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Weird Trick for Winter Skin

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I got a facial in Williamsburg for Christmas (soooo good – thanks, John) and the esthetician gave me the weirdest tip for combating dry skin. I sorta didn’t believe her but I’ve been doing it for a month now, and even though it’s been the bitterest winter in recent memory, this trick totally works.

What is it?

Yup. Hair conditioner. The cheap kind.

I had heard of using conditioner to shave your legs, to shine floors, and even using it as a fabric softener…but keeping skin moist? No. Which, if you think about it, is weird because hair and skin (the topmost layers of skin, at least) are essentially made of the same sort of proteins. The dead kind. And, assuming you are a mammal, your skin is covered with hair anyway. It deserves to be kept moist too.

Lets stop using the word moist in this post.

Here is the deal: In the shower, after you use soap or water to wash your body, squeeze a big blob of cheap hair conditioner on a loofah-poof thing and run it over your body. Do your usual naked monkey dance, then wait a minute and rinse. That’s it. I have been using the strawberry scented buck-a-bottle from the bottom shelf. It leaves the slightest residue that works to seal off skin against winter dryness. In the summer it would probably feel a bit heavy – but in winter, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. Also, it smells good. Also, it has pretty much replaced my need for any kind of after-shower body moisturizer. And, actually, she said you could use straight conditioner as a body moisturizer on really rough patches like feet and elbows, but I have yet to need/try. Come summer time I’ll give it a whirl and let you know how it goes!

That’s my beauty trick of the day. If you know any other fun ways to use hair conditioner, please share. We are listening.

Efficiency, you Jerk

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I read somewhere that chronic list-making is one of the most common attributes among successful people. (You know the type – so  annoying). It’s because they get an odd thrill out of crossing items off the list, thereby spurring them onto the next item on the list, thereby making them super productive and efficient and successful and better at life in general. People who make lists get what they want. People who make lists are never disappointed. People who make never have to feel their leg hair poking through their yoga pants in winter because they are soooo on top of it.


Whatever.

Not surprising to many, my current note-taking process does not follow such an efficient format. Or any format. In the past I would just scribble things on a single sheet of paper until the paper filled, almost like a patchwork quilt. Then I got a start phone and just make random unorganized notes of all sorts, one after the other, sometimes several dozen a day – everything from work stuff to blog stuff to stuff I heard people talking about on the bus – watch this program, make this recipe, try this restaurant, record this show. One day I was like, Oh crap, my iphone learned how to spell Cumberbatch, and I knew we were in an unhealthy co-dependent relationship.  

To get my list-making skills in better shape, I am doing two things.

Thing one – I got N+otes – it’s a phone app that clusters lists of lists in an organized fashion. You can add or subtract stuff to a list at any time. It’s annoying because it takes me four clicks to write down a simple item to get at the grocery store, but it’s neat because my grocery list is there for adding/subtracting at any time. Great tool for bloggers. Pretty cool, and way less complicated than some outlook calendaring stuff that makes me feel bad about myself for not setting a deadline on when to switch the lint trap. 


Thing Two –  I’m using verbs. Yes, verbs. Studies have shown that if you start an item on your to-do list with a verb, you are significantly more likely to do it. So, instead of writing MILK, you write BUY MILK. Instead of writing DRY CLEANING, you write PICK UP DRY CLEANING TUESDAY, and so on. Be specific. The video above does a better job of explaining it, but I have already found that it sorta does work. Nifty trick, huh?

Okay. That’s all I know about this subject, but I thought it was neat so I wanted to share. If you know anything about being more efficient and productive, feel free to tell me because I could use all the help I can get.

Happy Weekend

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Y’all know what this is?

Tulip fields. In Holland. It’s all springy and rainbow. Meanwhile, we are here freezing here and those Dutch bastards are living in skittles.

I hate that.

Interesting fact; did you know more flowers were cut this week than in the rest of the year combined?* It’s true. Valentines prep. They all get chopped down and shipped out to flower shops.

* Look here, I want to hyperlink that fact about flower slaughter but I can’t find it on the interwebs right now, however, I have it on good authority from an Asian florist lady who had three teeth and a bad attitude, so I trust her. She’s good.**

** You know what though, you don’t see a lot of angry Asian people. I mean, so when you do, you know they know their sh*t. They aren’t being angry for the fun of it. They are making a point. Okay, I probably shouldn’t have said that about Asian people. Does that make me sound racist? Or, maybe I am racist? Or, maybe I just avoid emotionally erratic people in general so when you put that in proportion to the general Midwestern population, I just don’t know/see/experience a lot of angry Asian people. Does a question mark go here? I could be totally wrong. Feel free to school me on this as I am open minded. I mean, I’m open minded to admitting I’m subliminally racist.***

***And it’s a bad thing.****

****It’s like, I really want to buy Beck’s new album but I don’t want to because he’s skunk drunk on Scientology and I don’t want my money to filter through a cult. That’s just common sense. But that also means I’m choosing to not do business with people based on their religion, which would be super McBiggoty racist if I suddenly cut off anyone who was say, Muslim. Or Jewish. Or Mormon. Or Methodist. Or whatever. Crap. I am an asshole.  I am an asshole and it is your fault, toothless and angry flower lady!

I’ll stop typing now because this was supposed to be a really short “Happy weekend!” post and now I’m making you think I’m crazy and racist in a religious way. But. Before I go I will remind you that if you are participating in the Valentine swap, you should check out what people are posting on Facebook. Stuff being sent…stuff being received…stuff that is FUNFETTI CUPCAKE CARDS from Olivia.

I’m only assuming from her photo here, but I think you shake them like snow globes.

I know right? Damn, Olivia. Way to be awesome like that. Go see the other awesomeness. You don’t have to like my page or anything, it’s public. The posts are free. We’re nice like that.

Happy weekend.

Good Word: Amifam

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I decided to make up a word: Amifam.

It’s a cross between friend and family. In French ami =friend, famille = family. I’ll be you see what I did there.  Amifam. It’s a good word.
The thing is, there are very few words in English to describe the strata of friendships. This is a tremendous injustice to our language (and relationships) if you ask me.

When you hear someone refer to another as “family,” you automatically assume they are close, which, frankly, isn’t always the case. Like, at all. On the other hand, when you hear someone describe someone as a “friend,” that could be anywhere from a life-long confidant to the dude you hire to clean your gutters once a year. I mean, okay, sure, there are “best friends” and “old friends” and “good friends,” but really, shouldn’t there be a category for people who are family, real family, by choice and not by birth or law or legal relationship?

No crap there should be.

The way I see it, there friends who you call in the middle of the night to bail you out of jail, and there are friends who you can call to bury the body –that one would be an amifam. They just show up with hot coffee and a shovel. Only question, “Where do you want me to dig?”

Amifam. It’s a good word.

Suddenly Stamp Collector

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I inherited a stamp collection.

It was my father’s from when he was young. It’s been fourteen years since he passed, and probably forty+ years since the box has been in storage. I only came into it over Christmas, and now I don’t know what to do with it. It is weird. I mean, it’s wonderful, but it’s weird. Actually, I sorta put off going through it for a few weeks because I wanted to have the time and mind space to process it.

For one thing, if you have ever lost someone, you know how haunting it is to see their handwriting years after the fact. I re-read my dad’s letters every June but this box is full of things he wrote long before I was born.  The whole collection is dived into little envelopes inside slightly less-little envelopes scrawled with things like “WAR” and “COMMI” and “$AVE” (btw, way to up one on Ke$ha, Dad!). These are words written on envelopes from places he went to school. Places he worked. Places he loved. Places I know nothing about.  Again – weird.

For another thing, the stamps. Whoa. There are so many of them. And I have no clue what to do with them…
I mean, I have no delusions of Antiques Roadshow grandeur – I’m never going to just sell one and buy a yacht, but yes, I’m thinking there is some value here. Of the ten I attempted to look up online, the price range was anywhere from 50cents to $30 each. And there are thousands of them. I mean, the whole collection fits in a shoe box but it packs a punch. Half of them are used/postmarked so that decreases the value I imagine, and honestly I don’t really want to sell them, but I don’t want to let them sit on a shelf either. They have been in a box for decades — now they deserve to come out and play. And if there are a few that are exceptionally valuable, I want to pull them out and conserve them properly. This is probably the only thing of monetary value I have ever, or will ever, inherit. It seems disrespectful to let it waste away. 

I should probably take them somewhere for an expert opinion. From looking online, it appears that people must inherit stamp collections quite a lot because there are dozens of services that do nothing but sort out old stamp collections (there is even a site called www.inheritedstampcollection.com, ha!). Have any of you ever used one of these services? Any recommendations? Anyone in the Northern Illinois area know of a reputable dealer? I feel like this must be an industry where sellers could easily get ripped off so I’d like to start with someone who knows what they are doing. I don’t mind paying a fee for their time, I just don’t want to walk into a scheme. I clearly have no idea what I’m doing here. There is no 1-800-Grandpa-Stamp-Collector service. (Or is there?)

I’m hoping after I sift out and conserve anything valuable, I’ll be left with a pile of old/used stamps I can use for display purposes. I’m thinking of buying an extra large, extra deep frame and foam-mounting a hundred or so of my favorites in a grid (not unlike what I did with these paint chip pieces years ago). Or something. I don’t know yet, I just feel like sticking them all in an album isn’t good enough. They ought to be in view, right?

Also. This is interesting. The box has a bunch of postcards and envelopes he collected as kid that were to and from his father and grandparents, whom, oddly enough, according to the addresses I see here, lived in a house not far from an apartment I lived in when I was 22. Isn’t that odd? I walked by that house a hundred times and never realized that was where my grandfather (who died before I was born) lived most of his early life. I always remarked on that house’s garden though, which was very unlike me at that time. I can’t say I ever felt especially drawn to the house, but I definitely made a point to notice it and set it apart from the others on the street. Isn’t that crazy?
 

One of the postcards is from the early 1900’s. It’s in Hungarian and as best I can tell it was mailed shortly after they immigrated. Google translate tells me it’s something about a trip/voyage, but I don’t know what else, which is killing me. I’m desperate to know what it says. Not that it would matter now, but I can only imagine, if I had immigrated to a new country where I didn’t speak the language and hardly knew a sole, without a telephone or photograph to remind me of home, a postcard like that would have meant a great deal. It was saved for a reason. It was loved.  And now it’s been in a box for a century and nobody knows what to do with it. I know my dad saved it because of the stamp, but, I think I will save it for other reasons.

Since the postcards and envelopes are actually my favorite part, and they won’t be of much value to anyone but me, I won’t feel bad if I get a little crafty with a few of them. I love this copy machine enlargement idea from Blueprint magazine (RIP Blueprint!).

Can you think of any interesting ways to display postage stamps? I’m all ears. 





Disco Enlightenment

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I couldn’t bring myself to take down all the Christmas decorations. A transition phase was needed. And so what if it’s half-way to Easter? Listen, we deserve some sparkle. That buttmunch groundhog promised six more weeks of winter and I’ll be damned if I am supposed to spend it in darkness. I need light. I need sunshine. I need delicious things to eat with my eyeballs.

I need disco balls. 


These bugaboos had previously been hanging out in a bowl with clementines. Now they live on my old granny chandelier. They spin a little in the breeze, and in the morning the eastern light hits them so they send hundreds of little sun-beamletts shooting all over the room. It’s like eating breakfast at a prom, but it’s daytime. And Al Roker is there. So that is fun.   

They will probably come down in a few months when it’s time to Easter eggs, but for now I am enjoying their company. Winter is harsh. I’ll take all the disco enlightenment I can get. 

  
 

My Phone Paints Better Than Me

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I don’t know about you, but my Instagram feed is blowing up with images run through faux painting apps. This one Waterlogue is especially trendy…


I love it. I hate it. I mean, it’s swell, but it’s also majorly irritating to know that regardless of the time and money I invested in art school, I will never, ever, paint half so well as my phone. 

Hashtag: butthurt.

Photoshop has been able to do this stuff for years but the results have never been this good. Honestly. Hats off to these app developers for knowing their bidness.

My fav is this one called Glazed. Makes everything look like some funkadelic oil painting. Brush strokes run from gentle, Monet style stipples, to thick and sloppy Someone-Left-the-Toddler-Alone-with-the-Peanut-Butter style strokes. It took this badly lit photo of a football cupcake and turned it into something marvelous. Look!

Personally, I think all these apps work better on images of objects and landscapes than people, unless the person is wearing something really weird or interesting (coffee filter flower hat, anyone?).


They also work really great on cat pictures. Like, really great. I have a long-running dream to have Lolabelle’s portrait painted, and it’ll happen one day, but for now, this is enough to make me smile. And I sorta doubt Lola will know the difference.*

*shhhhh, nobody tell on me.

My favorite so far is this image of a pink church we saw in Italy last fall. The moment I saw that church in real life I thought, now this, THIS should be a painting…and now it is.

Okay, it’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a cheap thrill. Major niftiness. If you are in the app game, go and get you some Glazed. It’s free. You’re welcome.








Bramble Patch: January 2014

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  A list of happy distractions from over the last month.

My new favorite app: SkyMotion. Tells me the snowpocalypse will hit my block in… “7 minutes.” Then tells me it will clear in… “never.”

Also, this cat just discovered snow for the first time. Heart = Melted. 

Here is an envelope idea for anyone sending valentines.

Don’t read this if you want to keep your mascara on.

A friend and I were discussing how odd it is that we hardly know any kids with daily chore duties. Now I read this list and think my parents were soft on me too.

Great writing tips for bloggers.

Fifty quinoa recipes for lazy people.

Helen Mirren twerking at Harvard.  

There was a bearded, fire-worshiping viking party in Scotland and I was not invited. The Hell?

Cheap and pretty: Copper storage baskets. This elephant necklace. This heart print blouse. And oh look, here is another.

Not so cheap but very pretty: wearable signatures.

A photo of me and my first mannequin. 

I hate the Superbowl but I’ll watch it because it’s an all-American excuse to lay down the baby carrots and dip tasty bidness in awesome bidness. My contribution to the party: crock pot chocolate lava cake.What are you making?

PS for Valentine Swappers: Watch your inbox. Google is being a nerd-hole and making me stagger my email blasts, so if you haven’t seen yours already, hold out until tomorrow. It’s coming, I promise!

Downton Abbey Valentines

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Normally I am a strict advocate for handmade Valentines, but, then I saw these Downton Abbey cards, lasercut on thin pieces of wood, rad as hell, and suitable for framing.

Yeah. Imma have to hit that.


Anna and Bates are like a big British burrito of cuteness. When I was crazy sick in bed a few weeks ago, I started watching the other ultimate granny miniseries, Lark Rise to Candleford, and Mr. Bates was in it playing someone else’s husband. Can you believe that? I was like, Mr. Bates, how can you be stepping out on Miss Anna? Do you not remember when she walked you down to the riverbank and you threw your body brace in the water? Do you not remember how she rallied for you 24/7 when you were in prison for killing-not-killing your hosebeast ex-wife? Cheese-and-rice, Mr. Bates. Control yourself.


I’m pretty sure he heard me.

And here is Mrs. Hughes the housekeeper. That Scottish brogue. That stoic smile. That dirty apron. You just know she is DTF. And Mr. Carson, the vaudevillian turned butler, needs to get on that. These two should be together and I don’t know why Julian Fellows won’t deliver. It would be a like a valentine for alllllll of us. Do we not deserve this? I know I do.

Julian, I am waiting. 

In the meantime, I’ll keep busy with my Downtown Valentines and additional awesomeness from Pine and Parcel. Check them out.

PS Update: Thanks to Chris for commenting on these other Downton valentines, courtesy of Chad Thomas. Free download, y’all. Woot!

Valentine Garlands

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The good news was my boss let us all work from home yesterday because it was too cold to handle public transportation downtown.

The bad news was my remote control stopped working while stuck on some A&E sub-channel and I had to watch Dog the Bounty Hunter for like five hours straight. Sure, I know, the natural solution to this would be to turn off the TV and do my work, but I have a hard time being at home without a TV on in the background. Don’t judge. So there we were Dog and his mullet, me and my laptop. By noon I got so overwhelmed by the thought of convicts and bail bondsman I had to counter the feeling with something equally frilly and foofy; enter valentine garlands. 


 I figured, instead of trying to make a bunch of valentine garlands or whatever, I’d just hang the actual Valentine cards. Thanks to exchanging Valentines with folks for a decade (with a major uptick in recent years thanks to The Swap) I have more than enough to swag around my dining room. Some of them are from readers, so look around…you might see something familiar. 


Hanging them up was easy. I just used good old fashioned clothes pegs and paper clips. No big whoop.


And you know, a holiday isn’t a holiday until my chandeliers each have their own prom dress.

Now, had I thought of this in advance, I could have made more of these fancy clothespins. Next time.


So that’s that.

It’s a little schmaltzy, a little scrapbooky, but I’m cool with that because it’s that season for such things. I’m also cool because I got new batteries for my remote and can change the channel. I’m mullet free and happy!