I’m in love with this all natural, unscented cold-pressed soap made in Maine by the Rocky Top Soap Shop. As someone with sensitive skin, particularly on my legs, it’s so wonderful to find something really pure and moisturizing like this. It’s also nice to find soaps without the overpowering added scents that most soapmakers use.

I bought the rosehip soap, which is just lovely, along with the Rooibos Red shampoo bar and a shaving bar.

The shampoo bar has been fantastic, getting my hair clean without stripping it the way chemical shampoos do. And the shaving bar is a godsend for someone who gets a rash just looking at a razor. It has a super creamy lather and feels really luxurious.

Check out the Rocky Top Soap Shop for more!

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My friend Amy is selling these amazing hair and facial oils that she makes. I am a huge fan of facial oils because of the way they help balance your skin, can be made without nasty chemical preservatives, and are so easily absorbed.

Amy gave me a bottle of her nourishing facial oil as a birthday gift and I’ve been using it just about every night. It was perfect timing, because I’d just run out of my usual nighttime skin treat, which is just simple and pure jojoba oil. But Amy’s blend is way better. It smells wonderful and makes my skin super soft. It’s going to be a lifesaver this Winter, I’m sure.

Check out Amy’s oils if you’re looking for something nice and natural for your skin. I’m thinking about trying the hair oil next, since chlorine is doing bad things to my hair right now.

I love the illustrations printed on these cotton/linen dish towels by Lisa Rupp.

Until a few weeks ago, it had been a while since I’d done any serious swimming. I first got into it in grad school, when I took a swim class with a fantastic coach in UC Berkeley’s gorgeous marble-decked pool. Learning to swim properly has been more useful than a lot of other things I learned in grad school.

I guess a lot of people find lap swimming to be boring. But when it comes to exercise, I’ve learned that I love doing things that are solitary, quiet, and extremely challenging.

This is why I’ve gotten into running over the past year or so. I love having time to myself to just think and be alone. I love to carve out a chunk of the day to clear my head. But I also love pushing myself and learning to do things that seemed impossible before.

With both running and swimming, you have an almost endless capacity to amaze yourself and keep getting better, going farther. You just have to work, push, keep going. And you can measure progress in the things your body can do – how far you can run, how fast you can go – rather than a number on the scale. That is liberating.

I’ve taken up swimming in the last few weeks mainly to improve my cardiovascular health and help prevent all the muscle imbalances that can be exacerbated by running. Already, my hips and obliques feel less tight.

Still, I’m amazed that I used to swim a mile after work every day. And now, though I think of myself as relatively fit, just over half that distance leaves my legs a little wobbly.

But that’s the beauty of it, for me. I know I can get back there, and I know that all it takes is hard work. Not much else you can say that about in life.

{image above: an illustration by Enoch Bolles, via Fred Seibert}

Hi, friends.

I ended up taking an unexpected break from just-for-fun blogging this summer, I suppose. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I’ve been knee-deep in working on my forthcoming sewing book. I imagine that any of you who actually care about such things read The Coletterie already, but if not… look! I have a book coming!

Boy oh boy, books are a lot of work. You probably know that already, as did I. But now I know it in a real, visceral way.

I also managed to contract pneumonia back in July, which was really pretty awful and took me down for the better part of a month. Pneumonia is no joke, guys! Yikes, I’m glad that unpleasantness is behind me. It was nasty, and when you couple it with my workload, I started to feel like I was drowning.

In spite of that little whine above, I really did find time to enjoy the meager summer we had here. Here are some lovely things I did this summer:

• Grew a crazy huge crop of tomatoes
• Went to San Francisco
• Visited the Oregon coast and drank beer
• Kept our house stocked with fresh flowers from the garden
• Went to Seattle
• Bought tickets to go to Argentina this December (!!!)
• Made a pretty dress to wear for a fantastic 4th wedding anniversary (see above)
• Ate Peruvian food for the first time
• Had fun visits from family
• Picked berries
• Did a lot of canning
• Cut my hair off (also see above)

I hope to find more time to write and share now that I’ve perked up a bit and finally feel like I can breathe again (literally and figuratively).