babybloomr

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I am currently blogging under the influence.

Of a TWO HOUR massage.

So there’s this company called Massage Envy, and if you sign up to become a member you get one massage every month at a really reduced rate. And if you get busy and/or forgetful like me, then the massages have a tendency to pile up, and THEN if you want– and who in their right mind wouldn’t?– you can book a two hour massage. Which turns me into jello. Seriously? I probably shouldn’t have driven myself home. Between the fact that the amount of oil on my skin easily surpasses the ‘greased pig’ level , and that I was in a semi-comatose state following two, count ‘em two hours of a really good massage– I dang near slid off the seat and under the steering wheel every time I turned a sharp corner and I was so relaxed I kinda wanted to stay there. Nobody gets their money’s worth out of a massage more than yours truly.

I respond so thoroughly to massage that I even had a therapist with me for the births of both of the girls. For Madi, the therapist just stopped by early on in my labor and worked on me for about an hour and went home, because as you may or may not know, Madi’s birth took approximately a year and a half. But for Charlotte’s birth, my trusted (and more than a little space-cadet-ish) masseuse Krystal-with-a-K showed up at the hospital and after massaging my hands, feet, head and shoulders I became so relaxed that HELLO, Charlotte’s about to be born now! So suddenly my crunchy-granola massage therapist unexpectedly had a front row seat to the whole thing. Russ, God bless him, made the (in retrospect, monumental) mistake of handing her the video camera. Yikes. Krystal-with-a-K had never witnessed a birth before so she was thoroughly entranced with the whole process… which the video clearly shows. And by “clearly shows” I mean “no one will ever see this tape, even Russ, heck, even ME and we were both there!”

I’m a massage purist. I’m not that interested in hot stones or aromatherapy, I just want to totally relax and maybe get rid of some of the lumpy giant hamsters that appear to have taken up permanent residence between my shoulder blades. I want to have my head massaged and my feet rubbed until I am half-asleep and making involuntary purring noises. Actually, I have also been known to cry during massages. Not often, but every once in a long while if I have been under a great deal of stress, when my knotted muscles are having the kinks worked out of them and I can feel the tension slowly ebbing from my body, I have kinda teared up. Not big heaving sobs or anything, just tears slipping out of my eyes and running down into my ears and then I have to ask for a kleenex to blow my nose and–BONUS– I completely freak out the massage therapist! They usually think they’ve somehow hurt me, so they start anxiously asking if the pressure was too hard and I have to explain that no, I’m not injured, I’m just stressed and apparently when I get DE-stressed, I turn into a big ol’ titty baby. And then I try to make a joke out of it, but by that time they are shaken and nervous and obviously concerned that I might snap completely and jump off the table and start running around the massage place buck nekkid yelling that I’m Napoleon or something. So it kinda puts a damper on the rest of the massage. The moral of that story is that now I try to get massages often enough that I’m not a big bag of nerves when I go in so I don’t risk crying, thereby keeping the massage therapist from having a breakdown of his or her own, and considering another line of work because people are just too weird.

It always boggles my mind that there are some people out there who say they honestly don’t enjoy massages. I once gave a massage gift certificate to a friend of mine and after a year she finally confessed to me that she had never used it because she ‘just didn’t like’ massages. How can a human being not like being rubbed down with nice-smelling oil until their tense and sore muscles completely relax? Come on. Especially head, hands and feet– what is better than that, people?! I wonder if it has more to do with their discomfort over being naked under a sheet with a stranger putting their hands on them than it does actually not enjoying the feeling of a massage. Luckily, I have the modesty of a jaybird, so hey, no problem here. I don’t even mind male massage therapists, in fact I almost prefer them especially for the two hour sessions because they are usually stronger than the female therapists. I got over my initial hesitation about male therapists during my pregnancies. My obstetrician was a man, and Lord knows going to see him presented way more opportunities for me to feel vulnerable and overexposed than seeing a male masseuse– at least during a massage nobody LIFTS UP THE SHEET! It also helps that the first male therapist that every worked on me kinda looked like a nerdy/hippie algebra teacher with Birkenstocks and a stringy ponytail.  And I happened to be about seven months pregnant at the time with swollen ankles and an attitude, so trust me, this scenario did not lend itself to lustful thoughts. For either one of us. Maybe if I ever ran into a Brad Pitt-look-alike massage therapist, I’d be a lot more self-conscious and uncomfortable. But I’m thinking that guys who look like Brad Pitt usually choose another career path.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes with certain males of the species, the word ‘massage’ is usually automatically (in their head at least) coupled with the word ‘parlor’?  Especially for men who have never actually HAD a real massage. There is always just a hint of something sexual about it to them, and when women start talking about getting a massage those kind of guys either get nervous and jokey or kind of leering and creepy. I have talked to several massage therapists about that over the years, and they have all said that those misconceptions drive them crazy, and that’s why they use very specific words to describe what they do, like ‘licensed,’ ‘therapeutic’ and ‘non-sexual.’ As opposed to, you know, words like ‘exotic’ and ‘sensual’ and ‘boom chicka bow wow.’ To me, it’s just another spa service like a facial or something but I do think that there are still some people that feel like there is something slightly scandalous about getting a massage, at least among my parent’s generation. And, as hard as it is for me to believe, apparently some people could honestly just take them or leave them. Like Russ, for example. He’s had many massages over the years especially when he has had an injury of some sort, and while he thinks they are useful and pleasant enough, he obviously doesn’t consider them The Best Thing Ever Invented. “I enjoy them,” he once said to me with a shrug. “But unlike you, it’s not a religious experience.”

So what about you guys– do you ever get massages? Do you ever even want to? If not, is there some kind of soothing, stress-reducing treatment that you do enjoy? I’m curious! (Also? Greasy. )

Ok, so recently I’ve been wasting untold hours browsing around the intrawebs enjoying this whole genre of home decoration-type blogs that feature something they’re calling ‘tablescaping.’ Now where I come from it’s known by a less fancy-schmancy name– it’s called ‘setting the dang table.’ But ooh gentle readers, it is fun to look at these blogs! It appeals to everything girly and decorator-ish and housewife-y in me! (And let’s be honest– I really don’t have all that much ‘housewife-y’ in me.) Here’s the gist of what these bloggers do: apparently they spend years scavenging antique stores and ebay and Hobby Lobby and thrift stores, etc., collecting all kinds of things like tons of different sets of dishes, vintage serving pieces, random artsy little trinkets and stuff like that. Then they set, arrange and decorate their dining room tables with a theme of some sort– holiday, springtime, black and white, afternoon tea… You get the picture. And speaking of pictures– they take about 40 frillion phototgraphs of their tablescape, from every possible angle and they post it on their blog.

(Stay with me here, it’s actually a lot more interesting than it sounds. And if you want to accuse me of needing to get a life, now would be an appropriate time.)

Of course I do understand that looking at untold pictures of some  stranger’s dining room table all tricked out like a circus pony may not exactly make your socks roll up and down. But if you happen to be an addict who wants to buy every set of dishes she sees an appreciator of antique silver and fine English china like myself, then occasionally perusing lovely photographs of beautifully set tables can be rather enjoyable.

OK, the truth is I really do have a thing about dishes. I love all kinds of them… soup tureens, serving pieces, elegant sets of formal china for 12 all the way down to purposely mismatched colorful everyday salad plates. My sister Carolyn is at least as hooked as I am, and sometimes when we talk about some wonderfully obscure English pattern from the 1930’s that we both discovered on eBay, I swear we almost get a little misty. I don’t actually *own* tons of dishes, though I will admit to having my share– lately I’ve been going with some solid colors like white square plates or Fiesta ware that I can then add all kinds of different salad plates to, and change things up. I did go through an extended period of collecting those vintage souvenir state plates, you know the ones with the gilt around the edges and all kinds of wonderfully cheesy representations of each state’s attractions? Yeah those. At first I only collected ones from the Southern states, but eventually I branched out to include a few from states I particularly like to visit……

HEY!!! ALL YOU GUYS WHO STARTED OUT READING THIS!!!! WAKE UP!!!! (Just checking.)

Anyway, let me  give you a little taste. I’m gonna wait right here while you go check out a couple of links that will show you what I’m talking about. Now, DON’T get all swept away in the links at the bottom of their pages right now, because don’t forget I’m over here drumming my fingers and looking at my watch. (But seriously? When you have an hour or six you might want to click on a few…)

OK, here’s a GREAT one– her blog header is right underneath the link, isn’t it pretty?

http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/2010/03/welcome-to-81st-tablescape-thursday-st.html

SEE???!!! I wasn’t lying! OK, one more, another of my favorites:

http://designsbygollum.blogspot.com/

As you can tell, these blogs aren’t just about tablescaping, they also have recipes and giveaways and do-it-yourself projects… aw, who am I kidding, it’s really ALL ABOUT THE DISHES!  dishesdishesdishes…. nom nom nom…. *falls down in a dead faint at the sheer beauty of all the DISHES*

Anyway. Here’s the thing– as much as I would happily hock Russ’ car and/or sell a kidney in order to acquire all of the myriad sets of dishes I covet, apparently we need that money for other things like, oh, I don’t know, food and shelter. So while I live vicariously through all of the pages of those lovely blogs, I also perked up and noticed that a lot of those tablescapers repeatedly talk about all of the great finds that they routinely come across at….. wait for it… GOODWILL STORES! See, if I’m being honest here, it’s not just about the possession, it’s about the hunt. Women, can you give me a high five on that? Anybody? *waiting with hand up in the air*   I know that technically men are supposed to be the hunter/gatherers, but I gotta tell you, at the risk of  perpetuating stereotypes here, most women I know do love a good bargain hunt.

So in the spirit of frugality, yesterday I ventured out to the big honkin’ Goodwill store in Franklin, TN. It has been years since I’ve poked around in a thrift store, I usually skip straight to the antique malls, but after seeing all of the finds people were coming up with on those blogs, I decided I was going to start doing some digging around. I didn’t have a specific agenda, or anything I was really looking for, I just wanted to get a feel for it. I DID recently paint my kitchen in the kind of French/Italian/Mediterranean colors that I particularly love– I took it from two subtle shades of sage-y green into a much brighter combination of a soft yellowish-gold and that deep, middle-of-the-ocean Mediterranean blue that you see in French kitchens and also Mexican talavera tile. So I did kind of have my eye open for any dishes/vases/serving bowls that had that particular shade of blue in them that I could use as accent pieces.

It was fun! I made a beeline for the back of the store where I could see the shelves full of glassware and pots and pans, and started poking around. I was determined NOT to buy something just because it was cheap, but to only purchase something I knew I had a purpose for, and would actually use right now. I am not a compulsive shopper by any means, but I am kind of bad about seeing something marked way down and thinking, “Ooh, I might need that some time…” My challenge to myself was to BREAK that pattern– it’s all about the frugality, remember? (Plus, I’m going to have the Mother of All Garage Sales sometime this spring to get rid of years worth of stuff “I might need sometime” that I haven’t even unpacked from our move– FOUR YEARS AGO!) So after slooooooowly cruising down the three aisles, picking up a couple of things and putting them in my cart only to talk myself out of it and set them back down, I walked away with two, count ‘em TWO items. I won’t be using them to ‘scape my table, but I will be using them. I found a lovely little Mexican talavera pitcher that will be perfect as a vase on the small black table in my kitchen and a just-the-right-sized-because-my-other-one-is-too-small-to-hold-all-of-the-fruit-this-family-eats ‘Made in Italy’ bowl that will look great sitting out on my counter. They both have the color blue I was looking for, and I spent a grand total of… $7!! I couldn’t wait to get them home!

I filled the vase with two small bunches of flowers that Kroger had marked down to $1.99 each, and I filled the bowl with those little Cutie tangerines that were on special– that’s right, who’s the Queen of Frugal? ME! Here they are:

I did good!

OK, now I want to hear from you guys. Do you have any memorable Goodwill finds you want to share with the class? Do you identify with my obsession with dishes, or do you have some other kind of item that you collect or lust after? (With Russ, it’s vintage guitars but he ain’t gonna be finding any of those for 7 bucks at Goodwill!) Feel free to send me pictures and I’ll post them!

(tori@babybloomr.com)