I have had a lifetime to learn how to take care of my skin. I am very fair skinned. My mother is also fairs skinned. So was my maternal grandmother. For the most part, I learned how to care for my skin from both of them. I learned about how to treat scars and breakouts, how to use sunscreen and lotions.

My daughter, on the other hand, is olive skinned. Her father has a decidedly dark Mediterranean completion. Although Gigi’s actual tone is somewhere between my skin tone and her father’s, she shows skin characteristics more like her dad’s.

I’d always looked forward to the honor of showing Gigi how to care for her skin, how to keep it looking young and healthy. What I did not expect was to have a daughter with such dramatically different skin from my own. Taking care of Olive skin is a whole new ballgame for me.

Asian, Mediterranean and other Olive (AMO) skin types actually react differently to UV lights than white skin. Scarring is different, too. Minor injuries and ace breakouts often result in dark patches. Gigi and her father never burn when they are out in the sun, and they both tan deeply and easily. I tend to forget that Gigi still needs a sunscreen and lots of moisturizer, because sun damage is not evident on her skin like it is on mine.

I want to be well versed in the techniques for caring for skin like Gigi’s. I might not be able to pass along my own tips and tricks, but I can still get educated and have a brand new bag of tricks to hand to her.

ORIKI Cosmeceuticals has an entire line of products formulated especially for AMO skin types. Because pigmentation plays an important role in appropriate skin care, I think it is important to be aware of the differences that need to be taken into consideration when choosing products. ORIKI has several product kits (items are also sold individually), and I think one of the basic kits would be a great gift for me to give my daughter as soon as her skin begins to develop adult qualities.

New reports show that the American life expectancy is up to 78 now. Women still have a 5 year lead on the men, though.

My relatives on both sides tend to start declining significantly in their mid 80s. I just went to my grandmother’s funeral a little over a week ago. She was 84 when she died. Oddly, she died of Alzheimer’s disease, which the same reports say has increased a full 5% in the number of annual deaths it causes. It’s the 7th leading cause of death in the US. Deaths due to stoke and heart disease are down.

In my own lifetime I have seen the life expectancy here go up in tiny increments. I can only hope that medical advances and healthier lifestyle trends will inch that expectancy was up by the time my daughter is an adult.

I’m nearly giddy when I see a new beta for a technology product that I can actually understand and incorporate into my life. It’s even better when it’s free.

QlipBoard from Qlip Media is is ridiculously cool little program that walks you through creating Qlippits, which are basically videos comprised of you narrating over documents, images or web pages. The ways to use a Qlippet are endless. You could make a tutorial for almost anything, narrate a slide show of photographs from your vacation, design a little birthday graphic and have your child sing Happy Birthday to send to Grandma…, do you want me to go on? I can think of 50 ways to use it right now off the top of my head.

If you have a hard time expressing yourself via writing, but talking is your strong point, then you’ll probably groove on Qlippits. Sometimes I get so bogged down trying to write out everything I am thinking when I am excited about a logo concept or something else I have designed and it would rock to just upload the picture and talk right over the image about all of my ideas and concepts.

I was looking over some of the Qlippit examples on the Qlipboard website and particularly liked the baby announcement. It added a new level of personalization to the modern trend of doing birth announcements online.

It’s freakishly simple to use. Even if you don’t have a microphone, you can still use the graphical aspects of the program. You can import photos and even save favorite images that you want to use more than once. Qlippits can be saved, e-mailed, sent to wireless devices or even posted to a website or blog. Check out this screenshot:

Did I mention that it’s free? What do you have to lose? This is the coolest little application I have seen in a long time. And, it’s keeping me up WAY too late playing around with it. A few of you can expect Qlippits in your e-mail tomorrow.

Here I am in the first few minutes of September 12. I know most people who posted reflections of September 11, 2001 did so yesterday – the 6th anniversary. A day of remembrance. I wanted to have the full day to reflect and see how I felt before I sat down to commit my thoughts to the written word.

I heard a radio commentator ask his listeners if we thought we had let a lot of th shock stop hitting us. I suppose I have to say that yes, I feel a lot more of what I thought was peace lately. Upon further reflection, I was a little ashamed to realize that it might be some level of apathy sinking into my heart.

Had six years healed me or has it caused me to begin the process of forgetting?
I am not entirely sure.

I feel like I have lived a lifetime of blissful heights and deep, dark lows in the past six years. Fear is beginning to dissipate for me, but I think it is being replaced by a feeling of indignant anger.

On the morning of 9/11, I was in my office. I worked at a manufacturing company as the director of the art department. I always arrived at work, got a big glass of water, and set right about my tasks. A co-worker of mine liked to have a cup of coffee and check the headlines before he started his day.

“A plane hit the World Trade Center,” said Rick. I immediately envisioned a small, single engine plane.

We all logged onto the news sites at that point. The only one I could get to come up that day was USA Today. I refreshed every few minutes. Across the hall, another coworker went into he President’s office and turned on his little b/w portable TV. Our boss was actually in Jerusalem at this time. How frightening that must have been.

Work did not get done that day. We all stood together and watched on that tiny, colorless screen as the towers fell. I remember that I had been sobbing, wondering how the people on the floors about where the planes had hit would escape. I was thinking that as the first tower fell.

My husband at the time was home in bed when the whole mess began. I remember calling to wake him and tell him to turn on the TV. I remember out frequent calls to one another that day. I remember calling my father, who worked in a prominent government building at the time. I was praying they would evacuate. I remember my frantic calls to my dozens of friends who live in Manhattan; calls that never went through.

I cannot remember if I stayed home from work in the days after 9/11. I do remember watching news for days and days at home when I was in the house.

I remember our concern as my husband went on a job interview that had been scheduled for September 12. He has an Arabic sounding surname and is olive skinned. We worried people might reflect their fear and hate onto him. Thankfully they never did.

Like most of you, I could go for pages about my memories of that day. Instead I will end my entry and leave you with this:

Let us feel the scars in our hearts.