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Showing posts from December 11, 2017

Moms’ Staycation at The Langham Hotel (via HotelTonight)

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Hi, guys! I hope you had a nice weekend! Mine was a lot of fun and included an overnight “staycation” with some girlfriends in Boston. We’re all moms and don’t getaway for the night all too often, so we took full advantage of our mini vaca! I partnered with HotelTonight to reserve our hotel rooms for the night. Never heard of HotelTonight? Well, you are in for a treat. It’s a really cool app. HotelTonight is actually the leading mobile app for hotel bookings last-minute and beyond. If you’ve ever been in position where you need a hotel room ASAP, HotelTonight ensures that there’s always a quality hotel room at the lowest possible rate in 1,700 cities and 35 countries. HotelTonight is primarily used for hotel stays booked within a week or less, but Boston is one of several markets where there’s a 100-day advance booking window. (Other key cities with this offer include NYC, LA, SF, Miami, Vegas, Paris, London, and more.) We booked our “staycation” about a month ago and the app had

Dear Mark: Delving Further Into Dopamine

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For today’s edition of Dear Mark , I’m delving more deeply into dopamine. Readers asked some great questions and made some interest comments in the comment board of last week’s post on dopamine , and today I’m addressing three of them. First, how does caffeine related to dopamine? Second, what’s the deal with all my mention of pornography in the last post? And finally, is MDA just providing dopamine hits? Let’s go: David wondered: I’ve often wondered about caffeine and its affect on the dopamine pathway. I’ve heard, but don’t know with total certainty, that it does, Does it increase dopamine production in the short term or just cell sensitivity (or some other mechanism?). And then have a resulting desensitizing result with long term use? Yes. Caffeine affects the dopaminergic pathway. It stimulates the release of dopamine in the brain . It increases dopamine receptors in the striatum (the movement region) of the human brain. But unlike the false pleasures of getting the “likes”

Dancing In A Winter Wonderland

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^^Grammie sent Gussie this toy and he hasn’t put it down all weekend! (It was also mauled and brown with goo within 20 minutes of gifting. Gross Gus!) We had quite the Christmas season weekend filled with parties, getting our tree, and SNOW! On Friday night we had cozy family time with Legos and carols. (Note the color of Santa here!) We made Giovanni Rana pasta (I re-stocked the freezer!) with red peppers and green pesto – Christmas themed! T and I are working our way through season two of This Is Us . It’s so good! On Saturday morning we woke up to a dusting of snow and flurries coming down! Guess who squealed with delight?! He was out there in his jammies trying to make snow angles. Inside we were warm, and had the most delicious omelets and bacon for breakfast. Thomas put minced pickled jalapenos inside with lots of melted cheese. We loved that flavor combo! We ventured out to get our Christmas tree mid-morning! Then we picked up groceries for the week. This is the