Style Lush

Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion

By Beth

Winter has finally arrived in my part of the world, and with it I turned into an itchy, scaly, red mess from head to toe.  So when I went out to get some emergency exfoliant, I also decided to upgrade my body lotion and see if I could get the scratching under control.  Since I use Aveeno lotion to help control eczema on my hands, I decided to go for the Aveeno Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion ($10.50 at Amazon).

The bottle claims that this stuff "moisturizes for 24 hours," to which I said "Ha!" but took a bottle home with me anyway.  When I first tried it I thought it would end up crammed under the bathroom sink with my other product rejects, because it smells like Aveeno.  You know, not a bad smell, but not really a good smell either, and not a smell I really wanted all over my body.  But the smell goes away, and the lotion honestly does last as long as it claims to.  As I am writing this, I last applied lotion 24 hours ago after my shower, and my skin feels like I put lotion on 20 minutes ago.  Best of all, I've been able to stop scratching in public.  Now, this will not be my summer body lotion, but I'm not going to even consider a change until the tulips are out.

(Photo credit: Amazon.com)

Aveeno Positively Ageless Resurfacing Scrub

By Beth

One morning a couple of weeks ago I glanced at myself in the mirror and noticed that the entire top layer of skin on my right cheek was about to peel off and land on my shoe, and I decided it was time to replace the exfoliant that I ran out of early last spring before I started frightening innocent children.  So I took myself off to the nearest drugstore for an emergency supply until I could order the fancy-dancy stuff I used last year.  I faced a shelf with bottle after bottle of products with words like "radiant" and "glowing" and "dewy" and "gossamer."  And then I saw this:

Aveeno Positively Ageless Resurfacing Scrub, $8.99 at Amazon.  The "resurfacing" bit cracked me up, because it made me think of when they repave a road and that one huge machine comes and scrapes the old road up and that other huge machine comes and lays down pristine, smooth, hot asphalt.  I guess I felt in need of a fresh coat of asphalt that day (Oh, or a zamboni!  That's good too!), because I bought it.  And I love it.

The bottle promises a more even tone and whatnot, and I haven't noticed any of that, but after one use all the rogue bits of my right cheek were gone and after two weeks of daily use my face is so smooth that my night cleanser seems to just slide on and off my face with nothing to hold onto.  I think it is time to dial back to every second or third day, now that the worst of the situation is under control, but I can't seem to stop myself from using it every morning just so I can feel my face afterwards. (Is that weird?  Ok, I admit, it's a little weird.)

Photo credit: Amazon.com

HopStop - An App You Need

By Beth

My husband and I have made four joint trips to New York City, and for the first three trips never set foot on a subway.  This caused problems like excessive amounts of walking, crazy taxi budgets, and once getting stuck in Lower Manhattan during a cabbie shift change and trying to walk 70 blocks north in time for a Broadway show.  After that experience, I swore I would not return to New York until I had mastered the subway.

Luckily for me, HopStop mastered the subway for me.  HopStop is a free (with ads, paid for: ad-free) mobile app available for many flavors of phone and as a mobile website as well, that gives you directions to get around over 100 cities via transit, taxi, car rental, and hoofing it.  

For NYC, and I assume other cities, you enter where you are (it will find your current location if you allow it), where you want to go, and HopStop tells you how to get there.  My favorite part was that it gave walking directions to the relevant subway station, several options for trains to take, instructions on where to get off, and then walking directions to your destination.  It was awesome.  I used it constantly for four days and it was entirely accurate every time, even when it came to changes and closures caused by Hurricane Sandy.  If you are planning a trip to an unfamiliar city, or even a familiar city you haven't visited in a while, I highly recommend this app.

Image credit - hopstop.com

How My Bare Trap Boots Saved Manhattan

By Beth

The last time my husband and I went to NYC, we arrived at Penn Station in the middle of a driving rain storm, a cab was not to be had for love or money without standing in a 100 person line at the cab stand, and we were terrified to take the subway (more on that later), so we walked 14 blocks to our hotel.  It was not fun.  By the time we made it indoors my shoes were soaked as were my pants to the knees and I had decided that I hated New York and wanted to go home immediately.  We didn't, and we had a wonderful trip, but when we started planning another trip, which we took this past weekend, the very first thing I did was go out and buy a pair of waterproof boots.  I got these Emilse Boots by Bare Traps.

They were awesome.  We spent four drizzly days in NYC and my poor husband spent most of the time in sopping wet shoes and pants (New York is very puddly), but I was dry and warm and cheerful enough to annoy my bedraggled husband.  Other than a blister on the bottom of my foot, which is really to be expected given how much we walked, I have no complaints.  

(Photo from- dsw.com)

Traveling with Jewelry

By Beth

You know what I just discovered I don't have as I was packing for the trip to New York I am taking in 12 hours?  A fancy jewelry organizer.  Possibly I don't have one because I don't travel all that much and I don't take all that much jewelry when I do.  If I had one, I would want one like this:

Nothing big, nothing fancy, nothing over ten dollars.  I sort of really want one now.  But since I leave in 12 hours, even Amazon's fastest shipping is no help to me.  What I do have is a handkerchief.  I put a necklace along one edge, fold the cloth over, add another necklace, roll it over again, toss in a bracelet or some earrings, roll and repeat until I have a tube of jewelry, which I tuck snugly into a zippered compartment of my suitcase.  It isn't fancy, for sure, but it works.

(Photo from: amazon.com)

Parker Nesting Bowls

By Beth

I have a set of glass nesting bowls that my mother gave me when I was in college, and they are great, except that they are not at all attractive and the largest one has a broken rim and while I still use it I know it is time to let it go.  But come on, these things are bead sorters and guinea pig feeders and play-dough cutters and oh yes, I do occasionally use them in the kitchen.

But they really need to be replaced.  So when the Crate & Barrel catalogue arrived several weeks ahead of my recent birthday and I found a new set of nesting bowls while thumbing through, I handed the open catalogue to my husband and pointed and said "you need to get me this for my birthday."  And he did, here they are:

I love them.  I love them and I haven't even used them for anything yet.  But trust me, nobody is cutting play-dough or feeding pets out of my new bowls.

(Photo credit: crateandbarrel.com)

Wool: A Book Review

By Beth

Are you in the market for six good books?  

Ok, that was a daunting question.  Are you in the market for a six-part series of stories that together total about the same number of pages as a perfectly reasonable book?  Well if you arent, you should be, and you should read Wool.

For one thing, the Wool Omnibus Edition, which is Books 1-5, is $5.99 on Kindle.  Book 6 is only $3.99.  The books are post-apocalyptic and I would also call them science fiction and dystopian, but if those things aren't your bag no problem as they are also strong character-driven stories.  They are absorbing and inspiring and heart-breaking all at once, and it is a good thing that the first five books are published together since I don't think it is possible to stop at just one or even at just four.

Admittedly Book 6 was not my favorite, but I still look forward to any further volumes with great anticipation.  

Have you read Wool?  Did you like it?

(Image credit Wikipedia.org)

DIY Costumes

By Beth

Look, I know this is two days late, but I am so stinking proud of my Halloween costume innovations this year that I have to post them in the vainglorious belief that they are good enough for all you nice people to remember for next year.

Also, I should point out that my son wore a fully store-bought costume at every opportunity this Halloween season.  I'm not crafty at all by nature, which likely explains why I feel the burning need to toot my own horn ever time I pull off something remotely homemade.

Ok, first costume.  We went to a Halloween event with a heavy Star Wars theme (ah, don't you love how geeks celebrate holidays, you should see what we do for Thanksgiving) and the children looked like this:

Han Solo there came from Amazon and a generous aunt, but Leia was all mama ingenuity.  The hair is all her own, with help from a pair of socks that I rolled up one on each side then clamped the ends together with a hair tie and pulled the hair around to cover.  The gown is my old white bathrobe worn backwards that I hemmed to fit in ten minutes and then bleached, washed and dried in the 30 minutes before we left the house when I discovered some huge nasty stain from years in the closet on the back.

Next up, and you will only get this if you have seen the most recent movie version of Narnia and which I relied heavily in Google image to design, is the White Witch:

Also known as one yard of fake fur cut down the middle for half of its length plus six plastic Christmas icicle ormanents hot glued onto a piece of floral foam.  Still, I was proud of it.

Ok ok yes, I am inordinately impressed with myself.  Now would you please make my day and link me to your own homemade costumes?  I'm feeling inspired to inflict my non-craftiness on both children next year and it is never to soon for inspiration.

(Photo credit: me)

 

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

By Beth

A couple of weeks ago, my little family was sitting around the dinner table talking about the books we liked, and my husband and I were running through the books we had read as kids when I suddenly remembered Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and bolted from the table to order it from Amazon that very second.  No, it couldn't wait, and no, I couldn't get it from the library because we needed to own it and no, I don't know how I forgot about it for seven entire years of parenting.

Oh Charlie.  Oh Roald Dahl.  James and the Giant Peach!  The BFG!  Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator!  But Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the one, the classic, the book that had my seven-year-old standing on her bed cheering.

I used this as a read aloud for the above mentioned seven-year-old, although I think she could have read if herself without too much difficulty.  I think there are enough illustrations and humor that I can make a good attempt at reading it to my four-year-old as well.  At least, I plan to force the four-year-old to sit through it just so I can read it again for the upteenth time after an hiatus of too many years.

If you have allowed this delightful children's classic to slip your mind, I recommend you find a copy as fast as you can and giggle through it with the kids in your life.

(Image credit: amazon.com)

Mesh Cutlery Trays

By Beth

I recently renovated my kitchen (I swear I have at least six months of material starting with that sentence) and one of my favorite additions is something I bought on the cheap and hid away in a drawer.  But really, huge difference in my life right here.

That's my silverware.  My 16 place settings of silverware because my children us a new fork or spoon for each type of food they are served that never ever fit properly in the plastic organizer I had before.  And wait until you see this:

Would you like a wooden spoon?  A potato peeler?  A 1/4 teaspoon measuring spoon that was always at the very back of my disastrous drawer?  No problem, I have all those things right here where I can find them.

Really, I love these drawer organizer things.  Mine are Copco Mesh Cutlery Trays from Bed Bath & Beyond (never buy anything there without a coupon, you know that, right?) and they come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and configurations, and I highly recommend you upgrade from those horrible molded plastic things you likely have now.

(Photo credit: me in my new kitchen)