CityShopGirl's Birthday Party

First off, I must apologize for a very tardy post and then also for not posting much of anything at all. It is awful when things like travel, work and family get in the way of blogging.

Saturday night started off with a lively cocktail party for those of us who ventured out to Lotus Lounge to celebrate Kelly Collis Fredrick's first year as publisher of CityShopGirl and the culmination of her enterprising citywide Scavenger Hunt in which subscribers gathered items from local businesses from clues on CityShopGirl emails, Facebook and Twitter. Sara Damelio of Skincando, who partnered with Kelly for the Scavenger Hunt, was there with a supply of Combat Ready Balm. We gave a $5 donation to help supply our troops with the soothing balm and also got a raffle ticket. Though I was in Japan for most of the Hunt, I did enter the raffle--and WON A PRIZE! YAY! Two free deep conditioning treatments at de la ines salon worth $50 each. Micha Weinblatt of Crooked Monkey (who recently had his own fab party) came with his roommate to wish Kelly well. Stylists from Bella Bethesda
Salon did makeovers and hair. I mostly sat at the bar and gossiped with my friend, Zena; Kelly worked the gig all night in stunning skin-tight leather pants. As she walked by, someone whispered, "She's a mom with two kids, you know." Ya know--so am I. But I looked as though I was separated at birth from my pal Zena Polin, who also chose to wear a print jersey dress and black boots. Great minds! The grand prize winner of the scavenger hunt was VERY happy to receive over a gift basket with over $2,500 worth of prizes. Wow! Congrats Kelly! Congrats Sara! You pulled off a massive undertaking supporting our local businesses as well as our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. And we loved the party too!!

Is 'Combat Ready' Camp Out Ready?

My daughter and her boyfriend, a newly commissioned Army officer, are going camping next weekend. My daughter suffers from bug bite overload (huge, painful welts). She's anticipating that this week's camping trip (in muggy August) will be challenging. They're packing Combat Ready Balm by Skincando to see if it's up to task. It's a wonderfully rich and creamy skin balm I found around the corner from my house at Village Green Apothecary. (Check the website for more locations.) The bonus is the cream's soothing but aggressive bug bite relief.  So much so that Skincando owner Sara Damelio ships the stuff by the crateful to our soldiers fighting in Iraq to ease their flea-bitten, sunburned skin. She's running a campaign called Operation Sand Flea--for a $12 donation she'll send a jar to a soldier with a gift card and thank you note. I'm sending a jar with my daughter and newly commissioned officer for camp combat. We'll debrief next week.