I certainly believe that a handbag is one of a girl's best friends. I love handbags, I really do. I feel like I need to get a new one every 3 months or so. Well, they are not the luxury designer handbags (wish I could afford them). The only stuff I can afford now are just the high street ones. So it's still reasonable to get one about 3 or 4 times a year. It makes me feel great every time I have a new one :) It's my anti stress formula :) About a couple of months ago, a dear friend of mine and I were having this "handbag talks" over coffee. I told her that I really want to have at least one designer bag sooner. Just one and I'll be alright. I particularly love the LV Nevefull MM. Tote bags are my favorites as I carry a lot of stuff everyday.
I know I can get one if only I would save for it and cut down on a few unnecessary expenses but at the end of the day when I'm all sober and relaxed, I still think that it's not practical for me these days. And most of the time, traveling still on top of my list. With the price of one Neverfull, I can already travel overseas plus a bit of night bazaar shopping. And most of all, the experience that money cant buy, it's not just a handbag but a suitcase full of memories. So I guess I'd stick to my usual kind of bags until I got more disposable cash.
Who doesn't want to receive some freebies and who does want to fill out those pages and pages of survey forms?
A bout a week ago, I dropped by The Body Shop to buy some stuff. As I was paying for my purchases the lady at the counter asked me if I could spare a few minutes to answer some survey forms. My instant answer was "no", but I was really polite and told her that maybe I'll do it some other time. But she was like.. "please, it wont take long and it will help us improve our services, especially for customers like you." It was only then I realized that it was a survey for Love Your Body Club members.
And as a member, I thought maybe I'll give it a few minutes. Who knows they might give away more reward points and vouchers to the members in the future. The lady also told me that she was giving me a surprise gift, sort of a reward for taking time to answer those questions. So, I went on and tried to read and answer the 4-page questionnaire. I handed her the forms soon after I finished answering the last question. She then handed me a 250 ml bottle of Olive shower gel. Yeah it was not bad after all. At least it saved me a few bucks, just enough for a small tube of vitamin E eye cream which I'm getting maybe tomorrow as I'm running out of eye cream already :)
Choosing the type of milk is a little confusing sometimes. People with certain health conditions may require less fat intake, figure conscious women prefer low to non fat at all. My fair share of this milk-fat-conciousness-thingy all started when I was getting a little cynically-weight-concious a few years back. I said cynically because I was 20lbs underweight 1 year prior.
Due to the late night munches after a hectic day at work, I gained my ideal weight back in no time. So when I noticed that i was gaining weight constantly I became really conscious and even my coffee suffered most of the time. I used to go to the coffee shop to have a cup of coffee that tasted like instant coffee straight from its sachet. I remember getting decaf-nonfat-cappuccino that didn’t taste like coffee some times, or maybe I should say my altered-coffee didn’t taste like coffee at all. Well that is based on my taste buds as a coffee-loving person. So to make my long coffee-milk story short, I decided to forget this non-sense-good-coffee-deprivation of mine and went back to my normal coffee. Sometimes I would order for a cup coffee with non-fat milk but with whipped cream on top.. that was really crazy but at least that made me a happy coffee-drinking person.
After a few more years of whole-milk and sometimes whipped cream on my coffee, not to mention the succulent and fattening food, I ballooned to 10 to 15 lbs overweight. That was when I get really paranoid about my weight but still too lazy to exercise. So I decided to go back to drinking nonfat milk and my so-called altered coffee. I don’t mind drinking a glass of non fat milk everyday but coffee with non fat milk is a different story.
One time at Starbucks, I requested for low-fat milk on my coffee but to my disappointment they don’t serve low-fat and the girl at the counter suggested the two percent. That was the first time I got introduced to 2%. I’m not a milk nor milk-fat expert but I figured out that the fat content of 2% is less than that of whole-milk. It doesn’t taste as good as whole-milk but not as bad as non-fat so I thought it’s not bad after all. I sometimes get that confused look from other coffee patrons at Starbucks when I request for a 2% milk on my coffee. So I concluded that it’s not only me who is not well aware of the fat contents of milk or milk types. So I looked up this subject on the net and I found some useful information. I want to share this with everyone.
Happy milk and coffee drinking everyone
The information below was taken from Wikipedia and may not be updated by the author of this post once it has been published. Please visit the link provided for additional information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_content_of_milk
The terminology for different types of milk, and the regulations regarding labelling, varies by country and region.
Canada
In Canada “whole” milk refers to creamline (unhomogenized) milk. “Homogenized” milk refers to milk which is 3.25% butterfat (or milk fat). There are also skimmed, 1%, and 2% milk fat milks. Generally all store-bought milk in Canada has been homogenized.[citation needed] Yet, the term is also used as a name to describe butterfat/milk fat content for a specific variety of milk. Modern commercial dairy processing techniques involve first removing all of the butterfat, and then adding back the appropriate amount depending on which product is being produced on that particular line.
In the U.S. and Canada, a blended mixture of half cream and half milk is often sold in small quantities and is called half-and-half. Half-and-half is used for creaming coffee and similar uses. In Canada, low-fat cream is available, which has half the fat content of half-and-half.
United States
Butterfat content – U.S. terminology
80% Butter
40% Manufacturers cream
36% Heavy whipping cream
30 – 36% Whipping cream or Light whipping cream
25% Medium cream
18 – 30% Light, coffee, or table cream
10.5 – 18% Half and half
3.25% Whole milk
about 2% 2% or Reduced fat [8]
1.5 – 1.8% Semi-skimmed
about 1% 1% or Low fat [8]
0.0 – 0.5% Skimmed milk [8]
In the USA, skimmed milk is also known as “fat free” milk, due to USDA regulations stating that any food with less than ½ gram of fat per serving can be labelled “fat free”.[8]
United Kingdom
Three main varieties of milk by fat content are sold in the UK, skimmed, semi-skimmed and whole milk. These make up 17%, 58% and 25% of the market respectively.[3][9] Until 1 January 2008, milk with butterfat content outside the ranges defined by the European Commission could not legally be sold as milk[citation needed]. This included 1% milk, meaning The One, a 1% variety launched by Robert Wiseman Dairies, could not be labelled as milk. Lobbying by Britain has allowed these other percentages to be sold as milk.[10] Since the change in regulation, Sainsbury’s has launched a 1% variety with an orange milk bottle top.[11]
Butterfat content – UK Terminology
5.5% Channel Island milk or breakfast milk [12]
3.5% Whole milk or full fat milk [12]
1.5 – 1.8% Semi-skimmed [13]
1% The One or 1%
Less than 0.3% Skimmed [13]
Labels: cappuccino, coffee, lowfat, milk, milk fat, nonfat, skimmed milk, starbucks, two percent milk, whole milk
