Heart of Refrigerator Glass
I'm in love with glass containers.
Specifically, fridge glass and canning jars.
The best is vintage fridge glass to store everything from bulk items to leftovers and so on.
It is soooo much better than plastic.
Why you ask?
Well, It washes better, is certainly sustainable and fridge glass is so stylish!
You can buy reproduction styles as well if your not into shopping vintage.
The same flattery goes to canning jars.
They are not just for canning.
I store spices, nuts, legumes and all kinds of bits in them.
Here is a fabulous practice that I have adopted when I buy bulk items:
I carry my jars with me to the store.
Before I fill them,
I have them weighed to subtract the jars weight from the item I am filling them with.
The store I shop at encourages this practice.
Then, I proceed to fill them with goodies of my choice.
Voila! No extra plastic bags and pretty glass to show off your culinary delights.
Once I had plastic and it was a gas, soon turned out I heart refrigerator glass...

Angel of the Morning Latte

Just call me angel, of the morning angel.... latte.
Can't always get a fix for my sick soy decaf or chai latte habit.
If they had a VIP card, I'd have a black one.
Either I'm running late or I get a rebel spark where I feel trapped the man,
the latte man, that is.
I came up with this solution to temper my latte habit.
Love my homemade latte in a pint glass, very SF.
My poisons of choice are either a decaf cafe or black tea with soy milk.
If I want it a bit sweet I'll add agave nectar.
The key is really the foaming of the milk.
It is tres ez when you have a a fabu little gadget
that is a called a hand held frother.
They range from 1.99 at that blue and yellow, four letter, swedish store to approx. 15 bux online.
I heart it. You can use it for cocktails and other delights too.
Choose your coffee, tea, or me (raaar),
pour into your fave cup, glass or what have you.
Then, take your milk and heat it.
I do mine via stove top.
When heated to your liking, froth away and pour atop bevy.
Yummers bitches.

All Tomorrow's Stains

I get so amazingly frustrated with
stains in my sink, on my teapot, in my bathtub, scummy crap on stuff,
the list goes on and on.
Every type of sponge and exfoliant has passed through my fingers
to attempt to remove these seemingly permanent reminders
of yesterdays teabag, some kind of sauce, rust, and yes, even an over boiled kettle.
I finally just gave up and am like,
"Whatevs", have a cocktail and move on.
That didn't really last long because at the end of the day,
I'm a prob solver and I'll just go crzazy if I cannot find a solution.
On any quest for knowledge, you can never give up the search.
You dig and dig and one day, presto, you will find your answer.
Pumice is my answers name darlings.
It is so fab for home pedicures but my god!
It's divoon on ceramics, china and vintage plastics like melamine bowls!
Natural to boot and you do not need to use soap or any lube,
just some old fashioned elbow grease, babes.
The proof is in the pumice.

Gonna have to Face it,
(I'm addicted to powder)

I wear a considerable amount of make up.
My complexion is very fair.
My eyelashes are fortunately long yet clear, like fishing line.
My brows are sparse ( I over-plucked in a Harlow inspired frenzy, but that's another story).
I'm all eyes, brow and lips.
I despise heavy foundation makeup and prefer a light weight powder for my face.
That being said, I go through compacts like they are going out of style.
At the bitter end of each compact, there resides a corona of untouched powder.
I made it a mission to figure out how to use it so I started saving the compacts.
At the end of this past year with my crazy drawer ritual (see blog: Three Dried Muds)
I had a stack of compacts towered and teetering soon to become an avalanche.
Time to take action tout de suite.
Tools:
White ceramic mortar and pestle
An orange stick
Bounty of compacts
Into the kitchen to commence my experiment!
I take the orange stick and chisel out all of the powder out of each compact and empty into the mortar.
I totally spaced which one was the mortar and which was the pestle and had to google it.
The bowl is the mortar;)
Then crush, crush, crush said powder.
I cannot believe how much powder was saved!
Now, where to put it???
I'm a pushover for packaging and had purchased a powder just for the box and brush.
Perf! I emptied out the powder I wasn't so keen on and replaced it with my new powder.
I did forget to note that this little endeavor renders your powder loose.
So, if you don't like loose powder, don't waste your precious time.

Swabs-n-Balls-n-All that Jazz

C'mon babes, why don't we paint our nails
BaDaDaDa DaDa
And all that jazz....

So, one day I'm doing my nails and I think,
" Why am I using cotton balls to take my nail polish off when I could use a washcloth?"
Cotton balls do biodegrade but they are kind of a waste.
Sorry balls, I must move on.
Nail polish remover (acetone or non) will not damage a natural fiber.
It will on the other hand melt synthetic fibers.
So, I gave it a whirl...
Three years, same cotton washcloth and many mani/pedis later,
I have conserved cotton and own an abstract expressionist washcloth.

I've talked balls. Now I'm onto swabs.
The cotton swab, how I love thee.
I believe that honestly, all swabs are not created equal.
There is only one true swab that can get the job done.
This is not meant to be a plug so I won't say it's name but i'll give you a hint...
It's proper name starts with a "Q". It's true. Others do not compare to you.
I use you to perfect my make up, to groom and to do a plethora of household chores.
You are biodegradable and even though I use an excessive amount of you, I do not care.
I need you in my life.
You are truly fabulous with no chance of a replacement.
I pick my beauty battles wisely.

Three Dried Muds

I have many before new years rituals.
The most laborious of these rituals is the detailed task of cleaning out all of my drawers.
It gets mad, simply mad.
As I am going through my beauty products I come across three different varieties of facial mud.
All marvelous. All dried up. All sad.
Instead of just throwing them out I think, light bulb...
What would happen if I rehydrated them??
I ask my girlfriend for her opinion. Casually, mind you.
Remarks that follow:
"OMG, gross", " That is like sooo unsanitary", "Ewwwwwww!".
I was asking more in the vein of, " Do you think that this will work?
Is it a waste of my time?"
It really didn't cross my mind that she would consider it "nasty".
Because.... It's MUD ladies and gentlemen that we are talking about. Ancient mud. From the earth. That you, darling, put on your face.
Genius.
Are you kidding me? Why do I even ask?
Anyhoo, I totally try this experiment because
1. I heart a project and
2. I love a shallonge (a dramatic challenge).
I take the three dried muds and put them in my fave mint green mixing bowl, boil some distilled water and pour it over the unhappy, dried up mud.
Next, I muddle and mash the contents and add more water.
I decide to let it sit for a spell to moisten
(that word makes me cringe, ouch, but it is what needs to happen).
About an hour later... Success. It looks moist. I stir the now rehydrated, lovely mud and it's quite like whipped frosting. Yum.
I proceed to fold the fresh mud into a glass sealed jar and voila:
New Years Mud pour moi!