In My Mailbox

I'm sure most of you know about the Ballard Designs catalog.  It's kind of like Pottery Barn, in that it's got lots of drool-worthy photos of stuff we love but most of us can't afford.

Look at the planked walls.  Told you they were popping up everywhere!

The Style Studio on the website is fun:  you can email in decorating dilemmas, read how-to articles, or see photos submitted by Ballard customers.  The catalog itself is a great place to get ideas.  If you're not on their mailing list and would like to be, request a catalog.

I have to admit, though, that when the most recent catalog arrived last week, I was most excited by the little subscription card that fell out.  Two years of Southern Living for $10!  That's a smokin' hot deal that only crops up once in a while.  Southern Living has great recipes and decorating ideas.  Reading it always makes me kind of wish that my grandparents (one on each side) had stayed in the south instead of becoming yankees.  (Okay, I understand that had that happened I wouldn't exist, but you catch my drift.)

I wish I could figure out how to share that deal with you, but it's not currently listed at that price anywhere online.  Amazon has a two-year sub for $19.97, which is still pretty good.  At the very least, be sure to sign up for your free Ballard catalog!

Smooth Operator

Have you tried Smooth Away?  I'm a pretty skeptical person, particularly of As Seen on TV type stuff, so even though it looked interesting, I wasn't going to waste my money on it.  I checked the reviews, too, and they weren't great, which only reinforced my position.

Then a couple of weeks ago at Target, I noticed that the price had gone down from $9.99 to $4.99, and I decided to give it a try.  (Incidentally, shortly after I purchased it, I saw a coupon for either $2 or $3 off.  I can't remember if it was in the Sunday fliers or a magazine, or how long it was valid for, but I though I'd just let you know it's out there in case you're interested.)

I was a little bit surprised to find that it actually works.....in a manner of speaking.  I need to throw out some disclaimers here.  I only used it on my legs, and only from the knee down.  It had probably been 2-3 days since I shaved, and the hair on my legs is light and fine.  I cannot vouch for dark or coarse leg hair, or for any other area of the body.  (I recently discovered that my dad reads my blog from time to time, and I feel weird mentioning any of those other areas by name.)

I thought the pink things, which according to the website are actually just called the large or small Smooth Away, would be flexible to sort of mold to the shape of the leg or other body part.  But they're quite rigid; it seemed like you'd get more contact area if they were flexible.  The gray pads stick to the pink things, and are kind of like very, very fine sandpaper.  ETA:  I'm going to amend this because 'sandpaper' isn't quite accurate, and may be off-putting.  There is an extremely fine texture to the gray pads, but it's not going cause abrasions or anything like that.

Just buff in a circular motion, both directions.  My legs were indeed smooth, and it exfoliated at the same time.  I used lotion afterward.  The first time I used it, I did have a slight razor burn feeling, but haven't had it since.  It's not going to replace a razor for me, but it'll be handy for in between touch-ups.

Just thought you might be interested, in case you're a skeptic like me.

Featured Blog: Snapshots from my Heart & Home

I haven't done a Monday feature in a while, but I decided to dust it off this week when I met Mary Joy.  She was a new reader who left a comment, and when I visited her blog, she just seemed so encouraging and welcoming that I thought I'd "share" her with you!

Mary Joy has just recently begun her blog, Snapshots from my Heart & Home.  (However, she also has another site that she shares with her husband, called Life Interrupted.)  She's had some big events in her life in the past month, like eloping (how romantic!), and moving with her blended family into a new home.

 The Bride and Groom

The happy new family

.The new abode

She shares her "before" pictures and promises to show the "afters" as they become available.  Her new hubby has given her free rein in the decorating department.  I know we all love a good transformation, so it should be fun to see how Mary Joy makes her new house a home for her new family!

Mary Joy's faith really shines through...as I said, I found her very encouraging.  I particularly liked her post about being a Proverbs 31 woman, and not allowing perfectionism or comparing ourselves to others to keep us from being the woman God wants us to be with His help.

From that same post, I just had to share with you the words of her then soon-to-be husband: 
“Mary Joy…you have done a great job of finding a home for our family and dealing with the negotiating of the details.  I completely trusted you to do it.  I knew you were the best one to take care of it because you are a true Proverbs 31 woman.”
What beautiful and loving words of praise!  He's a keeper, Mary Joy!


Please go visit Mary Joy, leave her a comment, maybe even sign up as a follower.  I know you will want to encourage her in her journey!

Weird

Three of the six finch eggs hatched.  A day or two ago I checked and it appeared that at least one of the baby birds was no longer alive  This morning I checked and the nest is completely empty except for one live baby.  No egg shells, and no sign of the other two baby birds.  Does the mother clean it out or something?  There are no shells or anything on the ground below either.

In other animal news, make sure your dog never eats grapes.  Sunday night Lila ate probably a pound of grapes that had accidentally been left out, and she's been in the animal hospital ever since.  She was in kidney failure within a couple hours of consumption.  Twenty-four hours ago the news was not at all good, and we were mentally preparing for the possibility of having to put her down.  We went to visit her last night, thinking it might be one of the last times we saw her.

This morning she has amazed everyone by being completely normal.  It doesn't appear that there is any lasting damage, and she should come home this afternoon (some $700+ later).  So, it seems that everything will end well, but don't risk it, grapes are dog poison!

Look What Hatched!

I'm not poking around in the nest, but I do have to water the fern occasionally, so while I was doing that this morning I took a peek.  To help you envision size, the eggs are about 3/4 inch.

Comments and Greenery

First, a little housekeeping matter.  I have comment moderation on for posts older than 14 days because I was getting spam comments.  I'm quite sure that I used to get an email telling me when there was a comment that needed to be moderated, but this morning I checked my dashboard for the first time in quite a while and there were a bunch of unmoderated comments.  So I apologize if it appeared that I was ignoring you; it was unintentional.

A couple of those comments were left by the courageous Anonymous on my post entitled Confessions of a Lazy Mom and Housewife.   That post was an expose of some hot spots around my house, and things I tend to let slide.  Here is one of those comments:

"i think your[sic] all lazy if your[sic] a housewife and cannot even bother to do an hour or two of cleaning a day, you should be fired....Sure, things can slide when you have kids and cleaning dust isn't the most important, but it shouldn't be forgotten and should get done! I have [a baby] but I still manage to make my home acceptable."

That irked me a little bit, I guess.  It's not that I don't agree with what she's saying; as a housewife I have a job to do, but lighten up a little bit!  Nothing in my post was staged, but at the same time it was meant to be somewhat tongue in cheek.  Who doesn't have some clutter around the house?  If there wasn't any stuff, it would be a museum, not a home.  Believe me, I work around here, and my home is completely acceptable!

Now, before I saw those comments, I intended to do a little post on my houseplants (yawn).  As it turns out, it was that Confessions post in which I showed you this:

I also said that once I watered it and all that, it would perk right up.  I did, and it did.  Here it is now:

I also wanted to show you something cool that I found at the dollar spot at Target a couple of weeks ago:  watering bulbs like the ones you see advertised on TV, except these are green plastic and only cost $1.  Can you see it in the plant above?  It's on the right.  They really work, releasing the water over several days.  The soil isn't moist on the surface, but I guess that's because the water is released deep at the roots.

I put them in my ferns that are hanging on the porch, too. 

And, the finches did build a nest, and there are six eggs!  I hope all goes well.

The Most Exciting Post Ever

Well, friends, it has become quite clear to me that I lead a boring life. For the most part, I’m okay with that. It’s not like I’d rather be climbing Everest or performing brain surgery. But sometimes I think there’s got to be more to life than daily trips to Walmart.

I’m not even kidding. I have been to Walmart everyday this week except for Monday. I always forget something. Or perhaps it would be more fair to say that no matter what I just bought, tomorrow I will need something else, and unfortunately, Walmart has pretty much everything and the lowest prices, so back I go.

So, the most exciting thing I did this week is color my hair. I’ve never done it before. (Well, there was that one time in high school when I let my friend try to color my hair with one of those temporary party colors--true red!--but it didn’t work.) However, in the last year, I’ve been getting more and more grays, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to hide them.

I’ve actually had the box of Natural Instincts for almost a year, and it’s taken me this long to get up the nerve to use it. Since I’m a complete novice, I was a little afraid that it would turn out badly. Last time I got my hair cut, I asked my stylist for tips. She said use semi-permanent, so it uniformly washes out and doesn’t leave roots, and don’t pay attention to what the color is called, go by the pictures.

The color I picked out last summer followed those rules, so that’s what I used. Even though this is called “lightest golden brown” the color on the box most closely matched my natural red/auburn/Titian/whatever-you-want-to-call-it hair. I watched several how-to videos on YouTube and based on that decided to use a color application brush, which I got at Sally Beauty Supply.

And now for the reveal.

From this (random photo taken in Dec ‘09):

To this (photo taken yesterday to try to recreate above photo):

You can hardly tell, right? Craig didn’t even notice. I can tell that it’s just a little bit darker. But the grays are gone! Natural-looking color and no grays…for me, that was success!

Who needs Everest when they've got this kind of excitement?