One of My Favorite Things

It's no secret. I have a thing for chocolate. I've already posted about another favorite chocolate. But that was until I found this chocolate. It's my new favorite. Don't get me wrong, I still love my Sea Salt/Dark Chocolate. It's just moved down to the number 2 spot for the time being.


The new favorite chocolate is by Choxie. Choxie is a Target brand. I've been buying their dark chocolate meltaway truffles for a while, but on a recent trip to Target, they were out of my truffles. Instead, I grabbed a box of the assorted milk and dark chocolate meltaways.

It has a trio of flavors - espresso, raspberry lemon with bits of biscotti and my favorite, creme brulee. The creme brulee is absolutely sinful! I wish they sold a box with only the creme brulee! The raspberry lemon ones are also good. The espresso ones are fine, but just not as good as the other two.

Yummy!

One of My Favorite Things

In my quest to be healthier these last few months, I have been consuming dark chocolate when chocolate is needed. And you know that chocolate is sometimes needed! Anyway, I've been reading labels and looking for products that do not contain hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. Milk chocolate, my favorite, usually contains those hydrogenated oils. :(

I've never really liked dark chocolate before, but now I have come to the conclusion that I just hadn't found the right dark chocolate. If you haven't already met, I would like to introduce you to "A Touch of Sea Salt Bar" by Lindt.



The description from the Lindt website: The complexity of the dark chocolate is enhanced by the addition of Fleur de Sel, a premium French sea salt in this premium new chocolate bar from Lindt Masters Chocolatiers.


Pure bliss! It still has sugar, calories, and other not so good things, but doesn't everything! With dark chocolate, I can just eat one or two pieces and my chocolate craving is satisfied. Milk chocolate always leaves me wanting more. It's a large bar and usually lasts me several days. Mmm.....chocolate!

Another One of my Favorite Things

About a month ago, I found some sleeping masks in the dollar bin at Target. My tween daughter has been using them on and off for the last couple of years. It's one of those girlie spa kind of things. I picked up a few for her that day at Target, but when I got home, I decided I would give one a try.

OMG! I LOVE it! I sleep much better in the dark, and the mask provides plenty of darkness. I thought it might be weird, but really, it's not. We have a half circle window in our bedroom that doesn't have any blinds on it. During full moons, there's a lot of light in the room. Plus the neighbors sometimes have a light on outside their house. My husband likes to watch tv before going to sleep. I would sometimes put the blanket over my eyes to shield the light, but then it gets hard to breathe. (I like to breathe cool air at night). He's been really good about turning the volume down and he puts the closed captioning on, too.

It also works beautifully for middle of the day naps! Not that I take many of those, but it sure helps to have a dark room!

It's something I would never have thought to use before. I remember Carrie from Sex in the City using one, and Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's but it really seemed like such a diva-thing and so-not for me. But hey, if it works.......

Another One of my Favorite Things

Here is another one of my favorite things. If I was Oprah, I would be giving away my favorite things to those who read my blog. But I'm not. I'm unemployed. With no extra funds. If I win the lottery, I will have some give-aways of things I like. But I don't buy lottery tickets. Oh well..... maybe one of these days....

Anyway.....I LOVE the Eye-Fi wireless memory card. It allows you to instantly upload pictures from your camera. All you have to do is turn your camera on and the pictures automatically upload to your computer. I am not very tech savvy, so this has been wonderful! I would venture to say that if I didn't have one, I would not be blogging as much as I do. Before we got the Eye-Fi memory card, I would take pictures, but wait for my husband to upload them to the computer. That sometimes took a few weeks. Now, I upload pictures the same day, all by myself!



We have the Explore X2, 8 GB card. It really has simplified the whole camera/taking pictures thing for me. It organizes the pictures by date. It's worth checking out.

Another One of my Favorite Things

I love to scrapbook. I just don't have the time to do it as much as I would like. One of my favorite things, is the Out on a Limb Scrapbooking website. I have been purchasing their scrapbooking kits for about a year now. In fact, I have collected quite a few.


These 2 crates are filled with kits waiting to be used.


The kits are $6 - $7 and include everything you need to make the page along with instructions. I participate in the monthly kit option. They are held until the end of the month, then shipped all at once. If you order 10 or more kits, shipping is free.


Here is how the kits are packaged.


And here is everything that is in the above kit.

These have really simplified my scrapbooking life. I completed 4 two page layouts this morning in about an hour.

Here are the layouts that I did today.


Here is the instruction page for the swim team layout so you can compare it with the page I did.




I do tweak my pages a little. Sometimes I have more (or less) pictures than pictured in the instructions.

And of course, I did all this in my newly cleaned and organized scrapbooking room! It worked out very nicely. I am going to tidy it up now so it stays nice.

Another One of My Favorite Things

Another one of my favorite things is Too Faced's Pink Leopard bronzer. I use it just as a blush.


I use this size compact. They have a larger one, too, but I like this little one. I love the leopard print design on both the packaging and the make-up!

I use it on Hannah whenever she needs to wear make-up for dance or special occasions. She doesn't really "need" to wear make-up on special occasions, but she likes to, so this is a very subtle and natural looking color.

I apply it with the Too Faced Flatbuki brush made from "Teddy Bear Hair".

The company assures that no teddy bears were harmed in the process.

One of my Favorite Things

Once I discovered that butter was better than margarine, I did a little happy dance. The problem though, is that you can't leave butter out for too long before it goes rancid. While visiting my sister a few months ago, she introduced me to the butter bell. It is a little crock for butter which keeps it soft and fresh for up to 30 days.

This is a picture of the butter bell that I purchased. (not my kitchen). Every 3 days I have to switch out the water in the crock. I probably end up doing it more frequently than that.


Here's how it works:

I love being able to use softened butter on my toast! So that is the butter bell, definitely one of my favorite things!