Fall is in the air and birthday celebrations are mostly behind us. The Love Bug, my sister Kay and both daughters (Nashville and Cali) are Virgo babies, aka Christmas party babies. I can’t tell you if a planet is in retrograde, but I do enjoy reading a daily or monthly horoscope from time to time. It started after 9/11 when I was working with the high school librarian – she would always arrange all the newspapers on a wooden rack every morning. But first, we’d read our horoscopes!
Happy birthday season to you, Virgo! The Sun is in your sign until September 23, filling you with brilliant ideas and a yearning to explore fresh terrain. Scratch that itch…and the next one. While your sign is known for putting others first, this is the time to prioritize your own needs and plans so you can set up the next 12 months to flow in the direction you desire.”
https://www.elle.com/horoscopes/monthly/a78/virgo-monthly-horoscope/
No one knows how to prioritize their own needs like a teenager; and lo and behold our Bug is well on her way to becoming a glorious teen. For her birthday she asked us for a new duvet and hanging shelves because she’s redecorating her bedroom! We hit the mall last week shopping for her friend’s birthday at Sephora, which if you don’t already know is where every tween and teen shops for skin care. Yes, I said skin care. My first thought about my “skin care” routine happened in college. So, late teens and no pimples thankfully.
The only thing available then was Clinique, and I refused to give up using a bar of soap. Why buy a “cleanser?” But moisturizer became a must-have, quickly followed by sun protection. The Bride recently turned me onto the Ordinary which is like dermatologist-grade-serum, only generic and sold at Target. I’m still using soap, Dove for sensitive skin, and a combo of LaRoche-Posay anti-aging primer with 50 SPF sunscreen and CeraVe ultra-light moisturizer 30 SPF.
Hot Button Issue: I am certainly NOT anti-aging; in fact I’m PRO-aging! The whole beauty industry or wellness/health/goop people need to stop using “anti-aging” in their marketing. My generation burned their bras and stopped teasing their hair. We gave up girdles for God’s sake. We are embracing our laugh lines and electing not to have plastic surgery or even fillers!! The Flapper was all about hair and nails but not me.
My face is the least of my worries – my bone density has star billing at the moment.
Which is why I wasn’t allowed to move any of our furniture back into the dining/sitting room after Bob finished installing the wood floors. Lifting heavy objects is a definite NO with an osteoporosis diagnosis. But I was happy to take a cue from my granddaughter and supervise rearranging everything for maximum CHI! Also, I never miss an opportunity for a little Swedish Death Cleaning!
“There’s been a shift in the consciousness of people 70 and over,” said Ann Lightfoot, author of the forthcoming book, “Love Your Home Again.” “They’re like, ‘Oh my God, nobody wants my stuff. I don’t even want my stuff.’ Professionals often refer to the task as “death cleaning,” a term popularized in 2018 with the publication of the book, “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning,” by Margareta Magnusson.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/realestate/how-to-discover-the-life-affirming-comforts-of-death-cleaning.html
And since I wanted the Chi – vital life force or energy – to flow freely again after all that cleaning and reorganizing, we moved the dining table to the other side of the room in front of 3 windows and set Buddha on the vintage French Cupboard facing East for maximum feng shui. Now I walk into the front room and smile. The morning sun sweeps over our table and the room looks much bigger.
As I begin to close in on the fourth quarter of my ‘one and only’ century on this earth, I’m beginning to appreciate a less is more aesthetic. Or maybe Bob is rubbing off on me? Wait, my daughter just walked in with a few things she thought we might want… I asked her if she wants a needlepoint I did in 1979 of a clown with her birth data inscribed in balloons… 7 lbs and 3.5 oz. And here is our Bug finishing up her mosaic bird bath.
MountainMornings 