Sunbeam Massaging Heat Therapy Wrap

Okay, I don't normally write about non-food-related items, but:

1) It's getting close to Christmas.

2) I really like this thing and want to tell you about it.

3) Someone brilliant once told me that since this is my blog, I could write about unicorns if I wanted to.

4) It's marginally food related.

The marginally-food-related part has to do with the fact that I spend a lot of time pecking away at my laptop, writing, researching, and yes, goofing off. Sometimes my back and shoulder muscles protest.

But really, my love for this thing is also partially because I'm kind of weird. In winter, I'd prefer to be in a slightly cool room and snuggle under a blanket. Or have a shoulder warmer or heating pad keeping my cozy. This is particularly nice when I'm reading or watching TV.

Summer, I don't want to be cold in my house, but in winter, I like the little bit of chill so I can wear fluffy sweaters, fuzzy socks, and get snuggled. I guess I like to nest. Yes, I'm weird. I admit it.

I had a shoulder-warmer that I liked, but it suffered a casualty due to a power glitch. Or at least I think that's what happened. I had a couple of electric devices that I had to restart, and the warmer was cold. Bummer.

So I went shopping. I considered a small blanket. Then I found this crazy shoulder wrap thing with a massage setting. The Sunbeam Massaging Heat Therapy Wrap. And it was only a tiny bit more expensive than the one without the massage feature. All righty then.

As soon as it arrived, I turned it on and sat back and ... aaaaahhhhhh. I might have lost an hour there, enjoying the massage. It's not like one of the gizmos with balls that get deep and pushy. This is more like a buzzing thing. More like what a shower-head massage feels like, but not wet, obviously.

It has high and low settings for heat, and then the massage is high or low, and constant or intermittent. So far, I like the low intermittent for the massage. I like the low heat when I just want to be a little warm, and the high when I've got an annoyed muscle.

Today, I woke up with a muscle that told me that I had apparently slept in an odd position. I fired up the massager, positioned the buzzy part over the muscle, and leaned back while I checked emails. By the time the emails were taken care of, the muscle had stopped yelling at me. I'm not going to say that it was entirely fine, but I could move like a normal person again.

I've gone through a number of shoulder heating pads, and the one annoyance I have with them is that they seem to have a very sensitive fuse or something. You're not supposed to use them with a power strip or UPS, but on the other hand, a little power glitch fried my last one. Unfortunately, the place where I use this thing most often is not convenient for me to plug and unplug. And now that winter is here, I use it pretty much every night. So ... it gets left plugged in.

I'm hoping this one will be a little more robust than the last few I owned - or maybe I'll find a more convenient place to plug it in. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the massage.

Who's it for: Weird people like me.

Pros: Warm. Massage. Ahhhh.

Cons: Pricey compared to basic heating pads.

Wishes: I hope to heck it lasts a long time.

Source: I bought it from Amazon.