A New Favourite

Was browsing Bath and Body works recently for a new hand cream. I have been suffering from extremely dry hands this winter and needed immediate relief. The scent-free policy in my office can make it somewhat difficult to find products that work and are not offensive to those with sensitivities. Anyway I noticed a whole stack of %50 off products and decided to give this one a try. I have had the softest hands ever since. The skin around my thumb which is normally cracked and bleeding is now healing and no longer painful. My knuckles have also stopped bleeding. I am in heaven! Off to B and B again today to stock up on this. The only reason they have this on sale now is the packaging will be changing soon and they need to get rid of their stock. At $10 a bottle, this is a real steal!!! And the scent is so light that nobody even notices...I am the only one who occasionally gets a  whiff of lemon/citrus if my hands come up near my face. Very nice!

a short rant

I was stopped at the mall yesterday by one of those hair straightener sales ladies. Normally I don't mind stopping and letting them try to sell me a new straightener. I never buy them but when they are through with their shpeel my hair usually looks pretty good. This time I told the girl I was on my short break and didn't have much time. She persuaded me to sit for a minute anyway. I did. Then while she was playing around with my hair all I could smell was strong cigarette smoke. Really, if you are working in a job touching people's hair and standing such close proximity to others why are you smoking? She absolutely reaked I actually had to hold my breath. After a minute or two I got up and told her I had to go, then muttered under my breath that she smelled too strongly like smoke for me to sit any longer. I hope she heard me.

V day...and the big return

Today was my first day back to work after a 5 week break. I was sort of looking forward to the return as being home and not doing much other than cleaning, cooking and shopping might get a little old. (although I have to admit I love the way my house looked while I was off- so clean and tidy too!)
I logged into my computer and was greeted with 300 emails to go through. I was off for 5 weeks not 5 months! I couldn't believe it! After spending most of the day reading and deleting emails I am ready for a nice romantic Valentine's Day evening with my dear hubby....well not really but one can hope! We did get my parents to babysit last night so we could go out for dinner without the kids. We went for sushi to Ginza. Not exactly a romantic choice but it was good food and the price was reasonable. After sushi we went to Indigo to browse the books. This is something we both love doing! I actually bought something and he did not- normally it's the other way around.
Just lusting after a nice bouquet of red roses. In my 30something years I have never once been give a dozen roses. Sure I've had the single rose and bouquets of other flowers but I really want a dozen roses wrapped all nicely handed to me by the one I love! Not too much to ask for...is it?

Looking for thoughts and feedback

My daughter was recently invited to a birthday party. I know this is nothing new nor is it exciting but the form in which she was sent the invite and some other things got me thinking. The invitation was sent via Echoage which is a nice idea but the problem here was I didn't actually receive the invite. My email accounts are set up so that almost anything sent to me via an outside source (as in not in the contact list) goes straight to junk mail and then deleted without reading (prevents a large amount of viruses on our computer) The mother of the birthday girl then sent me an email asking if we were coming to which I replied I didn't know we had been invited...altough it all worked out in the end. But that isn't the real issue here...the real issue is that invite said that in the name of the "environment" please refrain from bringing a wrapped gift and just give a donation instead. Half of what you give would be going to a charity chosen by the birthday child and the other half would be used to purchase a gift the child really wants. I was leary of this whole idea as I thought it was kind of tacky to ask for money rather than gifts even if the premise of the request is the help the environment and give to a charity all at the same time. I know that the money isn't going to be used for a gift, it is going to be put into an RESP and saved for the child's future- which is great but at the same time didn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. In the end I did donate towards this cause as I was just too lazy to look for a gift and I could just pull out my credit card right here in the comfort of my home.
I am just wondering what any of my readers think about this new age of birthday party gift requests! Is is okay or tacky ??