christine-murphy dot net

A couple of cool kitchen gadgets…

Now, this may not look like a kitchen gadget at first glance. But if you are a fan of Alton Brown and his TV show, Good Eats, you probably do see something from a hardware store as something used in the kitchen.

This is a pair of metal snips, similar to what I have, only the blades on mine are a little longer. Why pay a fortune for a pair of so-called *poultry shears*, when you can get this much more functional item for about ten bucks at Home Depot or Lowe’s?

They do a FAR better job when cutting up chickens and other poultry than those wussy *poultry shears* do.

You can save money by buying whole chickens and dissecting them yourself. An added bonus are the bones, which of course you save and use to make stock. Also, these come in handy if you want to cut apart leg quarters. These often come with a hunk of backbone attached, and these shears make easy work of removing that. The leg quarters are often cheaper than buying separate drumsticks and thighs, sometimes so much cheaper that it is worth it to do a little surgery at home to make them into good serving sizes.

Another item you might find useful is this set of dough presses. You can use them to make all sorts of little pillows filled with tasty stuff…dumplings, ravioli, and even sweet treats. When open, the reverse side serves as a dough cutter, to cut the dough into the exact size you need. Then you place the round of dough on the crimpy side, put in the filling of choice, and fold. And voila! It looks all nice and crimped and sealed completely!

This is something that you can probably find online, as well as in any good kitchen store.  They re very inexpensive…a set like this costs less than ten bucks, and you can do so  much with it!

I’ll be posting more of my favorite cool kitchen gadgets in the future, so stay tuned!

Review: Bare Escentuals makeup

I’ve been using Bare Escentuals mineral makeup for well over a year now, and I swear, I’ve never looked back!

I had seen the infomercials on TV, and had been seriously thinking about it. But then I heard from other people, real people, who used this makeup and swore by it. So I figured, what the hey, and I ordered the TV starter kit. This is a great way to get started, and it is MUCH less expensive than buying all of that stuff, including the brushes, individually. You also get a how-to DVD, which I watched through twice before starting to apply the makeup myself. You really do need to learn the *swirl, tap, buff* technique in order to get good results from these products.

These products may LOOK expensive at first, but really, a little goes a long way. When I ordered the starter kit, I also signed up for the club, where you get auto-shipments. The default is every two months, but this can be changed to suit your needs. I don’t need to get them that often, so I changed the frequency of my shipments.

The foundation has EXCELLENT coverage for anything you want to cover…seems unbelievable for something so light, but it’s true. I had some pretty bad acne when I started with BE, and it covered all of the redness beautifully. The starter kit comes with a concealer brush, which is great for applying foundation to blemishes, dark circles, anything you want to hide, for maximum coverage.

I also swear by the SPF protection that these products offer. The foundations are 15 SPF, and if you need added protection, there’s a product called Multi-Tasking Bisque that is 20 SPF. It makes an excellent concealer for those harder-to-conceal spots, but for me, it’s the BEST sunscreen EVER. I go to a lot of ball games in the summer, which involves sitting out in the sun. I burn very easily if I’m not careful, especially on my face. I’ve tried all sorts of greasy sunscreens and SPF foundations, but the BE products have been the best performers I’ve used.
Here’s how I use it: I brush some of the Bisque all over my face…I like the Full Coverage Buki Brush for this. Then I apply the foundation, warmth, Mineral Veil, etc. The stuff stays on all day, and I have NEVER gotten a sunburn on my face when I use the Bisque and the foundation together. Last week, Mike and I went out on a boat, and we didn’t have any sunscreen with us. Although we sat under a canopy on the boat, the reflection of the sun from the water still hit us. Mike got a little pink in the face, but I didn’t, not at all.

Another BE product that I swear by is the Essential Brow Kit. When I was a kid, my brother threw a hard plastic flowerpot at me, and it hit my eyebrow and cut it open. Our family doctor, Dr. Goliger, came to the house and stitched it up. Yeah, doctors actually made house calls back then, yeah, I AM OLD! So bust me!

Anyhoo, to this day, I have a big scar on my left eyebrow where the hair won’t grow, and if I don’t use some kind of brow stuff, it looks weird. I used to use eyebrow pencils, but it’s hard to make them not look like drawn-on brows. But once I found the Essential Brow Kit, that was it for me…when applied, it looks like real brow hairs. $32 may look steep for this kit, but trust me, I’ve gone through far more than that much worth of cheapy Maybelline eyebrow pencils in the amount of time it takes to use up one brow kit. A little really does go a long, long, long way here!

BE makeup has a near cult-like following…there are internet message boards where women talk about the makeup, show off how much BE stuff they have, etc. It truly is an addiction, but it’s a fun and healthy one…no need to go to drug rehab to break the addiction!

I know I’m hooked!  It’s the only makeup I use now!  Try it.

Something I wish I could find again…

…a product called Euro Lens Bath. Their website is *under construction*, but it seems that now the only place to find the product is at an optical shop. No one around here seems to carry it that I’ve seen so far, and I can’t find any source to order online.

This is a very nifty item that does a bang-up job of cleaning eyeglasses. It consists of a container with this sort of squeezy plastic cushy thing inside it, and the lens cleaning fluid itself.  You squeeze a small amount of the lens fluid into the large container, add water to the fill line.  Put the glasses in, screw the lid on, and SHAKE for about ten seconds.  Remove glasses, rinse, and dry with a non-abrasive cloth.

I had bought this kit when it was on QVC, probably about ten years ago?  For some reason, I got lazy and stopped using it.  And, as a result of NOT using it, I ruined my favorite glasses, the ones with the blue frames.

I had thought my vision was getting much worse, but put off going to the eye doctor for too long.  I needed to renew my drivers license, and I was scared I’d not pass the vision test.

Just days before my birthday (the date that my license was to expire, I realized that my blue glasses were looking VERY cloudy.  I remembered that I had the Euro Lens Bath system, and I dug it out and tried cleaning those glasses with it.  But they were beyond cleaning, due to years of not cleaning them properly.

Luckily, I had a second pair of eyeglasses with the  same prescription, that I hadn’t worn in eons.  I also have a pair of prescription sunglasses that I seldom wear.  They hadn’t taken the same abuse that the others did, and when I found them and put them on, I was amazed at how much better I could see.

So I wore this other pair when I went to the RMV, and was able to pass the vision test.  The blue framed glasses are now in retirement, which is a shame, because I really liked them.  The other glasses are the ones I’m wearing in the photo at the top of the sidebar here.

Anyhoo, now I am religious about using the Euro Lens Bath every day.  It came with two containers of the cleaning fluid, one not even opened yet, so I have enough to last me for a while.  But I’m hoping to find a place where I can get refills when I need them.  QVC doesn’t carry it anymore; I think they only sold the whole kit, anyway.  I don’t need another shaker thingy, just the cleaning stuff.

I’ll just have to keep looking.

WomanWithin.com

I’ve decided that I need to buy a new outfit, for when we go to see the Boston Pops in two weeks. Garrison Keillor is to be the special guest, we just love his books and A Prarie Home Companion radio show. But I HATE going out shopping at the maul, there always seen to be annoying people trying to ram into me. A girl could get HURT going shopping…wonder why so many women enjoy it so much?

The show is two weeks from tomorrow, so I figured I had time to order something online, and if I pony up extra for express shipping, I’ll have it well before the event.  Since I have the Woman Within (formerly Lane Bryant Catalog) credit card, I went to that site to see what they had.

I found this pantsuit, and ordered the black pinstriped version.  Twenty bucks to have it arrive here via UPS on May 5…dammit, it had BETTER get here by then, or the next day, no later.  We’re going out of town from the 7th-9th, I can’t have UPS leaving packages on the porch, or, worse, sending them back to the shipper.

The site does have some very nice plus-sized stuff.  But the jury is still out as to whether paying for the express shipping is worth it, or not.  Update will come!

Mother’s Day is coming…

So, if you are looking for a great gift idea, skip the flowers that die and the candy that gets eaten, and give your mom, wife, or grandma something that will last forever…a mother’s ring.

This Family Fun ring is nice, because you can put not only each child’s birthstone on it, but their names, as well.  There’s also another Family Fun ring, same idea.

The gemstones used in these rings are all 100% genuine.  Since the diamond, April’s REAL birthstone, is so expensive, they will use white topaz instead, unless you really want to pay extra for a real diamond.

If you don’t care for the Family Fun rings, that’s cool…LifetimeMothers.com has plenty of other styles; you’ll surely find one that your mom (or wife or grandma) would like.  Most of the rings come in either yellow or white gold.

Right now, they are guaranteeing shipping in time for Mother’s Day.  So why kill yourself trudging the malls, where they usually sell nothing but overpriced junk?  Order one of these beautiful rings online, and have it delivered right to your door!

While you’re there, get a jump start on Father’s Day by checking out these watches for men.  These are also engravable, and some have a place to also put a picture.

This is all very nice stuff, so go on over and check it out!