Mixin' It Up...

Quote for the Day:

"If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried”

~author unknown

First off, let me thank everyone for your kind words of condolence and emotional support on the loss of our dear Lady...some came as comments on this blog, some in person, some through emails, and in two cases, through greeting cards designed especially for this situation!  Your show of love and support has meant the world to me and has helped me through this very bad time.  If it were up to me, we'd already have another 4-legged child by now, but Andy wants/needs to wait a until after our next trip in a couple months.  I'll be sure to share news of any new family members with you when it happens.  :)

If you know anything about being a nurse, you know that we are CONSTANTLY washing our hands.  For that reason, we usually have very dry skin...dry skin to the point of  redness and frequent cracks in the skin.  It gets worse in the winter because of using the heaters/furnaces that dry out the air even more.  Usually in the winter, using Avon's Intensive Moisture Therapy works pretty well for me, but his year it just doesn't seem to be doing it's job and my hands are worse than ever.  :(

Enter Carla, a friend and co-worker, to the rescue!  :)  She made this recipe and brought it in for us to use at work, and lo and behold, my hands are feeling and looking wonderful!  She shared the recipe with us and today I made it and am going to share the recipe with you!  (Aren't I just the nicest thing since sliced bread???  LOL)

Okay, here goes....this is what you need:

4 oz. vitamin E cream

8 oz. baby cream (not lotion)

1/4-1/3 cup coconut oil

Throw it all in a GLASS or METAL mixing bowl...if you use plastic it will absorb the odor of the lotion!

Mix it all with an electric mixer until it is smooth and there are no more lumps of coconut oil.

Scoop into jars.  (I saved the Vitamin E cream jar and refilled it with the mixture.)  This is what I ended up with...

Trust me...this stuff is FANTASTIC!  And if you want a little more moisturizing, you can increase the amount of coconut oil.  It smells good and feels WONDERFUL!  :)

BTW...here's some extra information...I won't even charge you extra for it!  ;)

Anytime you buy something in a plastic tube, do NOT throw it away when you can no longer squeeze anything out of the tube.  Instead, using regular scissors, cut the tube in the middle so you can scoop the rest of the product out.  I have found with most tubes that there is easily 1-2 weeks of whatever left in the tube!  :)  

There was still about 2 tablespoons of cream left in this one even after squeezing it as much as I could!  While you are using the product left in the tube, you can "close" it by sticking the lower half up into the upper half like this...

Trust me...I do it all the time with creams, makeup, etc., that come in a tube.  :)

Now for a book review...

"Farewell My Subaru:  An epic adventure in local living" by Doug Fine was a hilarious book.

In this memoir of mishaps and lessons learned, Fine shares his yearlong trek to turn his newly bought New Mexico ranch into a green and sustainable environment with as little carbon fuel as possible. From using two very lovable goats for his organic food production to transitioning into a biofuel engine for his truck and even installing solar panels, Fine balances the troubling decisions Americans must consider while also revealing a host of unexpected benefits. He advocates that a gradual process, despite having to deal with moments of hypocrisy, is essential for it to work. Fine's wry narration blends well with his often humorous and sarcastic tone.

I really enjoyed this book...until the last chapter.  I knew all along that I was reading a work by an author that was of a different political persuasion than me.  That part did not bother me.  I have mentioned before that I am always reading about persons/ideas/lifestyles, etc. that I don't necessarily agree with.  I don't have to agree with everyone else's beliefs to read their book and enjoy it.  

But what I DESPISE is when people take the opportunity, in an otherwise perfectly great memoir, to espouse their political beliefs...most of the time it has NOTHING to do with the rest of the book...they just get off on a tangent and rant against conservatives.  I have found it in so many books...and it's always the liberals tearing into the conservatives.  I've never read a memoir by a conservative that lambasted a liberal.  If I wanted to read a book about politics, I would have picked out one on politics...I would not have picked a book that is supposed to be a memoir about how someone made it through a difficult time in their life...only to find a totally unrelated rant about the politics of the day.

Seriously, Folks!  I was reading a book about how a lady dealt with the loss of her husband and she wrote about how she could still picture her husband sitting at the breakfast table...only to go off on a totally unrelated rant about how her husband hated the president at the time.  How in the world does this have ANYTHING to do with the rest of the book???   I really hate getting ambushed like that when reading a book.  I didn't read the book to hear your political leanings...I want to read about how you made it through your trials that are writing about.

So...back to "Farewell My Subaru"...the author is hilarious and it was a very fun book to read.  But basically, I would recommend that you just stop at the next to last chapter.  (I stopped about 2 paragraphs into the last chapter!)  Yes, I get it that the author is a liberal.  Yes, I get it that we have problems in this country.  No, I don't think they are all caused by the conservatives.   And since you could tell all the way through the book that Mr. Fine is a liberal, I really thought the last chapter was just plain unnecessary.  

That's my 2 cents worth!  

Loretta