I have been reading a book called “Life Together” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, not by my own inclination, but because I am reading it for a book club. In the book, he talks about the “ministry of holding your tongue” and refers to scripture in James. Now, I know that it might be ironic that I am talking about the idea of holding your tongue in my BLOG, but it made me think of the fact that it is very hard for me to do this, and even harder to speak positively of people sometimes (and I am not talking about “Wow, those jeans make your butt look really good – where can I find them?”) – true admiration of a character trait someone possesses.

Here – let’s practice. One thing I admire about my friend Shelley B is that she narry has a negative thing to say about anybody, no matter how juicy it may be. She simply chooses to focus on other things – a very good thing to be around. What is something you admire about someone you know?

I found this You Tube video kind of interesting – about a woman who takes artistic photos of herself in dressing rooms wearing designer clothes. A little edgy – but different:

December is almost here and I find myself pleasantly unstressed by the holidays. I have been trying to slow down and enjoy the season a little bit more. Have been watching some Christmas movies gradually (which always includes of course “Christmas Vacation” – I know, so irreverent) and baking cookies as I want to, not out of obligation to give a plate of goodies to everyone I know (that will pile up next to 15 other gifts of sweets they will receive), but just as I get a hankering. It’s been nice – a good change for me.

Seth and I took a couple hours yesterday (our first day of snow in the valley) to go have breakfast up Immigration Canyon at Ruth’s Diner. This place is known for its mile high breakfast bisquits and hour long wait on a Saturday morning. It is the second oldest restaurant in SLC and quite a landmark actually. Back in her day, Ruth was an irreverent, saucy lady who also ran a brothel across from her restaurant downtown in the 1930′s – a churchgoing Mormon lady she was not. The restaurant was moved into a trolley car and found it’s way up the canyon eventually to stay. Before Ruth died sometime in the 1980′s at the ripe old age of 94, someone went to visit her and was horrified to find a gun under one of her couch cushions. After the guest shrieked that the gun was loaded, Ruth calmly replied “Well, it wouldn’t do me much good empty, now would it?”

So, this is a new favorite brand of mine because:

a) Pretty much everything is $1.

b) You can log in and give the computer info about your complexion and it will give you suggestions about what you should buy. You have to give them an email address but I found it worth it.

c) use the code CAROLINA and it will give you $10 off your $20 purchase (I am hoping this still works – it did 3 weeks ago)

It has been fun to fool with the stuff I got because it is so cheap and it is actually good makeup. Plus, you don’t have to roll the dice at Walmart or have someone hovering over you at a department store to buy a $20 tube of lipstick that you then of course HAVE to wear every day because you spent $20 in it. It’s cheap, so you can buy several things and play with them. So far I like the Plumping Lip Glaze (people really like elf lip stuff), the Mascara Duo and my eyeliner in “Ash” the best.

Here is the website: https://www.eyeslipsface.com

Seriously, where is my advertising mons for this??

Halloween in Salt Lake City is absolutely outrageous. I am not “anti-Halloween” or anything. In fact, Seth was saying today that he can’t wait until he dresses up his future kid is some big fluffy bee outfit or something like that. But the sheer volume of lawn ornamentation in this town is totally out of control and rather creepy … I wish I had a picture of the “corpse” hanging from my neighbor’s porch last year in front of the actual grave in his yard he brought in a ton of dirt to build, but these pics (all in my neighborhood) will have to suffice:

The picture below on the left is one of my favorite houses because this lady decorates her arch with tiny little lights for every occasion possible, including easter eggs and Santa heads. It’s special…

And drumroll please…..

The Haunted House just down the street complete with a headless horseman out front. Who said Salt Lake wasn’t classy?

This is the first post to my personal blog. I hope to make my entries interesting, with good pics and only a little rambling. Feel free to bookmark and visit me often!