A Few of My Favorite Things

I seem to be finding a lot of products I like lately. Since I'm the type of person who wants everyone to have good experiences, I like to be an unpaid and sometimes unwelcome/overenthusiastic spokesperson for awesome products I find. Considering my recent list of favorites, one of two conclusions can be drawn: either I have really been lucky in picking good stuff, or my ability to discern quality has been severely hampered. It's up to readers, since "Everyone," as Marie says in When Harry Met Sally, "thinks they have good taste."

1) Tide Total Care: This stuff does what it says it will. My clothes are softer, brighter, not stretching out in the wash, and my husband's t-shirts smell heavenly on him. It got out dried blood, old dried-in schmutz on a hand-me-down, and tomato sauce. Stains? I laugh in the face of stains - ha ha ha ha! Tide even offers a free sample here. It's a little pricey, but it's totally worth it. Don't be fooled by the smell in the bottle; it's so concentrated that it smells a little weird before it's been diluted in the wash. It may not be appropriate for people with skin allergies due to the high fragrance content, but for the rest of us, it's better than Gain!


2) Allergen Block: There are two versions of this, Chloroseptic and Little Allergies, the latter being the only one I've been able to find (I found it at WalMart). It's a drug-free ointment that you rub around your nostrils and upper lip, and it claims to have a positive charge that repels negatively-charged allergens. Although it seemed far-fetched, I've built up a tolerance to Zyrtec and needed to find an affordable alternative. You may be shocked to know that I actually like it! It does have to be reapplied every 4-6 hours or if you get your face wet or have to blow your nose a lot - it doesn't stop post-nasal drip until your body stops reacting to the allergens you've already inhaled. Once my body got over what it was already reacting to, this stuff did a pretty good job of taming the outdoor allergens! It's not so great against my furry pets and fur-covered bed, though, so a little preventative maintenance of allergens might help prevent waking up miserable. You can get a $3 rebate from Rite-Aid until May 30th [it's about a third of the way down the page of the link]. Balancing the cost against the cost-per-use makes it a decent deal.



3) Hugo Naturals: I started with their French Lavender Calming Shampoo, Conditioner, and lotion while on our vacation, then fell in love with their bar soaps after we got back. The shampoo doesn't have icky sodium lauryl sulfate or other detergents, and the conditioner doesn't have alcohol. It feels weird to use, but it leaves hair thoroughly clean yet not stripped. The lotion absorbs quickly and doesn't have a heavy smell. The soap is one of the only soaps around that doesn't leave my skin dry and itchy, but it does have one caveat: it contains castor oil. Castor oil is perfectly safe to use but extremely toxic to harvest, making it a product that contributes to unsafe work places. I intend to let Hugo Naturals know about my concern and switch to their shower gel for my next go-round. I buy it at Whole Foods/Whole Body, but it can be purchased directly here.


These are just three of my favorite things of late, but let's face it, it's not that interesting a blog entry to read. It also doesn't endorse my favorite product site, Etsy.com. You can see all those favorite things in the box on the right, and buying things there supports independent craftspeople. Go Handmade!

Busy Isn't Always Busy

Sometimes busy is busy resting, busy recovering, busy watching movies, or busy overeating. Sometimes, busy means preoccupied. I always feel busy, but maybe that's 'cause even when I'm being lazy, it's intentional. There has to be some value in that.

We Will Put Anything In Our Mouths

Humans can be so overly concerned with their health (Swine Flu, anyone?), and yet we will put just about anything in our mouths. Why is this? The phenomenon occurred to me while looking up the potential side effects of quitting the anti-depressant Lexapro. People who cut off Lexapro without a tapering off reported things like brain shivers/brain freezes, memory loss, raging headaches, loss of sexual desire, and, of course, a return of their depression. "What's in those things?" my husband asked. Whatever it is, I want it to not be in my brain anymore, so I am ignoring my doctor's advice to just stop taking the drug and am cutting the pills in half while gradually increasing the time between doses. So far, I've had only one little brain freeze that does, in fact, feel like someone is blowing cold air over your frontal lobe. Perhaps I don't want to know what's in those things.

The side effects of prescription drugs described in commercials make a lot of people laugh, but it's a little scary when you think about what people will risk to get some other benefit. Then there are diet pills, untested supplements, exotic foods, random pills given to us at parties, pens and pencils, Pop Rocks, tobacco, fermented grains, corners of packages that have been passed through the hands of loaders, stockers, and cashiers . . . we are so gross! What is wrong with us that we believe our saliva has the power to kill the germs on a ketchup packet from a bin in a fast food restaurant, but we close schools and businesses at the mere threat of someone sneezing near us? Or why do we take a product that will "gently remind us when we're not eating right" - i.e., alli ® - which gives us diarrhea if we eat too much fatty food rather than just, say, limit our intake of fatty foods all on our own? Why is my father-in-law being directed to take vomit-inducing levels of iron but abstain from greens because they will react with his Coumadin rather than being directed to take some aspirin and eat some spinach?

The photos below are some of the food that my husband and I ate in Mexico on our vacation to San Miguel de Allende. It was the only time I've ever known this man to willingly and happily eat raw tomatoes, which really were so good I wrote home to my mother about them. Their food was fresh, flavorful, whole. It was the food people were meant to eat. It made us feel good because it was filled with nutrition, and it was a joy to smell, chew on, swallow, and moan over. It made me want to grow a garden. It also made me want to pay more attention to what I put in my mouth. Now, I'm perfecting my homemade bread, homemade applesauce, and homemade jam, which is surprisingly simple when made in small batches that aren't meant to keep all winter.


An Omelet with Avacado and Tomato; Fried Fish with Rice and Beans
 
Fresh-Squeezed Juices of Mango, Papaya, Pineapple, and Watermelon
 


The last photo is a sample of tequila ice cream, which turned out to be one of my favorite sensory experiences of the whole trip. It came from a street vendor, and it tasted a little like Kahlua, which I suppose may be because the best tequila has hints of coffee in it. The brightness of the tequila first hit my nose and then soared over my tongue while the sweetness and icy-milky texture following behind it had me licking the cup. This was my second helping during the trip, which was still soft and therefore could not be served in a waffle cone. Of course, in Mexico, we didn't have any idea what the kitchens were like where our food was made, if standard sanitation practices were in use, or even whether local water was part of the mix, but I didn't get sick once. And I wasn't scared. After all, we will put just about anything in our mouths!