Provident Mom

I have a lot of friends who go to gyms to work out. They claim that it’s the only way they can get motivated to exercise. If you think about it, though, going to a gym is costly in time and money. You can easily spend $400 a year on your membership, and you have to travel to the gym, which costs time.

My favorite mode of exercise is working out at home to DVDs I get at the library. I have bought a couple of DVDs that I really like, and they’re my backups. But I like the variety I can get through the library.

Running around the neighborhood (on your feet, not in the car) can be great too, but you have to be pretty hardy if you don’t live in southern California. I don’t live in southern California, so I only run in the summertime. But I had a friend who trained for a marathon in the bleak winter rain. Of course, she caught whooping cough.

Other free exercise:

Scrubbing floors
Walking fast
Riding a bike
Climbing stairs
Chasing your children
Mowing the lawn
Chasing your dog
Raking leaves
Painting the ceiling
Delivering newspapers (they actually pay you for doing this exercise)
Jumping on a trampoline
Dancing in the kitchen

See? Free exercise is way more fun than sharing sweaty equipment at the gym. Anyone else have ideas?

If the winter weather is as hard on your skin as it is on mine, you might need some of this.

Here’s a brown sugar body scrub that will help your skin feel better this winter. If you put this body scrub in a nice jar with a pretty ribbon around it, you have an inexpensive thoughtful present for a friend or sister.

½ c. brown sugar

1.2 c. white sugar

½ c. coarse salt

¼ c. liquid soap

2 Tbs. Avocado oil, olive oil, or sweet almond oil

2 Tbs. Essential oil

First, mix the sugars and salt together in a bowl. Then add the soap and oils and mix together with your hands. Keep the body scrub in an airtight container. If you keep it longer than a few days, consider storing it in your refrigerator so the oils don’t get rancid. Just remember to label it so no one tries to eat it. If you don’t have any essential oils, try using ½ cup of grapefruit juice, grated peel from a lemon or lime, ½ c. of chopped cranberries, or ¼ c. of rose salt.

Rub it all over your skin in the shower, and then moisturize with sweet almond oil after you dry off. You’ll feel like summer.

Beauty Tips from 1967

The following beauty tips were published in Around the House Like Magic by Jean E. Laird. Jean Laird had a successful newspaper column called “Around the House with Jean,” in which she shared tips for making a woman’s life easier. They may seem a bit dated today, which makes me wonder how my daughters will view my life in a few years. What will they laugh at and call archaic? Time will tell:

*Here is a great exercise for sagging chin muscles. Press your tongue very hard agains the back of the roof of your mouth. This is one you can do even in a crowded room, as nobody knows you are doing it.

*If you wear bifocals you know how hard it is to see what you are doing when tweezing your eyebrows. Next time try turning your glasses upside down!

*For a quick-drying hairset, try this. Put your curlers in a bowl of hot water. Drain the water, leaving the curlers in the bowl. Shake each curler as it is used, then roll the dry hair. After the hair is up cover head with a damp hairnet. This procedure gives you just enough moisture for curls to set in a jiffy, but leaves your hair dry.

*Take along a silk scarf when you go shopping for dresses. Tie the scarf on your head and pull the dresses over your head without the fear of messing your hair-do. This is also a lifesaver for dressing to go out.

*If you have to cook dinner for your family before going out for the evening, and have just come home from the beauty shop, you can protect your new hair-do by wearing a large bouffant-type shower cap. It will prevent your hair-do from drooping, and you will not carry with you those telltale cooking odors. Your coiffure will remain as sweet-smelling as when you left the beauty salon.

*If you use stale beer for setting your hair in a hurry, be sure and use it only in the winter months when you are inside. If you go outdoors in the summer months, the beer attracts some insects and a certain bee will just love you. It won’t be worth the sting!