Well damn, maybe I should have waited to choose a camera because since I bought one the price for the Canon XS has dropped to $550 $475! That is with the lens and everything! The price of the XSi, the one I bought, has dropped to $640 $655.

Right. I have a camera and now I must stop paying attention to the falling prices.

Also, this fairly inexpensive ($85) Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens has been recommended by a number of people who love it in the comments of my previous camera post with the explanation that it will help me take good pictures indoors in low light, which sounds so very appealing with the rainy winter setting in. It's going on my Wishlist, maybe I'll get it for Christmas. Maybe?

Star Wars Boba Fett For Real Hoodie, despite the price and the fact that it would look terrible on me, I want

Nike Mary Jane NM Shoes at Outblush, kinda nice

How does Dr Bronner soap work? What are the 18 uses that they claim on the bottle? at Ask Metafilter

Why do Crest, Colgate, etc. no longer display the ADA seal of approval? at Ask Metafilter

What can I do now, as a young woman, to ensure I have beautiful skin when I'm older? at Ask Metafilter

I bought a camera! An actual DSLR camera, like a grown up might have. I decided on the Canon Rebel XSi (known to the rest of the world as the Canon EOS 450D). I had been wanting a new camera for a while but couldn't really justify the purchase until last week, when my point and shoot camera just stopped working. Poor little thing.

Previously I'd been looking at the recently released Canon XS, which is their entry level DSLR. Despite getting good expert reviews it doesn't seem to have generated much excitement, as you can see from the very few user reviews at Amazon. Many places suggesting the XSi (which is the slightly older brother than the XS and came out in January of 2008) is worth the money for the few slightly better features. So I took a look and discovered that Amazon was selling the XSi for only slightly more than the XS.

update: from the time I started writing this the XS price has gone from $640 to $600, and the XSi price dropped from $660 to $655. A lot of the research I did suggested the price for the XS would drop even further in coming months, and if I didn't need a camera now I would have waited it out to see how low the XS price might get.



I did a lot of research and what I turned up is that the XS is very much the same camera as the XSi but with a few features that aren't quite as good. I can say with some confidence that in moving up from a point and shoot I never would have noticed the difference in the features except for one thing, the LCD screen in the XSi is 3 inches whereas it's 2.5 inches in the XS. I don't even consider that a deal breaker but while the price difference was so small I went for the XSi. I found two articles that compare the models in a helpfully concise way: Gizmodo and Digicamhelp. The other thing my reading turn up is that when compared to the older entry level model XTi it appears both the XS and the XSi are well-worth-it steps up.

Annoyingly specific notes and a few of my first pictures follow. (more...)

I recently got the set of Clean & Green Twist Clean-Up biodegradeable sponges from Delight.com and I'm really happy with them. The scrubby side of the scrubby sponges is a layer of loofah. The Bamboo dusting cloths work well and might get me to kick my shameful Swiffer Duster habit. The Euro sponges are nice and big but I'm really in love with the European Sponge Cloth because it acts like a paper towel and I finally have something that can get into that narrow area behind the faucet in my bathroom sink.

Also, this is adorable, there are birdhouse and birdfeeder templates printed on the insides of the cardboard packaging bands:



Also take a look at the Better Life eco friendly and plant based cleansers that smell only very faintly of soap and work really nicely.

I have gone on and on before about the fact that I cannot (no matter how often I try) wear shoes with straps that go between my toes. This leads to some serious summer flip flop envy. But I'm saved! Teva makes a flip flop like shoe called the Kena that is the answer to all my whining.

The Kena shoe is like a flip flop in all the ways it counts, the soles are light weight foam, the straps are able to get wet or sandy and you can just step into them and kick them off. The straps form two Xs that go across the tops of your feet and they really just look like a flip flop rather than a strange alternashoe. I wore these new for a significant amount of walking and they were just comfortable from the start, there was no rubbing at all. They also never feel like they will fall off, which is a common problem with me and my narrow feet. There is a little bit of arch support, but these are not sport sandals by any means. Here is one positive thing about my broken camera: you've been spared a picture of my feet with their freakishly long toes.

The Kena shoes are perfection. Now I just have to buy as many as I can sanely get away with before they discontinue them. You can find them on the Teva site as well as at Endless. Thanks go out to Mandy who pointed me towards these!

I had a chance to try out Baggu reusable shopping bags and I like them a lot. They are made strong, lightweight ripstop nylon and come in lots of fantastic colors. Each bag folds into a small square and goes into it's own tidy pouch so they are good for throwing into your bag or keeping in a glove compartment or desk drawer. Though, I do worry that I will misplace the pouch. The handles are nice and wide and are comfortable on your shoulder if you are bringing home a lot of produce, or beer.



The bags are just slightly shallower than Envirosax (also) and RuMe bags, but the bottoms have gussets so they hold a whole lot. The handles are a bit shorter than the other bags, making it harder to sling a bag up on your shoulder using only one arm. (This is a detail I am, admittedly, overly fixated on.) But, the overall shorter bag means it definitely won't drag on the ground when you hold it like a tote, something that is a problem for shorter people with the Envirosax and Rume sized bags.

Candela review at NOTCOT

glow rings, glow in the dark bands for the water glass you keep on the nightstand, or a dark bar, at Product Dose

Powerbank Torch at Cool Tools

duct tape bandages at Uncrate

Ladies – Which Sephora products are really worth it? at Ask Metafilter

The Entertainer, a heart rate monitor that controls your television volume, if your heart rate slows because you stop exercising the volume drops. At Product Dose.

Majesty Inc. makes some awfully adorable vinyl goods including pouches, passport sleeves, card cases and wallets. Everything is 100% vegan and handmade in Canada.



You can read more about Majesty Inc. at the website and find more from Julie at her blog. Julie, thank you Julie!, would like to give away three mini pouches to Not Martha readers, and she'll be throwing in three random keyrings with each pouch as well. The pouces up for grabs are Orange You Glad, Egg Me On I Dare You, and Sweet Squirrel.



If you'd like the chance to win a Majesty Inc. mini pouch please leave a comment with this post. The usual fine print applies and this contest is only for those living in Canada or the US (sorry peeps). I'll let the Random Number Generator pick the winners on Monday, Sept. 15th at noon PST.

Good luck!

I recently had the chance to try out a few things from Product Body, and I've been ridiculously pampered all week. These are a range of natural scrubs, lotions, bath soaks, bubbles, balms and cleansers that work fantastically and smell divine. I've been using the Crush On You scrub in the shower and it is a miracle, it exfoliates, moisturizes with shea butter and gently cleanses at the same time. I emerge soft and ready go. And, this is nice, it doesn't leave the tub dangerously slippery. I have this in Lemon and it smells exactly like the fresh squeezed lemon aid you get at a fair (you know, the one where they stick the lemon halves right in the cup), it's just the right amount of cheerful I need in the morning. Crush On You is the one that Bust magazine called "quite possibly the greatest exfoliant known to women."



The day I used the Sugarfoot scrub Scott rubbed my feet (he's a very good boyfriend) and commented on how smooth they were. The Ruby Red Grapefruit smelled so fantastic that I went over both of my feet twice. I got the Velvet scrub in Sweet Vanilla Mango and it smells like a fruity beach and offers a wallop of moisturizing oils. I also got to try out the shea butter infused Cream in Lavender and I'm very impressed by the texture and how quickly it soaks in, leaving nothing but soft behind. It smells so good I keep stopping as I type this to open and sniff the jar I have sitting on my desk.

(p.s. The jars in these photographs are half empty because I've been using them copiously.)



Product Body also offers salt and milk bath soaks, solid bubble bath and a gentle wash (Bath & Shower), a whole range of salt or sugar scrubs (Body Scrubs), creams, balms and whipped butters (Moisturizers) and a whole range of natural products for pregnant or new mothers in the Mama Bomb line.



The things from Product Body are very, very good and I know I'm not alone in this since the testimonials page is filled with happy customers. You can feel good ordering from them as it's a small business started and run by a woman, each item is made when it's ordered so it's always fresh, and the ingredients are natural and locally sourced. You can read more about Product Body here.

And know what? Product Body likes you so much they're offering a $75.00 Goodie Box, including a Crush On You and a selection of other products. If you'd like to win please leave a comment with this post, the usual fine print applies and I'll let the Random Number Generator pick the winner on Monday, Sept. 8th at noon PST. This giveaway is only for those living inside the US, sorry everybody else, catch you next time. The giveaway is over, thanks to everybody who entered. If you didn't win remember there is a 20% discount:

In addition to the goodie box Product Body is offering a 20% off coupon, enter notmartha at checkout. There are no minimum orders and you get free shipping over $75, good through the end of September. Yay? Yay!

Good luck!

Our laundry room is cramped and has two doors which access it, so if you leave the hard plastic cheapo laundry basket we used to have sitting on the floor and exit via door #1, somebody coming through door #2 would find the door was blocked by the basket. This made for a bit of unnecessary frustration. I thought all was hopeless until I came across this laundry basket at a Storables. It's tall and holds a lot, but most excellently it is flexible, so not only are you able to grab it by the handles to take it downstairs but it will squeeze out of the way of door #2. Also, you will not bruise your shin if you stumble into it while moving laundry through the very cramped laundry room. Yay.



Seriously though, being able to carry it like a large tote makes it really easy to bring up and down stairs, rendering all other laundry baskets useless to me.

Yesterday Scott and I found ourselves in a Target so new that Google Maps refused to believe that the address existed (so much for the convenience of being able to look up driving directions on the iPhone). While we were looking for the aisle where the doomsday-sized packages of Ivory soap are kept we passed some things marked clearance in the kitchen area. So, we bought a big 2 quart brother for the tiny 1 quart saucepan I bought a while back instead of spending a lot more on a shinypretty All-Clad. I'm giving some serious consideration to the 3 quart saute pan with a lid, something we've been improvising a lot lately by wrapping a splatter screen in tin foil and weighing it down with a plate. An actual lid would be way safer than our current method, don't you think?

So, while the Calphalon Kitchen Essentials aren't quite as sexy as All-Clad I've been pretty darn happy with the one I have. If you need a saucepan I can recommend getting yourself to a Target and seeking out one of these while they are on sale. The 2 quart size is on sale for $28 (instead of $40) and I forget the sale price on the 1 quart size, though I think I bought mine for $17 earlier this year. They are heavy enough to hold heat nicely and clean up easily and, happily, these are dishwasher safe.

Why did it take me so long to finally get myself into Zenith Supplies here in Seattle? It's only a half a block down from the Ravenna Whole Foods, I have missed out on so many opportunities to go and admire tiny lip balm containers.

In short, Zenith Supplies sells all the things you need to make candles, soap, lotions, balms, perfumes, things for your body, the bath and your home. I went in hoping to find some DPG for making my own reed diffuser scents and not only did they have it but they had a recipe, bottles, reeds, perfumers alcohol and a more than impressive selection of essential and fragrance oils. They have candle and soap molds, jars and bottles of all sizes, lotion bases and bulk oils, salts and dried herbs, more waxes and additives than I knew existed. But most thrillingly they had an excellent selection of small jars for lips balms and solid perfume including the elusive clear plastic compact. They had those old fashioned metal sliding tins, little rollerball containers for scents and teeny pipetts, small atomizers and all sorts of packaging supplies. You can buy just one of anything, which sounds awfully good to me, the girl who still has well over 100 pipettes from my lip balm making experiments. The store is large, clean and orderly and the staff was perfectly happy to answer all my inane questions. It is, as I had been warned by Yelp, a little hippy dippy, expect to find crystals and books on healing arts. I see a solid perfume in my future and maybe, maybe, some serious soapmaking.