I recently saw a commercial for a men's body wash. It was one of those all-in-one washes, covering hair, face, and body. Similar products are made for children. That might work well for men and kids, but no self-respecting woman would ever use just one product in the shower.

For hair, we use shampoo. Since it is a sin to use soap on your face, we use facial cleanser. Then there is body wash for the body and foot scrub for our feet. Sometimes body polish follows the regular washing. After everything has been cleansed, washed, scrubbed and polished, we need to moisturize. For the hair, there is conditioner. The face needs moisturizer. Not lotion, moisturizer. Then there is the body lotion. Our feet need either lotion or moisturizer specifically made for feet. Right now, I have a foot "creme" (not cream).

Each product is used exclusively for its own set purpose. Can you imagine what chaos would ensue if our foot creme met up with the body lotion in the ankle area?

Women need a large number of cleansing and moisturizing products. This can be seen at any grocery store in the aisle of body washes. There are about 90 for women, 6 for men, and maybe 2 for little kids. What can I say? A woman must smell her best.

It makes me wonder how our grandmothers survived with (gasp) plain soap and water.

Lessons learned

One Saturday, not long ago, I was doing my usual Saturday stuff when I got a phone call from my husband. He said there had been a grease fire in the kitchen, but fortunately it had been put out with the fire extinguisher. No big deal, I thought. So I lost a frying pan. It needed replacing anyway. Then he said he was going to call our insurance agent. Insurance agent? I wondered. How much damage had been done anyway?

I soon found out. The kitchen was smothered with white powder from the fire extinguisher. The range hood was pretty much destroyed. In fact, a piece of it had melted and fallen onto the range. It then solidified and became a permanent fixture on the coil burner. I wanted to just sweep up all the powder, but we had to wait until an insurance adjuster (or an assessor or somebody) looked at all the damage. Besides, the powder was an irritant and shouldn't just be swept up. So our kitchen was not usable. We went out to dinner for several nights in a row.

One might think that eating out all the time like that would have resembled being on vacation. If one were to think that, however, one would be wrong. Vacations are when you spend your days at an amusement park or beach and you get to go out to eat. We were not spending our days doing fun things and we had to go out to eat. By the fifth night, I really didn't care where we had dinner. I just wanted food to somehow come our way. One night, we went to my mother-in-law's house, and it was a very nice change for the better.

Eventually, we were able to get a new stove. A very nice new stove. A stove with a convection setup and one of those burners that is just for keeping food warm. It has three racks. (The old stove had only one.) It also has this really cool feature where you turn a knob and the correct burner turns on. (Something the old stove didn't have.) Anyway, our kitchen is now quite usable and I am happy to be cooking again.

So what are the lessons here? I am not saying that you should set fire to your kitchen in order to get a new stove. The phone calls and paperwork were a big headache and I am quite opposed to kitchen fires. Or any indoor fire for that matter.

One important lesson is to always have a fire extinguisher in your house. It is like having a form of insurance. You hope you'll never use it, but there might just come a day when you will be very glad to have it.

The other lesson is this: Sometimes you might have a problem so big that you can't even begin to figure out how to solve it. But after a time, it might turn out just right and somehow you may even find a happy ending.

Flower Quest

Ever since we bought our first home last year and increased our living space, I have been pulling vases out of storage and trying to put them on display, preferably with flowers in them. Of course, fresh flowers would be nice, but that can't happen year round. So I have been on a mission to find silk flowers.

One craft store in the area went out of business, so I made the seven mile trek to another craft store the next town over. (I combined it with another errand in the same town so as not to waste gas.) There I found an abundance of beautiful fake flowers, ranging in price from $1.99 to about $4 a flower. So I grabbed some up, went home and put some in the vases. I bought some more from the same place a few weeks later.

Recently, I went to one of those dollar stores not far from my house. I was looking for a cheap umbrella, but they didn't have any. But they did have silk flowers. Four for a dollar! I wish I had known that they were there, just five minutes from where I live. Soon I will have enough flowers to fill all my vases.

Interestingly, my kids asked me why I chose to put a vase of these flowers on the dining room table. Would we be eating around this vase from now on? Of course, the vase is removed before each meal. And why else would I display a vase full of flowers? Because it's pretty!

A Cat's Life

I feel compelled to once again blog about our cat, Olivia. This time I am trying to figure out why she seems so intelligent in some cases and completely idiotic in others.

There are times when I am impressed with her cognitive abilities. For example, one day Olivia decided to step from couch to the window sill. (See photo) She sat there for a while then realized there was no way down. It was too far to jump down and the coffee table was too far away to step onto. It took her about 20 minutes to figure out that she had to walk backwards to the end of the sill, jump onto the couch and then to the floor. Smart cat, right? But remember this is the same cat who fell onto the stairs every day for about a month before she finally quit napping next to the stairs. (See previous post, Olivia the Super-Cat)

Still, I know Olivia has some intelligence. In the three houses we have lived in since we acquired her, she has always known to stay away from the street. Even now when we are right next to it.

But then I think of the ritual she and I go through just about every week. Olivia's food dish is in the kitchen. Once a week, I move her dish to the living room so I can vacuum and mop the kitchen. About 30 seconds after I move it, she decides to eat. She goes into the kitchen and stares at the empty space where her dish usually is. She looks at me and meows. I point to the temporary location of the food dish. I even pick it up and shake it so she can see what it is. She gives me a blank stare and meows again. I point to the food dish again. She looks at the kitchen floor then looks back at me and meows. Finally, I start the vacuum which scares her and she runs off. About a half hour later, while the kitchen floor is drying, Olivia figures out where her food dish is and begins eating.

Now if she were really a smart cat, wouldn't she figure all of this out so we wouldn't have to go through the same thing every week? Apparently not.

Then again, she has been smart enough to stay alive to the age of 15.