Joy, Life and More

It's been awhile since I've written anything here. I love to write but am not very good about keeping up with it. I have a few posts that I've been working on that I'd like to get up soon. One of them is about my weight-loss/health journey story. May not be interesting to anyone but me. The reason I'd like to get it up is to have a record of it somewhere. If I was cognizant, I would have kept better records of where I started and where I am today. There are a few things I do remember and things I currently do and other things. Those will be up in a post or two soon. Other posts I'd like to write are reviews of things I've been loving lately, food posts, healthy lifestyle posts, etc. I really do need to exercise my writing skills. Hope anyone who reads this is having a good summer. See y'all soon!

A few months ago, I started getting interested in planners (yes those paper and pen ones) and the whole phenomenon of decorating them! I don't exactly know what piqued my interest but I'm sure something about them was fascinating enough for me to consider purchasing one, and I finally did a few weeks ago. It doesn't start until July 2016, so it gives me a few weeks to prepare and get started working on mine. I learned in my education of planners and planning that the right kind of pen really makes a difference when writing in whatever you plan to write in your planner. There seems to be a consensus that gel pens are the way to go. There are many kinds to choose from and many ranges of prices. And the colors... well I could on and on about the array of colors they span. What I discovered is that people who use planners and like to write in them want a pen which is reasonably priced and works well. I haven't tried many gel pens but my current favorite are these medium p...

Life sometimes happens when you least need it to happen. In my case, toward the end of January, my knee started swelling one afternoon to the point it hurt to touch it and I couldn't even walk on it. Initially the doctors thought it might be gout, which the doctor explained to me that when people lose a large amount of weight and are taking certain blood pressure medications, can happen. I was assured I could resume normal activities in a week. I got some anti-inflammatory medication and took a blood test to confirm findings and was on my way. Well, things got better after I started taking the medication, and after two days, I could actually walk on my leg again. But then, it started to get a little worse and my whole leg started swelling. I was also told that the blood test results were negative regarding gout and referred to an orthopedic doctor. Before I could go in to see the orthopedic doctor, my knee was hurting badly and I was getting worried about the inflammation in my...

Target has been coming out with a beauty box every month so far this year. This is great but what would be greater is if they just offered a subscription! Sadly, if you want this box, you need to be on your toes. Stalk beauty forums or in my case, get lucky enough to find an email in my inbox from Target letting me know their new beauty box was available! The May 2016 Target Beauty Box  was themed Spring Fling and sold out pretty quickly! The link I provided is just to let you see the page and the products included in the box. This was one of the better beauty boxes at least for me. It cost a little more than some of the boxes they offered earlier this year but many of the items seemed higher end in price, so having a deluxe size sample before spending the money on purchasing a full-size product is helpful. This month's box cost $10 but the overall value I calculated came out to $40.15. Here are the products included: The first sample was Hair Food Dry Shampoo infuse...

Target seems to be coming out with these beauty boxes every other month or so now. There were two in January and now another one this month. I'm not complaining but I wish Target would just come up with a subscription so that we wouldn't all have to fight to get one of these. To be honest, this wasn't the greatest box but for the price of $5, it wasn't all that bad. I really wanted the box for a couple of items. The theme of the box was Vacay Vibes , so all the items were related to products you might need on vacation! (Bottom Row L-R: SinfulColors Professional Nail Color, you are AMAZING Juicy Grapefruit Body Lotion and Laneige Water Sleeping Mask. Top Row L-R: Not Your Mother's Texturizing Sea Salt Spray, Caress Adore Forever Body Wash, Banana Boat Sun Comfort SPF 30 Lotion and Hair Food Moisture Shampoo & Conditioner) I'll start off by saying I wasn't very happy with the Caress body wash. It seems like this is in every sample box I get. ...

Occasionally, if I'm lucky, I will receive a box from Influenster . If I'm super lucky, I will get a box with a variety of items. If you don't know what Influenster is, it is a website where you can learn about products and even get a few for free to try out and submit a review. There are also other activities you do to earn more free products to review. And who doesn't love something for nothing. You also might get super lucky and receive one of their boxes with a variety of items to try. But I've only been lucky lately from Influenster and received two items from them. One was the Dove Men+Care Extra Fresh Dry Spray Antiperspirant  for my husband to try out and the other was Dove Cool Essentials Dry Spray for me to review. In this post, I will only be reviewing the Dove Cool Essentials Dry Spray since I have used this product. The Dove Cool Essentials Dry Spray comes in a cool and simply decorated canister. The fragrance is called "cool essentials....

In my previous post  I reviewed the first to two beauty boxes Target came out with earlier this month. Target does not offer a beauty box subscription so you need to subscribe to beauty blogs or groups to find out when these come out and grab them as fast as you can since they sell out quickly! This beauty box, the Target Refresh Beauty Box (please note this box is sold out but I provided a link in case you were curious), came with nine items total and cost $7. The box also included a card with a description of each item and a coupon to use in-store or online for $3 off of a $15 beauty purchase. I love when they provide a coupon but it usually expires within a short amount of time, in this case by February 14, 2016. Here are the items I received in the box (front row, L-R): Simple Micellar Wipes (full size!!!!) - Retail price: $6.99; Clear Men Scalp Therapy2-1 Complete Care Anti-Dandruff Shampoo (sample size) - Cost: 71 cents; Clear Scalp & Hair Therapy Total Care...

I got my January 2016 Birchbox before I even got my notice it shipped! Maybe it was because I opted for the guest editor's box instead of the regular Birchbox . I really didn't like any of the choice samples offered, so I decided I'd go for the Korean beauty box since I have tried some Korean products in the past. This month's box was put together by Charlotte Cho, founder of Soko Glam and a skincare guru. It came in a bright yellow box (sorry but my camera made it look green) with cute little drawings on the cover. There were six items in this box, which was nice since some boxes only come with five products total. Here are the items I got (clockwise starting left): Goodal Waterest First Essence, RE:P Bio Fresh Mask with Real Calming Herb, IPKN Flash Cream Radiant Primer and TONYMOLY Delight Tony Tint. I also got the Manefit Beauty Planner Cucumber (left) and Goodal Phytowash Yerba Mate Bubble Peeling. I haven't tried any of these item...

Target came out with two beauty boxes this month, and I jumped on both of them as soon as they came out. I missed the last beauty box and seeing what items it contained, I was bummed. Target does not offer a beauty box subscription, so it can be hit or miss getting one. They generally tend to be better than other beauty boxes and sometimes are more expensive but never more than $10 so far. I received one of the two beauty boxes offered in the mail within a few days after ordering (the other is on the way). I got the Target Renewal Beaty Box  (please note this box is sold out but I provided a link in case you were curious) first. The box cost just $7 and was a great value for the items it contained. The box comes wrapped in clear plastic with a mailing label on the side. It fits nicely in my mailbox, so there was no need for the mail carrier to leave it on my doorstep. It was quite heavy, and I was excited to open it. As soon as I took the cover off, there was a car...

Most people find the holidays daunting, and why not? It seems like the fall and winter brings the best eating holidays:  Halloween candy, Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie and Christmas dinner, chocolates and desserts plus so much more! Having diabetes during this time of the year is no fun! I have Type 2 diabetes and thankfully I can control my diabetes through diet and exercise. I can only speak from my perspective, so if you take medications or insulin, there may be different restrictions. To be completely honest, I didn't overthink too much about the upcoming holidays. With children in the house, it would be hard to completely avoid candy and other goodies, and I did not want to deprive my family or even myself! I also wanted to enjoy the holidays and not make anyone uncomfortable especially since we were spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with relatives (side note: my relatives knew about my diabetes diagnosis and was very mindful of asking me how they could accommo...

I didn't post about the November 2015 box because I was too busy and forgot to take pictures. Sorry! The December 2015 box came really early, and I didn't even get a notice from the Love With Food folks my box was on the way. I was pleasantly surprised to receive the box on the 9th. I order the deluxe box which comes with approximately 16-20 snacks which works great for me because as a diagnosed diabetic, I need to make sure I have appropriate snacks on hand. I am a big snacker, and I want to have great tasting snacks on hand. Many of the snacks in the box fit within my dietary needs for carbs, sodium, fats and other nutrition. I also want to point out how great  this subscription is because you are not only getting a bunch of snacks but you are also helping feed. On the inside cover of the box, it will tell you if the box you purchased helped to donate one or two meals. The smallest box (Tasting Box) is filled with 8+ snacks and donates 1 meal. The Deluxe Box ...

It's been about four months since my journey toward better health and beating diabetes began. So where am I now? At the end of October, three months since I took the A1C test which diagnosed me diabetic, I retook the test. This time it was a simple finger prick and a small amount of blood. I was lucky that the lab in my doctor's office had a machine which didn't require them to send out the sample. The phlebotomist was nice and told me I would get the results in a few minutes. In all honesty, before I took the test, I told myself there was a chance my results might even be higher than 6.4% despite all the things I had been doing to get it down. The problem with diabetes is if someone in your family has the disease, the chances of getting it goes up, and someone in my biological background had diabetes (side note: I was adopted as a baby but my mom told me my biological grandmother had diabetes). Of course, this is not an excuse why I have diabetes. I know my lifestyle...

This is a late review as I am about to get my November box but I wanted to post it just so you have an idea of what this subscription is about! Let's be honest. There are so many subscriptions out there ranging from beauty to food to clothing to just about anything you are looking for in a monthly box. Sometimes it seems like all the subscription boxes are the same except for the different ranges of price. It takes a lot for a box to fill a niche and to me Love With Food is just that kind of box. Love With Food is a monthly subscription box which contains organic or all-natural snacks. In a word or two, it contains healthy snacks! But these snacks are great if you are looking for healthier options and it gives you a chance to try out a variety of items without having to purchase a whole box or bag of one snack. There are three different options with this subscription. The first is a tasting box which contains about 8+ snacks and can cost about $8 to $10 if you purchas...

I wanted to address the cost of being healthy versus the cost of not being healthy. When I was first diagnosed with diabetes, many thoughts went through my head. Would I need to take medication? Have I signed myself up for a lifetime of insulin injections? Do I need to sign up for a gym? Would I need special food? How much is this all going to cost? Let's be real here. Being healthy cost money right? When you visit the doctor, it will cost you money. Then when the doctor prescribes this pill or that pill, it will cost you more money. This is all aside from the money you already pay out for health insurance. Of course not to mention all the tests you need to take to make sure you are healthy (or not healthy). Pretty soon you figure out how much it is going to cost you to stay healthy and maybe it makes you feel ill. But think about it this way. If you don't go to the doctor, get sick and land in the hospital, how much will that cost you in the end? The average cost of one ...

I haven't put up one of these in awhile but wanted to highlight my October 2015 Birchbox ! I also made ACES (exclusive Birchbox VIP program), which meant I spent way too much money on their website :) so I am now able to get first dibs on subscription box choices. This month Birchbox offered several mascaras as one of the sample choices in their regular subscription box. They also offered two guest curated boxes instead of one in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month! These boxes were by the Estee Lauder Companies and filled with products which support breast cancer research. In addition, Birchbox also committed funds which will go toward one year of breast cancer research. I chose one of the curated boxes because I liked the variety of products it offered and I felt it would fit in with what I was looking for in beauty this month. The Power Pose box contained five products from the brands Estee Lauder, Clinique, Darphin and Smashbox. I have not tried all of them yet bu...

So where do you start when you have diabetes, need to lose weight and start exercising regularly? I am no expert but for me, sadly, it had to be an incentive. My incentive was I didn't want to have diabetes! I didn't want to "shudder" inject myself with insulin every day. This was incentive enough for me! As I already said in my prior entry, I started using MyFitnessPal (MFP) to track what I ate, calories and all that good stuff. It was a learning process the first week. You can easily put in your starting weight and the weight you hope to be at some point, and it will tell you how many calories you can eat each day. My challenge was I also had diabetes and high blood pressure. Not only did I need to watch my sodium intake but I also need to consider how much carbohydrates and sugar I was consuming. When you use the free portion of the MFP App, you can only indicate what percentage of your diet should be carbohydrates, fat and protein as well as limit the amou...

When I started this blog, I didn't want it to stagnant but it's come to that mainly because I haven't posted in awhile. I have two boys, ages 5 and 9, and I am 46 years old. I had my children later in life because I didn't get married until I was 35. My husband and I planned on having children as soon as we got married because we didn't know if there would be problems getting pregnant because of our ages. But we were able to get pregnant after a couple of miscarriages and now have two healthy boys. Speaking of health, I've always been overweight. There I've said it. Ever since I was young, I've always favored being heavier than I should be I think. I'm not sure but it seems that way. I know for sure I've never been skinny and been able to fit into normal clothes. Sure I've tried to lose weight over the years but without much success. To be frank, I haven't really been trying and it's shown. I've gained a significant amount of ...

Just when you thought Hellmann's couldn't step up their game, they came out with a new squeeze bottle! It's the same great mayonnaise (disclaimer: we only use Hellmann's in our household) but in a no fuss or mess squeeze bottle. Influenster sent me a free Hellmann's Squeeze Bottle to try out and review. If you don't know what Influenster is, then you are missing out! It is a website where you can get free products to try out and review. Anyone can join though they do measure your social impact through connecting with your various social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Products are sent to you to review with various activities to complete during a certain time period. The more activities you complete, the more chances you have of getting more products! The Hellmann's Squeeze Bottle is a great way to dispense mayonnaise without having to dig into a jar and making a mess. It sits with the cap down in the refrigerator so that the pr...