ahoy, discoveries! vol. I

Things that have excited, impressed, or intrigued me in the past week.

1) Vitacost. Thanks to a flyer that peaked my interest, I just discovered Vitacost. They sell most of my favorite vitamins, herbs, and other natural products, for the best prices I've seen. And they have a flat shipping rate of $4.99, which beats the pants off competitors; on even a moderately sized order, the savings more than cover the shipping.

Now instead of spending time and money on trips to Savemart (or horrors, paying full price at a "regular" store) I can order everything online. Sweet.

2) Drew’s salad dressing. Dude, it's good. Big flavors, pure ingredients (or as pure as you're going to get with a storebought dressing). Check out the Kalamata Olive & Caper on a salad of romaine, red cabbage, and feta.

3) Save The Words. I heard about this website on NPR. Sign up, adopt a word, and help save neglected portions of the English language from extinction.

My adopted word? Flosculation. As it means "an embellishment or ornamentation in speech," I imagine I may have ample chance to use it on my overly wordy students. "These flosculations distract me from the main point of your paragraph."

4) This bag and this bag and this bag. All thanks to The Style Files, which posted on this one a few days ago:

It already sold out, if you're wondering.

5) Buying lots of Shakespeare and counting it as a business expense! I am making the booklist and a tentative syllabus for my Shakespeare class next semester, and having finally decided which plays to teach, happily loaded up the Amazon shopping cart.

6) My four youngest siblings' Thanksgiving choir concert is this Friday evening. (Grace Baptist Church on Marietta Avenue, 7:00 PM. Central Lancaster Country Homeschool Music. Ya'll come.) Then on Saturday the husband and I are going on a double date with my parents to Longwood Gardens, because (ah, the perks of membership) there is a special event involving hors d'oeuvres, bonsai, Japanese flower arranging, and about a million chrysanthemums. And hors d'oeuvres. Did I mention those already?

Seriously, Longwood is a fantastic place to have a membership, because you just visit a few times and you already got your money's worth. It changes constantly-- it's never boring-- unless you find gardens inherently boring, of course.

{image is John Singer Sargent's "The Spanish Dancer," because in keeping with the rest of this post, it's awesome}