Listen up, my children, while I 'splain you a thing. I want to announce to the men of the world that it is a shame ain't no one wants to touch this, because I feel sexy and silky ALL OVER and I am about to share with you ALL THE SECRETS.
Once upon a time there was a Canadian cosmetics company called LUSH, who generously shared its products with its rambunctious neighbor to the south. A fairy princess who walks this fair land under the pseudonym Miranda initiated yours truly into the mysteries of this company, and now I pass them on to you, Gentle Reader.
Wash the face with the cleanser of your choice (mine is Fresh Farmacy). Spread on the appropriate mask. My first experience was with BB Seaweed, which was entirely satisfactory except for the "Hi, I'm Seaweed. I'll be the hole in your mask today."
While the mask is tightening, apply Roots hair treatment to the scalp and work completely through hair to the ends.
Then run a warm to hot bath. Drop one of the many exquisite bath bombs into the running water. I can recommend both Butterball and Sex Bomb. Sex Bomb comes with its own little rose of bubbly goodness, as well. Some people recommend adding bubble bars, as well.
While luxuriating in the warm lavishing of the enhanced waters, shave your legs and other areas. I have discovered the superiority of the Venus Embrace, as its 5 blades make quick work of even the bear pelt on my legs and its floating head handles flab well.
When you think your legs and other areas are smooth, think again. Take generous scoops of Ocean Salt and scrub all over. Then drain the tub and turn on the shower. Shampoo the treatment out of your hair, rinse the mask and scrub off your face and body.
If you think you're finished when you towel off, you are wrong. Emollients! Soften Full of Grace in your hands and spread it all over your face, even your eyelids. Lovely Jubblies (basically bag cream for humans) goes on your bosom and anywhere else you want a tightening effect ("I'm sorry, did you just say ALL OVER MY BODY????").
Finish the luxury with Helping Hands hand lotion and your choice of lip scrub (I LOVE Mint Julips). Yes, I said LIP SCRUB. It's a sugar scrub FOR YOUR LIPS. It tastes lovely and leaves the lips oh-so-kissable. Too bad no one wants to kiss them ...
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Friday, October 11, 2013
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
A Great-Grandmother's Prayer
Yesterday, my grandmother gave me a framed photo-set of me as a baby. I was confused by this until she told me to look on the back.
This is what my great-grandmother (Grandma's mother) had written on the back:
"Dear Lord, help little Erin to have good discipline, and to receive it, and God bless this family, Lord, that little Erin may yield to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit when she gets old enough to understand right from wrong and accept Jesus as her Savior. And that she will be sanctified wholly and live a consecrated and dedicated life for Christ. Give her a passion for lost souls. Help her to honor hr mom and dad that she may live long on the Earth if Jesus tarries. This is my prayer for sweet little Erin." -- Grandma Hanson
It's humbling to read something written about and for me long before I was conscious of the world. It's amazing to think of this hidden prayer committed to writing and undiscovered until someone took the photos down. The love and faith that shines through an elderly woman's myopic scrawl just leaves me speechless.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
A Few Thoughts on Beauty (Eat, Pray, Love Reaction Post #2)
“Beauty is simply Reality seen with the eyes of love.” – Evelyn Underhill
“Love beauty; it is the shadow of God on the universe.” -- Gabriela Mistral
Over the last couple of years, I have found myself drawn to idea of Beauty. I want to find simple beauty in the world around us. After all, we live in a wondrous world, so complex and finely detailed that despite our best efforts to pollute it, it remains beautiful.
The fact that I ended up as a lawyer has always been a bit bewildering to me. By nature I am an intuitive, artistic sort of person. The one thing I was always best at was music, much more so than science or logic, yet God led me to and through law school, retraining my brain in the process.
In the last 15 years of practicing law, all my illusions about concepts such as “fair play” and “justice” have been eroded away. I never meet my clients at a good point in their lives, especially now that I’ve begun to focus on bankruptcy. My job brings me face to face with pain, guilt, anger, heartache, betrayal, confusion, despair, indignation, and injustice. Every day. Every day I must reach into myself and pull out compassion, sympathy, and wisdom, and by the end of the day I am drained.
So I guess it’s no wonder that the long-suppressed artist in me craves beauty. Beauty is restorative. Nothing fills me with peace and contentment any more than sitting quietly in a beautiful place, preferably outside. Beauty combats unrest, and at least for me, always wins.
In the first section of Eat, Pray, Love, Liz Gilbert ponders why Italy has “produced the greatest artistic, political and scientific minds of the ages, but have still never become a major world power.”* Her conclusion is that Italy’s history is riddled with corruption of power, so that the people trust only what they can perceive with their senses. She says, “[i]n a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted.”
From a strictly human perspective (i.e., without any theological concerns), this makes a certain amount of sense. I would probably rephrase and expand that conclusion as follows: In a world full of the worst parts of human nature, sometimes only beauty reflects goodness.
The quote that I highlighted in my copy of Eat, Pray, Love, though is this one:
Therefore, my desire to find or create beauty is a reaction to the ugliness of human nature. Not to escape from reality, because the reality is that we live on a cursed world, polluted by sin and evil, but to remind myself that what God created, He meant to be good.**
How do you cope with the erosion of confidence and hope caused by the stress of your daily life? How do you deal with the fact that people, as they say, are just no damn good? And where do you find beauty? How do you seek the hidden beauty in your own part of the world? I’d love to know.
* p. 114.
** The underlying assumption of that previous statement, that beauty equals goodness, must be the subject of a different dissertation. We all know that beauty does not equal goodness, that in fact beauty can mask great evil, but for purposes of this discussion, finding beauty reminds me of God’s goodness.
“Love beauty; it is the shadow of God on the universe.” -- Gabriela Mistral
Over the last couple of years, I have found myself drawn to idea of Beauty. I want to find simple beauty in the world around us. After all, we live in a wondrous world, so complex and finely detailed that despite our best efforts to pollute it, it remains beautiful.
The fact that I ended up as a lawyer has always been a bit bewildering to me. By nature I am an intuitive, artistic sort of person. The one thing I was always best at was music, much more so than science or logic, yet God led me to and through law school, retraining my brain in the process.
In the last 15 years of practicing law, all my illusions about concepts such as “fair play” and “justice” have been eroded away. I never meet my clients at a good point in their lives, especially now that I’ve begun to focus on bankruptcy. My job brings me face to face with pain, guilt, anger, heartache, betrayal, confusion, despair, indignation, and injustice. Every day. Every day I must reach into myself and pull out compassion, sympathy, and wisdom, and by the end of the day I am drained.
So I guess it’s no wonder that the long-suppressed artist in me craves beauty. Beauty is restorative. Nothing fills me with peace and contentment any more than sitting quietly in a beautiful place, preferably outside. Beauty combats unrest, and at least for me, always wins.
In the first section of Eat, Pray, Love, Liz Gilbert ponders why Italy has “produced the greatest artistic, political and scientific minds of the ages, but have still never become a major world power.”* Her conclusion is that Italy’s history is riddled with corruption of power, so that the people trust only what they can perceive with their senses. She says, “[i]n a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted.”
From a strictly human perspective (i.e., without any theological concerns), this makes a certain amount of sense. I would probably rephrase and expand that conclusion as follows: In a world full of the worst parts of human nature, sometimes only beauty reflects goodness.
The quote that I highlighted in my copy of Eat, Pray, Love, though is this one:
To devote yourself to the creation and enjoyment of beauty, then can be a serious business – not always necessarily a means of escaping reality, but sometimes a means of holding on to the real when everything else is flaking away into . . . rhetoric and plot.
Therefore, my desire to find or create beauty is a reaction to the ugliness of human nature. Not to escape from reality, because the reality is that we live on a cursed world, polluted by sin and evil, but to remind myself that what God created, He meant to be good.**
How do you cope with the erosion of confidence and hope caused by the stress of your daily life? How do you deal with the fact that people, as they say, are just no damn good? And where do you find beauty? How do you seek the hidden beauty in your own part of the world? I’d love to know.
* p. 114.
** The underlying assumption of that previous statement, that beauty equals goodness, must be the subject of a different dissertation. We all know that beauty does not equal goodness, that in fact beauty can mask great evil, but for purposes of this discussion, finding beauty reminds me of God’s goodness.
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