OurTupelo

Monday, for many, is a dreaded day. It signifies the weekend has, once again, come to a hasty close. Wednesday is hump day; it gives us hope that we can make it until Friday. And Friday is a day of unsurpassed gladness, for with this day the joyousness of the weekend is but a stone’s throw away. But what about Tuesday and Thursday? Are these days simply mundane and unmentionable? Though I don’t have any clue about Thursday, I can promise you there will be a newfound happiness on Tuesday. Tuesday Morning, that is.

With all of the recent rains and flooding in our state, many have become house-bound. Though I love my home, sometimes a dose of cabin fever can be hazardous to my health, especially to my mental health. It is during these monsoonal moments, I long for a place where the sun always shines and offers a tantalizing taste of something a bit out of the ordinary. Heads up, my fellow Tupelonians, for I have found such a place!

It’s a place full of light — it’s fluorescent light, but light is light. Am I right? — tasty treats from far and near, fabulous finds, and a pirate’s boundless booty of bargains.

Tuesday Morning, just a few doors down from Sam’s Wholesale Club on North Gloster, has all of these things and more. 

Tuesday Morning is my pep-up place when the weather (or anything else for that matter) gets me down. On the dreariest of days, I can walk through their doors and instantly breathe in bliss, and breathe out that heavy sigh of relief that my chest has been begging me to release. Yes, Tuesday Morning is my load-lifter!

They offer literally a little of everything. They have furniture, rugs, bedding, linens, gardening tools, patio furniture and accessories, soaps and lotions from abroad, toys, stationery, pet items, kitchen necessaries, personal care products, baby gifts, luggage, home goods, and decorative items. But what I really love is their consumable products, better known as my favorite thing… food!

One of my all-time favorite confections is their tea biscuits. They are imported from afar, and offer those who have a taste for something a tad bit sweet an absolutely perfect choice for snack time. They come in a rather large package and inside, you will find four individually wrapped packages (My husband calls these “sleeves”). Since the tea biscuits have a light crunch and are quite easy to chew, I often take these as little gifts to some of the ladies, and my mother, at her assisted living community. They love them, and since they are only lightly sweetened, they won’t make your blood sugar teeter back and forth. That is, unless you are like me and scarf up an entire sleeve in one sitting! These darling little crackers are only $2.49 a package, and if you plan on using them as goodie gifts, all you have to do is pop a little ribbon on them and you have four gifts for less than $3.00! They tend to run out of these quickly, but don’t worry, they continually restock them.

Another fabulous find in Tuesday Morning is their vast selection of coffee and tea. I have a Keurig Coffee Maker and I can get 10 pods of Fleetwood Coffee (made in Chattanooga) for $2.99 — that’s 30 cents a cup, y’all! I will forewarn you: I just left the store and I bought every box they had on the shelf. Sorry, folks! Not to fret, they religiously reorder this product. Plus, they have more coffee and tea brands and flavors than any other store in this area. So many choices! Go snag a box or two and get your ‘sip’ on, Mississippi!

If traveling to Italy is on your bucket list, I can’t help you get there, but I can tell you that if you want a taste of Italy, Tuesday Morning has an extensive line of imported Italian food. Olive oils, spices, pasta, pasta sauce, olives and peppers don their shelves. Their pasta is colorful and available in many different types and textures, and shapes; it adds a bit of zip and zing to any meal! Grab a package of pasta, throw in a jar of one of their Italian sauces, and a box of breadsticks (all available at Tuesday Morning) and you have a greatly appreciated and inexpensive gift. They even have bags to wrap it in! Perfetto! (That’s the Italian word for ‘perfect’.)

I also adore the jam, jelly, and syrup selection at Tuesday Morning. Some are made in the United States, and others are shipped in from other countries. I tend to gravitate to the ones made in the US, because quite frankly, I know what they taste like. I did broaden my jelly horizon once last year, but it didn’t work out very well. Apparently, I am not a fan of figs, pomegranates, and prickly pears, or at least not combined. My bad. I made my selection based on how it looked, and in my hastiness, I failed to read the ingredients! But who knows? You may love that combination! With such awesome prices, you can afford to try a few new things. Dare to go where no Mississippian has gone before…try one of their exotic jams! 

Tuesday Morning has the proverbial market covered on snacks and tasty treats. I encourage you to take a little trip over and check them out. Don’t pack a bag for this adventure though. If you’re like me, you will have plenty of bags to unpack when you get home.

Happy shopping!

CIAO! (That’s Italian for goodbye, y’all.)

You all know the benefits of eating locally grown honey. It’s good for you. It is also one of the few tried-and-true naturals that, if consumed on a regular basis, actually helps combat a lot of common allergies. I have eaten honey for many years, and I use it in the all-natural skin products I make. But did you know that beeswax is just as powerful? 

I do not use the beeswax at Hobby Lobby, nor do I order my beeswax online. I buy mine from a local beekeeper. Why? Buying beeswax locally ensures that you are only getting real beeswax with no additives; that’s an important factor if you are using it to make products for the skin and body.

True beeswax smells like honey, and it never ruins or expires. Accept no substitute. Period. I purchase mine from a young man and his father at the Tupelo Flea Market. Their beeswax is the best I have used, as it has been filtered and the smell is heavenly. 

A year or so ago, I had an order for some of my natural Neosporin (aka Boo-Boo Cream), and I ran out of beeswax. I did not know how to contact my usual fellows, so I scoured the Internet searching for a local beekeeper. I called four or five beekeepers listed on Google, and finally found a young man who had some blocks of wax he agreed to sell. I met him at Fair Park that afternoon, and it was there I discovered that all beeswax is not alike. Yes. He had wax from his hives, but he failed to tell me on the phone (and I had stupidly failed to ask) it had not been filtered. Why is that important? Let’s just say that there were so many pieces and parts of the actual bees in it, I ended up throwing all of it away; all fifty pounds! So, make SURE you ask for and buy FILTERED beeswax! 

Filtered, natural beeswax makes perfectly poured candles that are both smokeless and have an increased burn time. Beeswax candles have been proven to help facilitate the elimination of airborne pollution, such as bacteria, dust, and allergens. They are also believed to promote overall physical and mental well-being by providing you with more energy and reducing stress. 

Back when I was making candles, I never added essential oils, because the beeswax had a tendency to strongly enhance the fragrances. (They were so strong, in fact, you didn’t even have to light them in order for their scent to fill up a room; it was awful!) So, take my advice if you decide to make beeswax candles; leave out the essential oils and just breathe in the fresh, sweet smell of honey that the wax offers. 

Native American used beeswax for a multitude of things. I once read that the Indians would melt beeswax and pour it directly onto their cuts and scratches. It did not specify how deep the wounds were, or what they had been scratched by. I do remember thinking to myself that pouring anything hot into a fresh wound must have been excruciating. 

One afternoon while I was slicing and dicing vegetables, the knife slipped and made a rather deep cut on my thumb. I could not get the cut to close, even with the aid of butterfly bandages, so I went back to my Native roots. I quickly popped a little beeswax into the microwave and then stuck my thumb into the melted wax. Yes, it hurt like the devil for a moment, but by the time the wax had dried, I noticed the bleeding had stopped and the pain subsided. Within two days, the cut had closed up completely. I would never suggest anyone try this, but for me, that time, it worked. And for the record, I will say this: ANY deep cut or wound should be treated by a physician! BEE smart!

Other, not so drastic uses of beeswax are plentiful on Google, but here are a few just in case your Internet happens to be down. Rubbing the metal portion of your tools with plain beeswax will keep them from rusting. You can also rub it onto the tool’s wooden handles to prevent splitting and cracking. I have tried this and yes, it does work, but make sure your tools are clean before rubbing on the wax!! 

Got a pair of canvas shoes that you want to wear this season and next? No problem. First, clean the shoes to remove any dirt. Next, rub some beeswax directly on the shoes with a cloth and then use a blow-dryer to melt it. Rub away any excess wax with a towel and admire your handiwork. I have not personally tried this, but I do wish I had when I went through my ‘Bob’s Shoes’ phase a few years back! If you decide you want to try this, I would do a ‘test’ patch on the shoes before waxing the entire thing! 

If you have a sticky furniture drawer or a finicky zipper, rub on a little beeswax. You will see, and feel, a dramatic difference!

I made wonderful wooden furniture polish bars a few years back by melting beeswax and olive oil together and pouring them into heart-shaped, silicone molds. They were beautiful and made my furniture looked new and refreshed!

If you are sewing by hand and your needle is having a tough time going through the fabric, poke the needle in a block of beeswax a few times, and ta-da! No more snagging and dragging!

Beeswax is a staple when making homemade salves, lotion bars, and lip balms. The color is rich and the anti-inflammatory properties found in the wax helps heal and nourish your skin.

As I stated, these are merely a few of the hundreds of uses of all-natural beeswax. I leave you with a few important things to remember when using beeswax: 

It is highly flammable! Be sure, if you are melting it in a pan on top of the stove, in lieu of the microwave, to heat it SLOWLY. Never leave the pot unattended, and keep children away from heated or melted beeswax; it is a burn hazard. I made such a mess on my stove while melting it, I finally purchased a cheap, electric hot plate to use especially for this purpose. This greatly reduced my clean up time. 

Lastly, if you are allergic to bees, do NOT use local, all-natural beeswax. Even if it has been filtered, you will still find tiny particles of the actual bees in the wax. Those little black dots in the wax represent a small portion of the millions of bees who risked their life, so that we might enjoy the fruits of their labor. Give thanks.

Bee safe.

Bee happy.

*Many of the recipes I listed can be found on the Internet. You can take any basic recipe and tweak it to your liking.

BIG LOTS OFFERS GLUTEN FREE PRODUCTS

Big Lots has long been a favorite haunt of mine. They carry a lot of things you just cannot find in the other chain stores, and it is usually not as crowded. That’s a win-win in my personal book. Recently, they have started carrying gluten-free products. This alone is enough to make me forfeit my usual Walmart or Kroger jaunt. You see, my daughter cannot eat gluten; it’s not just a ‘fad’ for her — she is terribly allergic to it. So for her, I am always in search of gluten-free products.

As anyone who suffers from Celiac Disease (or loves someone who has it) knows, gluten-free products that actually taste good were once a rarity, to put it mildly. Thankfully, though, things are changing, and now gluten-free no longer has to be taste-free.

In fact, some of the more recent purchases I have made are quite tasty; delicious, in fact. Kroger and Walmart do carry a few meager GF products, but they can be quite expensive, to say the least. So, I’m giving a BIG thank you to BIG Lots!

First on the list of GF goodies is the Brownie Brittle! OH MY! It is SO good that even folks who aren’t GF will love them! These go fast, so be sure to pick up more than one bag!

Snyder’s has long been one of my favorite snack companies. Now I really love them because they have created a GF line of snack products. In the past, GF crackers, to me, seemed hard and stale. Snyder’s Wholey Cheese Crispy Crackers are flavorful and delicious, and their Honey Mustard Pretzel Sticks are fabulous! Shout out to Snyder’s!

Also topping the GF snack list at Big Lots is Moon Cheese. They are uniquely different, but really good. The Boom Chicka Pop Dark Chocolate Kettle Corn just makes me so happy. Lance GF Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers taste just like regular peanut butter and crackers, and I found a bag of yummy Sweet Potato Chips sitting right next to them!

You have to search for these products as most of them are not situated next to each other on the shelf. But for gluten-free folks, it’s worth the time and effort. Most of the products cost less than $3.00, which for GF is an amazing price. Big Lots has nifty finds at a thrifty price. That’s my kind of shopping!

Big Lots in Tupelo can be found at 2605 Main Street.