NOISE: Embody

You Get What You Give

As the holiday season continues to descend upon us, I can't help but be reminded of a holiday season nearly 10 years ago that forced me to take stock of my own blesings and gifts unlike any other.

The Stuff Our Lives Are Made Of

I have never shopped on Black Friday. When my husband and I first met, I was invited by the women of his clan to join them on their 5am excursions into the fray, complete with long-distance walkie-talkies and sketched out blueprints of department store floorplans.I declined politely, preferring to spend my time with visiting family and friends over the all-too-short holiday weekend. But,paging through the heaps of ads yesterday for Friday's Big Sales, I couldn't help but get a little seduced by all the stuff...It was an endless parade of all the stuff you 'need' to have this season, and flipping through the shiny pages, the beginnings of the idea that I needed that stuff, too, began creeping in.

Fun with Fall Alliteration

It still feels a little surreal to me to think about the end of 2010 coming up in just 5 short weeks, but I have managed to get my bearings enough lately to enjoy some of the late Fall/early Winter veggies that abound this time of year. This past week, my husband and I indulged in one of our favorites along with trying something new from the cool-season crops.

When Good Cider Goes Bad

2 weeks before Halloween, I purchased 5 gallons of unpasteurized cider for a friend having a party. With no room for the gallons in my fridge, I set them on the then-cool cement floor of my garage and forgot about them. Then we had a bit of a warm spell right before October 31, and when I remembered to check on the cider a few days before the party, they had gone a little 'sparkling'.

The Hairy Truth

After having exactly 2 haircuts at a trendy salon here in Lansing, I ended up on their email list and have been getting some interesting SPAM from them lately. You can identify Viagra ads, penis-enlargement ads, and all sorts of other goodies in your email box by their *ahem* suggestive title lines, so I was suspicious when my ex- hair salon sent me an email with a title line reading "Brazilian Blowout Special!"