Recommendations

I have a few recommendations. You're welcome.

Lip balm: Smith's Minted Rose by the Rosebud Perfume Co. You know I'm picky about what goes on my lips. They're always chapped. Always. So I always have to have lip balm on me. Always. I start having heart palpitations if I discover that I don't have one in either my pocket or my purse. And they're large, which means I have to be careful with color because I don't want to look like a woman of easy virtues (thank you Don Quixote for that.) So lip stick is right out. And most gloss is out as well because if it's too shiny I look like a 1979 version of a woman of easy virtues. But I love a good tinted lip balm and this one is lovely. It's just the right shade of carefree fun-loving girl mixed with high moral standards that I'm looking for. And it smells a little exotic. Bonus. You can get it at Sephora.

Snacks: *The ones at Henry's. This is my new favorite grocery store, and I'm not ashamed to say it's because of the bulk snack section. They have dozens of really yummy moderately healthy snacks ready for you to fill a bag up with. I'm pretty sure that a bin full of chocolate covered honeycomb equals heaven. Andrea tells me that at her Henry's in the Hot and Angry Desert they have raspberry yogurt covered pretzels (Dear Henry's in Claremont, Please get raspberry yogurt covered pretzels. Love, Rachel). They have many other fine things at Henry's -- the produce is fantastic and the other bulk items like pasta and oatmeal are helpful and cheap -- but it's the snacks that put it over the top.

Guilty Pleasure TV: Robin Hood the series on BBC America. Katie and I have found ourselves addicted to it. We got it from Netflix because it has Richard Armitage in it. If you've seen North and South, which by now you should have, you will know exactly why we got it. And, lucky for us, it happens to be really entertaining. I realized the other day that it's kind of like the A-Team. Outlaws who are on a mission to help people and blow things up in the process. (Admit it, you loved the A-Team and would wait every week to see what sneaky method they would use to get BA on the plane again.) It's predictable, just like the A-Team, in that you know that at some point in the episode they are going to have to break into the castle to rescue someone and will narrowly escape being captured, but it's kind of witty and fun and adventurous. And have I mentioned it has Richard Armitage? Even as a bad guy with greasy hair the dreamboat factor is high.

* Hi! It's me, editing. What I meant to say was Sprouts. It's called Henry's in Chino Hills and Rancho Cucamonga but in Claremont it's Sprouts. I don't know why it's a different name. It's the exact same store.