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?

Celebrating December 2011

What do you celebrate in December?

In my family there seem to be more than the normal events to celebrate with the addition of a birthday and an anniversary. The ideas below are more generic –the ‘winter holiday’ celebrations:

• Take a winter walk. This is just the beginning of winter so there is a lot to notice in the natural world transitioning from fall. Winter is the starkest time of year but there is a beauty in clear cold days – crystalline nights.
• Holiday light displays are popular in the December evenings. I enjoy walking through the one at a local garden, rather than driving. There is wonderful hot chocolate with whipped cream on top at the nature center too – a perfect treat on cold nights.
• Finding or making the perfect gifts is the prelude to witnessing the delight of recipients.
• Baking favorite foods is part of the tradition in almost every family. My particular favorites are oatmeal raisin cookies and red cake (plain or with whipped cream or with cream cheese icing).
• Gearing up for gatherings of friends and family with lots of party mix and veggie trays always ready is another happy prospect.
• Cards/letters of seasonal greetings are sent out early in the month and then arrive from others.

December is the special month to savor all the good things that happened over the past 12 months and to fill your thinking with optimism for the New Year to come.

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.