Christmas around the world: I’m watching Paris dress for the holidays.

This afternoon we shopped Passy Plaza and had to stop and mire the shimmering gold and white lights. It’s not yet Thanksgiving, but it’s beginning to feel alot like Christmas…

I like to snack on hard boiled eggs when I’m rushing but need to eat. Julie asked if I’ve tried Eggies. No, but I’ve seen them at the check-out at Bed Bath and Beyond.

Then Eggies were featured in a BBB flyer. Then an email. And since I was at BBB buying picture frames, and my friend Suzanne was coming to visit and she loves hard boiled eggs as much as I do, and Eggies were sitting right next to the cash register, why not?

Why? Eggies allow you to hard-boil eggs without the shell. Each package has 6 plastic egg shaped containers. You break 1 egg into each container, then boil as normal. Voila! Hard boiled eggs for a quick on-the-go snack, salads, stuffed eggs and other uses. Can also be used to make all-white hard boiled eggs.

$9.99 less 20% coupon I have 6 new Eggies, and an egg separator (which will sit unused in a drawer for a while until I finally throw it away).

btw… Eggies is also sold on TV and online, and the online site states that Eggies are not available in stores. Funny, because I know I bought my Eggies at BBB and I’m pretty sure that’s a store!

Hard-boiled eggs without the shell: it makes me happy!

The past 6 weeks we’ve hosted 5 different sets of overnight guests. Our guests use the guest bathroom, aka TBG’s bathroom. Other than checking to see that it’s clean and fully stocked, I pretty much never go in there. But after the 4th guest commented on the jars of salt scrub TBG has in there (the 5th guest was a 10 year old boy and I’m guessing not alot of scrubbing took place in there) I decided to actually go inspect his shower and sink.

I was with TBG this August in Charleston when we ate at Hyman’s Seafood Restaurant. As they don’t take reservations – and the food is worth the wait – we spent alot of time browsing the Hyman’s Gift Shop, and TBG found the wet bar and started sampling the Holy City Sea Salts. In the end, he purchased 2 jars of the sea salts: Eucalyptus and Lavender. Holy City Salt Scrub leaves your skin feeling clean and soft and moist and smelling wonderful!

Made with all natural ingredients:

• Dead Seas Salt
•  Other Sea Salts
• Coconut Oil
• Grape Seed Oil
• Other Essential Oils

Holy City Sea Salts come in a range of scents:

• coconut
• vanilla lavender
• Ed Hardy
• French Lavender
• chamomille

(I remember sampling something citrusy, but not sure which one that is.)

If you’re not in Charleston any time soon, you can purchase Holy City Sea Salts online at www.holycityskinproducts.com or at 888.456.0382. About $20. Each jar comes with a wooden spoon. Warning: the jars are glass, not my favorite for the shower.

Lucky for me my shower is broken and I’m showering everday in TBG’s bathroom…and using up his supply of Holy Sea Salt Scrub.

Lil Sis Mary was being released from the hospital after surgery, and had to be sure not to get her incision and staples wet in the shower. I’m on it: my friend Carla just shared a showering after surgery tip and I was thrilled to be able to pass it on to Mary:

Press’n Seal! Cut off a piece of cling large enough to cover the area you need to keep dry, press carefully around the edges to “seal” the cling to the skin, then shower! When finished, just toss out the used cling and tear off a fresh piece for the next shower. In addition to surgical scars, Press’n Seal would have worked great when TBG had a PICC line after surgery, and when he had his knee in a cast.

Simple, effective and cheap! Press’n Seal can be found at your grocery or home goods store, $5 – $8 depending on size.

Who knew?

From the bed of…

Little Sister Mary is unexpectedly in town this week: she flew from Texas to Chicago for an unplanned surgery, so arrived with 1 suitcase and 1 daughter, 1 husband and 1 son to follow shortly. In all the rush and confusion of course things were forgotten, so from her hospital bed Mary started giving me lists of things she needed from Target, Gap, Bed Bath and Beyond, grocery store, etc:

• hot pink pillowcases
• pink eyemask
• cotton t-shirts
• bottled water and Crystal Light packets
• Monistat Chafing Powder

Monistat Chafing Powder? Wait: you’re in the hospital, shouldn’t we check with your Doctors before you order yeast infection ointments?

Mary looked at me like I’m crazy: Don’t you read the blogs? I use Monistat powder as a primer for my BareMinerals makeup.  Hunh?

Once home I spent an hour googling it: she’s right. Since being introduced, women have discovered that Monistat Chafing Powder has similar ingredients to much more expensive makeup primers: $7.99 for Monistat v $20, $30 or more for similar cosmetic primers. I just converted from wearing moisturizer and concealer to BareMinerals make-up, and living in very humid climates, had been trying to deal with makeup dripping down my face. That’s why I need a primer!

(What’s a makeup primer? I didn’t know either, so I looked it up: it’s a basecoat for your foundation, that leaves your skin smoother and helps the makeup adhere better. So on hot humid days, your expensive powder foundation isn’t running onto your white tank top! Apply after moisturizer, before foundation.)

Who knew? Monistat is now in my medicine cabinet…and happily not for a yeast infection.

Thanks Lil Sis!

No matter where you look, you know it’s October National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And with my friends and families we’ve unfortunately had reasons to discuss all forms of cancers these past months. But this month, whether we’re watching TV, taking the bus, at a football game, reading a magazine, or shopping at the mall we are reminded that cancers are among us every day.

In one of our ongoing email chains, I happened to mention to several friends that I’d watched The Talk that day, and that Dr. Kristi Funk said women who have birth under age 20 were at a lower risk for breast cancer: yea for me! And later I emailed them that Dr Kristi also strongly recommends 3 cups of green tea daily as a cancer preventative: it’s those antioxidants at work. And I like to drink with style, so I’m sipping my hot tea from a zebra-striped thermal mug with a hot pink straw!

No problem: hot or iced green tea lemonade, I drink green tea daily because I like it. And the health benefits are a welcome bonus.

So do yourself a favor and drink up: Santé!

moi tip: Today I’m drinking Daily Green Tea The People’s Green Decaf

A few months ago I had an emergency closet intervention from Closet Works when my entire wire system collapsed. In a few days I went from this:

to this:

But sadly, even Tyler couldn’t make my closet any bigger, or help me add to the bags of clothes that had already been donated to the shelter. So, I’ve been trying a few tricks to maximize my closet space:

• switch from wooden to slimline flocked hangers ($29.99 for a box of 50)
• buy hangers with hooks so that blouses or tshirts can hang in rows
• add flocked clips to convert plain slimline hangers to pants or skirt hangers

But I have alot of skirts and trousers, and they simply take up too much room on a single hanger. The clips were an OK solution, but they too often fell off the hanger and really added to the width of each hanger, taking up even more space. The hooks built-in to the hangers tend to get caught on everything. In the good old days I had sets of metal and plastic pants and skirts hangers, with the clips attached and allowing 4 or 5 pants or skirts on a single hanger. Not available any more. I have a few sets left, but I had too many hangers holding only a single pair of pants or skirt.

Voila: Real Simple 4-tier skirt hangers. I can hang 4 pants or skirts in the space of 1. Sometimes the old ideas are still the best ideas. $7.00 at Bed Bath and Beyond. I bought 4 sets and had a $5 coupon.

And my bulky trousers have gone from this:

        to this:  

Fall is in the air: pumpkin spice lattes, chai teas, deep-dish apple pie and maple syrup: all the sweet and spicy flavors we associate with the changing of the leaves. And for me, speculoos cookies. Normally I bake my windmill-shaped speculoos cookies for the holidays, but I start craving them once the nights start to turn colder. So a few years ago when I discovered Lotus Biscoff Speculoos Spread at Monoprix in Paris, I began hauling jars home. Cinnamon, caramelized sugar, ginger, cardamon: my favorite sweet and spicy flavors.

Much like my other favorite Nutella, I’ve found lots of ways to use speculoos spread:

• as a dip for apples
• spread between 2 shortbread wafers for a yummy sandwich cookie
• slathered on hot toast or pancakes

Living in NYC, I got lucky: The Wafels and Dinges truck not only came to my neighborhood at least weekly, but they also sold their own version of speculoos spread. I bought 4 jars before we left NYC!

And now, Biscoff Speculoos Spread is at my World Market! I checked: you can also order it thru amazon.com, or directly thru Biscoff. I hear you can also find it at Walmart, but I haven’t seen it yet.

Moi note: I’m a loyal Delta frequent flyer, probably because they pass out free packs of Biscoff speculoos cookies! And if you’re really nice, the flight attendant will give you two!

Global Lighting asked me if I’d like to look through their lighting gallery and blog about my favorite pick. Here’s my choice: what do you think?

Global Lighting: The Lampara! Read all about it here

Or would you have picked the red shades?

Every August we start to hear the question: Is it OK to wear white after Labor Day? Mais oui! In fact, as I’m writing this its a sunny 42° September morning in Chicago, and I’m wearing white jeans and long-sleeve black t-shirt. However, it is time to switch-out my summer white Furla bag for a Fall bag.

Last week TBG had a short trip to London, and while normally I’d finagle my way to go with him, the trip was so short I didn’t even consider it. Due to international travel hassles, TBG arrived at Heathrow nearly 3 hours before his flight, and after a touchy-feely British TSA invasion, he ended up with nearly 2 hours until boarding time. How to spend a few hours in the airport: shopping at Harrods, bien sur! So when the cab brought him home Friday night, Mignette and I were downstairs to greet him. The first thing out of the cab: a giant shiny green Harrods bag. For Moi.

In the bag: a new bag! I scored a new black Jimmy Choo hobo bag, light weight with lots of interior pockets. (Apparently it was also available in plum, but no returns to Heathrow!) For the last 6 days my new bag has stayed in its Harrods bag, decorating our bedroom floor, but this morning I decided to make the seasonal bag switch. (Yes, I use other bags throughout the season, but I always have a go-to bag ready each season. And btw: I do have a winter-white bag I usually use around the holidays.)

So I dumped the contents of the Furla onto the bed, anticipating a quick switch to the Jimmy Choo. Even I was surprised at a few things I found on the bed:

• a folded up stack of $20s: $80. Who knew?
• 2 iPhone earbuds and a charger: apparently I fear going into iPhone withdrawal
• 3 different bottles of eye drops
• about $4 worth of change: no wonder the bag was so heavy
• a fan, and battery operated pen-fan: I was using the bag in SoFlo, so that makes sense.
• 2 containers of migraine pills: both with pills (on my trip to Boston in July I had the containers but no pills: and a migraine )
• lipgloss, eyeglasses, empty eyeglass case, tide-out, Altoids, hand-creme, plastic hairclip
• reusable plastic shopping bag (which Trader Joes would probably like me to use)

Naturally no wallet or sunglasses: they were on the dresser. But not bad! The change is heading to Starbucks for a “free” chai latte (tall, skim, extra water, extra hot) and the $20s are my little secret…TBG never reads my blog.

Note: I didn’t ask, and I haven’t checked, but I’m guessing it would have been cheaper for me to fly with TBG to London than his airport shopping spree.