Category Archives: Self Care

December 22, 2009

MAKING MY LIST AND CHECKING IT TWICE

By JL

Truthfully, I don’t have to check this list twice. The only name on it is mine and I know I’ve been a good girl all year long.

Furthermore, I’m not counting on some old fat guy with a white beard to navigate a sleigh full of treasures to me, no matter how jolly he is. I’m letting my fingers travel over the keyboard to some of my favorite shopping haunts – the places that carry all the things a Mad Goddess woman like me could dream of.

Every Goddess needs a good pair of ruby red slippers and these are my choice. Don’t be jealous, just keystroke over to pyramidcollection.com and snatch up a pair for yourself.

While you’re at it, you might want to wander over to uncommongoods.com for this way out shoe rack – high heels easily accommodated.

This seemed like a good hat to add to my collection.

Not too showy, neutral colors. I think I could wear it for everyday trips to the village market. No sense now in trying to convince the locals that I’m not a tad eccentric – but that’s a story for another time.

For chilly nights by the fire, this cozy cuddler will keep me toasty warm and, unlike my prissy pure bread feline companions, it won’t shed.

The hat, rose throw and the sign below can all be had from victoriantradingco.com.

Don’t ask me why, but I’ve developed a desire to label my bathroom door. I’ve bypassed many a “powder room” plaques and now I now why. This beauty is far more elegant.

And while we’re on the subject of signs, this little gem from pyramidcollection.com was a must have been made for me. A Goddess has to have somebody’s feet at which to lay the blame.

 

I can’t get enough sparkling, dangly ornaments to hang from my ears. These little gems are just quirky enough to suit me.

Made from recycled depression glass, get them while they last at uncommongoods.com

While there, you might want a sign like this one, stating that the Supergirl cape is in the laundry. I know that’s where mine is.

Of course, while I’m waiting for the cape to come out shiny clean and dry, I can drape this orchid ostrich feather boa from kirksfolllystore.com around my shoulders . . .

 . . .while I sip my coffee on chilly winter mornings from this perfectly befitting cup (pyramidcollection.com)

wearing my red power shoes . . .

. . . with my favorite plaid flannel nighty.

The santa living in this house ought to appreciate that wake up call.

. . . . . . mid
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December 2, 2009

TELL THE MIDLIFE LADY WHAT SHE’S WON

By JL

My thighs are rubbing together when I walk . . . again.  I don’t know about the rest of you middle aged (and plus) chics but I’m getting fed up with this whole weight issue. 

After numerous months of struggling to tip the numbers on the scale below, uhm, a number you don’t need to know, about eight weeks ago the excess bulk started coming off.
And about two weeks ago, I noticed it creeping back on.  Yesterday, after my shower, when I felt that familiar friction of the skin above my knees I knew before stepping on the scale that I’d gained back every ounce.
Okay, so I indulged over Thanksgiving.  Yes, not on – over.  Over the entire week that I sat home on my butt enjoying a bit of leisure in my otherwise overscheduled, over-worked week.  That was my first mistake.
And maybe I’ve been hitting the chocolate again – second mistake.  But do I have to live on salads and whole grain crisps for the rest of my life just to keep squeezing my ever-bloomin’ ass into a pair of size twelves?  Really?
I’ve been wearing the same size jeans for close to twenty years now and something isn’t computing, because I certainly haven’t weighed this much for as many years.
It’s the dreaded back fat.  My sister warned me about this.
Back fat?  Back fat?!  Now I have to deal with more fat on a part of my body that I can’t exercise, even if I want to?  I’m not saying that I want to, but still –
Exercise – that E word. Not getting enough E.  Need more E.  Are you getting your recommended dose of E every day? 
“Pat, can I buy a vowel please, an E?”
“Vanna, do we have any E’s?”  (DON’T even get me started on Vanna)
“Is there an F, Pat?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, there is no F.”
Exactly, No F in’ exercise!  That’s what’s missing.
Seems I lost out in life’s wheel of fortune when the great metabolism I was born with went bankrupt. Gone are the days of eating a whole bag of potato chips with a container of dip.  Gone are chocolate malts, chocolate brownies, chocolate candy bars . . . straight shots of chocolate from the Hershey’s Syrup bottle (although, if you check the label it’s fat free).
I suppose I’ll have to make the E word part of my daily vocabulary if I don’t want to blow up like a beached whale.  So, I hit the road for a brisk thirty-minute walk yesterday. Then, last night before bed, I uncorked a bottle to celebrate – a bottle of extra-strength pain reliever to ease my Arthritic feet, bad hip, aching shins and stiff back.
Later today, if I can hobble to the grocery store, I’ll stock up on lettuce and some more of those cardboard crackers.  I wonder if they’d taste any better with a shot of Hershey’s on them?
. . . . . . mid
GET A ^ LIFE at MAD Goddess

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October 27, 2009

IF WARMED WRINKLED PUPPIES ARE CUTE, WHY NOT ME?

By JL

My psychology teacher recently told the class that the early onset of puberty has been attributed to increased exposure to light – albeit artificial.  It all has to do with our circadian rhythm, more commonly known as our biological clock.

So if I’m following correctly, our body clock, which regulates our wake and sleep cycles according to the daylight to dark hours, contributes to the aging process according the number of days it perceives by sunrise following sunset.
Are you going where I’m going?  If I were to live in total darkness, would I stop aging?  Or worse, sun worshipper that I am, am I accelerating my aging by following the sun?  Well, of course, we know all about sun damage and aging skin, but I’m talking about over all, external and internal aging.
Should I be setting up camp at the South Pole?   Eschewing all forms of artificial light except perhaps the dim glow of a candle?
Well, I do look better by candlelight these days.   Recently, I caught a glimpse of my face in the side mirror of my husband’s truck.  It’s not often I have the opportunity, or the inclination, to gaze at myself in broad daylight under the noontime sun.
“Oh my Goddess!  Where did those wrinkles come from?”  I was getting to be okay with the faint crows feet (faint as long as I don’t smile or frown), but there are wrinkles on my cheeks.  Can other people see them?  Drat these cataracts and the sun exposure that caused me to have them (when I’m way too young by the way).
I feel like an addict who has finally felt the sting of betrayal from my drug of choice – knowing that I still won’t give it up.
I remember those winter vacations in South Florida when I was just a teenager; seeing all those wrinkled, leathery bodies in beach chairs.  I thought those bathing beauties were all well past eighty.  They were probably the age I am now!
A good friend of mine is a nurse (translate – should know better).  We’ve spent countless hours of countless days of the past 25 summers engaging in our favorite pastime – lounging on an air mattresses on any available body of water with the hot sun baking our skin to a dark brown hue.  Affectionately known to us as Float-n-Bloat (heat plus humidity equals water retention), we tried to soak up as much sunshine and we possibly could, futilely hoping to somehow store it for the long winter months.
It may have been fun and satisfying in our youth, when our bodies could conceal the damage.  Now we’re paying the piper and it’s a hefty fee.  Even so, I know any chance I get to feel that satisfying heat on my parchrd skin, to squint my blurry eyes against its glare, to lie in a stupor of heady satisfaction while I bake and flake, I will take it.
I’ve already missed the window to “Live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse,” so I may as well go to my grave all wrinkled and warm with a smile on my face.

. . . . . . mid

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