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I’m not sure if you’re the kind of person who likes to hear when people find products that really work for them, but IF YOU ARE…

Well. I found some. Seriously. I did. I don’t even know.

(No, I wasn’t asked to endorse these, and no one’s paying me to do so. Unless you want to. Link to your right. Ha!)

Here’s a list:

Weleda Skin Food. Okay, if you look at the website, it’s all USE IT ON YOUR ELBOWS, IT’S SUPER RICH.

Well.

I use it on my face. The reason I use it on my face is because I saw Charlie Green and Pat Wexler recommend it in a magazine as a rich solution for weird, dry facial skin.

I didn’t know I had weird, dry facial skin until I got my first facial in November and she told me I was not, as I had believed from the dawn of time, Oily. Well, my nose was. But you shouldn’t moisturize based on your nose, apparently. Let it be what it is. Worry about your cheeks.

Ahem.

This stuff is for dry skin, absolutely, and it’s quite thick, almost like an ointment. I warm it up in my hands and pat it on my cheeks, eyes, forehead and chin. (My nose can go fly a kite.)

I get less breakouts (the pansy in it — heh heh heh — works beautifully on any complications), I stay glowy all day, and it smells like fresh oranges.

Woo! I’m a big fan of things that smell good, and I’ll stop using a product if it bugs me in some aesthetic sense.

But Skin Food has me for life! And it’s cheaper than the Origins and Mac and Clinique stuff I was using before. MUCH cheaper.

Boots No. 7 Restore and Renew Beauty Serum. This stuff is sold out in the UK, and I haven’t even SEEN it in Canada, though people claim it’s here. Women are going bonkers for it because it works like a dream on fine lines and unevenness, and FAST.

Not that I have fine lines. STOP STARING AT MY PHOTO.

(Hey, I’m 33, and worked outside in the sun for three months a year from the time I was 15, on top of skiing in the winter. It’s bound to happen.)

(I’m also mildly neurotic about my skin.)

Now, you may have noticed that I live in Canada, and may be wondering how I got my hands on this stuff. The answer is Eric.

Dear, sweet Eric, who is enough of a man to stand in CVS in San Diego talking on his phone about the various serum options in front of him until he and I figured out which one was the jackpot. And then to bring two tubes of magic to me in December. That’s right, he’s practically a saint. And he was already most of the way there when he switched to a Mac this year.

There are many reasons to love this kid. He is our Friend for the Ages. But I digress.

This STUFF WORKS. I look more even, more fresh, more smooth… and not just in a Billy Dee Williams kind of way.

It’s also not too pricey, especially compared to the serums marketed by the Big Kids on the skincare block.

L’Oreal Vive Pro Nutri-Gloss Shampoo/Conditioner. I have a small issue with expensive shampoo. Not as in, I OBJECT, but more along the lines of I BOUGHT TOO MUCH OF IT FROM 1987 to 2008.

That’s right.

21 years of Bumble and Bumble and Phytologie and Kerastase and Joico and Redken and on and on and on.

Yeah, I did some Neutrogena and Pantene and (so help me) Pert Plus in there, too, but I was pretty stuck on the pricey stuff because it makes your hair feel like buttah.

Then I came across this stuff and WHOA. In one use, the state of my medium-long, superfine, colour-treated hair was more shiny, more soft, and more manageable. Unreal.

Catherine is also using it on her super-thick, colour-treated blonde hair, and it’s doing the same things (she uses a slightly different formulation.)

I’m totally impressed. And it’s cheap like BORSCHT!

Well, that’s what I’ve got for you today.

Buy these things, change your head.

Wow, pharmaceutical companies should buy that slogan from me tout de suite!

Ah, yes. It’s that time of year again.

Remember?

The water is growing in turbidity rather quickly. NTUs of less than 1 are the goal, at least.

Our reservoir has 37 NTU. Ack.

That’s not so much okay.

As soon as we noticed the brown water coming out of the tap, we made sure to stop by the market and pick up a couple of cases of water tonight. We didn’t want to be left without drinking water — or with nasty brown boiled water outside of campsite livin’ — if we could help it.

After all, the last time Vancouver went into a tizzy like this, we saw more than a few dust-ups over the Precious Bottles of Health as stores ran out of stock.

(I’ve got a mean right hook… but you know, the manicure.)

We also went to Whole Foods, because the market didn’t sell my favourite bottled water, Fiji.

(I know… I’m embarassed by that sentence, too.)

While I was buying Fiji, I decided to buy a few other kinds, too, to see if there wasn’t a flavour (WHAT? THEY HAVE FLAVOUR) I liked better. And that’s when we decided to have a taste test.

I know.

I know.

Total geeks.

But we did a blind taste test. And that’s scientific.

The cases of water we got were Dasani, so that was the first on the list.

The kinds I bought were Ty Nant, Penta, Volvic, and Fiji.

Here are our notes and our taste guesses:

Turns out:

Dasani sucks.

Volvic sucks.

Fiji is my favourite, Penta is Cat’s favourite.

But anything is better than brown water.

A haiku to finish:

turbidity is
a quick trip to tummy pain
light a match, okay?

Well, hello there!

My body continues to fall apart rather charmingly, but I’ve decided to say FINITO! to complaining about it or dwelling on the fact that my $#%@stomach@#$&$knee@#*&$lungs@#&$head hurts.

Pain is a part of life, right? If we never hurt, we’d never know the sweet relief when that hurt passes away.

Yeeeeah. Uh huh.

But enough of the whining. Moving along.

Today is a glooooooriously sunny day.

And when I say gloooooriously, I like to use a different amount of ‘o’s every time.

I love it when Vancouver spends a few days being crisp and cool like my home of yesteryear, the Canadian Prairie.

(Cue noble, sweeping music and an aerial shot of snowy fields…)

Now, when I say that I lived on the Prairie, it sounds like I was all Laura Ingalls Wilder in a dugout in the middle of nowhere, when really, I lived in actual towns and cities. With running water and electricity and nary a wall constructed from sod. And cable. But no internet, since there was no internet yet. At least not an internet for everyone. It was just for geeks back then.

Mmm, geeks.

I’m getting off track here.

Clear and cold weather is my favourite kind of weather, in a near tie with clear and warm weather, which is kind of ironic, since I live in the Clouds (I’m enjoying capitalization today!)

The Clouds have lifted for now, though. I celebrated the Lifting (see?) with a Peppermint Mocha (now it’s just getting out of hand) which thrills me with After Eightish deliciousness (why is there a Wikipedia entry about mints?)

I’m also thinking about all things Christmassy, including the Christmas Train (I HAVE TO GO THIS YEAR, DAMMIT) and my work Christmas party (I’m trying to think up something to wear. I’m not big on buying some spectacular new dress, since all the rest of my holiday parties are of the jeans-heels-pretty shirt-giant earrings variety, rather than the cocktail variety. You feel me? Okay, maybe you don’t, but any suggestions for how to work up the same black, v-neck, mildly cleavage-y, sleeveless, knee length little black dress? I’m thinking a cute red wrap and some heels and an ostentatious piece of jewelery… and also thinking this is much too long for a parenthetical remark.)

If I could be doing ANYTHING today, I’d be on a sleigh ride somewhere snowy, wrapped in blankets and all cozed in behind horses puffing steam out of their noses. HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE? I love that stuff.

The last “ride” I was on was on a cardboard box behind my grandfather’s LeBaron on country roads outside of Devon, AB. He attached it to the car with luggage straps and whee! we were on our way.

To this day, I have no idea why my mother was okay with this. I mean, one sudden brake and I’d have been one with the undercarriage of his car. But I think he was careful. Maybe? A little?

At least until he threw me off the box into a ditch full of brambles on a sharp turn. Did I mention I was six? Yeah.

My parents were watching from the front window of my grandparents’ home and were ready to run out and get me, but then they saw my little snowsuited body emerge from the ditch, running at a full clip. My grandfather spotted me in his rearview and slowed down (how kind!), at which point I hopped back on the box and rode for another half hour. Awesome.

Well, awesome until I walked into the house and the hot air hit my scratched-up, frozen little face. Then I was a scene from Carrie (I was going to link to an image there, but EW. EW.)

Really, I’ve always been this way.

I was putting together a Holiday Online Shopping Guide for my blog, since I am the shopping link queen on Facebook, but then it occurred to me that EVERYONE ELSE WAS DOING THAT, TOO. Meh. We’d probably all end up linking to the same things, right? And I don’t shop much online… I just BROWSE LIKE A PRO.

But if you want some holiday shopping links, I’ll post them later today.

This mocha is still awesome.

Love to all!