Beauty Tips for Ministers

Contact Lenses & Fat Report

May I take a moment to pick your collective brains as to WHY my brand new disposable contact lenses are all cloudy and acting like a year -old pair I never bothered to clean correctly in college? Whither the protein build-up?
I just saw an opthomologist and had all the tests one should have every few years and there’s nothing wrong with mine eyes, which have definitely not seen the glory of the Lord– or anything much else clearly– these days!

What gives? Is the air THAT dirty? Allergies? Cheapo drugstore brand solution that promises to clean and disinfect but lies through its teeth? Thoughts, wearer of contacts?

So, I’m a bit behind lately and have so many products to review for you! And speaking of behind, Weight Watchers is my new BFF. Even with a fellow foodie in the house and lots more forbidden foods around and tempting me, I’m still slowly but surely dropping the lbs. by writing everything down and getting back on program right away after I get off. The gym is also a major factor. I love that stupid gym now. It is SO GOOD to see results. Very few people but me notice the loss yet but it’s such a relief to just zip up the jeans and have some room to spare. It’s so good not to feel like a stuffed sausage in my sweaters. Best of all, I feel the urge to compulsively nosh my face much less frequently. That’s why I sing the praises of WW: they make explicit and easy the direct correlation between input of food and output of energy. For me, it takes away the emotional agita and guilt around over-eating. My thinking simply becomes: “Well, I ate a lot more today than I could have possibly burned off. That won’t result in a day of weight loss but weight gain. Do I choose that, or do I choose something else?” You can’t argue with calories — they’re not moral entities but chemical ones. You consume them or you don’t. You consume them in the form of fried calamari or in the form of a huge salad that will keep you fuller longer. I am spending more time in food preparation now than I ever have before, but it all weighs out fairly evenly since it takes time to get out of the car and pick up take-out, too.

For helping with refraining from compulsive overeating efforts, I would like to say hanks so much to the Online Ministry Posse. I hope you’re all doing well; please write in if you want support and prayers from “the compassionate void.”

Tulips Are In!

Greetings to my post-holiday, perhaps more-than-slightly exhausted darlings,

About six years ago, PeaceBang took a “vacation” after the holidays which consisted of driving to New Hampshire (2 hours or so away), staying in a hotel, eating meals alone, and sliding home down the highway through a blizzard two nights later. This experience was more depressing than 21 straight days of rain in May (that happened one memorable year, too, and just the memory of it makes me want to stick a fork in my eye), and the following year PeaceBang said to her Board of Trustees and Worship Committee, “I’d like to take two weeks of my vacation time in January, if you please.” Because they are good and wise people, they said, “Why, certainly.” I gratefully packed myself off to Mexico, and a January vacation has remained a cherished institution in my life since then. Not only restful but productive: I outlined no fewer than four sermons after good, long, uninterrupted afternoon naps, and read several eminently preachable books and articles.
We NEED TIME OFF AND AWAY, my doves. We are not automatons, we cannot drive to the great spiritual filling station on a random busy afternoon and expect to get a full tank of the Holy Spirit and drive away humming “How Great Thou Art.” The body gets tired, the brain gets weary, the spirit starts to drag and stagger, and the psyche craves deep time in the well of silence and restorative sleep.

You must advocate for vacation time for yourself. You must put aside savings for it. You must understand that you need and deserve REAL time off. No, Jesus did not go on vacation. But let’s remember how short his earthly ministry was, my friends. You are in this for the duration and the last time I looked, none of ya’ll could walk on water, either.

So PeaceBang came home from vacation and noticed today that the TULIPS ARE BACK in the florist shops, a fact that made her sigh with rapturous, sensual pleasure (oh, those oranges! those lipstick pinks! Delicious!) and a blunt, creaturely yearning for beauty. She filled her eyes with their saturated colors and thought of all of you, all of us, and wished this wish:

“I hope my powder pigeons are right now pushing their chairs back from their desks, looking out the window for a friendly chickadee or slash of turquoise sky, laughing belly laughs with a trusted friend, feeding themselves with something exquisite and nourishing instead of grabbing a granola bar in the car, and taking a few moments on the way out of the hospital to stop in the gift shop to play with the stuffed animals before they head to their next meeting. I hope some of them are stopping to inhale the smell of their children’s nap-sweaty heads, getting a massage, painting their toenails Dutch Tulip red, sneaking off for an afternoon at the movies, stirring a pot of intoxicating chowder for a posse of pals, or making love. I hope they are stopping to breathe, to absorb color and light, to let music wash over them like a divine anointing, and allowing themselves uninterrupted moments of simple human pleasure.”

Here in the northeast we’re just starting the Drab Time of year. So from here on in until the chinook starts blowing in, I will try to have tulips in my home to remind me of all the glory that abounds, even under the tired-looking snow and in the austere New England winter landscape.

Be beautiful!

Snarf Your Sinus Troubles Away

Darling snuffleupaguses,

PeaceBang obtained a Neti pot a few weeks ago and cannot say enough good things about it. Since she started using it, she doesn’t even need a humidifier in the house anymore, because she doesn’t get stuffy.

I remember in 1991, doing a long-run production of “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?” at the Des Plaines Theatre Guild in Des Plaines, IL. The run got extended twice and I was just dead ill, trying to teach high school during the day and play an elementary school-age child in a hilarious musical requiring a lot of frenetic singing and dancing. One of our tricks (I think we all had colds and flus at least one weekend) was to mix up little handfuls of warm salt water in our palms backstage and snort them up our noses before big numbers, to hydrate and clear our heads. It really did work. The Neti pot is a much calmer and more sanitary version of that same idea.

You mix up some pure sea salt (nothing iodized) with warm water in the Neti pot, plug one nostril with the spout, tilt your head over the sink, keep your mouth open, and let the stream of water flush you out, way up into the sinus cavities. You snarf out all the nasty stuff (keep tissues nearby), and then repeat with the other side. Be sure not to use too much salt, which can burn, and keep the water tepid-to-warm, not warm-hot (ouch!). You don’t want to boil your brains.

Some mornings — and I’m trying not to be too graphic here — I don’t even feel stuffy but five minutes after using the Neti pot I’m blowing merrily away into my Kleenex and being quite, um, productive. Do I hear a choir of nuns singing, “The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Mucus?” I mean, this definitely isn’t the kind of thing you want to do in front of your hot new lover. “Pardon me, my exquisite darling, while I stick this ceramic doohickey up my nose and flush my cranium.” It’s not a very appealing thing to watch.

I really wish I could do this for my cat, who has snuffly-nosed tendencies, but I’m sure she would misunderstand my good intentions and engage in severe forms of social protest like howling and scratching the bejesus out of me. Someone obviously needs to design a tiny kitty cat neti pot. Remember a year ago when she was in the hospital in the oxygen chamber clinging to life? And you were all so wonderful praying for her? Don’t think we have forgotten. So kisses from PeaceBang and Ermengarde, both of whom are breathing blessedly well this January.

“Thanx, everyone. I doing really well now. My paw fur growed back where it was shaved, so cuteness factor not at all impaired. ”

Make Sure You Eat Enough!!

I’m going to try to write this post in a mature, nurturing manner although I feel like having a stomping fit and slamming my little cowboy boots all over the house, followed by a bout of yelling and crying on the floor (complete with pounding fists).

It’s just that, you see, I joined Weight Watchers in early December and I’ve been very devoted to it. The results have been very positive. You go to a meeting, you get “weighed in” (like a truck), they hand you your little booklet, you attend a meeting where you learn fascinating things like how to make pumpkin mousse, and everyone claps for each other for losing 1/8 of an oz. or whatever. I did a brief stint in WW during my college years and loathed it — I felt starved all the time and I hated the meetings — but now I can cook, I’m not going to let the wacky sitcom atmosphere of the meetings get to me, and I’m trying to learn how to eat like a person who isn’t a compulsive overeater. I carry my little POINTS PLAN book around with me, I am really trying to learn how fattening things are, and what a regular portion looks like. Along the way, I want to drop some pounds. I’m willing to take my time, I’m not thinking about it constantly, I have a great Online Ministry Posse to write to when I need moral support, all is well, etc. and bla bla bla.

So I step on the scale tonight expecting to see a significant loss of butter and the gal goes, “Here you go. You lost one pound.” And I go, “WHAT?” She sees my face fall down somewhere around my ankles and she calls over a leader (on nametag: “I LOST 29 LBS IN 1998″) who asks me these questions:

Leader: Did you eat all your allowed points?
Me: NO!! I was so busy and I didn’t have time to keep track, so I just ate little bits of things and lots of vegetables — I did go to restaurants but I did really well, I think, I know that on a couple of days I ate quite a bit less than I was allowed.
Leader: Did you work out?
Me: YES! Four times this week! I did cardio, I lifted weights, I sweated! I drank lots of water!
Leader: But you didn’t eat more to allow for that, right?
Me: No, I just figured I’d lose more weight if I didn’t use the points earned during exercise.
Leader: Did you use up your 35 flex points?
Me: No. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
Leader: You know what happened? YOU DIDN’T EAT ENOUGH THIS WEEK!! And your body probably thought it was starving, and it slowed down your metabolism to compensate. You have to eat all your points. Eat more when you exercise, and use your flex points.
Me: This is the first time in my life anyone has ever told me to eat more. Except for my Baba, God rest her soul.

So kids, the moral of this stupid moment in my life is that if you’re on a weight loss program, don’t be all Diet Ninja about it and starve yourself. Eat enough food, okay? Get your fruits and veggies in there, and enough hydration, and if you’ll excuse me now I’m going to have half a cup of pumpkin ice cream with dark chocolate chips mixed in.

Crummy Pants

After a long, hard work-out today I looked at myself in the full-length mirror at the health club, took off my pants and threw them away.

SO THERE.

They were at least 7 years old, and while they had the boot-cut yoga pant look that I love, they had obvious bleach stains on the crotch and on the butt, were stretched out so far I could have pulled them over my head, and worst of all, they were depressing me.
They were in such bad shape I couldn’t have even donated them to the Salvation Army.

So now I only have two or three decent pairs of work-out sweats (I refuse to wear the kind with the cuffed ankle; please, my legs look short enough already), but that’s just tough. After I lose another bunch of lbs. I’ll treat myself to some new ones (probably from Lands End, which carry petite fat girl sizes) and that’s all there is to it.

Even when we’re working out we have to have some dignity. Plus, I saw three congregants at the gym today. I don’t want to be sporting a bleach-stained butt in front of them, for heaven’s sake!

In case you were worried, I did have my street clothes to change into. I’m not that rebellious!

Ambient Sleep Music

This CD, “Ambient Sleep Music” by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson is just lovely and peaceful without being overly New Age to the point where you want to stab your speakers with a letter opener ten minutes into the recording. Since I’m the type of gal who very often would go from writing or reading or household chores RIGHT to bed and have instantly “what-I-gotta-do-tomorrow-what-did-I-forget-to-do-today” distracting thoughts the moment my head hit the pillow, I am making an effort to do a real wind-down for bedtime. I cut off all communication (phone is the hardest, but we’re working on it) for at least an hour, I snuggle in, I read only prayers or meditations, the cat comes and does her kamikaze flop against my side (with accompanying adorable paw stretching and face-petting), and at about 15 minutes before I want to fall asleep, I put on “Ambient Music for Sleep” or another CD from my collection (I have a Reiki one that I like, and a Shiatsu massage one that I like). I avoid chants or anything vocal, I play it softly, and I’m out and sleeping well for at least a solid 8 hours.

Thanks to my friend Tricia for buying me a clock-radio with a CD player in it several years ago. It had been in the guest room but I went to reclaimed it for my own. Brazilliant invention. You fall asleep to music of your choice, you wake up to it. Ahhhhhh.