Blog Posts by The_Stir

Healthy breakfast So many of us blame our time-crunched mornings for making measly, sad, bad-for-us breakfasts -- from nothing but a cup of coffee to just a banana or a big bagel and a sugar-laden cappuccino. While celeb spa-style breakfasts with fresh juices and fancy omelets aren't exactly everyday options for most of us, there are still ways to do our breakfast better. And it's worth the effort. After all, who wouldn't want to maximize that boost of energy a well-balanced breakfast provides?

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Here, five ways to make sure your a.m. meal is healthy, tasty, and of course, easy to throw together.

1. Pack in the protein - Lots of Americans are in the habit of goin' for a carb/grain-heavy breakfast -- i.e. pancakes, low-cal cereal, a granola bar -- but without enough protein, you're bound to be hungry an hour later. Adding protein also ensures be satisfied for longer, because it helps keep blood sugar stable. Some yummy

Lindsay's Dry HairLike most women, there are things I DON'T like about myself, and things that I do.

One of the things I've always liked is that I've had shiny, healthy hair.

Until I went and got "ombre" highlights over the summer, anyway.

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I love the ombre color, and it requires almost no maintenance. But ever since I've gotten it, my hair has lost its shininess. It just looks dull and dry, and it doesn't help matters that I had it cut to just below my shoulders. It's at an awkward length that pretty much requires a straight iron or curling iron in order to look presentable.

Neither of those things are really good for my hair.

I need to do something, but I don't have a lot of time to waste on treatments that don't really work.So I'm putting the question to you:

What do you do to add moisture and shine back to your hair?

One thing I'll be trying is this:

MoroccanoilMoroccanoil sent me this Intense

Playground keep outUp until your kids reach a certain age, there's a sort of unspoken rule about playdates. They are all mommy and me. As in at least two moms and two kids hanging out just so your kid can get in their social life. Which is all well and good if you have a bunch of mom friends in your 'hood who you love. But then there are those moms, the ones who make accepting a mommy and me playdate with a new family seem like a bigger risk than letting your 6-year-old pick your outfit for the day.

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Yes, it's true. I have turned down playdates because I hate the moms more than the kids. But if you saw the list of ladies I'm talking about, here's betting you'd say no too:

1. The One Who Riles Up the Kids: She walks in, spies the kids, and makes a beeline for them. After first whipping a roll of Smarties out of her pocket and passing them around, she then proceeds to get them all worked into a frenzy before finally coming to settle by

Parenting is not an easy job and everyone seems to have a different idea of how it needs to be done. For many moms and dads, it becomes almost impossible to have friendships with other parents because the way they parent is so different than the way you parent.

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My husband and I are strict on some things -- saying please and thank you, not whining, listening to what we say -- and chill about others -- meal times, foods they eat, and playtime. This means that families who are strict about food might not like us and families who allow their children to whine or use adult words might not be liked by us. It can be hard to find people who jive.

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We also hear all kinds of parenting "terms." There are "attachment parents" and "tough love" parents and everyone in between. But here are the 9 Mom Types I see most often:

• The Secretly Judgemental One: This mom

Yearbook photoShe's too sexy for her yearbook/Too sexy for her yearbook/So sexy it ... okay, I can't think of anything that rhymes with "yearbook." Oh well. In any case, Durango (Colorado) High School Senior Sydney Spies is, apparently, too sexy for her yearbook: Her picture was apparently too smokin' hot to be published in the final version.

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Right about now you're thinking some stuffy old principal or prissy PTA president pulled the plug on Spies' glamour shot. But NO! It wasn't an adult who deemed the sultry senior's likeness Not Safe For School.

No, Spies was betrayed by a jury (of sorts) of her very own peers ...

It's true. Though Spies initially pointed the finger at her school's administrators, it turned out her yearbook's student editors made the call: That chick's yearbook photo is too damn hot!

Um, sour grapes, anyone? To be fair, the student editors did have

In a lukewarm economy, some people have gotten creative when it comes to making a buck. A new website, ParkatMyHouse.com, matches people who need parking spaces with people who own houses with driveways near the desired destination. It's a peer-to-peer operation, like Craigslist, and it sounds like a win-win to me. As a car owner, I'd much rather pay a nice person $20 to park in their uncrowded, drama-free driveway than $20 to park in a lot that will take me 45 minutes to exit. And as someone who grew up in a house with a secret back entrance to a National Park in her backyard, my family could've made a killing if this site had existed back in the '90s.

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Point is, there are plenty of ways to pimp out your house for some extra cash. No need to stop with the parking! Let's look beyond the driveway.

Those bushes in your front yard? They look like they could use some watering. If you live on a main

SaladA diet by any other name might still be as hard to stick to, but would it be as popular? In case you haven't heard, the DASH Diet has just captured the first-place honors (for the second year in a row) in U.S. News and World Report's ranking of the best overall diets. To make the list, the editors note, a diet had to be "relatively easy to follow, nutritious, safe, and effective for weight loss and against diabetes and heart disease."

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Sounds good. And DASH, which also ranked atop the magazine's best diets for healthy eating and best diabetes diets lists, sure has a snappy name. But ... um ... what is it?

Well, it turns out that the DASH diet isn't actually designed for weight-loss, but it still ranked #9 in U.S. News's list of best weight-loss diets. (Weight Watchers topped that list.) DASH was actually designed to combat hypertension (a.k.a. high blood pressure). Its name is an acronym. DASH stands

Casey Anthony video diaryIf you haven't seen the "leaked" Casey Anthony video diary yet, here it is in a nutshell: blah, blah, feel sorry for me, I'm so happy to have fun gadgets, blah, blah, and oh yeah, I got a dog! Yes, ladies and germs, some genius decided the woman most of America believes killed her toddler daughter was a good candidate to adopt a living, breathing creature. And you know what, I agree with them.

Oh, come on, before you get indignant, you want to know why, don't you? Would it help if I told you I'm known in my 'hood as a bit of an animal activist?

In fact, I love my critters so much that I'll admit I first had the same reaction as most of America when I heard Casey was cuddling with a canine in her new digs. I believe the phrase is "I wouldn't give that woman a dog I didn't like"?

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But let's just look at what we know about Casey Anthony. Since a jury declared her not guilty of the murder of little