tips

Have you heard of minking? It's a technique to make your eye lashes look more va-voom. All you do is use brown mascara as a base coat and then apply black mascara to the tips of your lashes. Does something so simple make a difference. Yes, it does. Try it and see. [This tip is from Facing 50 with Humour, although I remember a cosmetics lady mentioning this to me a couple years ago. I didn't pay much attention back then (maybe because she didn't use the interesting term "minking").]

In the current issue of Good Housekeeping, there are tips on the best anti-aging skin care products based on survey and testing results. I tried the Olay Definity Deep Penetrating Foaming UV Moisturizer featured in the first category and loved it immediately. My husband even noticed "a glow."

A tip from Cheryl that I haven't yet tried but plan to, are Trader Joe's Reduced Guilt Brownies.

Who loves ya? Me. Enough to pass on some good tips.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

This was just the thing for the post-root canal re-do blahs.

Hannah

This song has been on my iPod biking list for ages & I still feel energized every time I hear it.

Holy pumpkins, Batman!

And you thought the pumpkin pies at Costco were big.

Yep, that really is a woman using a hollowed out
giant pumpkin as a boat.
♥ ♥ ♥

These images are from the always fantastic Fall Equinox photo collection at The Big Picture.

This year, the full moon and the autumnal equinox happened on the same day, for the first time in 19 years.

This may explain the thinking behind the gigantic pie and the pumpkin watercraft.

See this film - The Kids are All Right

All the actors were exceptional but Annette Bening's performance was WOW.

The soundtrack is great too. Not one, but two David Bowie songs and a Joni Mitchell tune. Plus some really good new music.

baby sloths are cute - who knew?

[REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate - click on image to enlarge]

From a baby sloth to a tiny cow to a drugged tiger cub detected while being smuggled, check out The Big Picture's Animals in the news.

Freedom to Read

Freedom to read whatever and whenever I'd like is something I admit to taking for granted. It's also something that is extremely important to me. It's mind boggling that people actively put their time and attention toward undermining this liberty.

Every year during Banned Books Week, I check out the annual list of books of challenged and banned books. On this year's list, there are at least three books that my neighborhood book club has read. We are hardly a subversive group! There are even some members who don't drink wine. Really.

Here are the dangerous books my book club has read in unknowing defiance of all that is good and pure and apparently American:

The Tortilla Curtain
The Bean Trees
The Glass Castle

These were good discussion books -- some of the group's favorites. While one or two in the group strongly disliked The Tortilla Curtain, none of us would want to take away the ability to choose to read this book from someone else. I'm going to take another look at this year's list and see if I can find more to suggest for the book group.

fall falling

And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.

-- Edward Hirsch, from his poem "Fall"

shades of blue

Spent the afternoon at one of my favorite places --
Sand Harbor, Lake Tahoe (a Nevada State Park).
I love the water stars in this photo.

birds on a wire

Welcome

[Hunter Creek, Reno]