Blog Posts by Piper Weiss, Shine Staff

Tracey and Dan Citron always wanted to have a baby. After six unsuccessful cycles on infertility medication, they decided to forgo IVF treatments in favor of adopting a child instead. In 2009, they settled on a Lutheran-based adoption agency near their home in Eagan, Minnesota, and enrolled in classes on a path to get their home-study approval in order to adopt. By 2010, they were "approved" and ready to make a match, when they realized they had a lot more work to do.

"Our agency was a big advocate of outreach, since most of their domestic open adoption matches occurred that way, and it seemed to be the trend," Tracey told Yahoo! Shine. After attending a seminar hosted by the agency that taught parents how to market themselves effectively, the Citrons were fired up.

The couple printed postcards and business cards promoting their adoption search, which they would hand out to everyone they met "When we paid waitresses, we'd stick a postcard with our tip," Tracey, a 37-year-old

Read More »from Craigslist Adoptions: How Hopeful Parents Are Turning to the Website to Start Families (A Shine Exclusive)

Turkey CakeIt's a Thanksgiving turkey best served cold. Baskin-Robbins is bringing back the Turkey Cake, a glazed confection first introduced in 1976.

The seventies weren't exactly a heyday for desserts. See Jell-O salads for proof. But the Turkey Cake—glazed in caramel and stuffed with ice cream—has its share of loyalists.

On first inspection, the limited edition dessert looks like it could be another gelatinous recipe garnished with cabbage leaves, or even a lacquered version of a turkey dinner in a dusty old diner menu. But looks can be deceiving.

The cake, which serves up to 10 people and costs $32.99, can be customized with one or two Baskin-Robbins ice cream flavors, before it's glazed in a sweet caramel shell. The shell, by the way came in 2008, when the turkey cake was re-introduced. With the modern incarnation, even the drumstick tips are edible—they're actually sugar cones.

Turkey legIf you're not prepared to be that guy that brought that cake to Thanksgiving dinner, you can still

Read More »from Baskin-Robbins' Turkey Cake: Delicious or Disturbing?

Newlyweds Michael Bof and Cynthia Reese. (Photos:Mark Riggs/Akron General) Last week, an Ohio hospital transformed into a full-service wedding hall for a pregnant patient's special day. Nurses became wedding planners, patients provided bridal accessories, and the gift shop catered the whole affair. Just hours later, the bride became a patient again when the staff delivered her baby.

It wasn't every bride's fantasy venue, but for Cynthia Reese it was perfect.

"Everything went so well with the wedding, that the baby wanted to come see it too," joked the exhausted new mom during a phone interview with Yahoo! Shine.

Reese, 27, was seven months pregnant last Monday when her water broke.

"I was mopping up the floor at work when it happened," says the Aeropostale sales assistant. "It was really terrifying."

She immediately checked in to Akron General Medical Center for fetal monitoring as doctors tried to slow down her contractions. She was put on bed rest and checked into the hospital for the duration of her pregnancy. The biggest concern for

Read More »from Bride Weds in Bedsheet Gown at Hospital Before Delivering Her Baby. Now That's a Wedding.

(Getty Images)There are so many questions that need to be answered in this whole Petraeus scandal. There's the hard news question: "Why didn't we know about this sooner? And the tabloid question: "Were the Whistleblower and the Biographer both in love with Petraeus?" And the human interest question: "Why do women love in men in power?" And the rhetorical question: "Wait, that guy is a womanizer?"

And then there's the question that nobody, save for one blogger, would ever think to ask: "Did General Petraeus stray because of his wife's hair?"

A writer called "Blonde Bombshell," who is smartly remaining anonymous, posted a "thinkpiece" about the scandal today. It required multiple readings to verify it wasn't satire, and still I'm still not 100 percent.

You have to go deep into the internet mines to find Blonde Bombshell's words of wisdom. I had entered in a search engine "Petraeus" and "Hair"--two terms I will never put together again--when I found on this story on page three of the search

Read More »from Blogger Blames Holly Petraeus' Hair for Sex Scandal: The Worst Take on Anything Ever

The best bar of chocolate in the world? Good & Evil isn't just any candy bar. It's the most anticipated bar of chocolate in years, and the brainchild of a trifecta of top chefs. It's also $18.

Is any candy, even the filet mignon of candy, worth that price? We tried it and found out…but more on that later.

On Friday, Christopher Curtin, chocolatier and owner of Éclat Chocolate, released Good & Evil, a bar he created with culinary-rock-stars-turned-TV-stars Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert. Availble for order at Eclat's website and select specialty stores around the country, the bar has been the subject of speculation on foodie sites for weeks. What ingredients will make it both good and evil? Habanero chilies? Chunks of sea salt? Zaatar and rhubarb?

None of the above. It's simply 72% percent cacao dark chocolate speckled with white and purple cacao nibs. Of course, that cacao is some of the rarest and most flavorful in the world.

11 chocolate myths debunked

The story goes that Ripert and Curtin traveled to

Read More »from $18 Chocolate Bar: Shine Tries "Good & Evil" Gourmet Candy by World's Top Chefs

Adelia Zeidler (Photo by Coleman-Rayner)Wait George Clooney has a sister? Meet Adelia Zeidler, older sibling to the sexiest man alive. Where has she been and why haven't we seen her on any celebrity sibling US weekly spreads?

By all accounts, she's been busy raising a family in Kentucky, working in payroll and accounting and trying to avoid questions like, "How do you feel about your brother being the sexiest man alive?"
But for some reason this week, the 52-year-old stepped into the spotlight to answer candid questions about her brother in an in-depth interview with the New York Daily News. But what begins as a gossip story ripe for pick-up ("George Clooney's sister says he's not gay!") evolves into a profile of a unique lady with a very un-Hollywood lifestyle.

George Clooney's most famous relative

Adelia, or "Ada" as her friends know her, lives in Augusta County, Kentucky a few blocks from her parents. She's held jobs at chain stores, raised two children, lost a husband. She's in the white pages. She calls Read More »from Who is George Clooney's Sister? 12 Facts About Adelia Zeidler

So maybe "50 Shades of Grey" didn't spark a baby boom as expected; it has inspired some very disturbing baby clothes. Onesies and baby tees stitched with quotes like "My mommy pretends Christian Grey is my daddy" are cropping up on the web retail site Etsy.com, and skeeving the pants off of grown-ups. An eagle-eyed blogger at Buzzfeed first spotted the trend, if you want to call it that.

There was a time, not so long ago, when people were embarrassed to be caught reading the pulp erotic fiction in public. Now we're advertising it on newborns. There's nothing wrong with a little light BDSM reading, or even a little light BDSM, but can we please leave the kids out of it? Prepare to cliff-dive into the dark underbelly of baby clothing. Two words: not okay. --Piper Weiss, Shine Staff

Read More »from "50 Shades of Grey" Baby Clothes: Now, It's Gone Way Too Far

(Photo courtesy of Sarah Powling/Lowell Sun)Watch out Bruce Willis. At three months old, Joey Powling Jr. has already out-smirked the actor, and proven braver than any run-of-the-mill action hero.

The photo of the newborn, taken by his mom shortly after open-heart surgery, has become an Internet sensation.

After his uncle posted the picture to the community board, Reddit, baby Joey was crowned "ridiculously good-looking surgery baby" and his adorable mug became a popular meme viewed by over 1 million people.

"What a legend," writes one fan of the photo. Other awesomely accurate feedback from commenters include: "A baby Bruce Willis" and "That baby is manlier than me."

But for Joey's family, the photo is more than an Internet ogling break. In an essay published in the Lowell Sun on Monday, Joey's great-uncle, Dan Phelps, explains the serious side to the smirking baby photo.

"Joey Powling Jr. was born in July with a condition known as Tetralogy of Fallot, or TOF, which is, basically, a hole in the heart (although

Read More »from Meet "Ridiculously Good-looking Surgery Baby." The Bravest Internet Sensation Around