The OO in smOOth

Pull up a chair girls.  Fellas, listen and learn.  You may get some interesting gift ideas before this is over.

The cosmetic industry is a global concern worth about $13 billion.  Suffice to say, vanity is alive and well, no matter how old you are.

Personally, I’m not a big make-up gal. On me, less is best.  But I’ve got a thing for soft, smooth and scented.  Skin that is.  I figure lotion, razors and fragrances make up 80% of my cosmetic budget. As a young woman, when I could least afford to, I tried most of the really expensive options.  Today I get the same results for a fraction of the cost so I thought I’d pass along some findings after decades of personal research.  Keep in mind that this was not a clinical study and I can be a cynical fuddy-duddy.

Being Friday (my favorite day of the week), this morning’s ablutions were indulgent.  A little conditioner for the hair, Dead Sea rubbing salts for hands, feet and legs, a new razor for what needed shaving, my nifty exfoliating gloves for everyday….everything, followed by my softest, thickest, oversized towel.  And, an extra 10 minutes of hot water.  Luxury takes time, and on Friday, I’m worth it.  I finish off clean and smooth with a spritz of my favorite fragrance in a palmful of unscented lotion and enjoy the sensation of all over yummy.

I do my best thinking in the shower.  Some people sing….I think. It’s better for my apartment environment.   It occurred to me that I probably wasn’t the only 9 to 5 woman needing to jumpstart her week-end.  I work hard for my money, so I’m going to treat me right. And, I’m going to share….for free….my low budget, time efficient, at home recipe for “touch me” skin and "follow me" legs. 

You will need:

·        exfoliating bath gloves                                  $1.50- Amazon

·        sea salt scrub                                                   $14.69- Amazon

·        good soap                                                        $4.58- Amazon

·        triple blade disposable razor                        $3.57(4 pack) - Amazon

·        favorite fluffy towel

·        quality face cream                                         $19.99- Amazon 

·        quality unscented body lotion                     $5.99- Amazon

·        favorite perfume                                            I use Pink by VS Indulge in your favorite

·        steamy, hot shower

·        30 minutes of “you” time

Remember!  These investments will pay off for months!

Step into the shower and out of your mind.  Just think soft and clean and sleek.  Slip on the gloves, get them moist then scrub with the sea salts.  Go gently until you get a feel for how much scrubbing your skin can take.  It should tingle, not sting. 

The gloves and the salt will sluff off dead skin.  Ever wonder about that crud that gums up your new razor when you shave your legs?  Dirty, dead skin.  Get that stuff off there before you grab that new razor! 

Don’t neglect your feet, knees or elbows.  Rinse, then wash gently, lathering everything up with natural soap. 

Shave the legs last.  Lather ‘em up one more time (gloves still on!) with one more scrubbing.  Now that new triple blade razor will glide and leave you with the silkiest legs you’ve ever had.  You’ll avoid nicks because you’ve removed the tough, dead skin; hydrated your new skin; softened the hair shafts and opened the pores. 

When you’re smooth everywhere you want to be, just stand under the water and rinse the old, dead you right down the drain.  Prepare to cuddle yourself dry in your favorite fluffy towel and get ready to slather yourself with lotion.  Put a liberal squeeze in the palm of your hand and spritz with a bit of perfume.  A little scent goes a long way.  Mix it in your hands to set off the fragrance, then just get after yourself.  Don’t skimp.  I guarantee you’re going to feel way too sassy to go to work!  But…you will go to work …sassy. And you’ll feel that way, 9 to 5.

Save your face for last.  Apply the face cream lightly, rubbing it in with small circles.  Let it absorb while you select your favorite Friday wardrobe and appoint the jewels you want to compliment your look and feel.  Find your flirtiest shoes.  Add your make-up of choice.  It’s going to be a delicious day!

So fellas, if you made it through this far, and you paid attention, you may have the knowledge and insight to put together a very inspired Christmas basket, with instructions.  With enough savey, you could pull off a pretty interesting clinic with your girl on Christmas morning.

That would definitely be the OO in smOOth!

Don't forget to enjoy the music links!

Grinch TV

As long as I’m coming out of the Grinch closet, I may as well dump on Television; one of my pet peeves.

I have two rather large flat-screens in my apartment, but I don’t subscribe to cable, except for internet service.  I have a DVD player and a ROKU box for streaming.

I endured so much channel surfing and "words from our sponsors" while my kids were growing up that I gleefully refuse to pay for 104 stations of unreality shows,  sarcastic sitcoms and bad commercials. I've learned to entertain myself. 

Life is real enough.  Watching actors pretend to be stressed and clever just isn’t stimulating. I’m not amused by sarcastic, humiliating dialog that suggests I laugh at another’s shame.  I could knock on every other door in the neighborhood and catch the real deal.

With the money I save by not contracting with the cable companies, I‘ve built a respectable collection of great DVDs that I enjoy enough to watch over and over.  I pick out one that fits my mood, pop it in the DVD player and watch my favorite actors and characters fall in love, find themselves, have an adventure, or brave danger and risk without 15 commercial breaks that suggest I crack open a beer, eat a bag of chips and order pizza delivery. 

I like choosing a movie, flopping on the bed with the cats and watching it without distraction.  When one of my family phones from afar or my bladder suggests a trip to the throne room, I have this great “pause” button on my remote.  I can kibitz with my kids, take care of business, wander through the kitchen for healthy snacks…or not, and still get back to the movie before I’ve forgotten the plot.  If I get sleepy, pause still works.  I can pick up where I left off tomorrow.  I like choosing what I watch and controlling how and when I watch it.

So I’m a control freak?  Maybe I am.  So much of life is out of control that it’s nice to know I have some power over my entertainment, my snacks and my sorry bank account.

I had a sweet thing going with Netflix for a while that let me watch streaming movies for free and fill in the blanks with new features I wanted to see on rental discs delivered to my door.  Really sweet.  But alas, it was too good to last.  Netflix got banker-flu and decided they could squeeze a little more blood from my stone by splitting up the packages and making me pay twice.  Not gonna happen, Netflix.  I dropped the delivery movies and kept the streaming.  Now it seems that Netflix purposely puts fewer new or highly rated movies in the Instant Play queue.  Netflix is living its final days in my house.  There are other options out there…..and I still have a great collection of personal favorites right in my living room.

I don’t have a copy of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but I can buy it used on Amazon for about what I’d pay to rent it from Red Box and with my Amazon Prime free shipping, it’ll be here in two days…..like Netflix.  Then I get to keep it for next year.  Amazon Prime also gives me free streaming on a small selection of movies.

Cable companies and Netflix are really scary Grinches.  I’m still fairweather friends with Amazon but……that mean Grinch green is a greedy thing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

… As the Grinch took the tree, as he started to shove, he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove.

 He turned around fast, and he saw a small Who. Little Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two.
She stared at the Grinch and said..Santie Claus, why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree? Why?
But do you know, that old Grinch was so smart and so slick, that he thought up a lie and he thought it up quick.
Why my sweet little tot... The fake Santie Claus lied...
...there's a light on this tree that won't light on one side. So I'm taking it home to my workshop, my dear.
I'll fix it up there, then I'll bring it back here.
And his fib fooled the child. Then he patted her head, he got her a drink, and he sent her to bed.
And when Cindy Lou Who was in bed with her cup, he crupt to the chimney and stuffed the tree up. Then he went up the chimney himself, the old liar, and the last thing he took was the log for their fire. On their walls, he left nothing but hooks and some wire.
And the one speck of food that he left in the house was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse…..

from How the Grinch Stole Christmas  - Dr.Seuss

a noeL

I got a little family push back on the Grinch Flinch.  Understandable, I suppose. 

I’m a Christmas Eve baby so maybe it’s blasphemous for me to be a Grinch. 

I can’t flash my driver’s license without hearing, “Ohhhhhhhh….you were born on Christmas Eve.  Do you get gypped?”  It’s exasperating!  NO!  I’ve never been slighted on my birthday. 

My Mom?  Now SHE got ripped off.  While others wore party dresses, sipped eggnog and listened to carols, she wore a backless hospital gown, sucked on ice cubes and tried not to scream.  Nice!  Instead of Santa’s “Ho Ho Ho” on the roof top, she heard “Push, push…PUSH” from the doctor down south.  REAL nice.  While other moms woke before dawn Christmas morning to fill stockings and arrange gifts under the tree, mine was having her vitals checked and changing the diaper I’d filled.

My four older siblings got the short end of the candy cane, too.  They woke Christmas morning without their mommy and all her special Christmas charm. 

I, on the other hand, got life.  I got a patient, loving mother, an adoring Dad, four instant playmates and a birth date no one would forget.

Christmas Eve became the family holiday party and I was always Queen of the ball.  Because some of my more deluxe gifts were combo Birthday/Christmas packages, I got to open cool stuff while everyone else counted hours ‘til morning.  To ease the other children’s angst, Dad and Mom would choose one gift for each from under the tree to be opened on Christmas Eve.  Just one.  Aunt Kate would mail me a birthday card and a $2 bill in December, followed by a ½ birthday gift on June 24^th.  I loved getting that special package!

There was some debate when choosing my name.  Dad was sold on Noelle, Mom wanted Leona, after her mother.  Mom won.  But Dad always insisted he’d gotten his way, too.  Spell Leona backward and you have a noeL. And that became my special Christmas nickname with Dad. He would say to me, “Happy Birthday A-noel.”

My oldest sister still tells me that I was the best Christmas present she got in ’54.  Especially sweet, since as the oldest female sibling, she was pretty much my nanny.  Thanks Junie Toons!  You're wonderful!

My younger, older sister told me today that I was chubby and adorable when I came home from the hospital wearing a tiny Santa hat.  Okay.  Thank you ….I think.  Neither of those adjectives apply today; it’s more like skinny and ahorrible! But thanks for loving me anyway, Sis.  You're wonderful, too!

I've always gotten everything I wanted for my birthday; love.

I stopped counting birthdays long ago.  These days, I’m happy that mine falls at the height of Holiday chaos with less chance for a fuss and zero options for surprise parties.  It thrills me that I’m no longer asked for my ID when buying a cocktail, cutting down on the unnecessary birth date sympathies.

Does that make me a Birthday Grinch, too?  Maybe, but I’m a thankful Grinch!

Vly Road Rescue Review

From our house to yours....Celebrate the Season!

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Grinch Flinch

I’m a certifiable Grinch, steeped in decades of kamikaze holiday shopping, post-Santa returns and credit card debt.  What disturbs me isn’t the holidays, but the holidaze.  In recent years, I’ve survived the season by shopping online, giving gift cards and utilizing a Christmas Club account at my credit union. From Halloween to New Years, I avoid malls and shop, if necessary, at the crack of dawn or during Letterman.

While traveling for work this week, I found myself in a 3^rd floor hotel room with a view of the region’s premier shopping Mecca.  Zipping off my favorite knee-high, 4.5” heeled boots after a 12 hour day, I glanced out over its parking lot….a seething hornet’s nest of crazed shoppers and frenzied drivers trying to escape as Mall security bolted the doors.  I called room service back, added a double on the rocks to my dinner request and pulled all the drapes.  I slept with nightmares of Bad Santa pinning me in a Macy’s dressing room as Bank of America cackled Ho-Ho-Ho outside the door. 

I woke exhausted and peeked through a slit in the curtains.  Empty!  Except for the early fringe of mall employee cars, the lot was clear.  If I spritzed through the shower, skipped breakfast and checked out with no make-up I just might make it out alive.

But I’m a rational Grinch.  How bad could it be if I just popped into the mall early….before all the real crazies arrived.  After all, Bad Santa was just a movie, my BoA card was locked in my file cabinet at home and there were a couple of hard-to-shop for people still giftless on my list.  Irrational rationalization.

I nabbed the first parking spot next to “handicapped” and breathed the shopper’s prayer. “God grant me the serenity to accept deep discounts while counting my change; the courage to exchange the things I buy before I find what I really want; and the wisdom to know the difference.”  Locking my Grinch garb deep in the trunk, I strutted like Jessica Simpson as timely Mall security flung open the jaws of debt......just for me.  90 minutes later and half a paycheck lighter I shielded myself with overstuffed bags against the incoming tide of suckers, making a beeline for my car.

As I sat at the exit traffic light feeling bruised but victorious, I congratulated myself for finishing off my holiday gift list without buying new “Jessica” shoes for myself.  My prayer had been answered. Then a little voice in my head whispered a line from one of my favorite Jack Nicholson movies, As Good As It Gets.  When asked by his publisher’s receptionist, “How do you write women so well?”  romance novelist Melvin Udall sneers, “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.”  I think holiday retailers saw that movie, too.