Tradition: Shopping the After Christmas Sales

The day after Christmas….and we get up early to start our quest for bargains.

This year there were no big items on the list. We wanted some special ornaments to fill out my daughter’s tree for next year….the annual purchase of mascara (a year seems like a good rhythm to buy new even if the old is not used up completely)…some heavy gloves to replace a pair that had somehow become a single recently (i.e. one glove was lost making the other one useless).

We were out of the house by 6:15 and back by 10:15. We are not die hard shoppers. The sales were successful for us in the sense that we got everything on the list and successful for the stores because we bought a bit more than we intended….mostly bed linens which weren’t on the list but the prices were too good to pass up. We also got a very large plastic bin to store the 30 year old artificial tree until it’s  needed again next year.

And a good morning was had by all.

Quote of the Day - 12/24/2011

Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary. - Edward Abbey in Desert Solitaire.

~~~

Where is your ‘one true home’?

Is it a desert…mountains…plain…forest…shore? Or does your ideal have more to do with the people that happen to be in a place?

The ideal place for me would be rolling hills or low mountains with some mixed deciduous and pine forest and some more open areas. There would be small streams that bubbled rapidly during rains and froze several times in the winter. However, my ideal home has more to do with people than place; if my family were not in the place with me it would not be home at all no matter how ideal the place itself happened to be. Meaningful work is also a requirement to form ‘home’ so the place needs to accommodate that either nearby or within.

What if you had the opportunity to live in a place for a year --- to witness all the seasons in a place very different from where you live today? Where would you choose? Do you think of any of those places as more ‘ideal’ or ‘right’ than where you live now?

10 Cosmetics from the Kitchen

A well stocked kitchen has many ingredients that can be used as toiletries as well. I've made a list of my favorites.

1. Olive or almond oil - Great to use as oil for your skin and probably better for you than petroleum based oils. Almond oil has almost no smell but it seems to go rancid more quickly that most olive oil.
2. Baking soda - This one has a myriad of uses…in the bath, a paste to brush your teeth, a slurry to cleanse your skin.
3. Honey - While it is sticky - it also feels really good on your skin (try a honey facial mask!) and can be used with ground oatmeal to make a wonderful, exfoliating scrub for your face.
4. Tea - After you use the bag to make tea, let them cool rather than throwing them in the trash and use them on your eyes while taking a 10 minute break lying down. A spray bottle of strong tea can be quite refreshing in the summer time but be careful to not get it on anything besides your skin because tea can stain.
5. Oatmeal - Did you know that the 'juice' from oatmeal is great for your skin? You can put it in a small back and use it in your bath - squeezing out the milky juice but keeping the oatmeal from clogging the drain. It can be processed in a small food processor and used with honey for a facial scrub as well.
6. Cucumber – Cucumber slices feel great on closed eyelids for a 10 minute break lying down. It can also be used as another ingredient in your honey/oatmeal scrub…just process it in the food processor after the oatmeal.
7.  Salt - Can be another ingredient for a scrub…it dissolves relatively quickly so is actually very mild when used for this purpose. Dissolved in warm water, it can be used as a mouth rinse and helps heal any mouth soreness.
8. Lemon juice - When I was growing up we sprayed our hair with lemon juice then went out in the sun to let it bleach; it only bleaches a little but is easy on the hair while it does it. It can also be mixed with water to make a great rinse for oily hair any time of the year.
9. Vinegar - Used similarly to lemon juice. It also can be used as a spray for sunburn; it has great cooling properties. The apple cider variety is the best for your skin, but be careful not to get it on clothing that it could stain.
10. Vanilla - A teaspoon in bathwater along with some unscented oil or Epsom salts on a winter's night - lovely. Vanilla is one of my favorite winter scents.

I am thankful for....

Thanksgiving Day tradition in my family includes a lot of food…and some contemplative time to articulate – maybe only to ourselves – the elements of our lives that we are thankful for.

Almost every year – the first things I think about are:

• Family far and near
• Meaningful activity/work
• Personal health
• Comfortable home
• Country/community

Is there anything unique about 2011? Of course. Nothing on the list is truly static.

Family Far and Near

• In 2011 my daughter moved to the other side of the country. It is a multi-hop plane trip or a 4 day road trip to see her now. I am more thankful for modern communication than ever before but the anticipation of seeing her in person over the winter break is so sweet.
• This is the first Thanksgiving without my grandmother. She died in late 2010 at 98 years old. While she had not cooked Thanksgiving in recent years – I am thankful that she did for so many years and the memories of the food (highlights were apricot kolaches and dinner rolls with gooey raisin centers) are so vivid still.
• The majority of years I have been cooking Thanksgiving dinner at the time my husband and daughter made the short trip to put silk flowers on my mother-in-laws grave but this year I arranged the morning such that I could go with my husband. I am thankful to her every time I notice something in our home that was hers – some wind chimes, a scarf, some kitchen knives. Although she died over 20 years ago, she still has a positive and frequent impact on my life.

Meaningful activity/work

• In previous years, I would have called this element ‘meaningful work’ – the change reflects what is happening in my life. I am in transition from someone that works for a big corporation to something quite different/not fully defined yet. I am thankful to have so many options as I step into the next phase of my life. Right now life is so wonderfully full and the choices I have in front of me are equivalent – or maybe greater – than when I was in my 20s.

Personal Health

• I am thankful that I have been able to take off about 25 pounds in the past 2 years and am getting very close to being the ‘normal’ weight for my height. While I was pretty healthy before, the exercise and healthy eating to achieve the weight loss has indeed made me feel even better….no more aching knees going up and down stairs!

Comfortable Home

• The prospect of spending more time at home – not having to go into an office every weekday – is something I am looking forward to. I am thankful the house is one I’ve truly turned into a home over 15 years I’ve lived here and that the view from my office is the best in the house (looking out onto a forest).

Country/community

• While I can’t bring myself to be thankful for the elected government in the US (the elected officials seem all have something other than ‘the good of the country’ as their primary interest!), I am thankful for the American people. They have moments of brilliance when their diversity drives renewal of the spirit that founded the country….may that aspect of the American psyche happen with increased frequency in 2012.
• I am also thankful to the community in which I live in Maryland. Last weekend the neighborhood was full of leaves on the ground – thick and wet. Today, everything is tidy; the lawn mowers and leaf blowers are silent so we all enjoy the sunny day we have for the holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving to all…..enjoy!