Summer Love - By Nieves!

After last summer's adventure making my own version of Queen Isabela's Hungary Water , I found myself longing for a natural, hand made skin care routine but had no corresponding longing to make one for myself. At best, I'm a reluctant skin-care product purchaser  - I resent the fear-of-aging that companies package in every bottle.

Luckily for me, this summer, I found and fell in love with the skin care line, By Nieves. The ingredients are pure, the scent is gorgeous and most importantly, my mid-40s skin actually looks radiant and feels fantastic.

I use the C-Perfect Skin serum, Face Fix mask and scrub, and the Cloud of Protection spray which is reported to keep you "safe from illness, bad vibes and stinkiness"...


The line is made by by Nieves Rathbun and in addition to all of the natural ingredients, I am sure she adds some sort of beautiful gypsy magic to each some-kind-of-wonderful bottle. Bravo Nieves! and Thank you!

Messages from the Man on the Moon

With the new moon peeking out at us, I thought it would be nice to share this film created by one of my middle school students...interstellar communications from the man in the moon and magical realism in middle school!

Records to Cure a Bad Case of the Januaries

Oooh the cold rainy weather has found this gal with a fretsy case of the Januarys...

Time to get out the portable record player I keep in my closet for such occasions. A thrift store find, its made of cardboard and features illustrations of some hep late 60s/early 70s teens grooving out to their favorite tunes...kind of like this:

Freezing rain means that its time to spread the records out on the living room floor, relish pulling them out of their sleeves and set the needle lightly on the vinyl...

Here's Judy Collins singing Jaques Brel's "La Chansons des Vieux Amants": 

And for the Fretsy Januarys, the cure might be The Januaries singing "Chocolate and Strawberries":

And it wouldn't be complete without playing this gem from the first "big kid" album I received for Christmas, Marie Osmond's This Is the Way That I Feel. 

I'm not sure why Marie is singing "Miss You Nights" while wandering the desert in a white veil, but maybe I'll do the same - who knows? It might cure the Januarys...