He's Swell & I'm Thrilled

I wrote about Isaiah Mustafa, the Old Spice Man On A Horse, Man Your Man Could Smell Like Man, at Girl Looks Swell and he made me a thank you video.  He also tweeted about me. I'm darn giddy about the whole thing! 




Just in case the video doesn't work, you can see it here.

Jack Johnson Makes Me Smile

Okay, I'm going to try to embed a YouTube video on here, something I've never tried in my blogger blog, so hopefully it works. I love this song. It makes me feel happy, plus Jack Johnson - with or without hair - is lovely.

One last thing, if you get a chance, please enter one or both of my Lubridern Advanced Moisturizer with SPF 30 giveaways at Gadabout Media or Girl Looks Swell. I want to give this stuff away and for some reason I'm not getting much response to this particular giveaway. It's good stuff and it's FREE.

Okay,  on to Jack, but first, go to the bottom right of the right column there and pause my plalyist. By the way, I've been thinking about taking the playlist off, but one of my friends says she really likes it. I haven't updated it in forever. Do you have a Askew To You Playlist opinion?  Please share it with me, if you do.  Okay, now, Jack..........

It's a Good, Good Day.......

Just a quick note.... I am having a really great day. Mom brought me by some bush beans for my garden and my neighbor upstairs gave me some tomato plants last night. It's not raining, sun is shining. I think I'm going to split my day between inside and outside chores. Not, oh-man-I've-chores type chores, but I'm glad-I'm-getting-this-done stuff.  I hope that you have a wonderful day!!

One last thing..... Don't forget to enter my skin care giveaway at Girl Looks Swell!

Happy Earth & Win Free Organic French Skin Care

Hello! Just a quick note....... I'm giving away some wonderful organic eye cream over at Girl Looks Swell today. It's from France, oo la la, and I've been using it for about 2 weeks. Good stuff. You can find the Bioethique Eye Cream giveaway here.

Now it's time to get Buddy to school and me to the eye doc. Have a wonderful day!

We Made an Art Pact

My friend, Cheir Burbach, who is currently in the midst of a virtual book tour for her book, 21 Simple Things You Can Do To Help Someone With Diabetes, and I were talking today and we've made an art pact. We have given ourselves one week to do a painting. She paints with acrylics and I paint with watercolors, but neither of us has painted anything in a long time. 

I thought that by doing something creative, but not writing related, it might jump-start the whole creative process. My girl, Bay, reminded me the other day about how much I enjoyed drawing. She said something about my paintings (completed YEARS ago) and I've had the urge to get my pencils out and doodle ever since.

Not working for b5 has really opened up my ability to brainstorm new ideas. I don't feel so bogged down because of a daily deadline and because of this new freedom, I feel able to write more, come up with more ideas. Except for the days when I'm fighting with my teenager. On those days, I have no ideas, no energy, no anything good. Stress is not good for any sort of creative process. 

I've been looking through my Flickr photos to get an idea of what I might like to paint. So far I have these photos in mind. If you have a chance to look and you feel any sort of inclination to push me in the direction of one or the other, please let me know which one you like best in the comments. I put this one up last night, a purple iris,  or maybe a pansy, or maybe I should try something like water on a leaf?

And if you get the chance, I've reworked my beauty blog Girl Looks Swell blog and I plan to write there regularly now.

A Happy Family

I finally put my first Girl Looks Swell post up. Just a quick intro, but I'll be back soon with more beauty information. Right now, Bay and I are using Mannatech skin care products and I want to be able to share both of our points of view. Hopefully I'll get her intro up there today, as well.

I'm going to be hosting a Wear Red event tomorrow for Heart Truth. If you'd like to take part, it's posted at my Veggie Chic blog. If you wear red tomorrow, please take your photo, then post it on your blog or your flickr account and then go back to Veggie Chic and leave a link in the comment section. I really, really hope that I'm not the only one who does it.

I wrote about Valentine's Day for Dating Dames today. I had a boyfriend for Valentine's Day last year. I was pretty happy on that day. This year, no boyfriend, of course no official ex-boyfriend either, since I still haven't spoken with him, but that's no longer of much importance. What I'm focusing on now - a happy family. We are happy!!! I'm pretty darn giddy about it.

I mentioned that to Bay a few minutes ago. She wants to give the whole of the credit to Greg and while I do think he has brought a lot of it on, I know that much of it is Bay. She's made great strides lately. She's been honest about some of what's going on with her and shedding some light on it, getting out from under the oppressive weight of secrets and lies, well, it's pretty darn liberating.

We rejoined the health club last night. Greg, Bay, and I all ran last night, but in the park, not at the gym. Greg went with his buddy - I went with Bay, but she had an asthma attack. I ran back to the car and when I drove up to get her, there was Greg. I told Sarah that it was like his Bailey radar was on high alert and he was drawn to the spot were she sat waiting. Out of all the places he could have run, well, the coincidence of it, finding her about 2 miles from our house, pretty interesting.

I have to get to work now. It's going to be a rainy day recess. Wish me luck, please!