There is a new trend in hospitals that I think is very cool.  I am calling it a recognition of the patient and family. Let’s face it, nobody wants to be in the hospital in the first place, but say you have to be there for some reason.  Well, checking out and getting home to your own bed is not all that easy.  First all the papers to fill out, just to get out, then getting out the front door and then getting to the car.  Oh, then there’s the stop at the pharmacy on the way home, and maybe grocery store.  It’s a lot before you can breathe easier and get back to home base.  It’s exhausting.

El Camino Hospital has something new….they built a spa, conveniently located right across the hall from the pharmacy.  This means you have a really relaxing place to sit while waiting for your medications…and maybe even get a massage, or just listen to nice music.  It smells delicious too.  And there are all sorts of wonderful gifts that feel good—creams, bath balls, aromatherapy, anything you need to make a gentle exit from hospital to home.  It’s like exiting through a nice tropical forest, which is so calming, and so much more gentle then just wheeling out into a parking lot.

I think this effort is a smart idea.  It seems to connect with the person instead of the patient.

I have a thing for cherries, and that’s a fact.  Maybe because my grandparents lived on a cherry farm near Flathead Lake in Montana and we ate them till we got sick every summer.   Maybe because my mom loved cherry pies? I even have a huge painting of a bowl full of cherries hanging in my house.

Bowl full of Cherries Oil Painting

I never noticed the pattern in myself until recently—even though I’ve been living with me all my life. Cherry cokes, cherry life savers, Cherry Garcia ice cream, and now this! A cherry candle, by Point a la Ligne, has made it’s way to CAREBOX™.  I suppose it was just a matter of time until I found it. But now that I have, I am thrilled to offer this sweet gift—more than just THE cutest candle….it’s the cherry on top!

The cherry on top means a lot of things.  It’s good news, a great day, the perfect sunset, a day off, a parking place in front of Macy’s during a sale, a sunset, a new friend, an A on an exam…whatever it is that just makes the day extra nice.

But I like that it’s a way to say, I love you…you are just…the cherry on top!

It’s now part of the Build a Box collection, and ships direct from us to you or, whoever…

http://www.carebox.com/index.php/gift-build-a-box-custom-care-package.html

There was a time when we had complete faith in our doctors, and did whatever they told us to do.  Right?

Both my parents were completely loyal to their doctors, they never checked around—never got second opinions, never doubted a word they said.  The truth is though, hospitals, doctors, nurses are all really busy, and very tired—they are human, not the super-humans my parents believed them to be.

House isn’t always around….so what do you do when you, or a loved one gets sick?  You need to become your own advocate and best friend, you need to run the show from your bed or bedside, as hard as that is to imagine.

And get this wonderful book by Martine Ehrenclou….it gives questions to ask, terms to know, and pages to take notes.  It’s like a super journal that guides you through the medical jungle.  I wish I had it when my parents got sick—it could have condensed the learning curve by a mile.  And it is an EASY guide to follow.  Highly recommended!

Isn’t this funny?  A candle in the shape of peas in a pod?  And it really is a working candle that lasts about 20 hours—and a little bigger than real peas too.

I discovered this line of French candles (Point a La Ligne) many years ago in Paris, so it was almost predetermined that I would bring them to the USA one day.  They can be found in my Build a Box section (http://www.carebox.com/index.php/build-a-box.html). Check them out.

They remind me of my mom and me, because we were like two peas in a pod…her and me, me and her.  I will be lighting my peas at the end of this month when I celebrate my birthday.  I think she’d like that, don’t you?

Dream a little Easter basket for a friend or two.

These fancy French marshmallows are all the rage.  They are long  (12″), thin, and come in three flavors—lemon, raspberry and violet.  It’s very important to try all three flavors because what would one be without the other?  Wrap them together for a fun Easter gift.  (PS  Men like them too)

And then there are always mini lavender bath ice cream balls by MeBath!  A bath Easter box would be the thing for me, with lots of different flavors to fill up the whole house.

What if you gave a candle Easter box? With strawberry and chocolate candle cupcakes. It has been proven that nobody gains weight with candle cakes.

Happy Easter Dreaming!