Enjoy Downtown Boston with Walgreens

I came back to visit Walgreens on behalf of Collective Bias®.  I was compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias ™ and Walgreens #CBias #SocialFabric  All Opinions are my own.

If you’re a family living in the Boston area or a family traveling to the Boston area, the odds are you will find yourself in Downtown Crossing with young children. It can be delightful, but with children it can be kind of overwhelming. Which is why I suggest you pack light and just take advantage of our lovely new DTX Walgreens. (As you can see from the map, it’s just off the park, up Washington Street a bit from the Downtown Crossing T stop and the Macy’s.)

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I know, you are thinking, Again with the Walgreens? Actually, among my in-the-city friends this has been a pretty regular topic of conversation. It’s a much-needed addition to downtown, especially since it’s hard to find one-stop-shop anything when you’re in the heart of the city. 

And one-stop-shop is pretty huge when you have kids. Did you forget wipes? Do you need snacks? Need emergency backup pants? Is someone thirsty? Need band-aids for scraped knee? All these hazards make fun with kids extra tough, but you don’t need to bring all your supplies if you know you have a place to go.

To prove it, I recently brought the kids into the city to have a little fun and hit up our Walgreens. Our plan was to head out to the Common but, sure enough, we were rained out. It has been the rainiest June here, so so wet. But we were still able to have a pretty fun time with just the store. Here are some ideas from our trip to use for your next downtown Boston excursion.

Picnic on the Common

Okay, so we got rained out. But usually summer weather is gorgeous. Here’s my recommended itinerary:

  • 2011 05 30 10 35 36 679 300x224 Enjoy Downtown Boston with WalgreensSwan Boats. Great for younger children, very low-key, and you usually get a nice view of swans, ducks and a turtle if you’re lucky.
  • Make Way For Duckling photos. You may have to wait a while since everyone wants to snap a pic of their kids with the lovely duck statues, but it’s such a great photo-op.
  • Frog Pond. It’s only about a foot deep, a great way to cool down without the stress of a pool. 

Walgreens is just a couple blocks from the Common (on the North-ish side, by the State House). I recommend popping in for fresh fruit and cold snacks. 

There are a whole bunch of fresh cut fruit combinations. Besides just the usual one with melon, pineapple and berries you can find just about anywhere, they also have a tropical mix, a just-berries mix, a berries-and-mango mix and more. My kids will take the berries, please and thank you.
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The grab-and-go section is one of my favorite things about the store. You will not have to settle for sad looking sandwiches. Get chips and some hummus!  Have some cold noodles! Have a sandwich that looks like you’d really like to eat it!

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They even have a container of plastic silverware with napkins right by the cashiers. (Chopsticks, too, if you decide to go the sushi route…)

Get Pampered

If you’ve got a nail polish lover, you can probably get a good 45 minutes out of a walk through the Walgreens beauty section and a nice, cheap manicure.

Graham, our resident nail polish lover, requests daily polish changes at home and insists on having every color of the rainbow. He was blown away by all the colors he found at Walgreens. Seriously, he was so excited. And the beautiful displays were way cooler than the ones we normally see at the drug store.

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Along with your regular brands, there’s plenty of high end and some really sweet colors, like the super-bright pop shades. Plus, this family on a budget is happy to see the 99-cent Wet & Wilds still around. 

I’m happy to indulge Graham’s love of nail polish, and the $9 polish change at Walgreens was a fun way for him to get a fun and fancy experience. Their manicurists are also trained on all the products in the store. I’ve found them to be really sweet, too. 2 days later Graham’s polished isn’t scratched, a miracle, as his morning polish is usually a wreck by the end of the day.

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If you’re wondering, Graham immediately picked out OPI’s Cajun Shrimp (affiliate link). He could not be deterred.

I think he’s still too little for a spa day or something like that, but a fun sit down to get his nails painted for under $10? I’ll totally support that. 

Another easy way to please your beauty-loving littles is the sample machine (samples of a variety of products for just $1) and the super cool computer that lets you take a picture of yourself and see how different products look on your face.

Stop in for a Snack

Maybe you’re shopping. Maybe you’re waiting for a show. Maybe you’re just wandering through the city and need a little break. You’re covered.

 First up: Fro Yo.9083953021 154a3c6a95 z Enjoy Downtown Boston with Walgreens
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You’re in New England so they’re called “jimmies.” Just so we’re clear. 

Fro Yo is the new cupcake here in Boston. You can’t really miss it. But your wallet will be much happier going to Walgreens where you can get 6 flavors and unlimited toppings without being charged by weight. (Graham, as you can see, prefers the heavy gummy bears to the lighter toppings. So we approve.) 

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For the discerning palate, all kinds of goodies from 2 of Boston’s best bakeries.  Black and white cookies, macarons, cupcakes, all brought in fresh.

And don’t forget the drinks. There’s a juice and smoothie bar with a billion different possible flavors. And also this, my best friend:

 

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Oh, Coke Freestyle. You are a thing of beauty. You let me have my fountain Diet Coke just the way I like it, with 75% regular and 25% Diet Coke with Lime. You can add flavor to any drink and the touch screen is still all new and fancy to us old timers. Now we just have to convince Walgreens to start carrying some of those gallon-sized mugs…

And don’t forget…

For the kid-free outing you can pick up a bottle of wine, a 6-pack of beer or a bottle of spirits to take back to your hotel room and enjoy. That sounds nice to me…

 

It’s the Little Things

its complicated Its the Little ThingsI’m not distraught.

It’s been a few days and it still hasn’t happened. Maybe later it’ll take me by surprise and lay me low. But for now I don’t feel all those things you’d think I’d feel. Rejection, loss, anger. I’ve felt those things a lot over the last couple of years and I’ve felt them acutely in the last few weeks so it’s not like I’ve forgotten what they feel like. Rather, I think I’ve actually been able to finally let them go.

It’s over. We are not going to try anymore. It wasn’t what I wanted, but you can’t make everything better unless you’re both all in. So it’s over. That’s all that really needs to be said.

And with a couple days of crying behind me I find myself thinking about the little things.

 Its the Little Things

The tan line on my ring finger. It’s not just that the skin under my ring is lighter. It’s softer, it’s a bit indented, it has a different feel and tone to it. 

It’s little things.

Now I will have to kill all the bugs myself. And replace the batteries in the smoke detectors. Troubleshoot internet problems. 

Every now and then one of these little things crosses my mind and its strangeness throws me for a minute.

No more vacations. Traveling with kids isn’t a vacation, especially alone. And by myself, where would I go? 

I am annoyed with myself that some of my sadness has more to do with being labeled “divorced” than actually being divorced. It is a way of admitting failure in front of everyone, a way you have to admit on every form you will ever fill out.

Maybe it’s good that these little things occupy my mind. There are so many big things to come. There are boxes to check and papers to sign and agreements to negotiate. There is the trick of finding consistent parenting for children too young to cope with two different ways of living. There is the career plan that was take-your-time-and-find-the-perfect-fit and is now must-be-perfect-and-must-be-immediate. There is the possibility of dating and love and relationships when I will be a single mother, where I will be bringing the biggest kind of baggage, where I will be much more than the books I read and the music I like. 

And there’s that little stripe on my finger.

I think the next thing on the agenda is to find a ring for the middle finger of my left hand, something that is not the same but that is there to look at, to keep me from dwelling on what is missing. It’s just a little thing, but little things can mean a lot.

Summer Reads Series: Dark and Twisty

The summer beach reads usually involve some kind of beach itself. Romance, sun, sand. Or adventure, sun, sand. Or tragedy, sun, sand. You get the idea.

But after the crazy success of last year’s Gone Girl, dark and twisty is all the rage again. If you’re looking for something dark and twisty to serve as a nice counterpoint to your sun and sand, I’m rounding up some great reads for you. And rest assured, these are all books I’ve read (okay, I didn’t finish one of them, but I’m almost all the way through so I think you can take my word for it).  (Links to affiliate partners Amazon, B&N and Powell’s with each book.)

dark and twisty Summer Reads Series: Dark and Twisty

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noa p singleton Summer Reads Series: Dark and TwistyThe Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver. Basically this is Gone Girl meets The Pelican Brief. Or if Lionel Shriver wrote a legal thriller. Noa is on death row for murder and has never agreed to any appeals until a big-time attorney who also happens to be her victim’s mother steps in and insists she wants clemency. Noa isn’t a traditionally likeable character, but she’s definitely an interesting one. As we flash back to Noa’s old life and discover how she became a killer and what really happened everything you think you know changes.  Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Amazon Summer Reads Series: Dark and Twisty

 

poppet Summer Reads Series: Dark and TwistyPoppet by Mo Hayder. While this is a great police procedural, it also has a very high creepy factor as it’s set in large part in a mental institution where the patients are mysteriously dying while insisting they’re plagued by a ghost. If you like a dash of horror, this is a great pick. Really well plotted and with some great characters, it’s a book that will have you reading in the dark even though you know you shouldn’t. It’s also a book in a series with Detective Jack Caffery, but I haven’t read any of the other books and it worked just fine for me. If you’re looking for a procedural series this could be a good one to try.  Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Amazon Summer Reads Series: Dark and Twisty

 

asylum Summer Reads Series: Dark and TwistyAsylum by John Harwood. Continuing the mental institution theme, this is a traditional gothic novel set in 1800′s England in a psychiatric “hospital” in the countryside. Georgina wakes up to find herself there one day, she’s forgotten everything that’s happened for the last month and the staff is insisting she checked herself in under a different name. The more she tries to prove who she is, the more trapped she becomes. A novel that uses letters, journals and other writings really well, this is a very dark and twisty book. Don’t be afraid of the historical setting, it’s far from scary and full of all kinds of old-fashioned and still-awesome plot twists. Mistaken identity, doubles, captivity, secret romances, hidden wills, lost letters, etc. I also recommend John Harwood’s previous novel, The Seance for more gothic goodness. Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Amazon Summer Reads Series: Dark and Twisty

 

Coming Later This Summer

never list Summer Reads Series: Dark and TwistyThe Never List by Koethi Zan. You want high-concept? I’ve got that. Jennifer’s family suffered through some terrible tragedies. To protect herself she and her best friend Sarah made The Never List, things to avoid at all costs in order to stay safe. But one day they break a rule only to find themselves held captive for three years. And Jennifer never made it out. Ten years later, Sarah is pulled back into these harrowing years when the man who kidnapped them is put up for parole and she believes his letters from prison contain a secret she must decode. Interested yet? It’s out July 16th, make sure you put it on hold or pre-order so you don’t miss out.  Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Amazon

 

kind of cruel Summer Reads Series: Dark and TwistyKind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah. If you’ve read any other Sophie Hannah novels you know she’s pretty great at dark and twisty. She always has interesting female protagonists and does a great job of throwing in some serious suspense. I devoured her new book within a day or so, it’s all about Amber, who decides to see a hypnotherapist to help her insomnia. When she finds herself speaking the unusual titular words, “Kind of Cruel” while under hypnosis she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation where those words are one of the only clues.  Out August 6th. Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Amazon Summer Reads Series: Dark and Twisty

 

Any other dark and twisty on your radar for summer? Share in the comments!

Replace Google Reader With Feedly

feedly Replace Google Reader With FeedlyOh there has been much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on our beloved interwebz about the demise of Google Reader. But you know what? It’s a good thing. Because Google Reader got the job done but it didn’t exactly go above and beyond. It didn’t try to get any extra credit, it just wanted a passing grade. Now there are some new apps on the scene but after doing some investigating I’ve decided to throw in my lot with Feedly. And so far I’m feeling really good about that decision.

What I Love About Feedly

First, it’s a lot like Google Reader. It’s clean and simple and doesn’t try to give you fancy pictures… unless you want it to. You can keep your nice clean layout but you can also do a lot more with a lot less. So you can do what you already love, just better. (You can even change your theme to change up the colors.) Plus you can just connect it to your Google Reader and it’ll import all the sites you’re already subscribed to. Awesome.

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Second, you can organize what you read by category. So, for example, I’ve now divided up my Food sites from my blogs. And I’ve got a category set up just for my local blogger friends because I need to do better at keeping up with everyone’s goings-on.

Third, it’s easy to add sites to your feed.

Option 1: Search by name or URL. On the left dashboard you just hit the “+ Add Content” link to bring up a little search tab.  So I decided to add my friend Charlene’s blog to my Boston group. I didn’t even have to put in her URL, just typed in the name of her site.

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Ta da! There she is, I click the little + icon and then I get to decide how to categorize her. You can just leave everyone uncategorized, but dividing them up helps if you have lots of sites to keep up with. You can also mark sites as a “must read.”

Option Two: Use the Feedly add-on in Chrome. I have to say I’m a big fan of Chrome and one reason is all the add-ons and apps you can use. Feedly is yet another. Add it and you’ll see it whenever you open a new tab, plus you get this handy dandy little floating icon in the lower right corner of your screen. Like so:

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And when you hover your mouse over him you get this lovely little menu:

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From here you can click the green + to open Feedly in a new tab and get to click the add button. Or you can bookmark it, email it, tweet it, facebook it, +1 it, Buffer it, etc. Awesome, no?

Beyond all this, it has very user-friendly buttons and settings. You can very easily keep something unread, open it in a new tab, hide it from your screen, etc. And they only show up when you need them so your screen stays clutter-free.

Now what’s useful for you bloggers:

Help Your Readers Subscribe To You on Feedly

As is often the case with newer things this one isn’t quite ready in the add-a-quick-button-to-your-sidebar thing. BUT it’s not hard. You can actually email Feedly for a bunch of different images you can use. Or you can download these I’m about to put up for you. (It’s all good, I got them from Feedly for buttons.)

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Get yourself that little image. Upload it to your site. Then the tricky part is to add the html. All you need is a nice text widget. And the link should work like so:

It starts with this: http://www.feedly.com/home#subscription/feed/

Then add on to the end the address of your feed. So mine, for example, ends up looking like this: http://www.feedly.com/home#subscription/feed/http://theseversons.net/feed/

Then when someone clicks the subscribe button on your blog they’ll immediately get a new tab in Feedly with your feed in it. SWEET! (You can see mine in the sidebar right below my social media icons. Click it and see!)

Also awesome: if you’d like something different, just email arthur@feedly.com for a custom button. 

I have to say, so far I am loving the Feedly life. There’s also an app for your phone so you can check your reader from there. I love the simple style with tons of customization. You can even change your settings to see a magazine-style look with one image for each, or change to a card-style or see full entries for everything. 

I hope you give it a try. Any other Feedly lovers out there?

Just Say No to Mom Hair

This is the first in a 3-part series. Today: getting a professional cut. Part 2 to come: Styling for Curly Girls. Part 3 to come: Blow Out Your Hair Not Your Brains. This is not a sponsored series but I am doing a giveaway with V05 Hair Products so stick around!

Do you remember the Year of Jess? It’s okay if you forgot. Quick refresher: last year was the Year of Tess, where baby won the day and I just let myself live in Mom-World. I learned with my first baby that I have to give myself some time to come back to the real world. And here we are, nearly a third of the way through the Year of Jess and I haven’t been very good about updating. Nevertheless I’ve been really putting some effort into the Year of Jess.

I attended the Pivot Style event a few weeks ago and I loved listening to accomplished and stylish women talk about finding personal style and what it means. I tend to eschew such things but I’ve found that lately I want to do more with myself. I feel like I can be a bold and interesting person and I’m less likely to show that in how I present myself. I’m still hunting for exactly what my personal style is, what brings together my own comfort and confidence and personality. And that may be something I do for a long time. But I definitely feel like I’m coming closer. And that quest is keeping me from giving in to a lot of the style fears I have. 

I haven’t lost any real weight yet so I haven’t exactly gone out and bought myself a new wardrobe. (Nor is such a thing in the budget.) But all my new clothes are things that will still look cute once that ten pounds comes off. I’ve decided not to be afraid of color, not to be afraid of something a little tight, not to be afraid of drawing attention to myself instead of fading into the background. It is okay for me to wear something sleeveless even if I have pudgy arms. I am more than my pudgy arms. 

I wear dangly earrings now. I have a nice little collection of cheap jewelry with some color or some sparkle or some visual interest that can add a little punch to a boring outfit. It’s a low-cost way to help me feel a little more cool and fun. 

There are little things you can do, but sometimes you have to bite the bullet and do a big thing. Like get a real haircut.

I spent a long time considering the haircut. I haven’t had a for-real salon do since Graham was about 7 months old and I got a cut and colored it red. 

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I loved it, but the coloring was too time-intensive and when I gave up the color I gave up a real haircut. And when I don’t have a real haircut I just wear a ponytail. Constantly.

With the Year of Jess upon me I decided to be smart and make a good decision about my hair. Color is out (it’s still not going to work in the budget or in my schedule) but I want to be able to do something with it. If I want to be able to rise above the frumpy yoga pants mom look sometimes, I need my hair to take me along. 

So after some consults with friends and stylists I settled on keeping my hair around shoulder length where it currently is and doing long layers. My hair is very thick and heavy and I have heard from all sides that layers are a must, especially for those of us with some curl who develop the unfortunate pyramid hair look. I have finally overcome my fear of layers (they make me think that my hair will take a lot of work or look kind of weird) I committed. 

Then I came out and asked a lot of people point blank: must you go with a real salon? Is it really the thing to do? The answer, even among my frugal friends, was Yes. Definitely.

So I made an appointment. I found a well-reviewed salon in my area. And I waited.

I planned.

I even scoped out some potential hair styles to imitate. This was my guiding star:

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Same length. Layers. GORGEOUS. Although I’m not quite ready to take the plunge on side-swept bangs. I am saving that for my next cut when I’m a little more used to wearing it down and having hair around my face all the time.

Of course, I stupidly didn’t bring the picture with me to the salon when the big day came. I went to Sanela Salon and was styled by the fabulous Jamie. I didn’t have a picture, but I did have a good idea of what I wanted. I told her about my hair, about the baby, about the heaviness of it and the weight and the curl. And as we talked it was nice to hear that she had the same vision I did. I’ve had plenty of conversations with a stylist where you say something and they give you this kind of vague response and then do something completely different. I’ve learned that a good chat before you start is important. Jamie definitely got it and she told me just what she wanted to do and even said that she thought it would be great for me to grow it out a few more inches in the future, and I’m totally pleased with that. She even listened to the one thing stylists never listen to: I still want to be able to pull it back sometimes. 

So we got started. We had a lovely talk. I told her about the blog and the posts I’d be writing. I told her I was hair challenged and she gave me lots of tips along the way. She also totally got the curly hair thing, which was a relief. While she did my blow-dry she talked me through how to do it myself. AND she told me that Sanela Salon does blow-dry classes for customers like me who need some help with their technique. I am so there.

 Just Say No to Mom Hair

I could tell Jamie had experience with curly-ish hair like mine. She wasn’t intimidated by how much of it there was and she was really quick at having it combed out and untangled. Honestly, it was one of the fastest cuts I’ve ever had. She rocked it.

She also told me that with my curl and cut I don’t have to come back in 6-8 weeks for a new cut. One per season, so I can mosey on back in September. 

Oh, and did I mention it was only FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS? Seriously. For a lovely cut at a lovely salon in Boston. Crazy talk. (Yup, Jamie at Sanela Salon, folks.)

After leaving with my new, bouncy hair I had to indulge in Instagramming myself.

 Just Say No to Mom Hair

And later in the day after I’d been out and about and gotten all grimy looking and the humidity had attacked my hair I made the fantastic decision to do some self-portraits with my real camera.

If you’ve never done self-portraits before, they are hella hard when you have to adjust all those settings. And when you don’t have a tripod to set to the right height. Eventually I used the mirror and had to angle it just so.

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Yeah, I’ll have to work on the selfies…

Anyway, you get the idea.

My favorite thing about the new cut is it does a lot for the new glasses. It makes them less jarring and between the cut and the glasses I feel like it creates a whole new look. My old glasses were minimalist and so is my normal hair. It was the mom look: not a lot of effort and not a lot to look at.

So maybe all this just takes me to the level of regular-person. But with a toddler around and a lot of days where I’m lucky to grab a shower, regular person sounds pretty darn nice. All in all, I declare the for-real haircut totally worth it. Now I just have to do it on my own, which is where the next 2 parts of the hair series come in. 

So tell me, good moms and non-moms of the world: do you splurge on the salon cut? Curly girls, have you found that stylists know what to do with your hair? And how is your daily hair routine going with all the little ones making you crazy?

In Which I Confess My Bad Habits

This post is sponsored through my membership in the One2One Network (which has been pretty great since I joined earlier this year). I received monetary and product compensation, though, as always, I still remain true to my own opinions and story.

I have some bad habits. Or rather, there are some good habits that I should do that I do not do. I know I’m not the only one out there, but it’s still hard to admit sometimes.

For example, I suck at washing my face before bed. Whenever I read a magazine article where some famous beautiful person admits they don’t wash their face every night I do a secret fist pump in my head. It’s not great for my face, and given the size of my pores lately, I’m reaping the consequences.

Another nighttime routine I suck at: flossing. 

To be honest, I secretly believe that a majority of people don’t floss and that those who do are rather freakish about hygiene. 

Nevertheless, I always get a flossing lecture at the dentist. Which makes me not go to the dentist. (It’s been a while since my last cleaning. Not a coincidence.) I know I should floss. If not constantly, at least more. And yet I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns.

oral b logo 300x97 In Which I Confess My Bad HabitsSo when Glide Floss from Oral-B gave me the opportunity to write about floss I thought, “Well, when am I ever going to get a better excuse? They are paying me to floss. This might actually work.” And I would definitely have to work for it because, as I mentioned, I hate floss and flossing and now I had to floss and write about flossing in an interesting way so yeah. Not the easiest campaign I’ve ever signed on to.

An honest product review is part of the whole shebang so first off let me tell you how I feel about Glide. 

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Forgive the bad focus on this image (I have never photographed something so tiny before and apparently I need more practice) but holy crap can you see the difference? One is very thick and the other is kind of a ratty looking string kind of thing. I thought this might make flossing with Glide uncomfortable. But oh no, my fears were misplaced.

To do a for-reals review I started out using the regular floss I already had. You guys, I could only get through 3 teeth before I had to stop. It hurt my fingers. It hurt my teeth. It was a pain to push it up in there and then a pain to get it back out. This is what I hate about flossing. Red, bruised fingers and sore gums.

Then I switched to Glide. And it was like night and day. It just goes right up and comes right back down and in and out and all of a sudden flossing turned from a few minutes of torture to 30 seconds or so. (Not including the bit where my retainer is behind my lower front teeth.) And my fingers weren’t red and sore. And I didn’t actually CARE that I was flossing. It was kind of mindblowing. 

But I didn’t just have this post to do, I needed to get myself focused on the big picture. Just because I don’t hate flossing with Glide doesn’t mean I will do it all the time. Someone on Twitter suggested Lift so I gave that a try. As I said, I have other bad habits so I thought I’d take on more than one and try to find a way to just be better about stuff in general. 

On Lift you put down a habit you want to follow and you check in on your iPhone or on their new web version (still in beta).  The group dynamic helps with motivation. Personally, I felt much better when I saw that over 30,000 people have “Floss” as one of their habits. (It’s 4th after Exercise, Drink More Water and Read.)

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So yeah, I added washing my face. And reading to Graham because I have just quit turning in his reading sheets because it’s too embarrassing. (I am a READER. What is WRONG with me??)

Seriously, I would lay in bed and think I HAVE to Floss or else I will end my streak! I found it quite effective. In all honesty, I made it 6 days in a row and took a break on Day 7. Because I have to let myself go a little. I have to give myself permission to not be perfect every day. But now after I brush it’s like, hey, floss, that’s cool. Which is kind of massively different than my previous thought process in which flossing never once entered the picture because why would I want to torture myself?

The kind folks at Glide are not only kind about making floss that makes you happy, they are also running a Floss Face contest where you can upload pictures of your floss face to win a tablet computer. The first 5,000 entries get a bag of Glide products and I know how y’all love free stuff and if you have that crappy regular floss in your house, believe me, you need the new stuff if you’re going to get your good habits going. I am a good sport and not afraid of taking pictures of myself where I look weird (as you all already know) so here is my entry, and as I have no one here to take a picture of me, nor do I have a forward facing phone camera, it took some serious effort with the self-timer on my DSLR.

DSC 0471 e1370546646711 In Which I Confess My Bad Habits

I would love to see all your lovely floss faces, too. 

And I would love to see all your internet faces on Lift because I have no friends on there (sob) and if you are also in the I-need-to-wash-my-face-and-floss camp we can be in it together and share our shame.

And please, oh please, tell me what your bad habits are. What do you omit from your day that you know you should do?