Foto Friday: This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. -SouleMama

WTH Wednesday: Which part of TOXIN sounds good to you?

Ok, I get it. I am reading a women's magazine, therefore, there MAY be an inordinate concern with improving one's personal appearance. And aside from glancing at the fashion trends (really? sweater dresses are BACK??), I tend to avoid the section altogether. But this caught my eye: (Good Housekeeping August 2010)



OUCHLESS INJECTABLES
Skin plumping injections can hurt, so many doctors pre-anesthetize skin or add a numbing agent to the filler. But that means extra shots and wait time -- and a watering-down of the filler. Hence the new plumpers with lidocaine. One example: Juvederm XC (around $600 per syringe), a hyaluronic acid filler recently FDA approved for the treatment of moderate to severe facial wrinkles and folds. [...] (emphasis mine)

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Ok, I get it. It's your face; if you want to poke it and fill it and tattoo it and pierce it, you are SOOO allowed. You're a grown up, right? and you EARNED that money, right? (maybe).

But I'm sad. You earned those laugh lines. Those lines around your nose? Your great-grandma had those, too.

What about "botulism" and "neurotoxin" makes one say, "ooh, sign me up!"?

Why do you want to look like Nancy Pelosi? Steve Martin? (who caused me to actually STARTLE when I last saw him on screen).

I know we are an appearance-obsessed culture. I know that is not going to change. I know technology soldiers on, and we make use of what suits us. I know that "sex sells." I also know you can't make the logical leap I'm about to make.... how much cancer research could have been done in place of the strides in botulism? How many mouths could that $600-a-shot treatment feed?

I just sit and wonder, and really, feel sorry for, the person who says, yes, my $600 is well spent smoothing out this wrinkle (temporarily) as opposed to having the porch redone or heading to Maui or painting the church library or having new swings put in at the park or having food show up anonymously on someone's doorstep or having seat warmers installed in my car or having a life-sized canvas made of my dog ...

I just don't get it. Am I alone here?

Works For Me: Microfiber Cloths

Truly, if you do not have these in your home, you need to step away from the computer, get into your car, and find some.

I thought my mom was crazy. She RAVED about RAGS. When I picked them up, they made my hands feel icky; dried out (especially in the winter) and every hangnail and callous snagged the material. EEW!

I think that might have been college. Or early married life, anyway. Mea culpa, Mama. Microfiber ROCKS.

Other than wash cloths and unpaper towels, I have no other cleaning-up fabric items in my house. And bestill my burgeoning ecofriendly heart, for most every job the only thing you need is a spritz of water. No harsh chemical cleaners, no scratchy sponge full of bacteria. If it's not "clean" to you without some kind of solution, make yourself a spray bottle of equal parts vinegar and water. Add a splash of essential oils if you aren't keen on eau de salad dressing, and you're a cleaning MACHINE. I use a VERY mild solution of dish detergent for the outside grime on my windows ... and that's about it.

Wash, do not use fabric softner. I think it might be recommended that you not toss these in the dryer? but I do anyway. They WILL stick to ... everything, coming out :) but even though I loathe static (cling, electricity, etc) as well, I make an exception for these babies.

These are safe for just about every surface I can think of - computer screens to car tires. But be careful! the little grabbers will NOT let the grit go, and you can easily scratch something else with it if you're not careful. Also note: tiny bits of sawdust/wood will render your cloth unusable for anything but outside scratchy work. Unless you have tweezers and a LOT of time on your hands.

Tip: if you are about to hop into your car to track some down, bypass the "home" section of your chosen superstore. March straight back to automotive. They are cheaper back there, and usually come in larger packs. Plus you can also get the double-thickness type, which are great for soaking up spills. (ShamWow be darned!)  (According to Good Housekeeping, one microfiber cloth takes the place of SIXTY ROLLS of paper towels.  Awesome!)

My favorites:
Shiny (for glass, mainly, but all types can be used for glass as well)
No Frills Plain Jane Standard (in blue, here)
Moppedy Mop Mop
Super Thick (scroll down to second set)

OH, and a bonus a-ha! use: It might seem weird to dust a carpet, but hear me out. Go along the seam between carpet and baseboard to pick up all the dust and hair and crud your vacuum will never touch!

Good Reads: The Book of Awesome

(subtitle: Snowy Days, Bakery Air, Finding Money in Your Pocket, and Other Simple, Brilliant Things)

Stumbled into this book via the blogosphere. Neil Pasricha is the author of 1000awesomethings.com, and I will let you explore over there for his reasons/motivation for writing the book.

What I love about it (besides the title) is not even within the book's pages; it's the very idea of a book of awesome ... the inspiration to create your own, to form a giant, personal list of "Best Stuffs Ever." It takes the concept of a Gratitude Journal and turns it on its ear just a bit; these are things you might feel silly thanking God for in your evening prayers ("Thank you God, that I got the cereal-to-milk ratio just right this morning" (pg 20) or "Praise the Lord for bubble wrap" (29) or "that I got the Nintendo to work by smacking it" (42)).

Don't get me wrong: some of the observations contained are just plain BRILLIANT: "The sound of scissors cutting construction paper," and the writing hilarious: "The smell of crayons: Crack open a fresh box and get ready for a neuron-splattering head rush. AWESOME!"

It's just when you sit The Book Of Awesome down (hopefully taking a few days to read, rather than trying to ingest it all in one sitting), you start to see things differently (and really, isn't that one of the AWESOME things about books??): you start to see episodes in your life as entries in your own mental (or if you're a nerd, like me, physical) Book of Awesome. The night after reading a few pages, witnessing my husband get out clothes for the following morning, I added this:

Going for the superfluous bum-bump drawer close, even when you were just facing it with both hands outstretched. AWESOME!

I Love This: Hint Water

Ok, so buying water is not the most ecologically nor fiscally sound thing to do. BUT. If you're out and about, say, at Starbucks, or you're like me and it's sometimes to down plain ol' H2O, give this stuff a try.

I was THRILLED (and ask my peeps; this is NOT an understatement) to find a flavored water with NO ADDED SWEETENER. The company's slogan is "Drink water, not sugar." AMEN! Available in these flavors so far:

Mango-Grapefruit
Cucumber
Raspberry-Lime
Blackberry
Honeydew-Hibiscus
Watermelon
Strawberry-Kiwi
Pomegranite-Tangerine
Mango-Grapefruit
Pear
Lime

The only one I don't dig is Pear ... seems to have a funny aftertaste. But all the others I've tried have been FAB.

Be warned: your tongue will desperately dart about in your sugar-addicted mouth, trying to nab a sugar molecule. It will be disappointed. But hopefully your taste buds will be pleasantly surprised with the subtle, genuine flavor therein. Hear, hear, Hint. Hear, hear.

Foto Friday: This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. -SouleMama

My Car: My Sanctuary, My Chariot, My Office ...

I have this thing with a friend of mine; both of us would rather drive-thru and park than go into a fast food restaurant. Our husbands abhor this practice and the drive-thru in general. My Hero says eating and driving just accentuates his inability to keep his food off his shirt in the first place.

I really like my car. It's the perfect size for us as a family, it meets all my car needs (radio controls on the steering wheel, a large trunk, a bench front seat and decent cup holders). It even has the bonus of leather interior and automatic start (no heated seats or one of those limo privacy screens ... hey, a girl can dream, right?). It's a completely nondescript brown/tan color, it's relatively quiet. Right now we are having issues with fan controls 2 and 3, but otherwise it has served us well these many years. It may smell of fries, but not of milk (anymore, thank goodness).

By Friday I have quite an impressive archeological survey of the week. Wrappers, mugs, books, magazines, travel Bingo, a Leaspter, something to return to someone, the paper recycling container, school papers, some sort of project involving pipe cleaners and glitter... and always something sticky, somewhere.

I love getting into a hot car. Especially when coming out of an over-air conditioned building. Even when it's hot outside, and in about 3 minutes I will need the AC blowing full tilt ... I love that "baked car" feeling. Ok, I'm weird. I'm ok with that.

All this aside: I don't just love my car. I love BEING in my car. Upon some reflection, I suppose it comes down to control: a small, contained environment where I command the speed, the temperature and the destination. I can sit there and do nothing (which I have been known to do, when we arrive home ... stay in the parked car, recline my seat and CHILL; this, too, I believe slightly irritates my husband), I can crank up the tunes and boogie. I can "put on the banjo song" for the kids. I can change my mind at the last minute and head somewhere else, and I can "turn this car around."

What's the point? maybe I don't have one. But if you see me sitting in my car

"... please don't give a thought to me, I'm really doing fine.
You can always find me here, having quite a time."