firmware update.  No problem, but it would have been nice if I were forced to do that once I first registered the Zip and synced it.  As it is now, I can't update it because it's dead until I get a new battery, see picture above.

Wearing the Zip for the past 4 days got my mind to thinking of the possibilities of it.  How easy, it would seem, to make a really REALLY accurate activity monitor.  Sure, it would cost more than the $49 I spent on the Zip, but for some it would be worth it.  For instance, add a GPS to the monitor to accurately track miles.  Add a heart rate monitor to accurately track intensity.  Add a camera to allow you to photograph labels or bar codes of food items you ate then look up the exact item to get a real calorie count of the food.  And please, keep it small and discreet. Perhaps this is all overkill, but I'm just thinking, it seems like it could be so much better...

Overall, I am please with the Zip and I have ordered more batteries and I will do the firmware update and continue to use it.  The new update may even include a way to edit the steps the Zip logs so I'm not doubling up when I cycle.  It has been an eye opener to log the food I've eaten and I see some easy adjustments I could make to help with weight loss.  I'm glad I didn't spend $100+ for an activity monitor since I really didn't see that they were twice as good as my $49 Zip.  I imagine soon there will be monitors that include all the suggestions I made and more!  For one of those, I'd spend more.