The Spartan Opinion

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Elias Hawke — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:05:26 +0000

We are in search for a technology editor. If you love technology, drop me an email with a sample of your writing.
-E.H.

The Wine Trail

Kathleen J Kaminski — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 04:01:08 +0000

As you drive through the countryside you can see row after row of grapes; a gorgeous sight to behold. And where there are grapes there are wineries. It’s only natural to find many wineries in close proximity as the vineyards are located in the same general region. While there is competition, there is also a certain companionship and bonhomie among local vintners. As small business owners these wineries will often come together to assist each other and to promote the entire region. One way in which to do this is to participate in a wine trail.

A wine trail is designed with the tourist in mind. It is the combined effort of the state tourism bureau, the Department of Transportation, and neighboring wineries to promote wine, travel, and tourism. A standardized sign, easily recognizable, is placed along roads with arrows pointing the way to individual wineries. These signs make the wineries easier for tourists and passersby to find and generally promote the whole area as a tourist attraction. A successful wine trail brings tourists, not only to the wineries, but to local restaurants, hotels, attractions, and other businesses as well, giving the economy of the entire region a boost.

My introduction to a wine trail event was the Cayuga Lake Wine and Herb Fest. At the starting winery I received a commemorative wine glass and an herb plant. I then sampled food made with that herb along with wine tastings. I followed the trail receiving an herb or vegetable plant, food, and wine from each of the other wineries. I also received a copy of each of the recipes as well as a garden design plan for the plants. I had a marvelous time and have attended this event annually ever since! The Keuka Lake Wine Trail (also located in the Finger Lakes of New York) has a similar event-Keuka in Bloom. This event features herb inspired foods and participants receive an herb or flower from each winery.

Wine trails schedule many events throughout the year. Many of them have a holiday event at the end of November or early December where visitors get a grapevine wreath at the first winery and ornaments from each participating winery. The Seneca Lake Wine Trail has a Cruisin’ the Tropics Weekend to say goodbye to winter which features Hawaiian shirts and Caribbean food. This wine trail is the largest in the area with over 30 wineries involved! The Chautauqua-Lake Erie Wine trail includes 21 wineries and spans two states with wineries from New York and Pennsylvania. The Niagara Wine Trail boasts an event happening each month.

I’m fortunate that I live within easy driving distance of 6 Wine Trails, 9 if you include Canadian Wine Country (and yes, they’re only a day trip away as well)! But don’t worry-you don’t have to live in Western New York, or even California to be near wine trails; you can find wineries in every state and wine trails in several of them. In fact, according to Wine Trails USA, 22 states have designated wine trails. California has the most, boasting 12, but New York and Pennsylvania are close behind, each with 11 wine trails. Wine trails are not limited to the US either. Canada also promotes its wine regions by use of the wine trail.

If you want to plan a wine vacation or day trip use a wine trail. You can sample many different wines and experience wine from many different viewpoints in a single outing. Check out what makes each winery unique, as well as what makes them similar. If you want to plan on some extra fun-schedule a visit during a Wine Tour Event. Get your ticket and be prepared for some fun! -Article by Kathleen Kaminski

Links:

Links

Wine Trails USA: http://www.winetrailsusa.com/ The site gives links to Wine Trails throughout the USA, and gives reviews of many of them.

Wine Trail Traveler: http://www.winetrailtraveler.com/ Gives reviews of wineries worldwide ad well as information about wine, recipes, and more.

Uncork New York!: http://www.newyorkwines.org/ You can find out all about New York Wines here, including links to all of the New York Wine Trails.

Wine of Ontario: http://winesofontario.org/ Gives information on the 5 wine country destinations of Ontario, Canada.

Wine Trails-Comprehensive California Winery and Wine Tasting Guides: http://www.inetours.com/PagesWT/Wine_Trails.html

MOTHERHOOD MEMORIES

Sandra Proto — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 05:01:45 +0000

I want back the queasiness

I want back the turbulence

I want back the firestorm

that envelop me

like a lover’s embrace

I am lonely without you.

With my belly protruding and sweat running down my back, I boarded the sardined-packed E-train on 5^th Avenue in New York City. This was mid-July of 2006. I was six months pregnant, but looked more like nine months. I canvassed the train for an empty seat and there were none available. When

Article by Sandra Proto

we pulled out of the station, I held on tight to an empty space of a silver pole, stiffened my legs, and swayed in the direction of our destination. Even though, I worked in an office and sat down all day, the weight of my first daughter made my legs wobbly. A woman of Jamaican descent noticed me and offered her seat. I was very grateful. I sat down next to a man reading a newspaper and across from me was a man just staring into space. I thought to myself, Chivalry is dead! I’m not old-fashioned but I do believe that someone— it doesn’t matter if you are male or female—should offer their seat to the elderly, disabled, a person with a young child, or an expectant mother. This is the humane thing to do. But instead of me griping about these men on my way home, I decided to enjoy the comfort of sitting down and rubbing my belly. I still was in disbelief that I was pregnant. A year prior, my left ovary was removed because a cyst mangled it so badly that there was no hope for survival. Before this, I thought I was barren because most women my age had their children when they were teenagers or twenty-something, and even in their early thirties. But, I had just turned thirty-eight and was experiencing the pregnancy of my first child. I felt a little long in the tooth for this new role, and lost.

Three months later, when I had my daughter via emergency C-section because I did not dilate (the 10-week Lamaze class was a complete waste) I felt even more lost. I couldn’t get the most natural thing a mother could do for her baby—breastfeed—right. During my pregnancy, I schooled myself by reading The Complete Book of Breastfeeding. I thought I was doing everything right but my daughter still refused to nurse. When I left the hospital, I was so engorged that I looked like I had two torpedoes in my bra. I thought the problem was that my daughter was not latched on properly and I also blamed the nurses because I felt that they were too quick to give my daughter the bottle when I was so adamant about breastfeeding. A couple of days later, when I went back to the hospital for my daughter’s first check up, I requested to see the Lactation Nurse to get to the bottom of this. The Lactation Nurse confirmed that my daughter was latched on correctly, but it looked like she was drinking the milk begrudgingly. My poor baby was probably intimidated by my weapons of mass destruction. I decided not to traumatize her any longer and started expressing my milk. Well, expressing lasted about a month and a half because I was so drained (no pun intended) and stressed about my new role as a mom and my impending move from my one-bedroom apartment in the inner-city to a house in suburbia, that I didn’t pump every two hours like I was supposed to. So, I dried up like day old Munchkins.

After squeezing what little milk I had and mixing it with Enfamil—I deemed myself a bad mother. I reached out for help from people around me, who had children, but they were all from the “Old School.” They couldn’t understand why when my daughter was born she had to sleep on her back and not her stomach to avoid the risk of SIDS or that a baby had to wait until they were four months old before they ate solids— instead of calming a colicky baby with a little bit of rice cereal in their formula. I had to admit after several weeks of rocking my daughter to sleep in the rocker and suffering from sleep deprivation—I did succumb to giving her a little cereal. She didn’t catch on too well and started to choke. I felt guilty and regressed back to rocking her to sleep.

With little sleep, running back and forth to the pediatrician for Well visits, and my decision to be a stay-at-home mom—I semi-adjusted to motherhood a little over a year. During this time, I took a break from writing, reading (except children’s books), and anything else that wasn’t associated with being a good mother. I thought I finally had this mother thing down but there is always a loop hole in everything—I was pregnant again! I thought, I’m going to have to start this whole thing all over again. My first pregnancy was full of nausea, carpal tunnel, and excess weight (I gained around sixty pounds with my first daughter). I thought about another C-section and the recovery time. I wasn’t too happy about this, but, as my pregnancy progressed I felt the comfort in my youngest daughter’s aggressive kicks. I read in What to Expect When You’re Expecting about the powerful kicks one feels. When I was pregnant the first time, I was worried that there was something wrong because my first daughter didn’t kick me (only punched a little). But, I realized that my first daughter was more of a Muhammad Ali while my second daughter was a Jet Li. I also elected to have another C-section —in fear that I would not dilate this time either; plus I heard horror stories about being ripped from a natural child birth. To me, having a straight incision was better than having a jagged rip.

As the months passed, it was difficult taking care of two very small children: my elder daughter was still not walking, while my younger had an issue with spitting up and was on an every two hour nursing schedule. I had to run to a Gastroenteritis to make sure she did not have a digestive problem, which she didn’t. Yes, my youngest took to nursing the moment she was born and didn’t want to stop. I tried to wean her off after the mandatory year but she lingered on until she was almost eighteen months (she knew her time was up because every time she nursed, I heard a devilish giggle and saw the sly grin of the Cheshire Cat). What saved me from being permanently named Elsie, the cow, was that I needed to have some dental work done. So, I worked hard trying to wean her off. After about three months, I finally weaned her down to two feedings—morning and night. When I finally cut her off completely, she took her sippy cup and went about her business.

Now my daughters are two and a half and forty-one months. I watch them play, fight, and talk to one another. My elder daughter is playing the role of the bossy big sister with a mind of her own (she prefers to poopy in her pull-up training pants instead of the toilet). Meanwhile my younger daughter can be the sweet momma’s girl (caressing my face as she did when she was nursing) or she can be the queen of, I’m not!—meaning she’s not going to say sorry when she hits her sister or she’s not going to stop doing something that she is not suppose to do.

But, as they quickly turn into my big girls, I can’t help but remember those times when we were one. Those times when we shared everything. Those times that I will miss. Those times that I can never get back—unless…

IS THE WRITTEN WORK DISAPPEARING?

June Sophia Martin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:31:09 +0000

Oh, I really hope not!! What is more agreeable than to read the Sunday paper while lounging on a nice sofa, drinking “café au lait”? Will I be forced to sit up straight in my computer room to read the news of the day? [Click here for this article written in French]

Article by June Sophia Martin

Newspapers are disappearing—even the largest and the most prestigious. How horrible! Now you can receive information on the spot by twenty-four hour newscasts and by the computer.

Like many people “of a certain age,” I have a huge collection of encyclopedias in my library. What good are they? You can search in “Wikipedia” and find anything you want in a few seconds.

I adore libraries and bookstores. What a pleasure it is to browse among books—new and old. Even the smell of shelves and shelves of old books is pleasing to me. Now when I go into a library I see mostly people working on computers or choosing their DVDs.

I enjoy reading anywhere. It’s a great way to relax. I read all over—in the yard, in the park, at the beach (my favorite place), at the dentist’s office, even in my car! I refuse to read for pleasure in the computer room—that’s for sure!

Being a teacher, I see indications every day that the written word is on its way out. Technology reigns in the classroom. Teachers rarely write on blackboards. It seems that education depends on the electric plug, not on pen and paper.

I know…I know…Probably medieval monks who wrote such beautiful elaborate manuscripts were horrified when the printing press was invented! [Click here for this article written in French] [Comments welcome in English or French]

EST-CE QUE LA PAROLE ECRITE DISPARAIT?

June Sophia Martin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:29:29 +0000

Que j’espere que non! Qu’est-ce qu’il y a de plus agreable que lire le journal dimanche matin en allongeant sur le divan tout en buvant un café au lait? [Click here for the English Version]

Article by June Sophia Martin

Faudra-t-il que je reste assise tout droit devant mon ordinateur pour lire les nouvelles de la journee?!

Les journaux sont en train de disparaitre-meme les plus grands et les plus celebres. Quelle horreur! On peut recevoir les informations immediatement par la television de vingt-quatre heures et par l’ordinateur.

Comme beaucoup de personnes d’un certain age, j’ai une grande collection d’encyclopedies dans ma bibliotheque. A quoi bon? On peut chercher dans “wikipedia’ et trouver n’importe quoi en quelques secondes.

J’adore les bibliotheques et les librairies. Quel plaisir de brouter parmi les livres—les nouveaux aussi bien que les vieux! Meme l’odeur des rayons et rayons de vieux livres m’est agreable. Maintanant quand on entre dans une bibliothque on ne voit que les gens qui travaillent sur l’ordinateur ou qui choisissent les dvds a emprunter.

Moi, j’aime lire partout. C’est une facon de me detendre. Je lis dans le jardin, dans le parc, a la plage (c’est mon endroit favori.) dans le bureau de dentiste, au lit, quelquefois meme dans la voiture. Je refuse de lire dans “ma salle d’ordinateur”—ca c’est sur.

Etant professeur je vois tous les jours des indications que la parole ecrite disparait. La technologie regne dans la salle de classe. Les professeurs ecrivent rarement sur les tableaux noirs.

Il parait quelquefois que tout enseigement depend sur la prise courante, plutot que papier et stylo.

Je sais..je sais…Probablement les moines qui ecrivaient de beaux manuscripts elabores avec des

quilles etaient horrifies quand on a invente la presse a imprimer! [Click here for the English Version] [Comments welcome in English or French]

Cooking as Entertainment

Kathleen J Kaminski — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 04:01:18 +0000

You could say that it all started with Julia Child. In 1963 The French Chef premiered on PBS (Public Broadcasting Station). While the television show was created to teach the American viewing public how to cook, it also served as entertainment. Julia Child was a teacher who was down to earth and made learning fun; watching her recover from her mistakes was icing on the cake.

Article by Kathleen J. Kaminski - Spartan Opinion Managing Editor.

Over the years PBS has produced several cooking shows. I remember the Cajun Cook Justin Wilson and the inimitable Jacques Pepin. Currently I love to watch Simply Ming with Ming Tsai. While PBS was the main place to catch a cooking show, you could find them periodically on other stations. Growing up I would faithfully tune in to a Canadian TV channel to watch Stephen Yan. I loved his punny aprons and his show Wok with Yan.

These programs could all be considered educational. You could learn recipes and actually see how the dish should look from start to finish. In addition to being educational these shows were fun to watch. Educational was also entertaining.

If you want to watch a TV show about food nowadays you don’t have to wait for a cooking show on PBS, nor do you have to catch a 10 minute spot on a morning show, you can simply tune into the Food Network, an entire TV channel devoted to cooking and food. Where once food TV was relegated to PBS viewers and early morning snippets, it is now available to the masses 24/7.

The Food Network was launched on November 23, 1993 with the slogan, “way more than cooking”. The network lives up to this motto. I divide the programming of the Food Network into three types: educational, competition, and documentary.

While you can learn something from virtually any food network program, some are geared more towards learning. If you want to find a new recipe or discover a new cooking technique these are your shows. Favorites of mine include Everyday Italian with Giada de Laurentiis and Paula’s Best Dishes with Paula Deen.

Competition shows are just that-competitions. Whether it’s cooking a three course meal out of incompatible mystery ingredients (Chopped), cooking 5 dishes all including a mystery ingredient in an hour (Iron Chef) to finding The Next Food Network Star, these shows provide drama and excitement.

Then there are the documentaries. These programs deal with chefs and food, but you probably won’t learn a recipe or watch people cook. Shows of this type include Ace of Cakes-which showcases life in a bakery with its quirky employees and amazing cakes, Chefography, you guessed it, a biography of a chef, Unwrapped which “uncovers behind the scenes details on classic American food” (The Food Network). Or The Best Thing I Ever Ate, where chefs describe…the best thing they ever ate.

It’s not just the Food Network and PBS that feature cooking shows. The Learning Channel (TLC) has Cake Boss, Take Home Chef, and BBQ Pitmasters while BRAVO has my favorite, Top Chef.

Cooking as entertainment doesn’t just exist on TV either. If you’re in the mood for calorie free culinary delights but discover that you’ve already seen the episode of Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives (twice), PBS is airing Antiques Roadshow while BRAVO has some program about housewives, and TLC is dealing with people with addictions, all is not lost. Get out your video gaming system and play a cooking game. You can choose from about four versions of Cooking Mama, or Diner Dash, Order Up, or games based on cooking TV shows-Iron Chef and Hell’s Kitchen, and more.

The thought of cooking gives feelings of comfort and camaraderie. When there’s a party where do people tend to gather? The kitchen. Cooking promotes feelings of love and satisfaction, especially when you don’t have to do the work yourself. So tune in to your favorite cooking show or play your favorite cooking game and enjoy cooking as entertainment.

Links

The Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/

PBS Cooking Shows: http://www.pbs.org/home/home_cooking.html

TLC Cooking: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/

Top Chef: BRAVO Official Site: http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef

“Tron” Sequel “Tron Legacy”

Elias Hawke — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:54:22 +0000

Remember Tron? You know that edgy 1982 sci-fi flick with the cool neon lights starting Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges? Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was a big fan of the film giving it 4 out of 4 stars and described it as “…technological sound-and-light show that is sensational and brainy, stylish, and fun”.
Well Tron fans rejoice. The Tron sequel is due later this and judging from the movie trailers, “Tron Legacy” looks to be a deserving 2.0 upgrade. -e.h.

Walt Disney's Tron Legacy coming late 2010.

Walt Disney's Tron Legacy coming late 2010. Click for a high resolution image.

Can Social Networking Save Lives?

Amy Taylor — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:01:38 +0000

Purple. Fuschia. Scarlet with lace. These were just some of my Facebook friends’ statuses over the last few weeks. They came slowly, one at a time, but soon cyberspace was awash with a rainbow of descriptions. But of what?

Article by Spartan Opinion's Amy Taylor

It wasn’t until I received a message from a friend that I realized. All these status changes were coming from women, and they were posting the colour of their bras. Why? Not simply to be provocative, but apparently to raise awareness for Cancer Research.

In all honesty, I thought it was a little silly. Sharing girly messages and not letting the boys in on the joke made me feel like a giggly teenager again. I couldn’t really see how putting the colour of my bra as my status would raise awareness about cancer. But as the craze caught on, and hundreds of Facebook groups supporting it gained members, I began to change my mind. Women all over the world were updating their status, or joining a group, or even, like me, searching on Google to see what it was all about. And while checking their bra colour, if they also checked themselves, or made an appointment with a doctor, then the scheme had succeeded.
No money was exchanged, no telethon held and no celebrity endorsed it, but who knows? Someone’s life might have been saved.
A spokesperson for Facebook confirmed that it was a grass-roots campaign, not affiliated to any official group or organisation. Which just goes to show how powerful individual voices can be in a global online network.

It’s one of the less obvious routes for social networking to take. Philanthropy usually requires personal interaction, but websites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter were created to connect people and allow them to share information without ever meeting face to face.
And yet, as anyone who followed my last article will know, social networks are developing in ways far beyond the original intentions of their creators. The Haitian earthquake last month turned these sites into huge international news agencies, and with their users increasing daily it seems their opportunities are limitless. Charity work is just one of the new ways social networks are expanding.

The bra colour campaign is not unique. More and more people are turning to the internet to champion a cause, and many organisations are finding that social networking promotes awareness in a light-hearted way.
When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in May 2009 he chose to draw attention to the disease, and to the organisations battling it, through Twitter. The ‘Blame Drew’s Cancer’ campaign was born.
Tweeters and Facebookers alike were invited to blame anything they liked on Drew’s cancer, from lost car keys and bad traffic to their own illnesses. For each message containing the hashtag ‘#BlameDrewsCancer’, Drew pledged to find a sponsor to donate $1 to Lance Armstrong’s cancer charity, LiveStrong. Today, over 14,000 people have blamed something on Drew’s cancer.
People like to have a cause to fight for, so if simply by sitting in front of our computer screens we can help raise money or awareness, we no longer have an excuse not to. The average person in the US spends 68 hours a month on the internet, so we can afford to divert our attention for the time it takes to type a message. It might seem impersonal, or even lazy, but it seems to be working. At the click of a mouse, we can help defeat poverty, or fight disease, or challenge oppression.
On the internet, traditional hierarchies are removed. You will often find ordinary citizens sending Tweets to celebrities or politicians to promote charity events, or news agencies sending out messages to their Facebook followers for information about a story. Which is how British journalists in Haiti were able to help save the life of a three-month-old baby girl in Haiti.
Baby Landina was orphaned in the earthquake which hit Haiti last month. She lost an arm and suffered severe burns to her head, and without urgent medical treatment abroad would not have survived. But without any official papers, her future looked uncertain at best.
Her story was featured on British news reports, and gained huge support on social networking sites, with offers of help flooding in from around the world. One such offer was from the ‘Facing the World’ charity, which raises money to provide reconstructive surgery to children from developing countries.
The Haitian government signed Landina’s guardianship to the charity, and with the cooperation of Aviation Without Borders and British Airways, Landina was flown to the UK. She underwent life-saving surgery at Great Ormand Street Children’s Hospital in London, and will be cared for there until she is well enough to return to Haiti.
Lazy? Impersonal? Maybe so, but it’s difficult to argue with results like that.

New Independent Reality Series “Livin’ for Racin’ Time”

Eric Covey — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:38:00 +0000

SSR Engineering and Lynn Baxter Studios Promote
New Reality Series titled “Livin’ for Racin’ Time”

By
Eric Covey

TULSA, Okla. – (February 8, 2010) – Lynne Baxter Studios
Once upon a time there was this racing team from Manhattan, KS that had a dream. That dream was to make it big in the Grand Am Racing Series. And as dreams go, it was a good one. The dream had excitement, it had drama and as dreams so often do, it always had a happy ending. This was their tale of success, tickertape parades, where frogs turn to princes, evil queens are banned from the castle, fudgy pudding for everyone and the guy always gets the girl.

Excitement and drama aside, the team has remained strong in their desire to achieve this dream of success in the racing circuits, but after meeting with a group interested in sponsorship, they opened their heart and wallet to include something greater in that mission. They wanted to race for a reason. With that mindset, this year’s racing season is going to be all about a message. And that message is GET TESTED.

“ Livin’ for Racin’ Time” is a reality series based on the Scuderia Shadetree Racing Team (SSR Engineering) and their journey from club racing to the Grand Am Series. “While viewers will get a real behind-the-scenes education of the sport of car racing with its unique atmosphere and colorful characters, the story line will focus on the lives of the principle members of SSR Engineering,” said Susan Dale, producer for Lynne Baxter Studios.

Taking place primarily in Oklahoma and Kansas, but also traveling to other locations, “Livin’ for Racin’ Time” sets itself apart from other reality-based shows by also carrying the message “Get Tested” for Hepatitis C. The message is seen on their cars and elsewhere and at times will be subtly incorporated into storylines that relate to the disease of Hepatitis C, also known as the “silent killer”, and that is said will surpass HIV/Aids in infection by the end of 2010.

“Since shooting the pilot my family has been tested and we thank our lucky stars none of us have Hepatitis C but we have met quite a few people that have been affected. We are still looking for supporters that can sponsor up-and-coming episodes so we can take this message national. We are also creating a documentary of the people we met and their story of living with Hepatitis C,” said Dale.

People may wonder why they should get tested for Hepatitis C. Simply stated, everyone regardless of their risk factors should be tested for Hepatitis C (HCV). It has been estimated that currently there are more than 5 million people in the United States infected with HCV. Also, according to the United State Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of the individuals infested with HCV are unaware of their infection status.

“While shooting the pilot at the Hallett raceway in Oklahoma and in Manhattan, Kansas with the help of Muscogee Creek Nation, we were overwhelmed with the amount of support from the people at the race track and within the community. Several families approached us to share their own experiences with Hepatitis C. We were surprised by the stories we heard and the misinformation about the disease that people had been told,” said Dale.

A startling fact: According to a study conducted by the California State Library Research Bureau, entitled “Hepatitis C: Publicly Implications of a Silent Virus” by Pamela Rasada, R.N., P.H.N., “It is estimated that by 2021 more people will die annually from HCV than from AIDS.”

“Auto racing (NASCAR, SCCA, Grand Am, etc.) has a phenomenal fan base who will enjoy a TV series that showcases the sport they love in a positive way, including the excitement of the race track as well as the drama behind the scenes. It could even spark additional interest in the sport itself,” said Dale.

To help sponsor the show or to get more information please contact Susan Dale at lynnbaxterstudios@gmail.com or by phone at (918) 640-8924.

Affordable Luxuries

Kim Eriksen-Bermudez — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 03:03:55 +0000

Intoday’s economy, so many of us are cutting back on spending and foregoing our luxury treats at the spa, or trips to the manicurist. Well, not all luxuries cost a fortune and there are some you should not live without – handcrafted soaps and sundries!

Article and photography by Kim Eriksen-Bermudez. www.SunriseSoaps.com

With wholesome ingredients and careful blending, handcrafters create delightful skin treats you can use at home. Simple items like a bar of soap, bottle of lotion, or jar of bath salts can change your everyday bathing routine into a spa-like experience. Want more bang for your buck? Use items that are naturally scented and get a dose of aromatherapy with every use. You’ll feel great and your skin will look and feel like a million bucks!

Home-made soap. Photo by Kim Eriksen-Bermudez

Handcrafted products are usually made in small batches, with great care. To ensure you get a good, honest, well made product, look for crafters that make an effort to purchase supplies locally where they can; readily disclose their ingredients; use food grade oils; and therapy grade essential oils or cosmetic grade scents. If you have questions, ask! Handcrafters are usually stay-at-home types or family owned businesses – they understand words like budget, value, and quality. They want your business and should know their stuff well enough to get back to you quickly.

Pampering yourself does not have to cost fortune and in these tough times, the little things mean a lot. By buying handcrafted products, you’re not only adding a little luxury back into your life at small price, you’re also showing support to the ‘little guy’ and that’s something you can feel doubly good about! These little gems are not hard to find –check out your local farmer’s market, craft fairs or let your fingers do the walking- search online.