Right now, I’m trying some new to me books and products and want to share what I am loving right now with you:

Body and Beauty

Love Your Face Cream Original Formula
by Indian Meadow Herbals

I bought mine at the East End Food Co-op in Pittsburgh and you should ask for this amazing product at your local health food store. The cream is pretty thick and oily and a little goes a long way.  The best is to put it on your face when it is still wet and then it absorbs really quickly leaving your face super duper soft and lovely.

Yoga and Meditation Balm
by Badger Balm

I, again, bought mine at the East End Food Co-op in Pittsburgh, but Badger Balm is everywhere you look these days (yes, Walgreens…..).  I’m not a big fan of orange scented anything.  It’s supposed to lift your spirits, but it usually just smells too sweet for my taste and I feel kind of nauseated.  But, this has orange and cedar and I love to rub a little on my temples, back of my neck and collar bones before I do my breathing exercises at the start of my seated meditation sessions.  It’s a very grounding and joyful scent and I feel like it gets me started on the right foot even if I was feeling kind of wrong foot to begin with.

Numi Savory Tea
Fennel Spice

Hey, guess where I bought mine?  Yep, back at the East End Food Co-op.  These little savory tea bags are super special treasures.  You can make a cup when you feel like a snack, but you don’t need a snack and it satisfies your appetite and the need for warmth and fluids.  Make a cup with a delicious grilled cheese sandwich or to go with a lovely slice of quiche or a spinach salad.  Or, have some with a slice of nutty bread and butter. Or, if you have a cold or are feeling blue, this will create a tasty warmth in your heart and is likely fabulous for your immune system and spirit.  A surprising cuppa loveliness!

Book Ideas

“The dilemma of the eighth-grade dance is that boys and girls use music in different ways. Girls enjoy music they can dance to, music with strong vocals and catchy melodies. Boys, on the other hand, enjoy music they can improve by making up filthy new lyrics.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love is a Mix Tape

“You know the Prince song where the girl’s phone rings but she tells him, “whoever’s calling couldn’t be as cute as you?” I long to live out this moment in real life.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love is a Mix Tape

“Monogamous musicians are like vegan hockey players.”
― Rob Sheffield, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut

I know, I know, self-help books are so 1980’s (speaking of which, if you haven’t read Love is a Mix Tape and Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, both by Rob Sheffield, then stop reading this immediately, run to the library and reserve these golden nuggets of memoirs—AMAZING).  But, this is one that is worth ending my ban on helping myself to just about anything and here is why—there is practical information on how to modify your behavior to change the way you relate to the most difficult people in your life.  Yep, that’s what I said.  You can’t change difficult people and so much of the time you can’t chose whether or not to interact with them, so when you must engage, this is an awesome guide to maintaining your self-esteem and dignity until you can escape.  Living the Life You Love by Paula Renaye.  

This minimalist sewing style book, Shape Shape 2 by Natsuno Hiraiwa makes me want to wear wrap skirts and colorful bursts of scarves that double as pants (I’m exaggerating here.).  I want to make the scarf that turns into a shawl that can be used in an emergency as a skirt (There I go exaggerating again.).  But seriously, what a beautiful book of the most unique ideas for relatively simple sewing projects that can be the base for whatever you want them to be!  I happen to know that the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has a copy and also that it is currently checked out (to me!).  Check out your local library and make a donation while you are there because, seriously, what would we do without libraries?

When my beloved Grandma passed away, my sister, an incredible artist and illustrator (AND vocalist and musician—an angel’s voice!) made the most beautiful remembrance cards and on the back was a quote from a Pablo Neruda poem.  I’ve loved poetry my whole life and was engaged in writing poetry ever since the poet came to my fourth grade class and helped us all write poems inspired by Impressionist paintings (I wrote “Ode to the Little Man in Edgar Degas The Dancer”—or something like that, but I have a very fond memory of picking out the postcard with the image on it out of a vintage suitcase.).  I don’t know who you are or where you are young poet who agreed to be an artist in the NYC public schools that year, but you super charged my love of poetry.  But, as I spent the better (and arguably best so far) part of my adult life reading Chinese poems and Asian literature, I totally missed out on Pablo Neruda.  So I have my sister and her grief inspired ingenuity for the introduction.  Right now, as many of you dear readers know, I am having some troubles and my sister lives so very far away—so I have turned to The Poetry of Pablo Neruda for solace.  In a world where a human, even just one,  could create such brave acts of expression, I just feel so empowered to survive and thrive.

These are just a few of my current favorite things and I’m happy to share them with you. Posted by Sharon Fennimore, online meditation guru, recovering self-help book addict and rogue anthropologist.  I also attend births as a doula and teach rather lovely yoga classes if you happen to be in Pittsburgh.

NOTE: And, unlike most magazines that have favorite things columns, I didn’t receive any free products to try (although, I’d accept some if you were in the sending mood….).  These are things that I honestly like an awful lot right now.