Simple Abundance by Adore

Quickly, intellectually bludgeon your faith

2013-05-02T15:38:00.002-07:00

As I have promised before (Welcome to the Involuntary Agnostics Association), I will not pointlessly argue the existance of any deity. However, this evening while I sipped my mocha and read my book in my favorite cafe, two young men sat near me and debated semantic religious crap over a table piled high with bibles, bible study guides, bible study guide study guides, bible study guide study guide outlines, cheat sheets and who knows what else.
"...well define sin!", one challenged heatedly. Define sin?
The bible tells you all the sins in length. Read Deuteronomy. Its like an instruction manual for the conceptually retarded.
"Don't touch your pee-pee"
"Don't touch his pee-pee"
"Don't fuck goats, bats, armadillos, cows, pidgeons, camels, ducks, (etc)..."
Or, for the more advanced jr. theologian, there is always the ten commandments. They pretty much sum it all up for you in ten basic "guideline" rules.
Then, the sandle wearing hippy showed up. He had a rather interesting idea: "Love your neightbor as yourself, love God above all else."
The god part I am unable to give endorsement for but will you kill your neighbor if you are busy loving him? Its the golden rule people, must I get my ruler out? "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
or the wiccans... "Do as ye will, lest ye hurt none."
Most religions have a similar universal guideline. In my humble yet usually misguided, misspelled and often offensive opinion; if you attend "Church" once a week and are obviously taking some sort of class, this should all be quite apparent.
If you cannot already tell, I was once a victim of Catholic schooling and by far the most annoying part is the unrelenting mental thrashing they perpetuate upon themselves and their children as they hurl themselves headlong against the archaic walls of the Bible with the expressed purpose of comming up with the exact same conclusion they have for the past 2000 years.
I am again, a firm beliver in admitting we know nothing and trying to handle that fact as gracefully as possible, but if you are going to insist upon being a devout christian please do me a favor and stop embarrassing yourself in the intellectual arena.
You choose faith, and so I now submit to you that by the time you have chosen to follow in faith, you know all that you need to know. You have heard the entire bible in church sermon or read it yourself and it hardly offers much insight that cannot be inferred by the perceptual. Nothing new has been added, and when it has the church will be sure to notify you and where they fail the media shall surely succeed.
"So did Jesus think (blah)?"
"What do they really mean by (blah)?"
I have a question for you jr. theologian...
When will they cure aids? Can you help? What about Cancer, hunger, beaten wives and children? That slob hopped up on a few too many glasses of the blood of christ about to get into his car and plow into a mini-van...
Like golf courses are a waste of land, semantic disection of faith is time lost, money lost and brain power wasted. Do you need the intellectual reassurance provided by mind numbing facts and figgures to insure your faith? I think thats sad. I don't belive in God and I think the redundant frame by frame reduction of the simple faith of a child into something like a 10 cassett PBS documentary on the Kennedy assasination is as far from the proposed goals of the basic christian doctrine as you can possibly get.
Stop being so fucking high and mighty, get out of your class rooms, your churches and towers and go HELP someone. You want to make it to heaven; the collection plate ain't gonna cover it compadre.
If you want the key to getting into heaven (because we all know thats the only reason anyone is good; won't get into heaven if you don't behave), I can tell you.

Be nice...
and stop being such a self serving prick. Remmeber? 2000 years ago the "son of man" told you all this, and now you are being reminded by an Agnostic who can't spell. You don't need a fucking rule book or divine interpretation, you need swarms of locusts and a nice long walk in the shoes of Job. argh... *breath*

If I tried to say I was not Ignorant and lazy, I would then be a liar too. ;)
I suppose I did not clarify enough during my little rant and was misinterpreted on a few points, but in the interest of not being pitch-forked I won't defend myself against any of the other accusations.
Its not that I don't think you should be intellegent and use your mind but for the most part, Christians I have met do not partake in the teachings of Jesus, the golden rule. They know the dictionary definition of sin, but do they do anything that warrents calling themselves christian? I am not going to sit here and talk bad about christians as one lump of people, what I am disappointed in is the fact that you can sit here and waste time teaching a person how to be nice. But WHY? They don't teach sociology in religion class.
If you sin, you go to hell.
If you are naughty, Santa will put coal in your stalking.
What the hell is the spiritual value of that crap? Be nice to save your own hide. A favorite teaching of mine to be sure. Teaching a person how to look inside themselves for their own spirituality would be of a much greater value. I have been to Catholic school, and you can call me a moron all you would like. Did I pay attention? Yes. I got A's in religion. Frankly, it makes me sad because I didn't LEARN anything of value. It was like a bad history class. They don't teach you how to look inside yourself, or even touch on more advanced reasoning for being a good person. That is what I am getting at. Religious history is static, does one need to learn it over and over to be a good person?

Better yet, how about sitting in a church with 200 bored, rich, white, old people who spend the entire sermon thinking about what sort of doughnuts they are going to have at the reception. Can you possibly hope to explain that to me? You don't need to justify your faith to me, but if you could explain that part to me as a favor, all sarcasm aside, it would be a great insight to me since I have never been able to figure it out.

I mean, the two young men I was speaking of in the beginning went on later to disect some Psalm while one of them calmy tried to justify pre-marital sex. I belive in pre-marital sex, but really...

I just find it sad that spiritual education lacks the spiritual so very badly and compensates by making it cerebral

Your radical ideas about religion, society and individualism have already occurred to others

2013-05-02T15:28:00.001-07:00

That may well be, but when you are sixteen years old, and beginning to question everything your parents and teachers have ever told you, revelations such as these are a big damn thing in your eyes. Right now you won't care if some dead philosopher has already come to these conclusions, all that matters is that you're thinking for yourself.

When you grow up a bit more, it is very likely that you'll want to (or at least attempt to) read some of the writings from these philosophers, but statements such as these are really irrelevant.

I remember the first time I met someone who was *gasp shock horror* - an Unbeliever such as myself. I know the feeling of 'wow, someone's already thought of this before', but it doesnt mean that your views or 'radical ideas' are any less valid.

Who cares if these ideas of religion as a mechanism of social control have already occured to others? At least you're thinking them.

Olay Fresh Effects

2013-04-05T06:36:00.000-07:00

After seeing an ad for the new Olay Fresh Effects line of products I was very curious and eager to try these. This line seemed to be perfect for my oily skin! To be honest, I was reeled in by the pretty blue and green packaging…that does happen on occasion . I really wanted to try the BB Cream but could not find the products at any of the nearby drugstores. I surprisingly received the Va-Va-Vivid! Powered Contour Cleansing System in my Influenster sweetheart voxbox, and was thrilled!.

This little set included a battery-powered cleansing tool and a small (o.68 fl oz) Shine, Shine, Go Away Shine Minimizing Cleanser. You can see how small both of these items are here. I travel with these, since I love my Clarisonic:

The brush and bristles are all soft rubber and when you turn it on it vibrates for deep clean action. I have to say the shape of the brush is pretty genius! It definitely is great for getting into the curves of your nose, etc.

The cleanser is a pearly/silver cream-type, medium consistency and does not produce much of a lather. It has a really nice fresh scent. The instructions say to add the cleanser to the brush but when I did that the cleanser just sunk down into the bristles and disappeared, making cleansing next to impossible. What worked better for me was putting the cleanser on my face, massaging it in a bit, then using the cleansing tool for about 1 minute on the face. I concentrated the most on my T-zone to help eliminate clogged pores.

The cleanser does make my skin feel a bit tight afterwards which I don’t love. I feel it does keep my face as clean as any decent cleanser and I experienced no breakouts. It claims to be a “deep clean that has all the purifying power of a mask, but lathers and rinses like a daily cleanser”. However, I did not see anything outstanding about this cleanser as far as a deep clean. My main gripe is that it seemed like I had to use quite a bit of product to work up a little lather. I do love the shape of the brush and think that alone is truly unique! The small size of this little power cleansing brush makes it awesome for traveling. I would not re-purchase the cleanser since it did not do anything outstanding for my skin.

I received these products complimentary from Influenster.com to share with you guys. Thanks, Influenster!

Have you tried anything from the new Olay Fresh Effects line yet?

SugarBee Beauty Review

2013-04-04T22:51:00.005-07:00

Let me start by saying that Caroline of SugarBee Beauty kicks some serious face. Not only are we kindred spirits in some of the same hurdles in life, but she has a nose keen for some amazing scents.

Caroline concocts bath and beauty products, all by hand. Her soaps are done bar by bar, which is time consuming but the effort is well worth it. I've never seen her produce an ugly bar yet! She's recently started making bath bombs, melts and massage bars, which i've become an absolute sucker for. Her products make you feel pampered, princessy and relaxed. They were awesome for a long day of nannying. Actually, come to think of it..

My nanny kids HATED bathing. I'm talking like, 4-5 days without a bath. When I busted out Carolines Bath melts, The eldest spent at least an hour in the tub, and the middle child chose a bath bomb, which she adored. So, awesome products for adults and snarky children who hate bathing.

What I love most about Caroline and Sugarbee is that she's a small company, and does this for her love of quality products at decent prices, and she puts so much friggin love into every product. Everything is hand labeled, and packaged with love. She puts a ton of time and effort into her products, and could most definitely charge more.

She has an amazing knack for making dupes, especially LUSH ones! I fell in love with her Honey I washed the kids, Sex bomb, Trichomania and Jungle scents, and have yet to try many, many more.
She won't dupe anything unless its dead on, which is awesome. She's also pretty darn good at duping Tokyo Milk, which I'm also a sucker for.

Now, I'm going to share some Sugarbee Porn and I suggest you go visit Caroline, because you won't regret it!

Seriously awesome hand labelled perfume sticks, packed with tons of fragrance!

Just a peek at the 300 some odd soaps Caroline makes individually, packed full of love. Aren't the star and ghoul ones awesome?

Smal vials of Caroline's perfume, this stuff lasts forever and is very concentrated.

Last but not least, her bath bombs rock my socks off. They leave you silky soft, and make bathtime more fun!

The more we support Caroline, the bigger she can grow, therefore creating lots of awesome products for us to look for in the future. She has serious talent, and will be a ferocious rival to some of the larger companies eventually. Check her out at Sugar Bee Beauty

Cute Rockabilly Dresses for spring!

2013-04-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

Since spring is here, I've been anxiously awaiting the warmer non rainy days to bust out my retro dresses and heels. Of course, I've been shopping for new ones too. These are some pieces i've either recently picked up or plan on picking up. :)

..I also have a confession. I've been shaving my legs with my husband's razor, because the blades fall at a better angle.

The Hellbunny Alaska dress was one of the first I bought, because I couldnt resist a nice halter dress to match a hot pink petticoat to put underneath. These run a little small, so i'd buy a size up. hand wash only, the design is killer!

The Sourpuss Dropout Dress has been a favorite of mine lately, because its easy to pair with some cute heels or oxfords and is comfortable to nanny, garden, bake, and play around in.

Every girl needs a Polka dot dress. Since my closet is full of blacks, greys and whites, I decided on this pretty pink Sourpuss sweetheart number because I had an awesome pink skull and crossbone fur lined cardi and umbrella to match it on rainy days. Last but not least, I plan on ordering these two next. I'm a huge fan of nautical rockabilly dresses, and classic prints such as gingham, cherries, stripes etc.

The HellBunny Horizon dress is going to be awesome for rainy days, or days where I dont feel like wearing much color. Plus, it'll match a lot of my tattoos.

The is a must have for many different looks. Whether it's vintage, mod chic, rockabilly, or just plain lolita cutesy, I've decided I MUST have it.

What are you digging for spring? Lately, we've had tons of rain and it's been jeans, pencil skirts, hoodies and cardigans. Now that the sun is out, it's time for pretty dresses!

Dreamy little humans

2013-04-04T20:33:00.005-07:00

Amish Mafia

2013-04-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

Yeah right. These guys are about as Amish as I am.

The Amish Mafia is another one of those so called reality tv shows being crammed down the throats of the viewing public by the Discovery Channel. Anybody who thinks that this is indeed real ought to have his or her head examined. Let's start with the premise.

Remember back in 2006 when five Amish girls were killed and five more were seriously injured by a lone gunman as they attended school? Apparently this incident sparked a cry within the Amish community that they were in need of protection from the outside world and since they didn't want anything to do with local law enforcement they decided to look within. Thus, the Amish Mafia was born.

Set in the farmlands of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania the Amish Mafia tells the story of how its members try and protect the community from outside sources and at times, even from themselves. Here's a brief look at the Dutch version of La Cosa Nostra and their not so secret society.

The don of the Amish Mafia goes by the name "Lebanon Levi" (real name Levi King Stoltzfus). If you got a problem, you go talk to Levi. Nothing gets done without his approval. How he got to be the head of the family is uncertain but his (as well as the other members of the cast) "Amishness" must be called into question. The dude drives a late model car, uses a cell phone as well as many other modern day conveniences that any true Amish person would be shunned for. I think he even has a Facebook account.

Next in the chain of command is Alvin (real name Alvin Stoltzfus Lance). He's Levi's go to guy when it comes to seeking advice. Sorta like an Amish consigliere. If you wanna talk to Levi, you gotta go through Alvin first.

Next is some guy named Jolin. Jolin freely admits to not being Amish but claims to be a Mennonite. This purportedly allows him to do some rather nasty stuff that other members of the Amish Mafia cannot due to their religious beliefs. I guess he's the brawn behind the brains of the outfit. The Amish enforcer?

Then there's John (real name John Freeman Schmucker). He's the latest recruit to join the Amish Mafia and his role seems to be evolving as the series moves on. I think he wants to eventually oust Levi as head of the family.

Last but not least you have the "Amish hottie" or, depending on how you look at it, the "Amish cockteaser". Her name is Esther (real name Esther Freeman Schmucker or as user JD points out "cockSchmucker") and is John's sister. Apparently she's Levi's love interest and she leads him on and flirts with him on more than one occasion. She usually does this when her brother fucks up and to get him back in Levi's good graces.

Wait, I forgot one or two others who make cameo appearances now and then.

Of course you have to have a black dude every once in awhile to round out the cast. Enter one Alan Beiler (the Schwarz Amish if you will). Apparently he relocated from that hotbed of Amish activity known as Brooklyn, New York when he was young and was taken in by the community. He's sort of a renegade and once was in cahoots with Levi but has turned against him after spending some time behind bars.

To make things more interesting you have to have an outsider and some kind of turf war. That outsider is one Merlin Miller. He's from another Amish community located in Wilmot, Ohio and wants to take over Levi's territory. His main henchman is a dwarf sized companion (maybe Mennonite?) who does all his dirty work.

I won't go into each episode individually but suffice to say they're pretty farfetched. The Amish, especially the younger ones, are depicted as a pretty partying people. They drink like fish, smoke weed (called "green corn" by the locals), have mixed martial arts fights, visit prostitutes, hold souped up buggy races and if memory serves I think I caught a scene of Esther riding a mechanical bull. It almost makes me want to convert and I'm a pretty partying girl as it is.

They're also pretty violent. They think nothing of smashing up other peoples buggies or blowing holes in other pieces of property using a shotgun.

You'd think that the Discovery Channel would peddle this stuff as fiction and in a small sense they do. There's a disclaimer that states many of the scenes that are depicted in each episode are "reenactments" of actual events.

I'd ask an actual Amish person of their opinion of the show but they aren't talking. It's my personal feeling that they're being exploited and characterized in a way that would make them ashamed. True to their roots, I'm betting they're living by the old Amish saying which states :

"You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lip."

The folks at the Discovery Channel who pimped this as real should take heed of that advice.

For more on how distasteful and exploitive this show really is, I highly recommend this article over at Salon.

Source(s)

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/amish-mafia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_Mafia

Not Your Mothers Beach Babe Texturizing Spray Review

2013-04-04T17:16:00.001-07:00

Not your Mother's Beach Babe Texturizing Sea Salt Spray acts almost like a hairspray for wet hair and is one of the best ways to dry your hair without using heat based styling tools. Infused with natural dead see salt and sea kelp this salon formula has you and your hair on the boardwalk all year long. Since Not your Mother's Beach Babe Texturizing Sea Salt Spray contains sea salt that has a natural tendency to soak up water, it is highly recommended that you use moisture rich shampoo, conditioner or even a leave in conditioner.

Not your Mother's Beach Babe Texturizing Sea Salt Spray is very easy to use as the nozzle spray is precise, simply spray and go! Give your wet, damp hair or dry hair a refreshing misty spray, comb through your hair, now style as you please! Scrunch your hair up for a just left the beach effect. You can even twist, curl and roll up your hair with clips for bigger and heavier waves. If you put up your hair, take your hair out once it is slightly dry and see the results.

My results are fantastic, I simply rolled my hair into a bun and left it my hair up for an hour. My hair came down dry transformed into full bodied beach waves. I compare this product to Bumble and Bumble's surfs up! ..except with better results! I've been a huge fan of this line since I spotted it on the shelves, and use their volumizing hairspray and texturizing power daily. Not only do the products deliver, but they smell great, have awesome ingredients, and adorable packaging!

Secret Clinical Strength Advanced Solid Anti-Perspirant review

2013-04-04T17:02:00.001-07:00

Secret has always claimed that it’s “strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.” I’ve tried their products before, and while they smelled nice enough to mask whatever odor I might have been producing, they didn’t stop me from perspiring — until now. Price: $8.29 at drugstore.com

For the first time in my entire adult life, I have found an antiperspirant that actually stops me from perspiring. My problem has never been odor. It’s been the wetness. Put me in any stressful situation, and I sweat buckets. So to me, the deodorant feature of most women’s antiperspirants was irrelevant. I just wanted to stop sweating!

When I first saw advertising for Secret Clinical Strength, I was skeptical, but hopeful. The directions say to apply it at night, before bed, which I thought was odd. But it made sense — most of us apply antiperspirant right after we shower, while our pores are open, which means it would just soak in. Applying at night, before bed, gives it time to work its charm.

The scent is strong, almost overpowering, but it actually mixes well with the lotion I put on before bed each night, which is a plus. The day after I first applied it was my first day of class this semester, which is pretty stressful for me. I woke up, ate breakfast, got dressed… still no sweat! As I drove to class, I was feeling a little apprehensive, but still… no sweat! All day, my shirt remained dry. I was thrilled! True to its promise, I stayed dry.

I’ve used Secret Clinical every night since then, and have stayed dry, fresh, and happy. I’ve read other reviews from women who haven’t had the same luck with it, but I couldn’t be happier. The scent is a bit strong, especially if you usually use scent-free products, but it’s worth it. Do you have any experience with this product? Would you try it out?

Garnier Triple Nutrition Miracle Dry Oil Review

2013-04-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

Bzzagent sent me this product to try, and I was really excited. I'm a hair junkie, always coloring, cutting, and trying new styles and product. Since I do heat styling daily, my hair ends up pretty parched! This stuff is an awesome multi-purpose product for hair, skin and nails. I also use it after shaving to give my skin an extra sheen, and as a tattoo refresher!
The oil itself consists of olive, avocado, and shea oil, which is really emollient and great for hair and skin. I was using three of the products in this line in the shower, but my husband complained of the super slippery floors after busting his butt many times. :)
Great feeling on skin right after shower. Super cheap, not the best fragrance, but it doesn't hang around. My skin feels smooth and soft, but only on the surface.I would not hesitate to put this on my face, but my skin is dry to begin with, so this wouldn't be enough. I couldn't find silicone or dimethicone in the ingredient listing, which I appreciate.
On to the hair. Word of Warning: LESS IS MORE. I sprayed this all over my damp hair this morning (like 5 spritzs) and now my long, fine, straight hair looks greasy like I haven't washed it in a month. I tried it the other day on dry hair by spraying once into my hand and then rubbing it into the ends, and that worked pretty well. Calmed down flyaways too - bonus.
Packaging. Cute, but smooth. Smooth plastic + wet and oily hands right out of the shower = SLIPPERY! I highly recommend spraying into your hand and then spreading around, as there's lots of .overspray to make your bathroom floor slippery too.. Overall: I'd buy this again, because it's under $5 and has multiple applications.

self professed tea whore.

2013-02-07T14:08:00.002-08:00

First off, tea is a fantastic drink on its own. Tea comes in a huge range of surprising, delightful varieties, from delicate Oolong to full-bodied Assam, with a zillion different fragrances and aromas to enjoy. So if you insist on drinking it unaccompanied (unadulterated, if you prefer), there's still plenty to enjoy. However, what with tea being a popular drink around the world for several millenia (centuries, in more backward parts), people have come up with a whole list of things to infuse along with their tea leaves or bags. These are not so-called "herbal teas" (which aren't tea at all), but rather flavourful additives to put a new twist on the same basic taste. Try them! I've indicated what goes with hot or cold tea, and black or green. I think oolong goes with whatever black tea goes with (but Oolong dissents and, quite frankly, I probably have to bow to authority on this one). Note well: some of these additions will need a few minutes longer to brew than your tea. Let them brew, or you won't feel the taste. Milk. Duh. In India you might get tea made with milk rather than water. In the civilised world (aka Great Britain) tea is water-based, but served with a splash of (cold) milk. For hot black tea only! Yummy. Some Brits will tell you to brew the tea, then pour it over cold milk. Non-dairy creamer or whatever they call it in your area is just marginally edible Tippex and should be avoided at all costs. Frothy cappuccino-machine milk is not an improvement. Sugar. One or two teaspoons. Makes your drink, well, sweeter. The chemical non-sugar artificial sweeteners will do if you're on a diet, or diabetic. Green tea requires much less sugar, or none at all (true East Asian style). Brown sugar or any non-standard sugar add variety and interest. Goes well with practically anything else on the list, and takes the edge off many of them (and off some bitter teas). Especially fine with milk (to make an ISO standard cup of tea). Honey. Another fine sweetener, and very good for a sore throat. Possibly a German(?) idea. Lemon (or lime. Squeeze a few drops, or notch a slice and stick it on the rim of your mug (or glass, if you're going Russian), or drop a wedge or slice in the drink (to get the most out of the aromatic peel). Great for hot or cold tea. Also, takes away the aftertaste of tea made with hard water. Orange or other citrus fruits will also do (the peels, mostly), especially in cold tea. See also: lemon tea. Blossoms. Various flowers give tea a delicate, fragrant quality. Jasmine and cherry blossoms are well-known examples, and you can buy tea mixed with them. Gritchka also points out rose petal tea, which is very popular too. One or two flowers/petals per cup should be enough, but this depends on how fragrant the flowers are... When you buy jasmine tea, or whatever, the flowers are usually dried, but fresh ones are actually what provides the best flavour; apparently, the flowers you find in bought jasmine tea are there purely for decoration. The extra aroma might take longer to infuse than the tea base. Wait for a few minutes before discarding (if you discard at all) and drinking. Make sure you're using edible flowers only! See also: jasmine tea. Herbs. Tea with various herbs is a Middle Eastern classic (although, to add to the confusion, so is herb-only "tea"). These are equally good for hot and cold tea. Spearmint, verbena, lemon grass, some varieties of sage, and a bitter herb I know only by the Arab (Morrocan?) name "shiba", are all good herbs to add to black or green tea. Oolong says basil is good, too, although I can't bring myself to try. Herbs don't go with milk, ever. Lemon is fine, but frequently overpowering. Mixing herbs is great. The extra aroma might take longer to infuse than the tea base. Wait for a few minutes before discarding (if you discard at all) and drinking. See also: Moroccan Tea. Vanilla sugar. Make some vanilla sugar, and use it instead of the regular stuff (in similar amounts). Especially good with milk, too. Adding vanilla essence is similar, but not nearly as nice. This is much better than the vanilla tea you can buy ready-made in teabags, which is usually yucky. Spirits. More for you ethanol fans than adorers of camellia sinensis, but still... Some people like a drop of brandy in their tea. I think basically this is just an excuse to imbibe more brandy, but give it a try. Other spirits? I haven't heard of that, but I'm sure you can experiment. Updated: wertperch suggests a drop of whisky (aka whiskey); he swears it's just for the flavour. Apple juice. Add concentrate to your black tea, or use hot (diluted) apple juice instead of water to steep the tea in. I think this is a Turkish thing, maybe, as you can get Turkish black tea leaves flavoured with apples. You can also drop chopped fresh apple in your steaming-hot tea and let it infuse. Other fruit juice (e.g. berries) will also do, in particular in cold teas, but don't drown out the tea. Jam. This is an old-fashioned Russian notion, I think. You get some nice fruit preserves or jam, and either stir a spoonful or two in your tea, or take a good lick from it before every sip of tea. Nice, but it can get to be a bit like slurping liquid jam. See also: Russian tea. Fruit extracts. I've never managed quite to achieve the taste of store-bought fruit teas (real tea, not the fruity infusions on sale everywhere). Black tea is soaked in almond or lychee or cherry extract (essence?), so that brewing it releases a soft, enchanting bouquet. I guess any extract you like will do. Spices. Indian (or Indian-inspired) chai is made with (some or all of) cloves, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, ginger (fresh, dried, or ground), black pepper (!) or Szechwan pepper, and allspice. Any of these is very nice with black tea. Chai is traditionally very milky, and sweet, and the tea is cooked, not just infused. If you don't use lots of milk, some of the spices will have to be toned down (the pepper, in particular!). Vanilla is also appropriate. Experiment with any brown spices... Rice. Yup, rice. sighmoan says: the Japanese make something called Genmai Cha, which is green tea mixed with roasted brown rice -- it has a flavor reminiscent of popcorn. Not something to put in brewed tea, of course; the tea and rice are steeped together. You can buy it already mixed or buy the puffed rice separately (at health food stores?) and add it yourself to the tea leaves. But Pound Fool objects: buying puffed rice doesn't taste the same as using toasted. It's best to just buy it from a place like the Republic of Tea. See also rice tea. Boba. lolaleigh explains: it's a Chinese thing. Giant black tapioca pearls in tea, coffee, or really whatever you may be drinking. See pearl tea and Boba Drinks (but not Boba Fett). Oil of Bergamot. Can't believe I forgot this on the first pass. You don't actually add this yourself (at least, I've no idea where to get it), but the nice people at Twinings (or whoever) add it to your tea to make Earl Grey. Scrumptious. Goes naturally with milk and sugar. Update! Wick knows how to do this: "You could get bergamot seeds and either put them in whole or crack them open and grind the seeds in. That's what I do." Yak butter. Never tried this one. But see yak butter tea.

For white girls who have considered afro products

2013-02-07T14:05:00.002-08:00

After reading arcanamundi's words about the world of the afro products, I was scared to try them. I have naturally wavy hair. Translated, that means I have what appears to most people to be straight yet frizzy hair. I've always had baby-fine hair, and I despise using any products that require time and energy on my part. I have found that I have two options with my hair: 1) wash my hair only about once a week, and at that point it looks crummy and dry for at least two days following, but limp and lifeless for the other five; or 2) spend 30 minutes with the hair straightener for special occassions when I want to look extra special. Even after using massively moisturizing conditioners and leave-in treatments like frizz-ease, trying to straighten with a hair dryer is still not enough. After concluding that my hair care regimen needed a serious overhaul, I went on the hunt for a conditioner containing no alcohol. This turned out to be nearly impossible. At the local supermarket, I found myself hunting through the afro products. I frequently put baby oil in my hair after washing while I moisturize the rest of my wet self, so when I spotted a product which seemed like nothing more than a few oils in pomade form, I took it home. I had purchased Kuza, which advertized itself as 100% Indian Hemp hair and scalp treatment, but as I said before, it looked mostly like brown pomade. There was a slight pleasant odor. Of course, there were no instructions on the container, so I was left with my rockabilly knowledge of pomade. My method for use may or may not be how you're really supposed to use these products, but I've had excellent results. Here's what I do: I wash my hair using Nature's Gate herbal shampoo and conditioner which contain no alcohol. I towel dry my hair, and while it's still very wet, I scoop out a teeny tiny amount of the Kuza. By tiny, I mean think of the amount of moisturizer you pump out to put on your face. Generally, not more than what would just barely give one fingertip a thin coating. Rub the goo between your palms to warm it up and thin it out a bit. Your hands should feel a little greasy, but shouldn't feel coated in goo. Gently smooth the goo through the wet hair, doing everything possible to coat evenly, although you seem to have only a tiny amount of junk. Comb through, and style as usual. Using the Kuza, I have now been washing my hair two or more times per week, but only smooshing on the goo once a week. It does tend to build up, since it seems that there's no way to wash it out. If you use too much, (as arcanamundi points out) you are in serious trouble as you are stuck with greasy hair til your follicles can suck up the oils (or so it seems). For this reason, I strongly suggest trying this out once or twice on days when you plan to be sitting on the couch watching movies in your pj's all day.

Adorable Korean Flu shots

2013-01-10T06:36:00.002-08:00

you’ve got the bug that’s been going around, watch this adorable Korean animation about getting a cold and you’ll instantly feel much better. What could be cuter than a happy flu shot?

I'd already be Buddhist if it weren't for all of these spiders!

2013-01-10T06:33:00.004-08:00

My Own Misconceptions First and foremost, I am what most people would call an atheist or nontheist. I had thought that since many people refer to Buddhism as a religion that it required a belief in some sort of deity that I couldn't see. Buddhism is actually a bring-your-own-deity philosophy. Buddhism doesn't supply any deities for you, but you can have your own if you like. No one is going to get upset about it either way.
Another misconception I held about Buddhism was that Buddhists are all vegetarian. I knew that Buddhists are supposed to refrain from killing things, even ants and such, so it stands to reason that they wouldn't eat meat since it would require the death of an animal. It turns out many Buddhists, even some Buddhist monks, eat meat. There are a couple of great nodes about this under Buddhist vegetarians. For various reasons I do eat meat, although I would probably never kill an animal myself or directly cause one to be killed for my diet.
My third (and just plain silly) misconception was that Buddhists wouldn't like my gun collection. I enjoy target shooting and don't own guns so I can kill people or animals (I don't hunt). So it stands to reason that my guns aren't specifically offensive to Buddhists. I haven't confirmed this with actual Buddhists, so if you are one and/or happen to know how Buddhists get along with guns, please enlighten me.
Becoming a Buddhist So what does it take to become a Buddhist? Most of the sources I've found on this question indicate that you simply have to declare yourself a Buddhist and try to accept the teachings of Buddha. Fortunately Buddhism is big on lists and there are three main checklists of Buddha's teachings, at least for lay-Buddhists (for monks the lists are more complicated and aren't covered here). The simplified lists (with links to the more complicated versions) are shown below.
The Four Noble Truths
The Buddha taught four truths, as follows:
All beings are subject to suffering
The cause of suffering is ignorance
Ignorance, the cause of suffering, can be overcome
The way to overcome ignorance is the Eightfold Path
There are many translations of the word "ignorance" in item two, sometimes people say it is "cravings" or "desire". Any of the words seem to fit well.
The Eightfold Path
I'll leave it to real Buddhists to explain the Eightfold Path, however it is my understanding that "right" isn't quite the proper translation and you may want to substitute the words "harmonious" or "appropriate" in its place in this list:
Right understanding
Right thought
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration
The Five Precepts
And finally, there are The Five Precepts, which are a sort of code of conduct for Buddhists to follow:
To abstain from killing living beings
To abstain from taking things not freely given
To abstain from sexual misconduct
To abstain from false speech
To abstain from intoxicating drinks and drugs causing heedlessness
Of course this is where I get into trouble, as noted in the title of this. I lived in a house in the woods which has a neverending supply of spiders. Big, hairy, nasty, icky ones. I've killed 3 or 4 huge brown recluse spiders this week. Brown recluse spiders have venom which is quite toxic to humans and is sometimes fatal. It can also remain active in your body for years, causing great pain and illness. And yes, I wad up paper towels and squish them as quickly as I can. I don't like spiders in my house.
My feelings toward spiders outside my house are quite different. For example, if I come home from work and find a spider has created a new web across my front door, blocking the entrance to my home, I'll use a stick to clear the web and gently place the spider out in the woods.
Conclusion
My final misconception was that any of these rules or precepts or truths were absolute. Buddhism doesn't take itself too seriously. Buddhism tries, and quite successfully at that, to prevent itself from getting in the way of you discovering your own truth. None of the aformentioned rules are handed to you by an angry god who will punish you if you don't get them right. It seems like the goal of Buddhism is to help you find the path, but let you walk it at your own pace.
Having discovered all these things, I guess I am a Buddhist whether I admit it or not. All of the above precepts and truths make sense to me. I'd like to try and understand them better. And there are no mysterious hoops to jump through as part of being a Buddhist. I don't have to skip eating meat on Fridays, or go to confession, or even visit a temple.
I guess I'll try and do something else with the spiders all over the place. Maybe I should buy a cat?

Why I'm not a fan of eating meat

2013-01-10T06:13:00.006-08:00

I don't eat meat at this time in my life because I don't like the taste, plain and simple, and the last time I ate meat inspired my first ever bulimic inclination. Eating meat makes me feel guilty, I don't know why but what is the point of figuring it out, I ask you? Let's face it, the world will be a better place if I do not eat meat. Let me list the reasons, but let me also tell you these are not my reasons for being a vegetarian (I don't even consider myself by any word), they just reinforce my choices should they ever be confronted.
I personally can't handle the idea that a living creature could suddenly be slaughtered, and yet I walk about gleefully and ignorantly, and then sit down and have a lovely dinner where I might mention something as inconsequential as Angelina Jolie's latest tattoo, chewing on my little pieces of dead thing. I have tried to like protein foods, I swear. But the very texture makes me want to throw up. For a while, as I was younger, I wanted to try fish but could never quite get my head around how I could explain the ethics of that one. Voila, a little hippie girl made a speech in English class about how fish aren't specifically reared and bred in little pens to be eaten; they are just swimming around, it is random, and if we didn't eat it, a shark would. That was enough justification for me. But I don't like the taste anyway. And for those who say that if I don't like the idea of killing anything, why do I eat plants? I have thought if this one. I don't want to I feel bad even about eating plants. Although we all seem to do a good job pretending anything that doesn't move or show its pain, isn't a live. Id love to live solely on fruit (and no, you do not have to kill anything to eat fruit, in fact you are doing the plant a favour).
I don't like the idea of contributing to the problem of overconsumption. It is true that I am not doing much about world poverty, but I am very glad I am not (quite selfishly) chowing down to my little slab of meat, knowing how many tonnes of grain were fed in a cows lifetime to produce a few family's with a little carnivorous joy. That grain could solve world hunger.
I don't want to add further disease and yukky things to the earth. The idea of an abbatoir freaks me out. The idea of tall smoky industrial buildings kills me. I long for a planet where everybody looks after each and every square of the soil.. where we make sure nothing is uncared for, nothing is ugly or festering or dangerous. On this earth, everything's okay if we don't have to see it everyday.
lastly, I know it is not good for me. There might be a whole lot of you predisposed people out there who will tell me it is essential to a healthy diet, and all, that bullsh!t, but I say, eff off. What evidence is there that vegetarians live a shorter, or less healthy life because of their absence of meat's godly nutrients? This is just another one of those cases where the typical, non thinking humans that society pumps out, decide to make their choices feel better by attacking people who choose to think with their non substantiated views. "Meat is good for you", says who? The same man who says this will probably die of cancer or something tomorrow.
Okay, now I am being just as defensive. The point is, I just don't want to. And what's healthy for one person might not be healthy for another. If you have ever heard of the Blood Type Diet, apparently people of different blood are supposed to have varied diets.. for example people with Type A blood descend from primarily farmer types, and are therefore better off, genetically, subsisting on a vegetarian diet.
The people who say there are certain nutrients in meat you cannot get anywhere else piss me off. Yes this might be true, but we also may not need these nutrients. The tendency of society to spread disinformation also means that we sometimes miss the point when coming to decide how healthful a food is. For instance, milk. "It has a lot of calcium". Yes it does, but this does not make milk good for us. In fact, it is downright terrible. Allow me to deviate now, as I tend to do, to prove my point: The Orientals and Africans knew this; they have traditionally avoided milk (except as a purgative). All we have to do is look at nature to see why; I mean we see that the young feed exclusively on milk until weaned away from it with other foods. The natural disappearance of lactase (the milk-digesting enzyme) from the human system upon reaching maturity proves that adult humans have no more nutritional need for milk than adult tigers or chimpanzees. In fact, what happens is that milk curdles immediately upon entering the stomach, so if if I may get all technical here, there is other food present the curds coagulate around other food particles and insulate them from exposure to gastric juices, delaying digestion long enough to permit the onset of putrefaction. Today, milk is made even more indigestible by the universal practice of pasteurization, which destroys its natural enzymes and alters its delicate proteins. If any of this is insufficient proof of the ill effects of pasteurized milk, take note of the fact even that newborn calves fed on pasteurized milk taken from their own mother cows usually die within six months, a fact which the commercial dairy industry is loathe to admit. Women worried about osteoporosis should take note of these facts about pasteurized milk products. That such denatured milk does not deliver sufficient calcium to prevent this condition is abundantly evident from the fact that American women, who consume great quantities of pasteurized milk products, suffer the world's highest incidence of osteoporosis. Raw cabbage, for example, supplies far more assimilable calcium than any quantity of pasteurized milk, yoghurt, cottage cheese, or any other denatured dairy product. It is found that to prevent osteoporosis we should really be looking toward the element boron. Where is this found? In fresh fruits and vegetables, especially apples, pears, grapes, nuts, cabbage, and other leafy vegetables, where we also find calcium. Nature has already provided abundant sources of all the vital nutrients we need in synergeticc form, but man insists upon cooking and processing them to death. Basically, if a baby stops needing milk from its mother, what then brings us to think, oh, not only will we keep feeding it milk, we will start feeding it milk from another species? I'd love to have been around to see how the first cow milk drinker justified that.
The point of my milk rant was to show you how ill informed our society really is when it comes to health, and the way in which people can be carried away with how many 'nutrients' are in something, just to justify eating it, without even giving notice to the damage it might actually too. Meat for example (since this is the topic of the node) is considered healthy.. why exactly? I have forgotten. Iron? Okay. So it has lots of iron. And protein. It is also pervasively contaminated with antibiotics and steroid hormones. About 40% of all the antibiotics produced in the USA are fed to cattle and other livestock, and this is passed on the consumer in every hamburger, steak, and other food products made with US beef. This daily dietary intake of antibiotics depresses the human immune system and is an important contributing factor in Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. US cattle are also fed synthetic hormones to accelerate growth, increase fat deposits, bring entire herds of cows into heat at the same time for breeding, increase milk production, and induce abortions in pregnant cows scheduled for slaughter. These hormones are suspected as a major cause of the high incidence of breast and ovarian cancer in American women, as well as premature puberty in American children. Since steroid hormone's cause cattle to grow fat fast, it also stands to reason that they cause obesity in humans who consume the meat and milk of such contaminated animals. US cattle also absorb all the herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers used to grow the feed crops on which they are forced to gorge, and a high percentage of these hapless creatures arrive at the slaughterhouse riddled with cancerous tumors and tuberculosis. All this poison is passed directly on to the consumer, so if you like to eat beef, be sure it has been organically raised without drugs and hormones, and preferably range-fed than pen-fed.
So we can now see how meat is actually probably a pretty bad choice of food. Of course, so is basically everything else and yet we are all still eating so.. Whenever we debate things like this there is always going to be a large degree of hypocrisy on both sides, although some cannot help it because of the world we were actually born into. I mean, make it possible for me to eat nothing but fresh organic fruits for the rest of my life and I goddamn will :) Until then I am force to eat things I deem less than healthful. But by god I will eat as healthy as I can. Of course, this coming from me is blatant hypocrisy.. I am worried about my health and yet I have a variety of health problems, and I have depression and I do silly things like starve too much or binge too much or cut my arm or something. I don't like to kill things but I will eat plants. I don't like taking any food from an animal but I occasionally eat dairy. I don't even want to eat dairy. I even consciously go against what I want. I don't like overconsumption and yet I waste water, use too much paper, buy too many things, etc. We're all terrible really. Give me time, I say :)
After all this thinking it is clear that its all confusing and hypocritical but I maintain that we must make choices about these things, we must be informed. It is simply not good enough for intelligent human beings to let ourselves be ignorant to these things, and yet still fore opinions in others faces. I don't give a f*ck who eats meat. I'd love very much for a world where no one ate it but I wont go around telling everybody. It appears that some meat eaters hate vegans (arguments from other nodes) plainly because they don't like the feeling that somebody is making their choices seem wrong, don't like the feeling that someone else, some group of people are rising up and claiming their superiority simply through a, what they consider to be, better diet. Yet it still does not justify some harsh treatment. Yes there are miltant vegan pigfuckers. Whats the point in being militant back? No one else's opinion on this matters. Diet is a personal thing, I merely think we each need to be informed (not preached to) and make the correct decision for ourselves. A decision, not a habit.

Acute wedding-induced insanity

2013-01-07T05:12:00.000-08:00

I've seen this in friends and friends of friends and I dearly hope to never ever see it in myself. Basically, it is a state of temporary insanity induced by an upcoming wedding. Usually it is the women involved, such as the bride and the mothers. (I'm only familiar with the symptomology of the bride.) The syndrome can last up to the entire engagement-actual wedding period. It can result in family feuds, losing lifelong friends, bankruptcy, nervous breakdown, and permanent personality disorder (if she doesn't snap out of it). Common symptoms include:

- Extreme irrationality. Victim may be heard to utter such statements as, "I know the wedding is in Alaska in January, and I know you can't afford a plane ticket, but can't you just, you know, drive from Florida to come?" Objections to these statements may provoke rage, paranoid accusations, and even physical violence.
- Loss of contact with reality. Victim may experience amathia, treating amounts of money over $10,000 as though they are pocket change. Victim will expect others to behave similarly; poor grad students with equally poor friends will register at Gump's and Neiman-Marcus and damn well expect their so-called friends to PONY UP.
- Sudden personality change. A geek girl may suddenly become obsessed with fluffy pink lace, a diehard tomboy may spend hours picking out the perfect pair of satin high heels. Victim may also begin to hallucinate, believing that all those huge bows on the bridesmaids' dresses are really just wonderfully cute.

Treatment: Patience, and not giving in on everything. There's a fine line between making your friend happy on her special day, and letting her drop out of school for a year in order to pay for the veil. Unfortunately, preventative measures such as discussing an alternative wedding often don't work, even when the bride appears to be enthusiastic about the ideas--once the real wedding looms, many revert to Princess Di images of what a wedding should be like. So just hang in there, and don't let her be paying off this wedding long after her grad school debt is gone.

N. B.: Has nothing to do with cute weddings. And yes, there's male AWIS, too, but that's usually either simple fear-of-growing-up terror on the part of the groom, or panic on the part of the fathers (who are usually justified in squawking about watching their grandchildren's inheritance go down the drain).

Blogger event (Ipad 2 sign up)

2013-01-07T02:45:00.002-08:00

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$200.00 Visa Card giveaway sign up!

2013-01-07T02:42:00.003-08:00

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2013-01-07T02:37:00.000-08:00

Blogger Opportunity

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Bad wedding ideas

2013-01-06T06:39:00.004-08:00

Once upon a time, weddings were well, simple. The bride announced her engagement, she picked a dress, she selected her bridesmaids, and Mother did most of the rest. If you lived in Oklahoma, as I do, a wedding consisted of three acts, Church, Cake (with punch, nibblies, and champagne) and Dancing, with the happy couple making their festive getaway (with rice, funky car, bouquet throw, etc.) after about three hours. It was a lovely ritual, that allowed just enough time for the two families to introduce themselves to each other, while avoiding the inevitable crankiness that comes with several hours of being cooped up with free booze. The guests ended the day with a cluster of their favorite relatives at a restaurant elsewhere, talking trash about the ceremony and giggling over how lame the other family was.

That was then. Somewhere in between then and now, weddings suddenly went from "a nice party, like Christmas, but in the spring", to somewhere between a coronation, an honor-yourself beauty pageant, a no-rules game show, and a Broadway musical. Whereas once it was considered very creative to leave out the word "obey" in the wedding vows for the woman, and it was a bit nouveau to include music intended for operas in church, now we have all manner of bizarre ceremonies, overly elaborate menus, and crass rituals masquerading as "a proper wedding".

Here are some Very Bad Ideas, and why they are such, even though they might be popular.

"After all, it's my wedding." This is usually invoked by the bride to justify putting both families in debt, offending the tastes of well, just about anyone in sight, and acting like a spoiled princess if anything goes wrong. No, it's not, really. Your parents (in theory) are giving this party; you are the guest of honor, and should behave accordingly. If you are giving the party, remember as a hostess, that your duty is to your guests. You've got a lot of people here, several generations, and two families that should leave on reasonably good terms. Therefore, think of them first. Oh, yes, do leave on time. Yes, I know you'd love to stay all night. But your guests can't leave until you do.

Sexy wedding dresses. Yes, you want to look good. But walking around flashing your boobs is well, kind of redundant when you've already landed the guy. Try for prim, or at least sweet. After all, you may not be virginal, but you can at least seem to have unrealized potential. (This may mean a lot of negotiation with your bridal shop, and some extra expense, if you aren't having this gown made by your loving relatives or yourself. The problem is, apparently, that getting sleeves and a neckline to fit on something like a bridal gown means not only extra fabric, but a whole lot of fiddly bits to outsource to those wonderful Chinese convicts who do the actual sewing on a Vera Wang, thus cutting heavily into the profit margin. Sob piteously, and claim that the minister won't bless boobies, or that your Great-Aunt Sarah won't write you into the will. Either way, you'll have a truly custom dress, not that mass-produced crap...)

Hitting people up for money. Yes, I know about a whole boatload of customs from various places: the purse, the money dance, the shoe auction, etc. That's OK, if you're a) from that particular ethnic group and b) are going to hold the wedding in the style of that group, no shower (which is a Dutch Colonial innovation, to take the place of a dowry) or other gifts asked of the guests. (Remember, you aren't going to be asked to provide proof of virginity the morning after, and very likely are going to duck having a Shivaree, as well. Count your blessings.) Along with this, there are such Bad Ideas as getting various concerns to "sponsor" the wedding, having a cash bar, etc. If you can't afford the wedding, you'll have to scale back (and if you can't fathom why, you're too young to be married).

Hitting your spouse up for money.This includes bickering about the size of the engagement ring. An engagement ring is a gift, not an inalienable right. Formulae such as "two month's salary" are not sanctified by social etiquette, but by jewelers who know a good thing when they see it. Be modest, and the time may come that you'll have the ring of your dreams...for your anniversary.

"We want to personalize our wedding." Mostly, tinkering with established standards is hazardous -- yes it's a lovely idea to have a wedding in the Scots tradition, if you've got ancestors or relatives in that country, but not if your relatives are Chinese. Deciding, just off the cuff, to throw quotes from Kalil Gibran and the Desiderata into the service, along with your favorite pop songs makes the occasion kind of hard to follow...does "We've Only Just Begun" come before the exchange of haiku, or is it after the body painting? (The same goes in spades for anyone who's decided that their wedding is going to be ironic, or clever with a "theme". OK, so you like circuses or golf, but do you want a wedding, or don't you?) And the dove and butterfly release, and this unity candle thing is touching, but isn't it a little um, presumptuous? So is making little speeches about how you really feel about your spouse -- you aren't going to be saying much that's original, if you're in love, and no one wants to hear if you're not. Trying to convince your audience that your love is realer or specialer than everyone else's is just going to sound naive to most older people (who may have felt the same way) or insulting. As it is, it's like most attempts to try to 'put emphasis' into everyday life: it just leads to a wearing emphasis escalation. If everyone comes away with a memory of a nice day, no one will forget who you are.

Double especially bad idea: Consider this 5a, only noteworthy because I see this as a trend: "Goth" weddings, Zombie weddings, Vampire weddings, memorial candles, the bride dressed in widow's weeds, mourning jewelry, black and white as a motif, anything at all that might be considered funereal to anyone in the bridal party. Sigh. I know. You absolutely thought that the Twilight series was the most romantic story ever, and you were Team Edward until you fell in love, and then, for the rehearsal dinner, you gave all your friends Team Bride and Groom T-shirts, and what's so wrong in having a celebration in your own deeply held and personal style? These days we have gay weddings, for heaven's sake! Why can't we show our everlasting love, by invoking what is truly eternal? And, I think it's touching to point out that there are people who might have liked to be here who have passed away! We held the celebrations for their lives in this very church!

Dear hearts: You are getting confused as to which rite of passage you are celebrating. Just because we love to point out that 'death is not an end, but a passage', we've forgotten that a wedding is a passage, and not an end in itself. Think of the symbolism: a funeral is a kind of divorce. Alluding, even in a wholly respectful and loving way, to a relationship that has ceased to be, bodes ill for what you hope to be a lasting one. You might not be wishing each other dead, but it certainly shows a certain lack of respect for each other that the first thing that comes to mind when talking about your love is sick, juvenile jokes and the smell of bad meat.

Too many doodads. Yes, it's nice to have party favors, and all the little bundles of white Jordan almonds look cute, especially with those silver porcelain-look wedding bells around the necks of the bicolor net bags, and wedding bubbles are fun, and kind to the pigeons and all, and well, you just wouldn't want a wedding that didn't have personalized napkins and matchboxes for people who still smoke, and gee, the wedding planner was talking about how everyone's going to need a little box to put their take-home slice of cake in... Athem. Let's get this straight. Is this a grown-up event, with some dozens of people attending, or a gala kids' birthday party for as many guests as your age, plus one? As much as you cherish the notion that everyone's going to sigh with nostalgia every time they look at the little plastic bell, most of the time there's no real way to store or display otherwise worthless doohickeys in a normal apartment or home. Also, every extra doodad, no matter how cheap, is going to have to be multiplied n-fold. It does add up. Think: would you rather that they remember your wedding for your really great courtesy and hospitable nature, or for the really great Jordan almonds?

Ducking out of thank-you notes. OK, so you never sent them as a kid, and maybe you managed to get a job without them. And you're in a four-star luxury resort in an exotic part of the globe, having hot and steamy sex every night and engaging in guilt-free drinking, dancing, gorging, active sports and sightseeing, and you are living a life the Gods would envy. Sorry. You're just going to have to hunker down with a stack of little white cards and envelopes, and learn to write a dozen variations on "Thank you for the lovely Louis XVI antique silver churn. I'm sure it will be useful, and have a place of pride in our home." while hoping the store will take it back without a sales slip. Life is hard, dying is easy, and there's no wiggle room. Those nifty preprinted cards you can leave at each person's place (so they can sign and mail it to themselves), sending out bulk laserprinted generic thank-you notes, and the like are not only cheesy, but insulting. Remember, about half of these people are people with whom you're going to want to leave a good impression. A handwritten note or letter (five minutes to fire off, a minute to address and stamp the envelope) can make the difference between "Oh, certainly I'd love to ...(take your youngest for a weekend, loan you the condo, help you in your new business...)" and "Well, I don't know, I'm a little tied up right now..." later. (This goes double if you're in the we-never-write-we-phone set.) After all, it's their family too.

"Ever since I was a child, I wanted a fairy-tale wedding." You're not one now, and fairy tales are fiction. Just look at Charles and Diana. Come to think of it, most weddings in fairy tales are usually the beginnings of disaster.

"It's the happiest day of your life." Oh, really? Gee, being married must be really boring...

Korea is a place that refuses to stand still.

2013-01-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

South Korea is a land that refuses to stand still. It's as if everything that has ever happened took place only five minutes ago, and everyone is still reeling from the shock and waiting expectantly for whatever comes next. What took the West two hundred years took South Korea twenty; as a result, two generations stand face to face straddling a small expanse of time, bewilderedly trying to make sense of each other. The consequence of this incredible progression from subsistence to uncompromising capital is a great pressure bearing down on the next generation to keep up and even increase this incredible pace of development. This pressure releases itself in ways most visible - in the face masks hiding yet another teenage nose job, the twenty-something young men moisturising on the subway, the youthful suicides strewn across the tracks at university tube stops. This insurmountable quest for perfect progress, the fear of somehow being left behind and left out of all this visible success, leaves a trail of well-hidden scars, as the past becomes just a speck in the distance of Korea's eye-view. The people have even perfected a special kind of walk to keep up with the fast pace of life, a kind of half-run shuffle, feet kept close to the ground to prevent slipping, cautious yet determinedly as fast paced as possible. Only two steps forward, and never any back, for that would spell disaster. With change so hard fought, with change the goal in itself, there is no time to look back.

Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream/Giveaway (BzzAgent)

2013-01-06T06:21:00.002-08:00

Let me start by saying i'm a complete idiot for not trying this product sooner. When I was in Cosmetology, a lot of my friends/co-workers/customers SWORE by this product, I just never picked it up. Neutrogena and Bzzagent kindly hooked me up with a few tubes to test on my alligator-esque Oklahoma winter skin. My hands/hips/feet get PAINFULLY dry in the winter time, and it's nearly impossible to find anything that even remotely nurses them back to health. This did the trick overnight, and i'm hooked. It makes my ink look amazing, my painful chapped skin no longer hurts, and it doesn't burn when I put it on my psoriasis! Since of the Psoriasis but, this is now my HG moisturizer for elbows. LOVE this stuff so much. It's the only thing that will moisturize my -super- dry elbows. I am constantly dehydrated but if I put this on my elbows over a few days, they're smooth and perfectly moisturized. This stuff is very thick but not too thick that it will not sink in. Give it a few minutes and it sinks into my skin and gets to work moisturizing. I'll always keep a tube of this product in my house. It is also very faint smelling. The scent is light weight and I have to put my hands up to my nose to smell it - perfect for people who are sensitive to smells. This cream generally runs under $4.00 compared to a lot of the higher end ones i use. It delivers much better results, and you get approximately 200 uses per tube. I *Know* it isn't organic, but this is an official staple in my handbag now. Awesome stuff. Infact, I have six trial tubes at the moment still in the box. First six people to e-mail me at Iadoreyouu (at) gmail (dot) com will get a freebie for your parched winter skin. ;)

What does Simple Abundance hold for 2013?

2013-01-06T06:11:00.001-08:00

The holidays were insanely busy at our household, as usual. Happy to be back with you guys! I've got plenty to catch up on now that i'm no longer affiliated with Red Carpet Box as their VP of Business Development. Happy to be back as a full time blogger! Lately my days have been filled with copious amounts of joy, Wedding planning with my Fiance, learning Korean for kicks, and being totally geeked out on the latest cosmetics and Video Games. My husband has decided he wants in on the Blogosphere, so he will be posting Tech and Video game reviews from time to time as he thinks it's a great idea to mass appeal to not only eco-friendly housewives and beauty junkies, but to tech nerds as well. It'll be an interesting project :) Simple Abundance has a TON of awesome sponsors lined up for January as well. As you know, I only bring you guys the latest and greatest. Be prepared for lots of fun things (and wedding porn) -Jen xoxo

covergirl flipstick review (bzzagent)

2012-11-30T14:06:00.000-08:00

Good grief, this has the weirdest name of any lipstick I've ever owned, lol... but anyway, I have this in "Flashy" which is a candy-pink shimmer on one end and a deep, fuschia-purple with blue flash on the other end(the exact shade of lipstick that my aunt used to wear in the 80s, which is part of why I chose this one :D). Both gorgeous colors, full-coverage and very bold(even the lighter end), but ye gods, do they ever STAIN! I actually really like both lipsticks, they're excellent quality with a nice vanilla scent & excellent pigmentation, but I don't find myself reaching for this too often just because both ends stain my lips bright NEON PINK. I have to plan to wear this lippie all day long or another full-coverage color to cover the brilliant hot pink stained lips. This could be seen as a plus by some people but my lips tend to be kind of dry & flaky, and the flakes get stained a darker shade of pink & it just looks weird >.< Overall though, I do like this a lot and am probably going to try some of the other shades. I love the new and inventive things CoverGirl has put out over the past few years!

Ipad mini holday giveaway!

2012-11-06T12:03:00.002-08:00

iPad Mini Holiday Event

Hosted by Mom to Bed by 8

Prizes: iPad Mini

Event dates: 11/21 - 12/5