Winter is a punishing time for hair–indoor heating dries it out while wind and snow cause tangles and frizz. Consider going curly for the season with some help from Curly Girl–it could save you a bundle!

THE CULPRIT: Chemical Straightener

Requires an approximately 4 hour visit to the salon every 2-3 months (a similar timetable to coloring roots)

THE DAMAGE……………………………………………..$300-$700

THE CULPRIT: Blow-drying

Weekly 1-2 hour long visits to the salon

THE DAMAGE…………………………………………….. $45-$80 per visit

A high-quality hairdryer used daily for 30 minutes – 1 hour each time

THE DAMAGE……………………………………………..$35-$200

THE CULPRIT: Accessories

A flat iron for daily straightening (takes about 30 minutes to 1 hour each time)

THE DAMAGE……………………………………………..$85-$200

Round brushes for blow-drying and flat ironing

THE DAMAGE……………………………………………..$10-$30 per brush

THE CULPRIT: Restorative Treatments

Must-have conditioning treatments to counteract the effects of chemical straightening and daily blow-drying and flat ironing

THE DAMAGE……………………………………………..Approximately $60/month

Trims every 5-6 weeks to eliminate split ends and other damage caused by chemical straightening and daily blow-drying and flat ironing

THE DAMAGE……………………………………………..$35-$300

THE CULPRIT: Extensions and Weaves

Extensive straightening will, in time, lead to visual signs of damage to the hair, such as halted growth or even hair that begins to show signs of falling out. At this point, many women turn to hair extensions and weaves—which often take over 6 hours to apply—to make their hair appear fuller and healthier

THE DAMAGE……………………………………………..$1,000-$4,000

Synthetic clip-ins are a temporary, more inexpensive alternative to extensions and weaves, but they may fall out unexpectedly at inopportune moments

THE DAMAGE……………………………………………..$30-$100

THE ALTERNATIVE: Love What You’ve Got
The time and money-saving alternative is YOU embracing your natural hair. All you have to do is cleanse, moisturize, scrunch with gel, and then leave it alone! The Curly Girl Method says NO to hairbrushes, standard blow dryers, straightening, excessively frequent haircuts, weaves, and extensions. With CURLY GIRL: The Handbook, Lorraine Massey shows that wearing your hair the natural way is not just a trend—it’s a lifestyle.

New Years Eve–it’s an evening filled with the sound of champagne corks popping and the clinking of glasses in sparkling toasts. Sparkling wine is often great on it’s own, but with a few extra ingredients you can create a new flavor without losing the bubbles and fizz necessary to a New Year’s toast.

Blood Orange Sparkler
From Raising the Bar (Artisan) by Nick Mautone

Blood oranges are a seasonal treat: look for them from December to May. They are grown throughout the Mediterranean as well as in California.

Planning ahead: Chill the sparkling wine for at least 30 minutes before making the cocktails

Ingredients:
1 blood orange
3 teaspoons sugar
3 teaspoons sweet vermouth
One 750-milliliter bottle sparkling wine, chilled
Blood orange slices for garnish
Glassware: Wineglasses

1. Using a sharp knife, cut off and discard the ends of the blood orange. Stand it upright on a cutting board and slice the rind and white pith off the fruit using a gentle downward sawing motion, cutting away as little of the flesh as possible. Discard the rinds.

2. Cut the fruit crosswise into 1/2-inch slices. Divide the slices evenly among the 6 wineglasses.

3. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon sugar into each glass and muddle to extract the orange juice. Add 1/2 teaspoon vermouth to each glass and stir.

4. Divide the sparkling wine among the glasses, stir, garnish with blood orange slices, and serve.

Five sleeping puppies snuggled up together…time to grab the video camera and break out the Boynton soundtrack. Yep, it’s another Snuggle Puppy fan video featuring some incredibly adorable puppy siblings taking a nap–always good for a boost on a dreary winter day!

Enjoy a bite of festive cheer in the form of pics from our annual cookie swap. (Who can blame us for favoring house cookbooks Cookie Swap, Mad Hungry, The Crabby Cook Cookbook, The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free, and Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunch Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies?)

It all looks very orderly and civilized. But mere moments after documentation, the subjects of these photographs were gobbled up by a gaggle of hungry bookmaking elves. . . . Happy holidays!

“For it is in giving that we receive.”

-St. Francis of Assisi

A lovely woman named Kristine called me from San Antonio, Texas last week to say that she had received a package with Workman books that were delivered to her by mistake.  (The street address was completely wrong, but the zip code was correct.)

Instead of refusing delivery and asking me to arrange to pick them up, she immediately offered to bring them to the rightful owner because “well, he just lives 5 minute away.”

When I asked her to please pick a book or calendar from our website as a gesture of our thanks,  she wrote back the next day to say that she was so pleased to discover that we are the publisher of her favorite Page-A-Day calendar, Women Who Do Too Much.

She made sure that the books got to their rightful owner…and she really is a woman who does too much!

Watch Anne Byrn today on Good Morning America with cakes from her latest book, The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free. Today she’ll share an amazing gluten-free take on a chocolate pound cake–visit her website (CakeMixDoctor.com) for the recipe.

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Pound Cake with Peppermint Drizzle

Find yourself in the middle of a recipe with TMI? (Too Many Ingredients) Don’t worry–Jessica Harper has your back. Watch her solve a reader “TMI” dilemma with her new book, The Crabby Cook Cookbook, in this video.

It’s Workman’s first Vook (video met book, they hit it off, and had a baby=Vook) and first ever app for the iPad for that matter, and we couldn’t be prouder of our little bundle of joy. Adapted from Joshua Jay’s book Magic: The Complete Course,  10 Greatest Card Tricks of All Time is a collection of ten performance-worthy, audience-tested tricks from an award-winning professional magician.

Download the app and begin with the foundation exercises. Then learn the show-stopping, date-impressing, Vegas-style effects through the Vook’s embedded video. Read along and tap to watch Jay perform and teach the tricks.

Check out author Joshua Jay demonstrating how it works:

1 app. 10 tricks. Our excitement level registering 11.

Click here to download it from the iTunes app store!

Read an excerpt from Anne Byrn’s latest book, The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free. Take gluten-free cake mixes and doctor them to create 71 layer cakes, bundts, cookies, bars, brownies, and more.