recommendations!

i've been tagged by kass to provide 4 word-of-mouth recommendations for the benefit of the Internet At Large. i adore this idea, because pretty much 70% of my purchases these days are due to blogger recommendations. bare escentuals? my camera? philosphy face wash? the last three books i've read? seeing SATC on opening weekend? all due to bloggers suggestions. also all AWESOME. so! here we have some suggestions of my own. the first 2 are pretty generic, and probably also in use by the vast majority of humans, but JUST IN CASE, i want you to know how fantastic they are.

#1: spray-on sunscreen. i swear to you, this product has CHANGED MY LIFE. spray-on sunscreen is, after contact lenses, the invention that has most improved my life. no joke. we all know i'm a little, uh, burn-prone? shall we say? so i was a little hesitant to put my skin in the care of a misty not-rubbed-in spray... but y'all, i am CONVERTED. this stuff works AMAZINGLY well. a rundown of the benefits? why certainly, i'm glad you asked!

*coverage is great. it's way harder to miss weird patches when you can just mist all exposed skin
*no weird handprints in your burn/tan from rubbing in lotion unevenly
*you can cover your ENTIRE BODY without help. really! you can reach the MIDDLE OF YOUR OWN BACK.
*you know how much it sucks to reapply suncreen when you're at the beach, and you've got sand on your legs and on your hands, and it's like rubbing in sunscreen using sandpaper? PROBLEM SOLVED.

i'd say the only downside is that if you reapply frequently (uh, like some people i know...) it can form a kind of inpenetrable layer o' sunscreen on your skin. obviously good for blocking sun; not so awesome if you're planning to throw on a cute dress and go out after the beach without showering first.

#2: angled measuring cups. i assume everyone and their mom already uses these, but just in case? GO GET THEM RIGHT NOW. you won't know how you managed without them.

#3: rick steves' guidebooks. i first stumbled across one of his books when i was planning a solo trip through italy, and i got various guidebooks out of the library for each city i was hitting. the only decent one i could find for Rome happened to be rick steves', who i'd never heard of at the time. BRILLIANT, i tell you. he gives fantastic walking tour suggestions, with loads of interesting historic information about what you'll see on the way. it drives me nuts when i'm walking through a city, and my guidebook points out the famous consulate on the town square, built in 1609.... and that's it. rick steves will tell you WHY it's famous, fun facts about people who were thrown off the walls, and where to look to still see the canonball marks from that time the british invaded, or whatever. every other guidebook i've tried since now pales in comparison, and i only travel with rick these days. i highly, HIGHLY recommend his guidebooks to anyone with an upcoming trip. the only downside is that he only puts out books for Europe.

#4: the dc monuments at night. everyone who comes to DC does the requisite monument tour - and it's totally worth it - but nearly everyone goes during the day, since, you know, it's light out then and stuff. a few years ago, some friends came into town and we had very limited time to show them around, so we ended up walking the monuments after sunset, and WOW. dc actually does a really lovely job of lighting the monuments, and with so many of them incorporating water, the effect is stunning. those pictures in the link were taken years ago with a crappy camera and very little technique - i'm thinking sometime in the next few weeks i'll head out again with my real camera and maybe reshoot the set.

of course, the mother lode of all recommendation websites is that gem maintained by swistle and linda, sundrybuzz. ooh, can that be my bonus recommendation? i recommend you go check out their recommendation website. and also use spray-on sunscreen. your skin will thank you.