Rice Milk: Last year, I was having really bad breakouts. Like, worse than I'd ever had in puberty. I didn't know what was causing them, and I was growing increasingly frustrated and self conscious. I'd tried Proactiv, but all it did was dry my skin out. "Natural" soaps from specialty stores didn't help. Not even handmade soap from the Farmer's Market helped. When I was about to give up and see a dermatologist, I read a few articles stating there was new evidence that milk (even organic milk) can cause breakouts because of all the hormones. I was skeptical, since years of medical research only seems to have gotten us slightly closer to understanding our bodies, but I realized that my breakouts had started around the time I had seriously increased the amount of milk I was drinking, so it seemed worth a shot.
For me, giving up milk was actually pretty hard. I drank a lot of chocolate milk as "dessert" and ate a ton of cereal (sometimes for 2 meals of the day), especially in the summer. I like soy milk and almond milk, but they never tasted quite right to me in cereal. Still, the sacrifice was worth it, because my skin totally cleared up (I still can't believe it).
Recently, I finally decided to try rice milk, and I'm pleased to announce that I've finally found a delicious alternative to dairy milk for my cereal. It does taste a little different, but in a good way (to me, at least), and the consistency is the same as dairy milk (almond milk, for example, is really thick).
Rice milk, for the win!
Stephen Colbert: I have a small (or maybe large) crush on him (yes, JD knows this, but he's madly in love with Zooey Deschanel so he can't say anything). What can I say? I can't resist a man who makes me laugh out loud while flashing a charming smile. I love him because he makes fun of politicians and politics in general. Because he can make light of some pretty depressing issues facing our country (honestly, sometimes you just have to throw shrug and get a good laugh out of something). And because his series on Super Pacs was brilliant, and I think educated a lot of people on what Super Pacs are, and why they do nothing to reform campaign finance other than make it harder to figure out where the money is coming from in the first place.
I would totally vote for him for president. Just sayin' Best State of the Union Addresses.... EVER.
Tempurpedic Mattress: I'm embarrassed to admit that the mattress JD and I had been sleeping was used when we bought it (not trying to put anyone down here, but mattresses are a pretty personal thing, so sleeping on a used one kinda grossed me out... most of our other furniture is used and I have no problem with it). Shortly after we moved into our house, we had gone to a furniture sale looking for dining room furniture, and stumbled across a bed frame and headboard we really liked instead. The only problem was, it was a queen, and our mattress (at the time) was a full. Also, we were pretty poor, so we were cutting it close even getting the bed frame, let alone a new mattress. Used mattress it was.
Fast forward 2 years and we're still sleeping on that same used mattress and I can't face JD when I sleep because of the huge valley that has formed in the middle of our sagging bed. Plus, we both wake up tired and cranky because we slept so poorly.
We finally decided it was time to purchase a new bed. From the beginning, I was interested in Tempurpedic. JD wasn't, but after testing one out at the store, he was definitely sold. It took 2 torturous weeks for the bed to get delivered because they had to ship it from the factory, but it was well worth the wait. I like to call it "heaven in mattress form." I literally miss my bed during the day, but not because I'm tired, because it's so friggin' comfortable.
Honorable Mentions:
Wind chimes
Quesadillas
The Hunger Games
The Tudors
Spring-like weather
My new wedge sandals
