Vaseline Intensive Rescue Repairing Moisture Review

Living in the northeast, I suffer from dry skin for 6-8 months during the year. And I mean cracking, bleeding, painful dry skin. I need to put lotion on my hands every day, several times a day. I try all types of lotion and most of them have the same effect - I need to reapply more than once. I tried Vaseline Intensive Rescue Repairing Moisture Body Lotion (that's a mouthful) and found it to be the same as the others. No better, no worse, the same. I wasn't magically cured of my dry skin. I reapplied several times and found some relief much like all other lotions I've tried. This particular lotion was fragrance-free. I like a little fragrance, particularly in hand lotions. If my hands are going to look terrible, I would at least like them to smell nice.

Book Review - Waiting to Surface by Emily Listfield

This was a pretty quick read for me - and it usually takes me a while to read a book. First of all, here's the official blurb about it:
A woman copes with tragedy and the banalities of New York life in Listfield's deeply personal sixth novel. Based on the real-life disappearance of Listfield's husband, the novel revolves around Sarah Larkin, an art lover who actually enjoys her job as an editor at a glossy women's mag. Her alcoholic sculptor husband, Todd, though, is less than happy, and flees the disintegrating marriage, ostensibly to visit an old school friend in Florida. Sarah and their six-year-old daughter, Eliza, await his return, but a phone call from a Florida policeman signals trouble: Todd has been staying with a woman and has been reported as missing. Sarah's life then spreads out into several directions. Most immediate is the investigation into Todd's disappearance (suicide is one theory), with a skeptical cop, a kindly private eye and Todd's ex as its cross-purposed cast. Sarah also navigates infighting among the ambitious and sometimes reptilian magazine staff (who mostly feel like something out of a less ambitious novel) and meets a caring and handsome new love interest.

Waiting to Surface pulls you in pretty quickly to the life of Sarah Larkin. She's very relatable being a working mom of a little girl with a marriage on the rocks. You learn of Sarah's marriage mostly through her recall of memories after her husband's disappearance. Their meeting, the romance, the "honeymoon" phase, and the gradual decline - all very typical. I particularly enjoyed her position as editor for a fashion magazine in Manhattan - that immediately scored points with me. There's also that bit of mystery involved - did the husband disappear willingly or did he drown - willingly? And the fact that you never really know for sure by the end of the book makes it even better. There's an even play between the disappearance of Sarah's husband and her fashion magazine job, which never gets confusing or disjointed. Add to all this the fact that it's based on a true story really makes me want to speak with the author, Emily Listfield. I'd love to have a glass of wine with this woman.

Slim-Fast Peanut Butter Crunch Time Review

I've never been on a diet, never tried any diet products, but when this sample came for Slim-Fast Peanut Butter Crunch Time, I thought I'd give it a try. For a "diet" snack bar, it's not so bad. Peanut butter, a little crunchy stuff covered in chocolate - how bad can it be? For 100 calories and 3.5 grams of fat, it's not bad at all. I will admit it could use a little more peanut butter and it's not as sweet as I would expect a bar like this to taste, but it's a perfectly fine snacky treat.