Thanks to show like Grey’s Anatomy, doctors have become major sex symbol, at least on TV. When did all of this start exactly?

When did wearing a lab coat make someone a sex symbol? I know your mother always wanted you to grow up and marry a doctor, but I never really grew up thinking that doctors were sex symbols. Lab coats are essentially work clothes developed to keep gross stuff off of a doctor. What’s sexy about someone who looks down people throats and has handwriting so terrible that you need some kind of amulet to decipher it.

Apparently, in the past twenty years things have changed. Thanks mostly in part to TV shows the idea of doctors as sex symbols has gained much traction. It probably started with General Hospital. For those of you who have never watched the show, General Hospital is a long running ABC soap opera where a bunch of beautiful people work in a hospital. Typical soap opera stuff occurs in droves: lots of sexy doctors with their shirts off, lots of casual hookups, etc.

The continuing popularity of soaps like General Hospital led to an explosion in prime time hospital dramas in the 1990s. Famously two hospital dramas premiered in the 1994-95 season. Chicago Hope and ER both featured sexy doctors in dramatic situations. It made sex symbols out of people like George Clooney and Noah Wyle and essentially set the stage for what was to come for doctors in prime time for decades to come. Of course, Chicago Hope only lasted a few season while ER lasted for 15 years and become one of the most beloved dramas in television history.

While ER might have kick started the “sexy” doctor genre, it was ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy which came to symbolize just how “sexy” a doctor in a lab coat could be. It was a show that featured just as many in hospital hookups as medical cases. They actors were so sexy, in fact, that they were given sexy nicknames like “McDreamy and “McSteamy”. The female doctors were not hacks either. Katherine Heigl became a big star thanks to the show as she seems to spend as much time in tight clothing as she does in doctor’s gear.

Of course Grey’s Anatomy has led to a slew of copy cats on television. Now each network has their Grey’s knockoff featuring sexy doctors hooking up and working on cool cases in random city hospitals. I don’t really watch any of them but I know the stars thanks to the buzz. Are they sexy? Sure. Is it an accurate portrayal of doctors? Not really. Do real doctors mind being thought at as sex symbols? I’m sure they don’t.

Author Kimberly Green used to work in the medical field. Back then, wearing a lab coat was not at all sexy!

My friend’s wife went on a buying spree prior to moving into their first house. Unfortunately, it ended up just being more for us to move.

I recently helped a friend move from an apartment to a house. In every group, there is always the “first” couple to make the leap from renting an apartment to owning a house. For our group of high school and college friends, this was the couple. I only mention this because helping someone move from an apartment to a house can be a much different experience then purely moving someone from one apartment to another.

The reason for this difference is because people who are moving into their first house tend to go a little bit crazy buying stuff in preparation for the new house. My male friend was pulling his hair out for a few weeks prior to the move because his wife was buying a variety of stuff for the new place. She even dropped money on a variety of baby clothes for a baby that wasn’t due for six months (she later said that it was done during a clearance sale and that in retrospect she wasn’t very proud of the purchase). What was so infuriating my male friend is that she was buying all of this stuff prior to the move which meant that all these new purchases had to be moved along with their already wide variety of belongings (they lived in a three bedroom apartment). It didn’t help that his parents also decided to buy them a new crib BEFORE their move.

There seems to be something that comes over people when they move into a larger dwelling. There is an automatic need to fill every single inch of the house even before it is even inhabited. I will freely admit that this seems to be a womanly impulse. Maybe it’s because women are much more interested in making their house a home then men are. Men are interested, but inherently they could live with a mattress on the floor and a mini-fridge and not bat a lash. Something seems to come over us when we find that we have extra room to fill. It’s happened to me before. But if you’re going to do it you should probably wait until you’ve moved before you purchase anything. That way you and your friends will be done moving in time for pizza at noon. That’s right, you have to provide pizza.

Author Kimberly Green was able to organize everything well with tubs prior to her move. This made things much easier. From moving toys to baby clothes, it was easy on everyone.

Personalized jewelry is like engraving on steroids. Featuring gold, diamond and silver pendants, personalized jewelry has become the must have gift for special, romantic occasions.

Valentines Day just passed and it appears that I might be the only one not currently on the personalized jewelry bandwagon. Ok, ok, I’m not the jewelry master that some of my friends are, but am I really that out of the loop that I have not yet started purchasing personalized jewelry? After this weekend, I realize that, well, maybe I am.

For those of you who aren’t aware of the “personalized jewelry” movement that seems to be sweeping the market, think of engravings on steroids. Personalized jewelry utilizes such features as engraved diamond and gold pendants added to necklaces and bracelets to make each piece unique. These pendants can feature anything from engraved names to diamond studded initials, to precious stone hearts. In all honesty, these are beautiful pieces and having a personalized piece of jewelry is something that would impress many women on a special occasion like Valentines Day.

Even though these “personalized” pieces are rather new on the market, they are becoming big business for jewelry companies. The internet is full of companies offering these personalized pendants and pieces. It is becoming such big business that they are becoming expected gifts by women for romantic milestones. My friend told me a rather, umm, ok, I found it sad, story about when she was opening gifts for Valentines Day. Her boyfriend surprised her with a homemade, romantic dinner. After some champagne and homemade cheesecake (wow, this guy is a keeper), the guy elaborately revealed a brand new diamond necklace. Now, my friend’s reaction to this: “oh, it’s not personalized”? She said that she didn’t mean it in a bad way and she was just thinking out loud. Still, the guy was understandably a bit upset, and apparently she made it up to him, but this shows women are beginning to expect their jewelry to be personalized.

So if you’re a guy at this point, you’re probably thinking what you should do to make sure your jewelry is properly “personalized”. The best thing to remember is to go with your special women’s taste when trying to personalize. Chances are if you’ve been with a woman for any sort of time you know what she likes. If she likes hearts go with hearts. If she likes diamonds try a diamond initial pendant which looks perfect on a gold necklace. If you go online and checkout what different jewelry sites have to offer I’m sure you’ll find exactly the type of personalized jewelry she wants.

Author Kimberly Green agrees, her husband can’t go wrong with personalized jewelry for any occasion!

For over 100 years the Olympics have awarded excellence with gold, silver and bronze medals. What you might not know is that recently medals have been infused with such substances as glass and jade.

As most of you are aware, both men’s jewelry and women’s jewelry are usually deeply personal and treasured pieces of one’s overall ensemble. Many pieces of a person’s jewelry collection has deeply personal meaning as they are collected thru special purchases  or from a significant other or through family hand-me-downs that passes antique jewelry thru generations.

For athletes, though, there is no better piece of jewelry that you can have in your possession than an Olympic medal. As the Olympics are in full swing, a whole new set of athletes are securing these sets of medals. Like jewelry, Olympic medals have become more stylish throughout the years. In the first Olympics games of the modern era in 1896, silver medals were given out to the winners. It wasn’t until later Olympics that the gold for first place, silver for second and bronze for third system was adapted.

Up until the 1990’s Olympic medals were usually rather benign. They were usually one color and printed with a symbol and the name of the Olympic city. It wasn’t until the 1992 Winter Olympics that this changed. The Albertville, France hosted games were known for quirky designs, and their glass infused medals were no different. In fact, the medals were more glass then precious medal. Athletes didn’t seem to mind as they were beautifully crafted and, hey, an Olympic medal is an Olympic medal.

The 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympic medals continued this quirkiness, and it wasn’t until 2008 until the usually more traditional Summer Olympics utilized foreign materials in the medals. The highly praised 2008 Beijing Olympic Medals utilized jade, which gave them both a modern and classical look. Since China spent billions of dollars trying to prefect everything about the games (at least on the surface), it’s no surprise that they provided some of the most beautiful medals in Olympic history. My guess would be that London, the host of the 2012 Olympics, presents medals that are more in line with the classical medals instead of using foreign material as the Chinese did.

More Olympic medal trivia to impress your friends: the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy was the first to feature Olympic medals with holes in the center of them (they were circles and rather fetching). The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic medals are the first to be “wavy”. They feature engraved emblems of the sports for which the winners participated in and are struck nine times to get their wave feature. Trust me, they look better then you might think.

For excellent choices in men’s jewelry, visit titanium-jewelry.com

It used to be that sunglasses were only for the hot summer months. Not anymore as sunglasses have become an essential part of any winter fashion getup.

Now more than ever, sunglasses are a year round accessory. If you want proof that men’s and women’s sunglasses do a killing in the winter time, all you have to do is watch a couple of minutes of the Winter Olympics coverage. Not only are the athletes fully decked out in shades (or specially designed goggles that cost more then you could imagine paying for some head gear), but everywhere you look people are wearing shades to protect their eyes from the harmful rays of the sun. And, as they are probably thinking, while they are protecting their eyes why not look good with designer shades that will make them stand out from the crowd.

Skiers have known for years that sunglasses are important tools for snow play. Besides protecting your eyes from “snow blindness” (an actual medical term), sunglasses can also help skiers better see the course and those who surround you. When snowboarders began to rule the slopes, they brought their own style with them. Gone were expensive designer sunglasses and in were new, “cooler”, sometimes just as expensive counter-culture sunglasses. Now, as counter-culture has become mainstream, skier and snowboarder styles have become relatively similar and both enjoy rather similar tastes in shades. While they might not agree on everything, skier and snowboarders all seem to don the sunglasses of their choice.

Now, it seems like everyone is wearing sunglasses in the winter time. And not only when it’s sunny and snowy, but also when it’s cloudy and overcast usually for fashion reasons. Why else would people now be wearing sunglasses indoors (check out your next awards show). Just scanning over the crowd at Olympic venues you can see many people wearing sunglasses even when it’s not sunny out. It’s just become such a part of people’s daily dress that the fact it’s not even sunny out doesn’t really seem to matter anymore.

When picking good shades for the winter time, it is paramount to consider what conditions you are going to be using them in. If you’re using them for snow play such as skiing or snowboarding it is good to get something that will block out as much of the UV’s as possible. This will help you not only stave off snow blindness, but also see things clearer on the slopes. If, on the other hand, you’re using it just to look cool, well, you can just go with your typical summer sunglasses. You might want to go with something that doesn’t block out that much light if you’re going for merely fashion in the winter time. That way the world won’t look dark all the time.

Author Kimberly Green recently purchased a pair of women’s sunglasses from Kaenon and absolutely loves them!