25 Amazing Food Cures

25 Amazing Food Cures

How to be a good Host and NOT good house guests

Proper hosting etiquette is an art form, I think.  It takes creativity, passion and determination to really pull it off.  In return, you will receive genuine satisfaction.  Or you should.  Below are some suggestions that a proper hostess should follow in order to delight their guests.

1. Clean Clean Clean!  The whole house and the company's room.  Floor to ceiling, closet to corners.  In their room, set up a guest basket with magazines, candies/gum, candles, sun tan lotion and summer accessories (if summer season), toiletries and anything else to make their stay that much more pleasant.
2. Clean smelling sheets and towels are a must and make sure there are plenty of them.
3. Find out if your guests are allergic or have aversions to any foods before they arrive and make sure they are not in the frig.  However, make sure the frig is stocked with everything from fruit to snacks to meats and veggies.  Don't forget drinks.
4. Find out what your guests would like to do and/or see for their stay and set a game plan to accommodate their itinerary.  Having directions and restaurants picked out before hand is a plus.
5. Take the guests where they want to go. They are only there for a temporary period and you want to make their stay as enjoyable as possible, even if it means biking in 100 degree weather.
6. Take the guests to dinner and drinks at least one night.  You don't have to pay for them, but it's always nice to treat them to something.  FYI, you do this in thinking that they will recipricate in return.


Below are some suggestions on what NOT to do as house guests.

1. Bring bottles of wine for your hostess and keep them in your car.
2. When your hosesst offers to pick up the tab a couple times to be nice and generous, instead of being greedy and saying ok, grow some balls, put your foot down and pay for your damn drinks/food yourself.  Very disrespectful.
3. NEVER treating your hostess to ANYTHING while you stay with them.  If you are guests in someone's home and they go out of their way to accommodate your stay, it is proper to treat the host/hostess to at least something.  Ideally, you are saving hundreds of $$$ by staying with these people, in their home, and the least you can do is show that you are grateful for all they've done.  Disrespectful with a capital D.
4. Leaving without a proper thank you and showing little gratitude for the stay.  Bad.


Some people just don't have any manners...

Oil is good

They are so may ways to use Olive Oil.  My particular favorite is to dip garlic infused EVOO sourdough bread.  All homemade of course.  I mean, does it get any better than this?  I think not.  Below is a link that tells how you can use olive oil on your skin, hair etc and it is 100% GOOD FOR YOU!  Really, there is nothing better than putting pure olive oil on your skin as a moisturizer.  All the creams out there promoting skin defying changes and dramatic results in 24 hours...get real.  Most, if not all, of those creams contain parabens, mineral oil, and sulfates.  Totally bad for your skin.  Everyones skin is different and reacts differently so instead of taking a chance on these products and wasting $$$, I say go all natural.

How to Use Olive Oil for Skin Care | eHow.com

Sip Your Way to a Flat Belly!

Sip Your Way to a Flat Belly!

Love me some Lemons

Lemons are the perfect summer fruit.  Why? Because you can do so much with this simple fruit.  Below are some great facts and recipes on lemons:

1. Lemon and water first thing in the morning will increase digestive juices, tone up the system and cleanse and decongest the liver. 

2. Suck a thin piece of lemon dipped in salt to overcome heartburn.

3. Drink lots of diluted lemonade (no sugar) to cleanse the system of skin problems.

4. Rub lemon juice on skin to banish blackheads and pimples.  Combine the juice with salt and use paste to rub off dead skin cells on rough body areas.

5. To ward off colds, drink herbal teas laced with lots of lemon and honey.

6. Drinking 8 glasses of water a day can be hard sometimes so add some lemon and mint to them and you will be surprised how fast you suck them down.  Very refreshing.

7.  To make your own perservative free ice tea : Boil water, add tea bags ( i like Lipton tea ) and organic cane sugar/honey to taste and let step for about an hour, add 2-3 fresh squeezed lemons and some fresh mint.  Amazing and good for you. 

8. I like to make my own bread via bread machine.  I found that by adding grated lemon to the bread gives it such a a delicious taste. 

Reebok Easy Tone Sneakers

So I gave in and bought the Reebok Easy Tone sneakers about a month and a half ago because the commercials looked so damn convincing. I mean come on, marketing on improvement in glutes, hams and calves...SOLD! I have always been ASStastic and have really nice legs to begin with ( that's what you get from playing sports and working out your whole life :) ), but if there was a type of shoe that toned while just walking, count me in! I mean, I can't live at the gym no matter how desperately I want to.

For the first month, I wore them sporadically, couple times a week for a couple of hours. I really tried to wear them for at least 4 hours a day, but who wants to wear sneakers in 80 degree weather? So after a couple weeks of wearing them, they felt no different than wearing a pair of regular sneakers. Bollocks! I took a week or so hiatus on wearing them and then decided to give them another go. A month later I have to say that I have definitely felt my legs being worked out. For instance, I walked to the post office, .78 of a mile, and my legs were hurting an hour after I got back. Good deal! I put them on first thing in the morning and don't want to take them off. I even wear them to the gym, kind of like a bonus round. I never thought I would do this, but I just might become that girl who wears 5 inch heels to work and then changes into my Reebok's after work. Verdict...sneaks = 2 thumbs up!


***Side note - If you buy these shoes from Dick's Sporting Goods, you can purchase a protection plan for them. It will cost you about $11, based on cost of shoes, and if ANYTHING happens to them within 13 months, they are replaced for free by Dick's. No questions asked. Even if the treads wear down or loose seams.

Happy Walking :)

FAT

I've decided to skip drinking for a while.  I've come to the conclusion that drinking = fat.  Have to shed some pounds ( 8 to be exact ).  I can't cut out food because I love it way too much so drinks it shall be. I'm  not even a big drinker, but lately, and I mean the past 8 months, I have indulged a bit too much.  Summer is here and I would like to wear my itty bitty teeny weeny polka dot bikini and I fear that drinking has affected the abular area.  I have always been ABtastic, but the abs have gone to lunch lately.  Boo.  So now, water and tea it is for me.  Oh, and my old ab routine that I stole from John Basedow  like a decade ago.  I used to do my sets, which equated to about 400 crunches, every night, but then I got lazy.  Back to my routine, NO drinking and hope to get the abs back in 21 days.